Unloved: Chapter 53

I have a date—with Matt Fredderic.

Not our first date, but I am determined this one will be our one.

After having toast and jam for breakfast, Matt left me to get ready for , advising me only to dress warm and cozy.

But it’s a , one I am giddy with excitement for, which means I try on about fifteen different outfit ideas until it looks like my wardrobe exploded onto the floor. When the tears of frustration start up, I open my laptop and dial my best friend.

“Hey,” Sadie says slowly, looking half asleep. Her hair is a knotted mess of a braid, one eye still closed, a gray shirt almost hanging off her shoulder with how stretched the neckline is.

“Did I wake you up?”

She huffs a breath. To some it might sound sarcastic, but that’s a Sadie Brown laugh.

“Considering it’s nearly 11 a.m., yes, but I should’ve been up hours ago.” She mutters under her breath something about .

“How’s the ankle?” I ask, settling on the end of my bed with my computer in my lap.

Sadie sprained her ankle the weekend of the guys’ Harvard away game. She hadn’t really told me directly what happened, but it had to do with overtraining the muscle. Accompanied by the sudden firing of her figure skating coach, and I’m getting a better picture—especially with her boyfriend, and his entire family, being protective of Sadie and her brothers.

“Fine.”

She rolls her eyes, just as a faraway male voice shouts, “Not fine,” over her.

I laugh and shake my head. “Is that Rhys?”

“No,” she says before he pops up over her shoulder in the frame, slumping back on the bed.

“Yes.” He grins into the camera, pulling his shirt down like he put it on to be polite for me. “Good to see you, Ro.”

“Hey, Rhys.”

His brow furrows slightly as he wraps his arm around Sadie’s middle and pulls her to slump against his chest.

“Are you at the dorms?”

“Nothing like Millay for the holidays,” Sadie and I say together in singsong. We’ve spent almost every holiday together at Millay—apart from my week trip home at Christmas. In the past, I’ve gone all out making ridiculous decorations or themed parties for the boys.

We giggle at our inside joke, but Rhys clearly does not find it funny.

“We have room here,” Rhys says. “If you wanted to get out of the dorms. You can always come hang out with us.”

Sadie softens, gray eyes filled with wonder as she gazes at her boyfriend out of the corner of her eye. “Yeah, Ro. It would be fun. Liam and Ollie would love it.”

I shake my head with a smile. “Thanks, guys, I really appreciate it. But I’m actually going on a date tonight.” I tuck my hair behind my ears and bite down on my lip. “With Freddy.”

Sadie laughs and nods. “I knew it. You owe me, like, thirty bucks, hotshot.”

Rhys blushes furiously and shakes his head. “I swear, Ro, I did not bet on you and Freddy—”

“Right—you bet against it. You owe me.”

Rhys smirks down at her, eyes dancing. “You wanna do this now, Gray—”

There’s a flurry of knocks at the door before both Sadie and Rhys look over their shoulders, both of their expressions softening as someone opens it.

“Hey, bud,” Rhys says.

“Can someone please play with me?” It’s Liam, his little voice tugging at my heart. “Oliver is with his new girlfriend and won’t play—”

“I’ll come,” Rhys says, kissing Sadie twice, once on the cheek and one on the corner of her mouth, before making a face at Liam and sliding off the bed.

“Girls are so gross,” I hear him say just off camera, inciting Liam’s infectious giggles. Sadie sticks her tongue out at them both as I hear a door close.

“New girlfriend?” I ask through a giggle myself.

Sadie shakes her head. “Liam won’t stop with that. It drives Oliver up a wall—it’s a new friend of his that happens to be a girl. He’s barely mentioned her, but God forbid Liam misses an opportunity to annoy his brother.”

“Aww.” I grin. “I miss the little nuggets.”

“We miss you, too. Now, important stuff.” Sadie walks into a bathroom, setting the phone against the mirror and turning on the faucet to wash her face as we talk. “What are we wearing to said date?”

My eyes go wide. “You don’t have questions? About—”

“About you dating Matt Fredderic? Hmmm, let me think.” She rubs her chin dramatically, pursing her lips before deadpanning, “Is he nice to you?”

“Yes.”

“And you like him?”

“A lot, yeah.”

“And you’re happy? Having fun?”

I blush, nodding silently. A rare smile pulls at Sadie’s permanently stained lips, and she nods. “Then no, I have zero questions. And I’m super happy for you.”

“Me, too,” I say. “But for you. You seem relaxed, finally.”

“Forced relaxation,” she grumbles. “Rhys won’t let me do anything with my ankle wrapped. He’d probably have a conniption if he realized I even walked myself in here.”

“Don’t tell me he’s been carrying you to the bathroom every morning.”

Sadie blushes, her pale skin flaring red. “No comment.”

I burst into laughter and shake my head, standing and angling the laptop toward my closet and the mess spilling from it onto the floor.

“Okay, show me your options.”

I’m pacing my apartment, nervous excitement thrumming in my veins until I’m a live wire twitching and popping electricity with every movement.

Which is a little ridiculous, considering it’s still twenty minutes before he’s supposed to be here.

A rapid series of thumps on my dorm door has me popping into my bedroom to double-check my outfit—comfortable dark denim, a soft white long-sleeve, along with my thick green-and-purple flannel currently hanging by the door.

And a ribbon in my hair. I feel girly and feminine and, most important, I feel like .

Smiling once more at my own reflection, happy with my makeup and aesthetic, I run to answer the door.

Matt Fredderic looks flustered, like despite the continuous knocking he wasn’t ready for me to open the door. Dressed in black tech pants and a dark green sweater, his hair freshly washed, Matt looks handsome as always. But for once, he’s not what has my breath stuck, heart in my throat.

It’s the giant bouquet of out-of-season flowers wrapped in parchment, with black Sharpie writing across the paper, which I can’t read because his arm is blocking it—almost protectively.

“Oh my God.”

“Hey,” he stutters. “You look so beautiful.”

I blush under his attention, beautiful beneath his gaze. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry, I know I’m early—”

Shaking my head, I try to cut him off. “Matt—”

“—and it’s fine if you want me to wait out here, you can take your time, but I…” He pauses, shaking his head and smiling, looking as dazed and dopey as I feel. “I was too excited to wait any longer, so I came over. And I got these for you, but I— There’s something on there. I had the girl at the store write it for me because no way you’d be able to read my handwriting, and my hands were shaking, honestly—”

“I’ve been reading your handwriting since the beginning of the semester, Matty.” I laugh, taking the flowers from his outstretched hand.

He blushes and scratches the back of his head. “Right. Of course.”

He sounds distracted, and it takes me a minute, as I step into the kitchen and pull the flowers back from where I had the petals shoved under my nose, before I see it.

Signed Matty—not Freddy. He’s mine, in that way. To everyone else he might be Freddy, smiling and joking at his own expense. To me, he is Matty, or Matt—walls down, the him.

“Matt, this is…” I trail off because I don’t have the words for it, for the overwhelming infectious joy coursing through me.

“You don’t have to say anything right now,” he says slowly. “But this is how I feel. I want to date you, officially. And I don’t want you to feel confused about where I stand with you. And…” His voice softens, quieter in the space as he looks down. Like he’s embarrassed. “And I don’t want to be confused about how you feel. I don’t want to play games.”

My heart squeezes.

I set the flowers down on the counter, turning and stumbling back toward him, grabbing his hands in mine.

“Matt,” I breathe, emotions bubbling in my throat, overflowing. “This is the most romantic, wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me. And that’s not even the first time I’ve said that to you.” We both laugh, but it fades quickly in the nervous energy filling the air almost suffocatingly.

“I just want to be clear about how I feel.”

“I want to be with you. I would to be your girlfriend. And I want to be clear about that, too.” I sense the weight of my own words as I say them. “I know how you feel. I’ve been confused about how people feel before. Tyler made me feel ashamed of the fact that I wasn’t wanted when I thought that I was. He played games all the time. And I never want to feel that again; I don’t want to feel that way again.”

“So then, we promise not to ever make each other feel that way.” He hesitates for a moment, searching for the words. “To be… careful with each other?”

Matt says it all as if it’s as simple as breathing.

And maybe it is.

“Yeah. Careful with each other.” I smile and squeeze his hands in mine, raising one to my mouth to kiss it. Just because I can. “I think you are one of the best people I’ve ever known. And I think it would be almost too easy to fall in love with you.”

Something I’ve said makes his entire face light up as he pulls me in for a tight hug.

“Yeah?”

He trembles in my grip, but his smile is infectious, pressed to the skin of my neck.

“Yeah,” I breathe. “Now, I want to go on a date with my boyfriend.”

He kisses me, and just like the very first time he kissed me, freshman year, my knees go weak.