Chapter 10

Julia

“We should, uh…” That was how I eloquently broke the silence.

Yup, eloquent and smooth, that was me. I jerked my thumb toward the doorway where my friends had disappeared.

“Yeah,” Matt said. “We should probably get back.”

If he was as dazed and confused as I was, he was doing a far better job at hiding it. We walked back side by side in silence. I wanted to break it, to say something to lighten the mood and make this not awkward, but all I could think was—I just kissed Matt Cartwright.

And I liked it.

Liked was way too tame of a word for the way that kiss had knocked me off my feet. It had been life-altering. Sure, that might’ve sounded a tad melodramatic, but here was the thing—it was the truth. Have you ever had one moment in your life where you could actually feel the course of your world shifting, like your own personal orbit just came undone?

No? Okay fine, maybe that was just me. But that’s how it had felt to kiss Matt Cartwright. Like everything was at once the same but totally different.

I’d had my fair share of kisses and make-out sessions before. I’d had boyfriends, and kissing pretty much went with the territory, but none of those kisses came close to the one I’d just shared with Matt.

I really like this side of you. The words he’d spoken just before kissing me flooded back into my skull, along with an image of his eyes, the way he’d looked so earnest as he’d tried to explain how much he liked this me. The real me.

The me no one at Grover High knew.

But Matt knew me. Or at least, he was starting to get to know me. And that was…

Terrifying.

Exciting?

Amazing.

I glanced up at him quickly and then looked away. Nope, terrifying. Definitely terrifying. I stared down at my feet as we walked, no longer even trying to think of something to say. There was no way I was capable of speech right now.

Once inside the ballroom, I spotted Thea with relief. My longtime friend would know how to ease this awkwardness. She always knew what to say. I rushed to her side, Matt so close to my side I could have reached out and grabbed his hand. But I didn’t.

“You guys do know you’re dressed up as cousins, right?” Thea teased the moment we reached her side. She eyed our costumes with a look of amusement. “You two are giving new meaning to the term kissing cousins.”

Heat surged to my cheeks, and I couldn’t bring myself to look up at Matt to see his response. “You heard?” I muttered.

Thea laughed. “Did you think they wouldn’t tell? I mean, dude…”

She stressed dude so hard that I heard Matt snicker beside me and hated the fact that he found this amusing while my cheeks were painfully on fire.

Thea turned to Matt, and I did my best to psychically communicate with her. Please don’t say anything embarrassing, please don’t say anything embarrassing, please—

“We were starting to think Jules would never meet a real guy.”

Too late.

I frowned at her, once again ignoring Matt’s smothered laugh at my expense. “Oh, I don’t think Julia has any problem attracting guys.”

I switched my frown to Matt. It was the first time I’d looked at him—really looked at him—since he’d kissed me, and I felt some of the crazy tension easing inside me at his warm smile.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” he said with a teasing grin. “What with her plain looks and her horrible personality—”

Thea let out a gut laugh. Oh, these two were just a laugh a minute. “But despite all that,” he added with a faux serious look. “She’s actually quite popular with the guys back home.”

I tried to pretend that my cheeks weren’t on fire as Thea rolled her eyes. “Of course she is. Look at her, she could have her pick—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” I tried to interject.

“But I said a real guy,” Thea added cryptically.

Matt nodded as if that made total sense.

I planted my hands on my hips and frowned at them both. “What? Are you saying that Ryan was a clone?”

They were both smothering laughs. “Something like that,” Matt said.

I arched a brow. “And here I thought you were learning a lesson about being too quick to judge.”

He winced and threw a hand over his heart. “Okay, fine. Fine. Maybe Ryan is a genuinely great guy, but—”

“He never really knew you, hence he was never really a contender for your heart.”

I stared at Thea in disbelief. My comics bestie since childhood had always had a tendency toward the melodramatic. But this? “A contender for my heart? What am I, a princess in a tower?”

She laughed but I was still shaking my head in disbelief. Sure, she might have had a point about Ryan. I’d never really seen that as being long-term, but not because he didn’t know the real me, whatever that meant, but just…because.

That wasn’t a terrifically thought-out argument, now was it? When I tried to think too hard about why I’d never seen him as long-term my brain sort of fizzled out.

I blamed the kiss.

“No one thinks you’re a princess,” Matt said, his tone was so serious it was clear he was joking. “We all know you are a superhero goddess living among man.”

Thea snorted with laughter, and I was torn between irritation and amusement that Matt and Thea had bonded so quickly that they felt totally comfortable mocking me together. Amusement won out and I went along with their teasing with a sigh. “Supergirl is not a goddess, just an alien.”

“With powers,” Thea added.

“Exactly.”

Matt shook his head, and this time when he looked at me there was a heat there that warmed my whole body. “Nope. You’re never going to convince me she’s not a goddess among mortals.”

I could feel the warmth spreading to my cheeks because his gaze was burning me up. He was talking about me, giving me outrageous compliments that seemed even more outrageous coming from this particular guy, even if he was teasing.

“It’s just that the sun gives her powers,” I mumbled, feeling ridiculous even as I spoke. What were we even talking about here?

Thea placed a hand on my arm. “It’s no use arguing with him.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “Matt is clearly smitten…” She let the pause last too long before she added, “with Supergirl.”

Ugh, I was just about ready to smack my friend for making an embarrassing moment even more humiliating. I glanced over at Matt, but he was looking down at his feet with a little smile that was at once rueful and chagrined. Like he’d been caught.

Oh wow. I sucked in a quick inhale. He didn’t really have a thing for me, did he? I mean, that was impossible. This was Matt Cartwright, the guy who’d spent the better part of the last decade looking at me like I was some imbecilic sycophant in the hallways if he ever deigned to acknowledge my existence at all. This was Matt Cartwright, a guy so far removed from the circles I moved in that we might as well have lived in different towns.

Besides all that history, we’d only been getting to know each other for a matter of days. I mean, one nice day hanging out together hardly equaled a love affair. Not in any world—not even Krypton.

Matt glanced up and his gaze caught mine. Whatever he saw there, it had him studying me with an intensity that was a little frightening. “Thea,” he said, never breaking eye contact with me. “Can we have a minute?”

“Sure thing, Clark Kent.”

I heard her laughter even as she walked off, most likely to find our other friends.

Friends who I was thinking of killing for ruining a perfect kiss and for then tattling to Thea immediately after. Not that I wouldn’t have told her myself, but I’d have done it in a way that didn’t involve public humiliation.

I’d had more than enough embarrassments in my life lately, thank you very much. Figuring out what exactly was going on between me and Matt in front of all my comic-con friends? That was a level of awkward I could do without.

We stood there facing each other in silence well after Thea departed. We were standing in the middle of a costume-clad crowd. Hardly alone. So, someone please tell me why this moment felt so darn intimate.

He took a step closer to me, so close I could touch him if I wanted. For some reason this proximity helped me to relax. I didn’t think I’d ever understand the weird effect this guy had on me. He was at once comforting and nerve-wracking to be around. He made me nervous and relaxed, on edge and filled with a liquid heat that melted any tension.

The effect was bizarre…but nice.

Matt’s eyes crinkled at the edges a bit as he gave me a slow, sweet smile. “She wasn’t wrong, you know.”

I blinked. Wrong about what? Which part? I felt a nervous energy building in my belly because I thought I knew what he meant, but I also didn’t want to get my hopes up.

Wait, why would that get my hopes up?

This was all so confusing!

I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, the only indication that perhaps he wasn’t quite as at ease as he seemed.

I toyed with my updo, tucking back some stray strands just to keep my hands busy. “What was Thea right about?” I asked.

He reached out and snagged one of my hands, holding it in his to keep me from fidgeting and to tug me even closer. “I think I might be smitten.”

I stared up at him in wide-eyed silence as a million different emotions ripped through me. Fear was there, but so was excitement. And terror. But also a happiness that made my knees go weak.

He leaned down slightly and gave me a teasing grin. “You know, just a little bit.” He held up his free hand with his fingers an inch apart. He was giving me an out with his jokey tone. He was easing the tension and taking the pressure off.

I appreciated it, and there was a little part of me that wanted to take the out. Actually, a huge part of me wanted to take it. I wanted to laugh off what he’d said and maybe even make a joke about the kiss…

But I couldn’t.

Because he’d just said something real, something honest—and he deserved the same from me. “I…I…” I clamped my mouth shut and took a deep breath. What did I want to say? That I felt the same?

That was true. Maybe. Sort of.

Mainly I just felt confused. I wanted to kiss him again, and I wanted to spend another day just like the one we’d spent together today—one filled with easy laughter and talking about things that were interesting and challenging. But that terror was still there, and I couldn’t bring myself to say that. So I said the other thing I knew. “This is happening really quickly.”

I saw some of the tension ease out of him. “It definitely is.” He pulled back slightly but he didn’t let go of my hand. “This is a little weird, huh?”

I nodded. “But weird good…right?”

“Definitely weird good.” He grinned and I felt a surge of happiness at the sight. Man, he really was sexy when his eyes crinkled up like that. Or maybe it was just the way he was looking at me. Like he saw me, and he liked what he saw.

That look right there? That was sexy. He was freakin’ hot.

And he was also Matt Cartwright.

A hysterical laugh bubbled up and I found myself choking on a laugh. “This is crazy.”

He laughed too. “It’s totally nuts.”

“I don’t really even know you,” I said. “I mean, we’ve been going to school together but—”

“You’re right,” he said. “You don’t know me very well.”

“And you don’t know me,” I said.

“Trust me, that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking,” he said, his tone deepening to a register that made me hum with awareness. “I’m realizing that while we’ve known each other for ages, we don’t really know one another at all.”

Some of my happiness got sucked out of me like he’d popped a balloon. “Right, exactly.” I nodded too vigorously, trying to hide my disappointment. “So, we’re on the same page.” He was agreeing with me. That was a good thing. We didn’t know each other well enough to be kissing in hallways or…whatever else we were doing right now, holding hands and having intimate talks.

His eyes moved over me, studying my face and my eyes. “What exactly are we on the same page about?”

I swallowed that disappointment and forced myself to say the words. “That this…” I gestured between us with my free hand. “That this thing is just attraction.” I hesitated at the sight of his eyes darkening with…something. Not hurt, necessarily, but something like it. “Right?” I added in a far more tentative tone.

He took a deep breath and for one moment his eyes moved past me, taking in the room at large but I could tell he wasn’t really seeing all the costumes or the people. He was lost in thought. When his gaze returned to meet mine, he looked like he’d made a decision. “What I know is this. The more I get to know you, the more I like you, and the more I want to know you.”

Something fluttered inside me. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying…” He paused and drew in a deep breath. “I’m saying, let’s get to know each other.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Okay. I can do that.”

His lips quirked up in a cute, knowing smirk. “Can you?”

I arched a brow. “Is that a challenge?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I think it might be easier said than done.”

I let out a huff of laughter. “Try me.”

He studied me, that small smile lingering on his lips and making me want to kiss him so badly it hurt. “Not tonight,” he said. “Tonight…” He squeezed my hand and tugged me closer. “Tonight let’s just have fun.”

I grinned. “That I can definitely do.” I didn’t even think it through, I just went up on my tiptoes and planted a kiss on his lips. It was quick but passionate and when I pulled back, I realized with more than a little smugness that I’d wiped that knowing smirk right off his face.

“What was that?” Matt asked, clearly stunned.

I laughed and wiped some lipstick from the corner of his mouth. It was shocking, really, that I’d had any lipstick left after our earlier make-out session. Kudos to Revlon. “That,” I said with a smile. “Was me having fun.”

I went to take a step back, but he snaked an arm around my waist and held me tight, his voice dropping to a dangerously low level that made my heart race. “See? I just learned something new about you.”

“What’s that?”

He dipped his head until his nose brushed mine. His smile made me want to kiss him all over again. “I’ve just discovered that I love your idea of fun.”

I tipped my head back with a laugh and saw him grinning down at me. “Come on,” he said, turning to face the crowd with one arm still wrapped around me tight. “Let’s go have some fun.”

And that, my friends…that was what we did.