11.Beging for time
1932 Words
Lyana sips her coffee in silence. He knows his deadline is up, but the quiet morning turns into another breakfast with comfortable silence. She doesn’t mind not talking all the time, but this is ridiculous. She looks pointedly at him and raises an eyebrow. That should be incentive enough. She wonders if he’s going to tell her anything. She wonders what excuses he’ll dish up today. There was always something, and yes, she is responsible for a few days too.
“I need more time.” Mateo whispers. He is looking at her with such sadness in his eyes that she wonders what else happened this week.
“Why?” She asks.
“I’m working on something. I’m getting help.” He sighs. “I can’t talk about everything, now. It’s too much.”
“If I cave in and give you more time, you have to give me something in return.” She shakes her head. Why can’t she stay mad at him? Why can’t she stand firm in her decisions? What is it about him that gets to her every time?
“Please, Lyana.” He begs her.
She can see it’s hard on him. He’s not used to begging for anything. He doesn’t ask for much, so this must be really important to him. She wonders what the big project is? Why can’t he share things with her? Why can’t he get her involved? Why all the secrets? She lives with him and knows just as much as anyone else out there. It hurts to be excluded from his life. That is one of the reasons she wants him to open up to her. That is a condition she will not back down from. He has to start telling her things or she’ll leave for good.
“Give me something.” She says, “I told you I need more from you. I am serious. I will pack up and leave. I can’t do this anymore. I feel excluded. I feel like an observer in my own relationship.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.” He sighs deeply. “I know I should have told you things. I just didn’t know how. I still don’t. I don’t find the right words around you. I kept quiet, because it’s easy.”
“I see.” She nods. She can understand the viewpoint, but she doesn’t like it. It shouldn't be hard for him to talk to her. “You can trust me.”
“I know.” He nods at her.
“But, you still can’t tell me anything?” She inquires. It makes her sad that he doesn’t feel comfortable in trusting her, even when he knows he can.
“I’m working on that. It’s harder than you might think. I was used to not saying anything for so long. It doesn’t feel natural to start telling people what I do.” Mateo shakes his head.
“I know. I don’t have friends, either. But, at least I have you to talk things over with.” She nods.
“I am ready to try, but I need more time. I have to sort my own thoughts, my actions, my words. I get lost in my own head. It’s not pretty in there.” He sighs. He’s opening up to her. He hasn’t said anything about what he does, but he told her more about himself in the last half an hour than he did in a year.
“How about a compromise? You tell me one thing you do, apart from the firefighters, and I give you five more days.” Lyana smiles at him. Would he take the bait? He’s the one asking for more time, but she needs something in return. She needs to feel like they are making progress. Like he’s trusting her with one small secret.
“I think I can do that.” Mateo nods. He is quiet, like he’s searching for the right words: “You asked me about my video games a few days ago? I don’t play anymore.”
“What do you do on your computer all night?” She inquires. “And don’t front. I know you hardly ever sleep, but I find you sitting with your laptop at all hours of the night.”
“I write books.” He hangs his head a bit. Is he embarrassed about it?
“What kind of books?” She prompts him. She thinks he just needs a little push now. He started talking. Finally!
“Mostly murder novels. I can get them for you, if you want.” He smiles at her. “Or, you could take my k****e and read there. My alias is Matt London.”
“You have your books on sss?” She exclaims. She can’t believe it. Is he messing with her? But why would he make something like that up? He doesn’t look like he’s joking.
“Yeah. I started online, and then I got an agent.” He chuckles. “Now, you can buy the books in any bookstore that carries English novels.”
“So, that book fund you gave me was earnings from books and not money you saved to buy them?” She asks. Did she read him right? Or did she miss something?
“No.” Mateo laughs. He opened up to her. He is comfortable telling her things. She made him laugh, so she thinks she was way off with her estimate.
“I should have told you before.” He says, “I make a few thousand a month with my books. I should have given you more for the bills. You just got me unprepared.”
“Now you got me interested!” Lyana exclaims. He’s making real money by writing? She’s not into novels that much, but he must be good if he earns that much. “Hand over that k****e. I’m going to read one of your books.”
“Sure.” Mateo nods. “You have the one-klick pay option set up on k****e. It goes from my sss account, so don’t worry. Get whatever book you want.”
“I know how that works. It’s only for k****e books. Nina had it set up on her tablet and her kid spent a whole paycheck before she noticed. She bought a k****e after that and deleted the account from the tablet.” She tells him.
“Yeah. Tablets are not good with kids around. You can access everything on a tablet, k****e only allows books.” Mateo chuckles. He looks at her with that signature smile of his. She has no defences against it. “I could get you a tablet. I don’t mind if you spend my sss budget on other things.”
“We can talk about it. Let me see if I like your books.” She smiles back at him. “You earned a week of time. I will grant you that, but you have to tell me more.”
“I promise, I will.” He nods. “I feel bad for keeping this from you. I just didn’t know how to tell you. What if you found it silly? I never told anyone about writing. Only my agent knows who I really am.”
“Do you have a fake profile online? Or you don’t do any advertising?” She wonders. She has seen book adverts on f******k. She knows it’s common to have a different pen name. Most popular authors do it. They change something in their name, or use their mothers maiden name or something. To make it more interesting, more mysterious, just different.
“Yeah, I do. Matt London on Insta. I don’t interact much with readers. I try to answer book comments on sss and say thank you for good reviews.” He answers her. “My agent does most of that work.”
“I won’t ruin the mystery, but I am curious.” Lyana smiles. She pulls her phone out and looks him up on **. She wants to know what he does for promotions. He’s got a huge followers base, but all he posts are snippets from books and a few pictures. Is that fan art or does he create the graphics himself? Will he say something?
“You can follow the account…” He smiles at her. “Just, please, don’t give my real name up.”
“I promise.” Lyana wnks at him. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“It doesn’t hurt…” He chuckles. “It’s just so unusual for me.”
“I get it. I do. I talked with Nina, but I can’t tell her so many things. I constantly feel like I’m lying to her. I have no idea if silence was better, because now she is practically glowing with happiness because we talk.” Lyana tells him. Trust goes both ways. He trusted her with one secret, a huge one, she thinks. So she can tell him something more.
“I didn’t know you felt that way.” Mateo glances at her. “We have been best friends since sixth grade. I thought that you would tell me everything.”
“Like you did?” She laughs. He really thought that? And he is the one who keeps quiet about everything.
“Touche, my love.” Mateo winks.
She gets ready for work and takes the bus just to have the time to read a bit. He never said she can’t take his k****e with her. She knows that work will be busy, but she has 20 minutes on the bus. Murder mysteries are not really her cup of tea, but how different can it be from her favourite Dylan Dog comisc? Mateo opens the first chapter with a dead body. She likes his style. It’s close to seeing a picture with all the details he describes. She is a fast reader, so she is well into the fifth chapter by the time the bus stops in front of the hospital. It will eat at her the whole shift, because it just got really intense. She wants to know who killed the guy. She thinks it might be his ex girlfriend, but that would be just too easy.
“What got you in such a good mood?” Nina asks her.
“I had a chat with Mateo.” Lyana answers. “He gave me his k****e and a really good book recommendation.”
“You had a chat? Don’t you two live together?” Nina gapes at her.
“Yeah. We had some problems…” She sighs. “We’re on the mend now. I got him to see my point of view.”
“Oh! He didn’t cheat on you? I will skin him for you!” Nina exclaims.
“No. Calm down, tiger!” Lyana laughs “He’s just so closed off all the time. I demanded that he talks, that he shares things, that he includes me in what’s going on in his life.”
“How long are you two together?” Nina inquires. “You make it sound like you’re married forever.”
“We have known each other since sixth grade. We have been best friends since then, too.” Lyana explains. “But we have only lived together for three years now.”
“So, it’s best friends to lovers kind of a thing? Kinky.” Nina smiles. “You have to tell me more over a drink.”
- Writer
