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Rand stifled a lovesick sigh as he gazed dreamily across the table at Mat. Light, he was so beautiful like this, waving his hands around and talking animatedly about…something. Rand hadn’t absorbed a word he was saying, too captivated by the grin on his face and the mischievous light in his eyes.
…Eyes which were now looking expectantly right at him. He snapped out of his daze and sat up straight. “What?” he said, praying that he hadn’t missed anything important. And that no one had noticed how long he’d been staring. How long had he been staring?
Mat reached over to snap his fingers in front of Rand’s face, making him blink rapidly. “Head in the clouds again?” he said. “Honestly, what is with you lately?”
“N-Nothing,” Rand said, his face hot. He hunched his shoulders, as if making himself smaller would draw everyone’s attention off him. “What were you saying?”
To his relief, Mat answered the question rather than continuing to pester him. “We were talking about Sunday. Wondering whether you were hoping for flowers or dance invitations from anyone in particular,” Mat said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. Sunday was the festival to celebrate the summer solstice, and it was village custom that if a girl wanted to let a boy know she was interested in him, at Sunday or Bel Tine she would put flowers in his hair or make a point of asking him and only him to dance.
The mere mention of Sunday sent Rand’s imagination zooming off into a daydream of dancing with Mat and putting flowers in his hair (or maybe Mat putting flowers in Rand’s hair? If they were both boys who would get the flowers? Who would do the asking to dance, for that matter?) and he struggled to keep a straight face. Luckily, Mat was still talking and didn’t notice. “Perrin’s hoping for Laila—”
Perrin looked flustered. “No, I’m not,” he said in a long-suffering tone that told Rand the pair of them had already gone back and forth on this several times while he’d been otherwise occupied.
“Are so,” Mat said before turning away from him. “But back to Rand. You sure you’re not hoping for Egwene?”
“I’m right here, and he’s sure,” Egwene said, rolling her eyes. “As we’ve both told you a hundred times.”
“Just checking,” Mat said. “Well then, Rand? Have you got anyone in mind?”
Rand shook his head vigorously even as he felt his blush deepening. “No! No, not at all,” he said, already up to their wedding in his daydream.
Mat raised his eyebrows and smirked. “He said that awfully fast, didn’t he?” he said. “And he’s blushing!”
Rand blushed harder. “I am not!”
“Are so!” Mat said triumphantly. “There is someone! Who is it?”
“No one!” Now they were living happily up mountain raising Mat’s sisters.
Mat reached across the table to playfully push Rand’s shoulder, and the brief touch only made his face even redder. “Come on, you can tell us,” Mat said. “Who? Who, Rand? Who?”
“N-No one, I swear! I don’t want to dance with anyone, I hate dancing and I hate Sunday and I hate everyone in the Two Rivers!” Rand blurted out, which was maybe an overreaction, but he was in dangerous waters here and grasping desperately for any lifeline he could find.
Alas, that only made the other three burst out laughing. “This is the weirdest I’ve ever seen you act in my entire life,” Mat said, looking gleeful. “Let’s see, who could it be?”
He started rattling off every single girl their age, and Rand shook his head through the whole list. In his mind’s eye there was a baby now; he wasn’t sure how they’d acquired her, but that was an unimportant detail. “None of them? Really?” Mat pressed, and Rand shook his head yet again. Joiya, that was a pretty name for their daughter. “All right, an older woman, then? Didn’t think you were the type, but…”
Rand snorted, and Perrin laughed. “He’s not you, Mat.”
Mat shoved him and turned back to Rand. “Or maybe you don’t want to be asked by a girl, maybe…maybe you want to ask a boy?” he suggested.
Something in his tone had shifted very slightly, but Rand was panicking too much to notice. “No! What?! Of course not! Why would you even—I don’t—I would never—no!” he choked out. He shot to his feet. “I have to go, my dad’s calling me.”
He stumbled away from the table and across the inn to where Tam had been standing earlier. Except he was no longer there, Rand realized belatedly. He looked out the window and saw that he was now outside chatting with a passerby and could not by any stretch of the imagination have been calling Rand. Oh, blood and ashes. Now Rand looked like even more of an idiot.
He had no choice but to plop down at the table in front of him as if it had been his intention all along. The table was full of gossiping grandmothers, as it turned out, but nevertheless Rand continued his valiant effort to look like he’d come to join them on purpose.
“Young Master al’Thor! A welcome surprise!”
“Good to see you, lad! How are things up mountain?”
“Oh, you’re looking awfully flushed. Are you feeling well? A fever, perhaps? You ought to go and see Wisdom al’Meara about—”
“I’m fine, thank you,” Rand interrupted as politely as he could. “I’m not sick, only embarrassed.” He sighed. “I just made a fool of myself in front of someone I…care about. Can I please stay here for a little while?”
The grandmothers saw through him in an instant and started cooing over him. “Ah, young love! Takes you back, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t worry, dear, these things always feel much worse in the moment than they actually are. I’m sure Egwene didn’t think anything of it.”
Yes. Egwene. “Mmm,” Rand said noncommittally.
“I remember when I was your age—no, a little older, it was just after I’d gotten my braid…”
Rand had only planned to stay there long enough for his friends to forget his awkward behavior, but the grandmothers held him hostage until the inn closed for the night. (Not that he minded; their tales were actually quite riveting. And it gave him time to rerun his daydream in more detail.)
The al’Veres gently ushered the grandmothers out, leaving only Tam and Rand. “We ought to head back,” Tam said, glancing out at the night sky.
“Oh, nonsense, it’s much too late to be walking all the way up mountain,” Mistress al’Vere said. “You’ll stay here tonight, both of you. Come, I’ll make you up some beds. Rand and Egwene can get started with the dishes.” She gave them a sly look; apparently she also didn’t believe their insistences that they were just friends and didn’t feel that way about each other anymore.
Tam thanked her and followed her and her husband upstairs. In the sudden silence of the inn, Rand once again recalled his earlier embarrassment and heaved a melancholy sigh. He was well and truly sick of not knowing how to talk to Mat anymore; today was only one of many times recently when Rand had found himself tongue-tied and flustered and clumsy with him. His life had become so much more difficult ever since he’d noticed that strange squirmy feeling in his stomach whenever Mat smiled at him. Rand wished he hadn’t ever noticed it.
His wallowing in self-pity was interrupted by a rag hitting him in the shoulder. “Nice catch,” Egwene said.
“Sorry,” Rand mumbled, blushing as he bent down to pick it up.
He went over to join her in washing dishes. “Where’s your head? You’ve been distracted and acting weird all day,” Egwene said. “You’ve been distracted and acting weird for a while now, actually.”
Rand glanced sideways and was alarmed to see a knowing look on her face. Did she—no, she couldn’t possibly, he hadn’t breathed a word to anyone and had been doing a very good job of keeping it a secret. He was just being paranoid. He shrugged and tried not to look like he was hiding something, and thankfully Egwene didn’t press him any further.
Rand’s thoughts returned to Mat. Why was it so hard to talk to him these days? It didn’t make any sense. So what if Rand liked him in a different way now? That shouldn’t have made him lose the ability to carry on a normal conversation with his best friend since birth.
He sighed again. He wished he could ask Mat for advice—he was so good at talking to girls, he would’ve known exactly what to do, if only the object of Rand’s affections had been anyone but him.
Maybe he could try Perrin? He was good with girls too…but would that even help? Rand didn’t need someone who was good with girls. He needed…wait a minute. He perked up as he realized something.
“Egwene,” he said, breaking the silence. “You know how to talk to boys, right?”
“Some of them,” she said. “Why?”
“How do you do it?”
Egwene laughed. “I’m pretty sure you already know how to talk to boys, Rand.”
“Only as friends, though,” Rand said. He felt his cheeks starting to heat up but forced himself to plunge onwards. Mortifying as it was, he needed help—he couldn’t live like this any longer. “How do you talk to…a boy…as, um…as…morethanafriend?”
Egwene set the plate down and looked up at him, a grin spreading across her face. “Rand al’Thor, are you asking me for advice on how to flirt with boys?” she said, sounding positively delighted.
Rand was bright red now. “N-No! I was just…just wondering…” He trailed off and slumped his shoulders in defeat. “All right, fine. Maybe I am.”
He expected Egwene to make fun of him, but to his relief her smile, while definitely amused, was kind. “Well, I don’t see why it should be any different than flirting with girls,” she said.
“I don’t know how to do that either,” Rand admitted.
“Tell that to the boy who brought me all those strawberries,” Egwene teased, making him laugh sheepishly. “If you want to let a boy know you like him, just spend time with him. Do things to show him you care.”
“What kinds of things?”
“I don’t know…listen to him, make him laugh, be there for him when he needs you,” Egwene said. “Compliment him. Remember his favorite things. Give him flowers, maybe.”
“At Sunday?”
“At any old time,” Egwene said. “But if you’re really serious about letting him know how you feel, then Sunday would be the perfect day. You could even embroider him a shirt for Sunday if you wanted.”
Rand nodded, trying to memorize all of that. He should’ve brought something to take notes. “And that’ll be enough?” he said hopefully. He wasn’t too sure about embroidering a feastday shirt, but the rest of it didn’t sound so hard. He already did most of those things for Mat as a friend.
“Enough to start,” Egwene said. “Once you’ve made it that far, fill me in on everything and I’ll see if I have ideas for what you should do next.”
“I will. Thanks, Egwene. Do not tell anyone about this,” Rand added. If Perrin, or Light forbid Mat himself, ever found out that Rand had asked Egwene for boy advice, he would simply have to change his name and flee to the Borderlands.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Egwene promised. “Oh, and Rand?”
“Yeah?”
She smirked. “Mat likes strawberries too.”
“W-What? Who said anything about…I don’t…” Rand tried to say, but his face was incriminatingly red, and his weak protests couldn’t be heard over Egwene’s laughter anyway.
Over the next few weeks, Rand put Egwene’s advice to the test. Spending time with Mat and being there for him was easy—Rand had been doing that for sixteen years. Listening to him was no problem either. Mat talked so much, and Rand had always loved listening to his ridiculous tales. And these days, the more listening and less speaking required from Rand, the better.
Making him laugh was easy too. Admittedly, Mat made Rand laugh more often than the reverse, but Rand did have his moments. Like the week after his talk with Egwene when he bravely told Mat that he looked nice that morning and made him burst out laughing and ask if he’d tripped and hit his head on the way down the mountain.
That probably wasn’t the effect Egwene had hoped for when she’d suggested complimenting him, but she had also said to make him laugh, so maybe it canceled out? Although Rand doubted that, seeing as she was currently wearing an expression that said she dearly wanted to join Mat and Perrin’s laughter but was trying not to hurt Rand’s feelings.
Next was remembering Mat’s favorite things. Again, easy; Rand knew all Mat’s favorite things. Near the top of the list was pranks. Usually Rand tried to rein in Mat’s pranks, but maybe he could stand to enable some of the less destructive ones if it would make Mat happy.
A couple hours after the compliment incident, Egwene had returned to the inn and Perrin to the forge, and Rand found himself alone with Mat. It had been a while since Rand had been completely alone with him, and he tried to stay calm and act normal. Though doing so took so much effort that he couldn’t manage to think of anything to say to fill the awkward silence—Mat wasn’t talking either, which was odd and very unlike him.
“Hey,” Mat finally said after a long minute. “I just wanted to say…I’m sorry for bugging you about Sunday the other day. I was just teasing, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Rand shifted uncomfortably; he’d hoped Mat had forgotten about that. “It’s fine, I wasn’t upset,” he said with an attempt at a smile, and he speedily changed the subject. “Remember last week when you wanted me to help you string a bucket of water above Cenn Buie’s door?”
He was relieved when Mat went along with the new topic right away. “And you said I was a danger to you, to the village, and most of all to myself? Yes, I do.”
“Well…what if we did do it? But with a bucket of flour, and above Nynaeve’s door?”
Mat’s jaw dropped, and then a grin of pure delight broke out on his face. “You evil genius,” he said, sounding so impressed that Rand went pink and felt much more pleased with himself than was strictly necessary. “I’m in.”
It earned them the tongue-lashing of a lifetime, but Mat’s glee at seeing Nynaeve storm through the village square covered in flour made it worth it to Rand. Even if Tam did ground him from going to the village for the next week (more because he felt obligated to than because he really wanted to, judging by the barely-suppressed laughter as he delivered Rand’s sentence).
Gambling was another of Mat’s favorite things, but Rand didn’t want to enable that, so he moved on to the next thing: Tam’s apple brandy. Which they didn’t ever drink, of course, still being too young. “What’s this?” Mat said when Rand came down to the village on his first day post-grounding with just one half-size barrel of three or four servings, small enough to carry, rather than the usual cartload.
“It’s for you,” Rand said.
“For me?” Mat said, looking surprised. “Well, thanks. How much do I owe you?”
Rand stubbornly shoved the barrel into his arms to prevent him from reaching into his pockets. “Nothing. It’s a gift,” he said. “It’s a nice day and I’ve been cooped up at home all week, so I thought maybe…maybe we could go down to the river and drink it together, just you and me.”
It was a perfectly innocent thing to want to do, but Rand just knew his involuntary blush was lending more significance to the words than he would’ve liked. Indeed, Mat’s eyebrows shot up. “Just you and me?” he said, his tone careful. “Alone?”
Oh, Light. Rand was being too obvious! He had to dig his way out of this, fast. “You and me and Perrin,” he quickly improvised. “I meant, just you two and me. You and Perrin and me. We’ll all go, let’s see if he’s at the forge.”
And he hurried off towards the forge before Mat could say another word. Perrin was there and had time for a break and agreed to go with them, but he probably regretted it when he ended up having to carry the lion’s share of the conversation since Rand and Mat could barely look at each other.
Egwene was right that strawberries were another of Mat’s favorite things. It was the time of summer when they were at peak ripeness, so Rand gathered up a whole basket to bring to him. “Another gift for me?” Mat said with a grin when he saw the basket.
Rand blushed. He should’ve waited longer after the brandy incident—that had been only a few days ago—but the strawberries were ripe now and he hadn’t wanted to waste the opportunity. “It’s the best time of year for them, and I picked way too many, so my dad said to bring some of the extras to you,” said Rand, who had, in fact, specifically picked all the very best strawberries for Mat’s basket before picking even a single one for himself.
Mat eagerly took the basket from him and opened it. He picked out the biggest, reddest strawberry he could see and brought it up to his mouth to take a bite. Rand’s eyes were drawn to the sweet juice oozing out, Mat’s tongue running along his lips to get every drop. Rand swallowed. Blood and ashes. This had been a terrible idea. But also a really, really good idea.
“Mmm. Perfect,” Mat said, smiling. “Thanks, Rand. But why did you only bring some for me? Usually it’s Egwene who gets the basket of the best strawberries of the year.”
Oh no. Oh no. “W-Well, they’re not for you, you idiot,” Rand backtracked. “They’re for your sisters, I know they liked them last summer. I mean, you can have some too if you want, but I only brought them for the girls.”
“Oh,” Mat said. Did he look…disappointed? No, that was just wishful thinking. “They’re only three, they don’t even remember what strawberries are…but it was nice of you to think of them. I’m sure they’ll love them.”
Rand nodded glumly, cursing his own cowardice. But Mat’s sisters were also one of his favorite things—his number one favorite thing—so maybe this whole fiasco hadn’t been a complete failure.
Giving him flowers was the next item on the list to tackle. Rand wasn’t sure he was ready to give Mat flowers at Sunday when it would mean so much, so he decided to test it out on a random day first and see how he reacted. And he wasn’t going to make a mess of it this time, he thought determinedly as he spent the whole morning scouring the mountain for the prettiest flowers he could find. He was going to give them to Mat, and Mat would ask if they were really for him and him alone, and Rand would say yes of course they were because he liked Mat as more than a friend.
And then Mat would probably punch him in the face, but at least Rand would know and could work on getting over him instead of being stuck in this limbo of uncertainty.
However, once he was actually in the village and looking Mat in the eye, the mere thought of telling him how he felt made him break out into a sweat. “These are…nice. Thank you,” Mat said, smiling down at the flowers—practically beaming, actually. “What’d you go and pick me flowers for? It’s not my nameday or anything.”
Panicking, Rand grabbed them back. “They’re for Egwene, I was only showing you,” he said, and he turned and strode hastily—he was not running, he was striding hastily—to the Winespring Inn.
Upon being presented with the flowers, Egwene gave him a look of amused exasperation, like she knew they’d been intended for Mat without Rand even saying anything about it. Her mother, meanwhile, was smiling fondly at Rand and gushing about how sweet he was, no doubt mentally planning the wedding.
Rand’s next trip down to the village was spent learning embroidery from Egwene, who was despairing at his growing list of failures and informed him that he needed a bigger gesture if he wanted to get anywhere. And embroidering Mat a feastday shirt would definitely be a big gesture, Rand thought with some anxiety.
He was excellent at knitting (hard not to be when you raised sheep), and he could sew well enough to mend clothes, but embroidery was completely beyond his expertise. And it still was after an entire day of Egwene’s tutelage.
Rand looked at her finished shirt—she’d purchased two plain blue shirts so that Rand could follow along with what she was doing. Hers had a very neat pattern of green vines and leaves embroidered around the collar and down the front. Egwene had claimed this was a simple and easy pattern that Rand would have no trouble with.
Yet somehow, his own shirt looked like a dog had been sick on it. It had become clear quite quickly that it was not going well, but Egwene had repeatedly insisted that he continue on in case the mistakes ended up not being noticeable in the finished product. Not so.
“Burn me.” Rand groaned. “Burn me!”
“Well, it’s…ah…the effort shows,” Egwene said politely, biting her lip to suppress a laugh.
“I’m throwing this straight on the fire.”
“No, don’t do that, no need to waste a perfectly serviceable shirt. You can wear it for farmwork, at least.” Her lips twitched. “Or use it for a cleaning rag.”
Sighing, Rand folded up the shirt to hide the embroidery (if it could even be called that). Egwene handed him hers. “Give that one to Mat.”
“But I didn’t make it,” Rand said. “That feels like—like cheating or something.”
Egwene shrugged. “He’ll never know,” she said. “And it’s not cheating, since you really did try your best. It’s not your fault that your talents lie elsewhere.”
Rand hesitated but accepted the shirt, mostly because Egwene had spent a whole day trying to help him woo Mat and he didn’t want to have wasted her time. They’d been working in an empty guest room at the inn, and they went downstairs together and bid each other goodbye. Rand headed out, intending to give Mat the shirt before returning home.
He knocked on the Cauthons’ door and was relieved when Mat answered instead of one of his parents; it was always a gamble as to whether they’d be in a good mood. “Hey,” Mat said with a smile. “I didn’t even know you were here. Where have you been all day?”
“Busy,” Rand said vaguely. He held out Egwene’s shirt. “I made this for you.”
Mat stared at him, then looked at the shirt. Hesitantly, he took it from him. “You? Made this? For me? Why?”
Rand rubbed the back of his neck, which felt a little warm. “Um, I just thought maybe…maybe you could wear it for Sunday. O-Only if you wanted,” he hastened to add, not wanting Mat to feel obligated to wear it. “It’s just, I know you’ve said you wanted a new feastday shirt, and I had some time and an extra shirt, so I figured I’d…make you one. ’Cause that’s what friends do.”
Light! Why had Rand added that last part? The whole point of this was to let Mat know that Rand liked him as more than a friend. Egwene had probably just facepalmed back at the inn without knowing why. But the way Mat was looking at him, Rand had gotten so nervous that he’d instinctively tried to find a way to deflect.
“Right. What friends do,” Mat said with a nod, quickly glancing away from Rand to look at the shirt again. “You made this? Really?”
“Just the embroidery.”
“I didn’t know you knew how to embroider.”
“Egwene taught me today.”
“Today?” Mat raised his eyebrows. “You did this perfect embroidery on your first ever try?”
Rand gulped. “Uh…I’m a quick learner?”
Mat smirked. “All right. Where’s the shirt you really made? Come on. I want to see it.”
Rand blushed and tried to object, but Mat wouldn’t take no for an answer so, with the utmost reluctance, Rand led him over to the inn and pulled his shirt out of one of the empty baskets on the cart that had contained wool to sell this morning. Rand shoved it into Mat’s hands without a word, praying that Mat would at least do him the courtesy of not laughing.
Mat burst out laughing the second he unfolded the shirt. “Ashes, Rand, it looks like my sisters made this!”
“Shut up!” Rand said, flushing harder. “You’re the one who begged to see it!”
“And I’m glad I did,” Mat said, grinning. “It’s certainly unique. One of a kind. Impossible to replicate. You can really see the hand of the artist.”
“Shut up.”
Rand tried to grab it back, but Mat yanked it out of his reach. “No, this is mine now,” he said.
Rand was baffled. “Don’t tell me you actually want that.”
“Well, you made it for me, didn’t you?” Mat’s eyes raked over the atrocious mess of green thread, and his face got all soft, for some reason. “You made it for me, so it’s mine by rights. I’m keeping it.”
Rand shook his head. “Suit yourself, then,” he said. “I suppose you can use it as a cleaning rag.”
All too soon, Sunday was upon them. Rand had mucked up so many chances already, so even though he was dying of anxiety, he really meant it when he told himself he wasn’t going to muck up this one. He picked more flowers, even prettier than last time, and vowed that they would be given to nobody but Mat, and he started planning out exactly what he was going to say to ask Mat to dance. (“Do you want to dance with me?” was the extent of it, but Rand practiced it in his head the entire way down the mountain nonetheless.)
Rand had put on his best clothes and taken more care with his appearance than usual. Perrin asked (rather slyly, Rand thought) whether he was hoping to impress anyone today. Rand blushed and denied it, and luckily Perrin got distracted before he could press him. “What are you wearing?” he said, snorting with laughter as he looked at something behind Rand.
Rand turned, and his heart stopped when he saw Mat. Looking incredibly handsome, aside from the fact that he was wearing a shirt that looked like a dog had been sick on it.
Rand couldn’t believe it. Mat had actually worn the shirt he’d made him. Why in Light’s name had he done that? Did he mean to make fun of Rand by showing it to the entire village?
“A shirt,” Mat told Perrin.
“It’s…it’s hideous,” Perrin said through more laughter, and Rand felt his cheeks heat up even further. “Blood and ashes, did your sisters make that?”
“No. Don’t laugh. It’s a nice shirt.” Mat met Rand’s eyes and smiled. A genuine smile, no hint of teasing. “Someone who cares about me went to a lot of trouble to make it. And I appreciate their efforts, even if Perrin doesn’t.”
Rand knew his face had to be even redder than his hair now, and he strangely felt a little like he might cry, but in a good way. He didn’t say anything, but he beamed back at Mat, and that made Mat’s smile widen, which was better than any words.
“Why didn’t you wear Egwene’s nice one?” Rand whispered when Master Luhhan had drawn Perrin into a different conversation.
Mat just smiled at him again. “I like this one better.”
When the dancing began in the village square, Rand hung back on the edge of the crowd and politely declined a few invitations to dance (from older married villagers who could ask him without it meaning anything). The inviters clearly realized he was hoping to be asked by someone special, as each refusal earned him a wink and a sly glance at Egwene standing next to him.
“For Light’s sake,” Egwene said after the fourth person to do so had moved out of earshot. “How many times do we have to tell people we don’t want to marry each other anymore until they’ll believe it?”
“Probably until the day Rand marries…someone else,” Perrin said, the emphasis making Rand blush. Did Perrin know how he felt too? Surely Egwene couldn’t have betrayed Rand by telling him…could she have? Rand was going to have to start thinking of names for when he changed his identity and fled to the Borderlands.
“Speaking of, are you going to dance with anyone, Rand?” Egwene said meaningfully.
Rand blushed harder and glanced over at Mat. He was holding his sisters’ hands, helping them toddle around and attempting to teach them the steps of the dance, with little success. But all three of them were laughing, and they were having so much fun, Rand didn’t want to disturb them. “I don’t know.” He sighed. “Maybe next year.”
Egwene followed his gaze and went on tiptoes to whisper something to Perrin, who nodded. They both went to join the dancers, and to Rand’s surprise Egwene took Bode’s hand and Perrin Eldrin’s, whisking them away from Mat…and leaving him free to dance with someone else.
Now was Rand’s chance. He had to do it. He took a deep breath and stepped forward—
—just as Daise Congar swept Mat back into the dance. Dammit, dammit, dammit.
Groaning, Rand slumped back against the wall of the building behind him. At this rate he really was going to have to wait until next year, and by then Mat would probably have some girl asking him to dance and putting flowers in his hair. Mat was always so good with girls.
“Not dancing, Rand?” an approaching voice said. “You usually love to dance.”
He turned and saw Nynaeve coming towards him from elsewhere in the onlookers’ area. “I want to,” he said. “But the person I wanted to dance with keeps dancing with other people.”
Nynaeve turned to the dancers. Rand expected her to look in Egwene’s direction, just like everyone else had. But she didn’t. “I heard Daise Congar say she was getting tired a little while ago,” she said. She turned back to give Rand a knowing smile. “Mat will be all yours soon enough. And then maybe you’ll stop pouring flour on people to impress him, hmm?”
Rand went crimson. She knew too? How many people had Egwene told? …Or was Rand just that obvious about it? He didn’t know which prospect was more frightening. Nynaeve laughed, patted his arm, and walked away again before he could string two words together.
As she’d predicted, at the end of the song, Daise clapped Mat on the shoulder and left the crowd to join her husband in resting on the sidelines. Mat stood there looking around for another partner as the next song started up, and Rand gathered his courage, squared his shoulders, and walked up to him.
Mat smiled when he caught sight of him. “Hey, Rand,” he said. “I was wondering where you—”
“Do you want to dance? With me?” Rand blurted out before he could lose his nerve. He stuck his hand out towards Mat to emphasize the point.
Mat stared at him, then looked down at his hand, clearly stunned. Rand’s heart was racing and he felt like he might be sick, and he prayed Mat didn’t notice the trembling of his hand or the flush he could feel on his cheeks. What had he been thinking, Mat would never want to—
Mat smiled again, even more broadly, and took Rand’s hand.
Rand stumbled as Mat pulled him into a lively jig. Mat was an excellent dancer, and Rand was usually good enough, but right now he felt so clumsy and awkward, his limbs too long for his body. He kept tripping and stepping on Mat’s feet and stuttering out apologies, and Mat kept laughing, but in a fond, teasing way that made Rand feel he was laughing with him, not at him. Mat’s eyes were sparkling with joy and the smile never left his face, and that eased Rand’s anxiety enough that he started to smile too, a little.
But this first dance was only the beginning. Asking Mat to dance didn’t necessarily mean anything yet. It was only when Rand kept asking him and no one else to dance for the rest of the evening that it would take on significance. And what if Mat stopped smiling when that happened? What if he wanted to dance with someone else when this song was over?
The song ended, and the next started up. Mat’s expression turned uncertain as he looked at Rand, but he didn’t let go of his hands (which were embarrassingly sweaty), so Rand took heart. “Um…a-another?” he managed to get out.
Mat’s smile came right back. “All right,” he said, and they were off.
They danced four more songs together, and with each one Rand relaxed and loosened up more and more until eventually he was laughing right along with Mat. He could feel curious eyes on them and hear surprised murmurs—five songs was definitely a statement, and one which most people wouldn’t have expected Rand to make with anyone but Egwene—but he did his best to ignore everything except Mat, his hands in his, his smile aimed entirely at Rand.
A slower song started up, and all Rand’s nerves returned with a vengeance. Also looking nervous, Mat stepped closer and wrapped his arms around Rand’s neck. Rand let out a shaky breath and put his hands on his waist, torn between keeping him at a distance and pulling him close enough to feel his heart beating.
“Rand?” Mat whispered under the music.
“Yeah?”
“Remember a few weeks ago when we were talking about who we hoped would ask us to dance at Sunday?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I never said who I was hoping for. Because…because it was you.”
He was gazing up at him with a more serious expression than Rand was used to seeing on his face. But there was a softness there, a tenderness. Was he saying…did he…feel the same way?
Rand’s mouth felt dry, and he licked his lips and tried to remember how to form words. The movement of his tongue drew Mat’s eyes down to his mouth, and then they stayed there. Oh, Light. Mat—Mat wanted to kiss him. Mat actually wanted to kiss him.
Rand instinctively leaned closer…but then stopped as he realized where they were. He couldn’t kiss Mat in front of the entire bloody village! Everyone would stare, and then they’d tease them for weeks! That was not how Rand wanted his very first kiss with Mat to go, what was he thinking?
So, just as Mat started moving to close the distance, Rand pulled back and turned his head away, causing Mat’s nose to brush against his cheek. “I-I’m tired, I’m going to rest for a while,” Rand stammered, letting go of him and taking a step back.
He turned around so quickly he almost missed the flash of confusion, then heartbreak on Mat’s face. “Rand—”
But Rand was already hurrying away through the crowd, mortification and regret churning in his stomach.
He went around to the back of the Winespring Inn and sank down to sit on the ground, drawing his knees up into his chest and letting out an angry huff. What was wrong with him? He’d finally had the perfect moment with Mat and had chickened out just because they weren’t alone? Five dances had basically declared his intentions in front of the whole village as it was, so a kiss would hardly have been much different.
Rand had ruined his one chance. Mat was definitely never going to want to kiss him again after how awkwardly Rand had reacted. It was a miracle he’d even wanted to kiss him once. A miracle fallen right into Rand’s lap, and he’d wasted it.
A little while later he heard footsteps and looked up, hoping it was Mat. It wasn’t. “You all right?” Egwene said, sitting down beside him.
“I’m such a woolhead,” Rand said miserably.
“Yes, you are,” Egwene agreed. “That’s what I should’ve told you in the first place. Boys are woolheads, the lot of them. So if you want a boy to know you like him, you just have to say so to his face. Not ask him to dance five songs at Sunday, almost kiss him, and then run off without doing it.” She bumped her shoulder against his. “Or do nice things for him and then panic and say you were actually doing them for your other friend or his sisters or the girl you used to like.”
“What—how did you know about all that?” Rand spluttered, embarrassed. Aside from the flowers, he’d never told her why his previous attempts had failed, only that they had.
Egwene grinned. “You’re not the only one who asks me for help with boys.”
Rand’s jaw dropped. “Wait—has Mat been—are you saying—?”
“I’m not saying anything,” she said, holding up her hands. “But answer me this. Why do you think Mat would wear the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen as proudly as if it was silk for a king, just because you’re the one who made it for him?”
Rand’s heart skipped a beat as the words sunk in. He went pink and buried his face in his knees, smiling and feeling butterflies swirling in his stomach. “Oh,” he said.
“‘Oh’ indeed,” Egwene said with a laugh. She pulled him to stand up. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
“What?”
“You’ll see in a minute.”
She brought him inside the inn, upstairs, and down the corridor. Rand heard an impatient and alarmingly familiar voice floating out of one of the rooms. “Blood and ashes, Perrin, can’t you just tell me what this is about?”
“Not until Egwene gets here.”
“Egwene,” Rand began, panicking, “what are you—”
Lightning fast, she shoved him into the room and hauled Perrin out, then slammed the door in his face. Rand heard the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor, followed by stifled laughter.
He pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t budge, and he cursed. “They locked us in,” he said.
“Surely they can’t lock us in from the outside,” Mat said somewhere behind him. “That would be a safety hazard for guests.”
“They must’ve moved furniture in front of the door.” Rand gave the door another shove. “Egwene! Perrin! Come on, let us out!”
Mat came over to push with him. “Seriously, this isn’t funny!” he called through the door.
“Yes, it is,” said Perrin’s muffled voice.
“What if we die of starvation in here, Perrin? Won’t be so funny then, will it?”
“We’ll let you out once you’ve talked to each other,” Egwene said. “If it takes you so long that you die of starvation first, it’ll be your own fault. We’ll be back in a while.”
“A while? How long is a while?” Rand demanded, but it was too late, he could already hear their footsteps going away.
He sighed and rested his forehead against the door. The room was silent now. Suffocatingly silent—he was so horribly conscious of being alone with Mat after everything that had and hadn’t happened between them tonight.
He heard a clattering behind him and turned around to see that Mat was prying the window open. “What are you doing?” he said.
“Climbing out,” Mat said matter-of-factly.
“We’re on the second floor! You’ll fall and break your neck!”
“I’d rather break my neck than be stuck in here with you for Light knows how long!”
Mat pushed his head and shoulders out the window, and Rand sprinted over to yank him back inside. “Stop it, Mat!”
“Let go of me!” Mat wrenched himself free of Rand’s grasp. “I told you, I am not staying in here with you!”
He was breathing hard and glaring at him, but his lower lip was wobbling a little and he looked more upset than angry. Rand’s heart ached, and he was overwhelmed with guilt as he stopped fixating on his own anxieties for two seconds and instead thought about how badly he must’ve hurt Mat’s feelings—with his behavior tonight and the past few weeks. How would Rand have felt if Mat had been giving him all those mixed signals? When Egwene had summed it all up, it had sounded so much worse than Rand had realized.
“I’m really sorry, Mat,” he said. “I shouldn’t have run away like that. I just—I-I was scared.”
“Because I tried to kiss you and you didn’t want me to,” Mat said in a flat voice. “Yeah, I got that much. Just forget it ever—”
“No—I tried to kiss you, and I wanted to, I did want to,” Rand said in a rush, “but the whole village was there and I didn’t want to kiss you in front of everyone, I’ve never kissed anyone before—well, Egwene once when we were twelve to see what it was like, but that doesn’t count—I was nervous, all right? It wasn’t the right moment, I wanted our first kiss to be special, just the two of us, alone, I wanted it to be perfect, and—and you make me nervous, ashes, Mat, you make me so nervous, I can’t think straight around you and I keep saying the wrong thing and making a fool of myself and I don’t know why I can’t just tell you that I like you!”
Rand finally managed to cut himself off, feeling his face go bright red. Well, at least he’d followed Egwene’s advice about just telling him to his face? Even if it was hardly the most eloquent, or intentional, confession.
Mat’s eyes had gotten progressively wider as Rand was rambling, and he stood there staring at him in silence for several very painful seconds. “You like me?” he said finally.
Rand flushed harder. “Um. Y-Yeah.”
“And you’ve…imagined our first kiss before?”
“Loads of times,” Rand admitted in a whisper.
A slow smile was starting to spread across Mat’s face. “Did any of those times involve our bastard friends locking us in a room together and me punching you on the arm and calling you a flaming idiot?”
“Huh? Ow!”
Mat had punched him on the arm. “I like you too, you flaming idiot,” he said, and he hauled Rand towards him by the front of his shirt and kissed him right on the mouth.
Rand squawked in surprise, which made Mat laugh, which meant that Mat was no longer kissing him, which was absolutely unacceptable. So Rand leaned in to kiss him, though a little too enthusiastically, and their noses bumped and their foreheads thwacked together.
Now they were both laughing. “Sorry,” Rand said sheepishly.
“I’m guessing this also isn’t how you imagined our first kiss?” Mat said, grinning.
“No.” Rand smiled back at him. “It’s better.”
And this time they got it right. Mostly. Okay, Rand still didn’t really know what he was doing, but at least he managed to find the proper angle for his head and to kiss Mat for more than two seconds without either of them laughing.
A lot more than two seconds. Rand didn’t even hear the furniture outside being moved until the door was opening and Egwene’s voice was saying, “So, have you—oh, you have sorted it out. Thank the Light.”
He jumped and took a hasty step back from Mat, blushing, but Mat just looked smug. Egwene was beaming at them, and Perrin grinned and gave Mat a thumbs-up, which made him look even smugger. Hang on. Had Mat been talking to Perrin and Egwene about Rand this whole time? And neither of them had had the decency to let Rand or Mat know that their feelings were returned and save them all this trouble? Burn the pair of them.
Although Rand found it hard to muster up any annoyance right now; he could feel himself still smiling like a fool despite the interruption. “We’ll just leave you to it,” Perrin said, and he and Egwene left again (without barring the door this time).
Mat pulled Rand close again, but he gave him only a few more quick kisses before saying reluctantly, “I shouldn’t leave the girls for too long.”
Rand nodded. “Come on, let’s head back. Maybe…maybe we can keep dancing? Together?”
“I don’t know, I thought you were too tired. Maybe I’ll dance with someone else,” Mat teased.
“All right, I deserve that,” Rand admitted with a huff of laughter.
Mat laughed too and stole one more peck on the lips. “Of course I want to keep dancing with you.”
“Good. Me too,” Rand said, smiling. “Oh, but first…there was something I wanted to do.”
He pulled out the red starblaze and purple Emond’s Glory he’d picked that morning. They’d been in his pocket all day and were rather crushed by now, but the sight of them still made Mat’s face light up. He stood still and let Rand weave them in his hair, and unless it was a trick of the dim candlelight, he was actually blushing. Rand hadn’t ever thought Mat would blush when being flirted with. Maybe he wasn’t as confident with girls—or boys—as Rand had always assumed.
“There,” Rand said, lowering his hands and giving Mat a shy smile. “You look beautiful.”
“Aren’t you so smooth all of a sudden?” Mat said—stammered, really, and yes, he was definitely blushing. Rand’s smile widened. “And I actually, um. There’s something I wanted to do too.”
To Rand’s amazement, Mat pulled sunburst and roses out of his own pocket. Golden and pink and unusually perfect-looking, despite being as crushed as Rand’s. “Are those from Mistress Ayellin’s garden?” Rand said suspiciously.
Mat grinned. “I figured she wouldn’t notice a few missing,” he said. “And I didn’t want anything less than the best for you.”
Rand shook his head in exasperation, but he was beaming as he stooped down a little so Mat could put the flowers in his hair. Once that was done, Rand took his hand and they went downstairs together and left the inn to rejoin the celebrations outside.
They quickly spotted Bode and Eldrin sitting in Nynaeve’s lap and looking enthralled by whatever story she was telling them. Mat relaxed upon seeing they were being taken care of, and he let Rand pull him into another dance.
People were starting to notice the flowers; Rand heard excited gasps and whispers and saw onlookers nudging their neighbors and nodding in their direction. As Mat spun him around he saw Tam smiling at them, Nynaeve looking proud and pointing at them to show the girls, a gaggle of thrilled grandmothers gossiping together, Mistress Ayellin narrowing her eyes at Rand’s flower crown, Perrin completely oblivious because he was dancing with Laila, Mistress al’Vere looking disappointed only until she saw how broadly Egwene was smiling, at which point she started smiling too.
Rand looked back at Mat and slowed to a halt, then pulled Mat into him so he could lean down and kiss him right in front of the entire bloody village. Everyone stared and laughed and whistled and clapped and Rand knew they’d be teased for weeks, but as he felt Mat smiling against his mouth, he couldn’t have cared less.