Chapter 12: The Midnight Surprise
The cool Brooklyn air bit through Dee’s thin sweater. She’d given up on sleep, her body still electric from the memory of his voice, the phantom feel of his hands on her skin. A walk, she’d decided. To clear the static. To maybe, just maybe, temper the wild, hopeful thrumming in her veins.
She pushed open the heavy front door of Claire’s brownstone, the hinges sighing, and took one step down.
And froze.
He was a silhouette against the flickering streetlamp, leaning against the black wrought-iron railing. A suitcase, sleek and travel-worn, sat at his feet. In his hand, a bundle of flowers—peonies, she thought—looked a little crushed, their heads drooping from the journey.
Matt.
Her heart stopped. Then it kicked into a frantic, hammering sprint against her ribs.
He turned. The golden light caught the planes of his face, the exhaustion under his eyes, the tentative, crooked smile that was so uniquely his. He looked rumpled, real, and utterly there.
“Hey,” he said, his voice rough from travel and something else.
Dee couldn’t speak. She gripped the cold railing, her knuckles white.
He gestured weakly with the flowers. “I, uh. I come bearing slightly battered peace offerings.” He took a step up, closing the distance between the sidewalk and her perch. Now she was looking down at him. “Surprise. I’m early.”
She found her voice, a thin thread of sound. “I see that.”
“Couldn’t wait.” He said it simply, his blue eyes holding hers, no joke, no deflection. “Changed the flight. Trey thinks I’ve lost my mind. He’s probably right.”
The damp earth smell of the garden mixed with the distant ghost of sushi from their last visit. It was the same stoop where, six months ago, he’d hugged her goodbye before her flight to Berlin, a casual, brotherly squeeze. Nothing felt casual now. The air between them was taut, humming with the echoes of everything they’d said in the dark.
“You’re supposed to be in Vancouver,” she managed. “You’re supposed to be charming Canadians until tomorrow.”
“I charmed them extra hard today to make up for it.” He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture anxious. “Dee.”
The way he said her name—it was the same way he’d said it on the phone. A direct line to her core. She shivered.
“Are you just going to stand there?” he asked, a flicker of his old humor returning. “I’ve been on a plane for five hours. My ego is fragile. A little feedback on the dramatic gesture would be appreciated.”
That broke the spell. A disbelieving laugh burst out of her. “Feedback? You show up unannounced in the middle of the night looking like a lost, incredibly handsome puppy with sad flowers, and you want feedback?”
He grinned, the full, disarming one. “See? That’s better. ‘Incredibly handsome.’ I’ll take it.” He climbed the last two steps until he was on the stoop with her, their bodies close enough for her to smell the airport on him—cool air, stale coffee, his own familiar scent beneath it. The suitcase bumped against the stone.
“You’re really here,” she whispered, the reality of it crashing over her.
“I’m really here.” His smile softened, turned earnest. “And I’m not leaving until we talk about that phone call. Not over a line. Not in pieces. Here.”
Her breath caught. All the brave resolve she’d felt in the dark of the guest room crumbled into simple, terrifying want. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he echoed. He looked down at the flowers, then back at her. “These are for, you know, ambushing you. And for… the thing. The explicit, graphic, fucking incredible thing.” He held them out.
She took them, her fingers brushing his. The petals were soft, cool. “They’re perfect.”
They stood there for a long moment, the city sounds distant, the light painting everything in strokes of gold and shadow. The ‘what now’ hung between them, enormous and thrilling.
“Claire’s asleep,” Dee finally said, nodding toward the dark windows above them. “And her couch is a deathtrap of springs.”
Matt’s gaze drifted to her lips, then back to her eyes. “I booked a room. At The William. Just in case.” He cleared his throat. “It has a very large, very quiet living area. With a door. And a lock.”
The implication was a physical heat, spreading through her. “A lock, huh?”
“A very robust lock.” His voice dropped, a private, intimate rumble just for her. “No phones. No distance. Just… us figuring out what this is.”
Dee looked at the man she’d loved for seven years, standing on her sister’s stoop holding a suitcase and a future they’d just spoken into existence. The careful facade was gone. The safe distance was obliterated. All that was left was the truth, standing right in front of her.
She reached for the handle of his suitcase. “Lead the way, movie star.”
His hand closed over hers on the handle, not taking it, just holding. His touch was electric, solid, infinitely more real than any fantasy. “You’re sure?”
In answer, she stepped forward and pressed her lips to his cheek. It was just a brush, but she felt him shudder, a full-body reaction he couldn’t suppress. “I’ve never been more sure of anything,” she said against his skin.
He turned his head, his mouth a breath away from hers. They hovered there, on the precipice, the memory of their shared climax still humming in the air. This kiss would change everything. It would be a beginning, not an escape.
A taxi turned the corner, its headlights sweeping over them, breaking the spell.
Matt rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed. “Right. Hotel. Now. Before I do something wildly inappropriate on your sister’s very nice, very public stoop.”
He took the suitcase, and she kept the flowers. Her hand found his free one, their fingers threading together with a natural, shocking ease. They walked down the steps into the Brooklyn night, not toward an ending, but into the vast, unknown territory of a promise finally kept.