Even if he hadn’t admitted to his anxiety, it was written all over his face. After a three- year long engagement, Matt and I had a feeling the only reason Nick had actually moved forward with setting a wedding date this year was because Mel gave him an ultimatum – either marry her or hit the bricks. Would he ever admit that? Hell no—his pride wouldn’t let him. However, the look of sheer terror on his face made it clear that he wasn’t anywhere near ready to walk down the aisle.

  “So…” Matt clasped his hands together loudly, dragging me from my thoughts. “I’ve been waiting ‘til I had you both together to tell you guys my good news.” The huge grin on his face had me curious.

  Nick and I both stared.

  “Now, before you call me crazy, hear me out.” Matt leaned in on his elbows and still couldn’t stop smiling. “I’ve been watching these social experiments on YouTube that got me thinking.”

  Nick rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”

  My brow lifted. “Social experiments?”

  “These people go out and ask perfect strangers some of the craziest questions you can think of and get their honest reactions on film,” he said without letting our skepticism affect him. “Like, this one guy, he went out and asked 100 women to have sex with him—no introduction, no explanation. Just walked up to these completely random chicks and basically asked, ‘Your place or mine?’”

  Feeling this conversation getting ready to go in a very strange direction, I nodded but continued to eat without saying a word.

  “That’s lame,” Nick blurted without hesitation as I stifled a laugh by biting into my burger.

  Matt waved him off and leaned back in his seat. “The point was to find out, of the one hundred women, would at least one say yes?”

  Surprisingly Nick was silent now, too.

  “So, this video got me to thinking, right?” Matt continued. “What would happen if I put my own spin on this? Kept filming long after the woman says ‘yes’.”

  Nick nearly choked on his drink. “Dude… that’s called porn!”

  Matt rolled his eyes and waited for the laughter at our table to cease. “Nice, dickhead. Real nice.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder and tried to speak. “Matty, we’re not laughing at you—”

  “Like hell we’re not,” Nick interrupted.

  “Well, I’m not laughing at you,” I clarified. “But seriously, you’re considering this? I mean, people respect your work. Don’t you think this film could give them the wrong idea about—”

  Matt shook his head and cut me off. “If you guys had let me finish, I was gonna say that I’m going in a different direction. ‘Sleep with me’ wasn’t quite the question I had in mind for this particular project.” He ran his fingers through his surfer-boy hair and smirked.

  Nick was done entertaining the conversation and was again focused on his meal. Despite the warning signal in my head, I asked, “What would the question be then?”

  Matt’s smile spread across his face. He tipped his beer in the air and took a generous swig first. The second the bottle touched the table again he blurted his response.

  “Marry me…”

  Crickets.

  Neither Nick nor I had a thing to say. I pictured Matt pissing away his potentially explosive career with this one, idiotic idea. However, he was glancing back and forth between Nick and I, waiting for a response. As the youngest, he’d always looked to the two of us for our approval. I had to say something.

  “Sooo… you’re expecting some guy to… um—”

  “—Sacrifice his precious, precious freedom for your documentary?” Nick added bitterly before taking another drink.

  This guy really isn’t marriage material, I thought to myself, eventually turning back to Matt. “I wouldn’t quite put it like Nick just did, but… yeah. I mean, it’s gonna be hard enough to find a woman to get on board, but you’ll never find a guy crazy enough to go along with this.”

  Matt’s silence was the first clue that he was up to something. We’d shared an apartment since he finished college two years ago, but before that, we’d shared a bedroom practically our whole lives. My point is, no one knew him or that look, better than I did.

  He toyed with his empty beer bottle and kept his eyes on me. “I don’t need a crazy guy,” he smirked. “…I just need my brothers.”

  I was already shaking my head. “No… nope. Not gonna happen.”

  Nick leveled a finger at Matt. “And you said ‘brothers’…plural. I know I heard that.”

  Matt nodded once, his confidence never waning. “I did; you heard right.”

  Nick was shaking his head in protest just like I was.

  “Okay, so here’s the idea in full. I wanna chronicle the lives of a married couple who dated awhile before taking the plunge, versus a married couple who are virtually total strangers, and see what happens.” Matt had this wild look of excitement in his eyes when he finished speaking. “And my theory? The strangers are gonna be happier.”

  “How do you figure that?” Nick asked, frowning.

  “I mean, think about it,” Matt rationalized. “The beginning part of the relationship is the best, right? You’re both excited about how you’re feeling about one another; it’s all about impressing each other; everything’s new! It makes perfect sense,” he reasoned.

  I wiped my mouth with my napkin. “So pretty much, your experiment is just gonna delay the inevitable. Eventually both couples will end up getting tired of each other and being miserable.” I turned to Nick and added a quick, “No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  Matt shook his head and sighed. “No. I mean… well, maybe. But if you ask me, the odds are in the strangers’ favor.”

  I chuckled and went back to eating, looking up again when I felt Matt staring. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”

  “Scared?” He asked.

  “Nope. Sane,” I retorted. “It’d never work.”

  “Which part?”

  “Any of it!” Nick answered for me. “No girl in her right mind would ever accept a marriage proposal from a total stranger. And even if she did, it still would never work.”

  Matt shrugged with a smug grin on his face. “Humor me. Luke, ask one hundred women to marry you. If none of them accept, you’re off the hook. And if one does, we’ve got ourselves a movie. Who knows? We could all get rich off this!”

  I perked up at the mention of a cash payout. Unfortunately, money was something I didn’t have a whole lot of… and needed a whole lot of to take care of the debt that’d been following me. Still, though, I quickly dismissed the idea of accepting Matt’s offer; this whole thing was just too farfetched. Shaking my head, I laughed again. “Whatever, man.”

  He looked toward Nick. “What about you? You in?”

  “No way. I don’t want you snoopin’ through my house, or my life,” Nick replied.

  Matt turned to me again. “Just think about it. You could meet the girl of your dreams, Luke. All it takes is a little faith,” he grinned. “And you don’t think anyone will say yes anyway. So… what’ve you got to lose?”

  Famous last words.

  “If it doesn’t work out, I’ve got a plan B; wouldn’t have to bother you again,” he added.

  I stared at him and then looked at Nick who put his hands up like he was out of it.

  “Matt… sorry, but no,” I repeated.

  Surprisingly, his mood didn’t deflate when we turned him down. Instead, Matt leaned back in his seat and clasped his hands behind his head, a look of steadfast determination set on his face. “I knew you two would react this way… so I guess it’s a good thing Phil Glastenburg doesn’t consult you two dicks before deciding whether or not to invest in a film.”

  Nick stopped mid-chew.

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “Wait, wait, wait… thee Phil Glastenburg? As in ‘major movie producer’, Phil Glastenburg?”

  Matt breathed on his nails and casually wiped them on his shirt, proud that he’d managed to impress us.

  “You’re lying,” was Nick’s dismissive response.

  “If I’m lying, I’m flying,” Matt replied.

  A few moments of silence passed while Matt’s claim sunk in. I looked him square in the eyes and knew without a doubt, he was telling the truth. I grabbed my baby brother around his neck and pulled him in for a rough hug. He laughed and smoothed his hair back when I let him go.

  “How the hell did you pull that off?” It still hadn’t really hit me yet. This could be huge for his career.

  Matt shrugged nonchalantly. “You know how I keep in touch with Professor McNulty? I ran the idea by him, he loved it, and apparently he has more connections than I realized. If the film comes out as good as I think it will, I have a standing appointment with Glastenburg in L.A. when things wrap up. In the meantime, he has enough faith in me based on McNulty’s word that he offered me some of the payout upfront once I start filming.”

  All of a sudden Nick wanted back in on the conversation. “So we really could get rich off this thing. Like… how much money do you think we’re talking here?”

  My haunting past came to mind again when Nick mentioned the cash.

  Matt smiled and his eyes lit up at the idea of us possibly getting onboard, granting him permission to pimp out our relationship statuses to help him make his film. “Well, for starters, within a month, we’ll all have twenty grand in our hands each—the three of us, Mel, and whoever we find for Luke. But as far as how huge this could be in the end?” He shook his head, thinking of the possibilities. “We won’t really know unless we try, will we, fellas?”

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  Victoria H. Smith, Loved by You

 

 

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