Page 6 of Matched (LSU #5)

I stared at him, my mouth falling open. Okay. This wasn’t a weird dream. It was actually happening. When I’d first caught sight of him, I’d thought it was a coincidence or possibly a hallucination that he was here in the courtyard of The George…but apparently not.

“Fucking Jonas,” he growled, scraping his hand through his hair. “This was funny the first time, but now it’s taking the piss.” Jabbing at his phone, he huffed out a frustrated breath. “I’m gonna tell him exactly what I think of his fucking app.”

“Yeah…” I scuffed the toe of my trainer against the courtyard’s cobbles.

There was no point in feeling offended by Nate’s reaction because I felt the same.

We were supposed to be here to meet potential dates, not to have a replay of the first mix-up.

I aimed for a light-hearted tone. “No offence, but I was actually hoping I had a date this time. Not another potential mugging.”

The angry look melted away from his face, and my stomach did a weird flip at the reluctant smile that replaced it. “Sorry. I’m not pissed off with you. Just the situation. As for the mugging…you’re safe for now. I don’t have my bike with me this time.”

Okay. Fuck it. We might as well make the most of it. “In that case, since we’re both here…”

He sighed in defeat, but then he nodded. “Alright. Wanna head inside for a pint?”

“Our second date. Can you believe it?” We were four shots and several pints in at this point, and both of us were feeling the effects.

Nate leaned into me, the warped, antique wood of the pub booth seating creaking audibly as he moved. “First time I’ve been on a second date without getting a kiss.”

“Aww.” Turning my head, my nose brushed against his. I pressed a sloppy kiss to his cheek, and he laughed, shoving me away.

“Fuck off.”

I blinked several times until my eyes could focus properly again, and then I glared at him. “No, that’s not how it works. You’re supposed to kiss me back.”

“You’re not into men. And neither am I.”

“Yeah, but we’re on a date.” It made sense to my drunken brain.

He frowned. “Mmm. Good point.” Without any warning, he lunged at me, messily sliding his mouth over the corner of mine in a move that was definitely not a kiss before falling back against the booth. “Ugh.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, wiping at the side of my mouth. “Fuck. I’m gonna feel the effects of these drinks tomorrow. Want another?”

“Yeah, why not. Let’s do more shots. Fucking hell, I don’t think I’ve drunk this much since I was a fresher. You’re a bad influence, Charlie B. Guess it comes with the territory of you being young. How old are you, anyway? Eighteen? Nineteen?”

“Nineteen, but I don’t think that has anything to do with it.”

“Look, I’m almost twenty-two, and I’m a responsible older brother,” he slurred.

I laughed. “Respon—spon—responsible?” My tongue tripped over the word.

“You’re not my brother. Wait here. I’m gonna get us more drinks.

” Carefully easing myself out of the booth, I did my best to walk in a straight line to the bar.

I only bumped into two, maybe three people, so I counted that as a win.

When I returned to the booth, somehow managing to carry two pints of beer and two test tube shots with minimal spillage, Nate had peeled off his hoodie, leaving him in a navy T-shirt that stretched tight across his pecs and biceps.

As I set the pints down, I stared at him.

It was lucky we weren’t trying to find any women right now because it was a guarantee that they’d look straight past me to him, with all those muscles on show.

“You’re so fucking fit.” I poked his bicep, then slid my palm onto his pec, squeezing the firm muscle lightly.

He swatted my hand away with a laugh. “Are you sure you’re straight? You’re kind of feeling me up here, mate. And you just called me fit.”

“I didn’t mean fit as in hot. I meant like, physically fit.

You know.” My hand had somehow landed back on his arm, but this time, he didn’t comment.

Instead, he raised his test tube shot to mine and then tipped it to his lips.

My gaze got caught on the way his throat worked as he swallowed, and my breath stuttered.

I blinked several times. Fucking hell, I was drunk.

Speaking of drinks… I downed my own shot and then collapsed back into the booth.

“You’re fit, too. See.”

“Huh?” I realised that Nate was squeezing my bicep, and I flexed it.

“Oh, yeah. Well. I go to the gym, and I play football whenever I get a chance to scrounge up enough players. It’s hard when most of your friends are either already on the uni team or not interested in playing.

” Sliding my hand down his arm, I traced my finger over the raised veins on the back of his hand.

He shivered, and I cleared my throat, quickly pulling my hand away and curling my fingers around my pint glass instead. “I heard girls like those.”

“Like what?”

“Veins.”

He stared at me blearily. “Veins?”

I shrugged. “Don’t ask me. Just what I heard.”

Huffing out a soft laugh, he picked up his pint, and I found myself fixated on his throat once again. I’d never paid any attention to anyone’s throat before. Even if I was kissing a girl’s throat, it was just skin. Nate’s was…weirdly mesmerising right now.

My drunk brain was fucking strange.

“After tonight, I’m done,” I told him, forcing my brain down a safer path. “No more Matched LSU app.”

“I don’t blame you. If Jonas wasn’t my housemate, I’d uninstall the app and be done. But I know he’s gonna talk me into one last go.”

I lifted my drink, downing the contents to drown the sudden restless, twisting feeling. “Good luck with that.”

“Third time lucky. Or so they say.”

“Yeah. So they say.”

The rest of the night was a vague blur, but the god of test tube shots must have been smiling down on me because somehow, I ended up safely in my own bed in my student house. It felt like I’d been asleep for just a few minutes when I was rudely awoken by my phone buzzing madly across my desk.

“What,” I rasped after tapping to accept the call without checking who was on the other end, throwing my arm across my face. My head was pounding.

“Oooh, someone’s hungover.”

“Fuck off ,” I groaned as my younger brother’s gleeful voice sounded through the speaker.

“Rocky! Stop taking the piss.” My sister’s words were followed by a soft smacking sound and then a cry of outrage. Despite my hangover, I smiled, easily picturing Gem smacking the back of Rocky’s hand in warning, both of them locked in a stubborn glare-off.

Gingerly moving into a seated position, trying not to jostle my body too much, I licked my dry lips. “Um…why did you phone me so early?”

“You look like shit— Stop it, Gem! Charlie, tell her!” Rocky whined. Blinking my eyes open, I squinted down at my phone screen.

“What the fuck! A video call!” Throwing my phone down, I buried my face in my hands, drawing my knees up.

“Charlie. It’s not early. It’s almost half twelve,” Gem said.

I groaned loudly, admitting defeat as I fumbled for my phone, raising my head as I lifted it so it was level with my face. “Okay. Give me five—no, ten minutes, okay? I’ll phone you back.”

Ending the call, I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom, bypassing the mirror as I headed straight for the shower.

Twenty minutes later, after showering and downing a pint of water with two paracetamols, I was feeling more human. Curled up on my bed, I opened the group chat with my siblings and hit the Video Call button.

“How was your date last night?” Gem said as soon as the call connected. I looked at her eager face, her brown eyes sparkling, and shook my head.

“Believe it or not, the app messed up again.”

Rocky burst out laughing, and I glared at him through the screen. He ignored my glare, leaning into his camera so I had a close-up view of his nose. “Not another bloke?”

“No, actually,” I bit out. Gritting my teeth, I steeled myself for their reaction. “It was the same one.”

Both of them fell about laughing for a solid minute. My siblings sucked. Still, I guessed it was nice to see Rocky acting so light-hearted, even if it was at my expense. Gem and I had tried to shield him from the worst of our money issues, but he was perceptive, and I knew he worried about things.

When they recovered, Gem turned serious. “You know we don’t care if you’re into men.”

“Yeah,” Rocky added. “Emery and Lewin are together, and everyone loves them.”

Jordan Emery and Theo Lewin were two of Glevum FC’s players who had caused headlines when they’d been outed by an anonymous source.

They’d been in the tabloids for a while, and although most of the media coverage had been positive, there were always homophobic assholes ready to crawl out of the woodwork.

So it wasn’t strictly true that everyone loved them, but the majority of Glevum’s fans and their teammates were behind them.

My brother was a huge Emery fanboy, probably because he was a cocky asshole, too, and like called to like.

“Yeah…I know. It’s not that. You know all my housemates are gay or bi or whatever, so it’s not like I’d have an issue with admitting it, if I was into boys. Which I’m not.”

Nate’s face flashed in my brain, the lazy grin he’d given me when I was sliding my hand over his chest— Fuck.

I shook my head. Even if new, unusual, fleeting thoughts had crossed my mind when I’d been drinking, there was no point in taking them any further.

Nate had made it clear that he was strictly into women, and there was no other man I’d ever looked twice at, drunk or sober.

So, yeah. Wasn’t gonna happen. Nothing to admit. If I happened to find a man attractive in the future, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

I cleared my throat, changing the subject. “I get paid for my student union job today, so I’ll transfer some money to the family account.” As with my library job, I was paid weekly, which made life easier.

Gem frowned. “We can manage, Charlie. I don’t want you worrying about us.”

“Gem. Don’t.” It had been difficult enough to convince her to take some of the money I was earning in the first place, but there was no way I’d leave my siblings to struggle on their own when I could help out.

Rocky ate enough for three normal people, and although he didn’t have any expensive hobbies, we both wanted him to be able to do things with his friends without stressing about whether we could afford it.

Gem’s job wasn’t exactly the best paid—not when it was the only wage they were relying on.

“You’d better put enough aside for social things,” she said eventually.

“Yeah. More dates.” Rocky smirked at me, and I rolled my eyes.

“I know you’ll give me shit if I don’t, so, yes, I factored that in.” Time for another change of subject. “Did you get your project finished, Rock?”

We fell into a comfortable conversation, catching up on everything that had happened in the past week, although there were a few things I kept to myself.

Namely, the way my drunk brain had been so fixated on Nate Glover.