Intoxicated (40 page)

“You know me just as well as they do,” I
retorted. “I was hoping to get your take on things.”

He sighed so deeply it was almost painful. I
hated myself in that moment for doing that to him, trying to make
him call out his own hand when he always played his cards so close
to his vest. But he was the one who had expressed his love to me
just days ago. If I knew the intentions behind it, would it change
things? Did I want it to?

“Why you would ask me for advice when the
only thing I have ever done successfully is fuck up my own life is
beyond me, so do with this what you will. He seems serious to me.
About selling the condo, about marrying you. Do I think he loves
you? In short, yes. I think he was stupid to not express it before,
but maybe it took almost losing you for him to realize it. Maybe
you were never going to leave him no matter what he did, I don’t
know. But the threat was real enough to him to make him decide to
man up and take action. He’s giving you pretty much everything you
want.”

I nodded. “But what if what I thought I
wanted has changed?”

What if what I think I want is you? That was
the real question, right?

“Then that’s up to you to decide. I can’t
tell you what’s in your heart. But whatever it is, it’s obviously
given you pause and he knows it. I bet he never imagined that he
wouldn’t get an answer right away.”

“Actually, he took it pretty well. I have
until Saturday to make up my mind. Guess it’s time to get out the
spreadsheets and start working on it.”

“It’s not a business decision,” he said
sadly, not picking up on my sarcasm.

“I know. That was my feeble attempt at trying
to make light of things. Too soon?”

He shrugged. “Lauren, it’s not up to me.”

“What if it was?” I pressed, attempting to
make the question sound as innocent as possible. “What if you were
in my shoes? What would you do, knowing what you know?”

He shoved his hands through his hair, his
fingers catching on the still damp strands. When it became clear
that he wasn’t going to answer me, I continued digging.

“Would you leave behind your new life, your
new friends? Would you give up a lot of what you had worked so hard
to achieve in order to make a compromise? Is a relationship worth
doing that for? Is it a moot point if you have to ask that
question?”

Matthew held up his hands in the universal
symbol for surrender. I realized that this line of questioning was
going nowhere. Unless I changed tactics, he was going to wedge as
much distance between himself and the subject as there was space
between us on the sofa.

I sighed and positioned myself on the cushion
so that I was marginally closer to him than three seconds ago. Once
I had his complete attention, I swung one leg over the other, my
toe dangling just inches away from his knee. He stared down at my
platform boot, following the length of my leg with his gaze until
his eyes fixed yet again on mine.

“I guess I thought that we were better
friends than this,” I said into my lap, wringing my hands as I
spoke, “I came over here hoping that you would shed some light on
things for me from a guy’s perspective. I thought we were closer
than we really are. Maybe it’s my fault. My own active imagination
at work.”

“We are friends,” he interjected as I paused
for effect, “but truth be told, I’ve known you for about five
minutes and you’re asking me for an opinion about how to handle a
relationship with way more history than I will ever know. I’ve just
seen glimpses of it. Most of them bad. And you know my first
impression of the guy, but maybe that’s unfair. If you love him,
there’s got to be something that I’m missing.”

“Maybe, but then I’m missing it, too. If I
felt like I was supposed to I wouldn’t be hesitating now. If I was
head over heels in love, I would have told him yes right away. But
something held me back. If I despised him like Gracie thinks I
should, I would have broken up with him long ago. But I kept
forgiving him for everything he did that was wrong. I kept enabling
him to walk all over me. And it’s finally led to this moment, where
the two sides are colliding. Maybe the problem is me.”

“You?”

I nodded. “Me. Maybe I am just so comfortable
in my routine that I’m happy there. I don’t want to be alone, but
I’m not ready for anything bigger. Eric and I used to agree on
that, and now we don’t.”

“I doubt you would be alone for long,”
Matthew hedged.

“And just where would I find someone else?” I
asked, drawing up enough courage to look him in the eye. He stared
back at me, his expression unreadable. Damn. He wasn’t going to
take the bait, and I would be forced to backtrack in order to save
face. “I work all the time and we have a strict no-fraternization
policy.”

His eyes dropped to his own lap. “I’m sure
someone would come along eventually. If it’s meant to be, it will
happen.”

“I don’t know how much of that I believe.
What if I missed out on my one true soulmate while I was busy with
the wrong one? What if Eric is mine and I’m just too hung up on the
whole perfection angle of things? What if I ruin things with him
only to find out that was as good as it gets? I don’t want to be
destined for a life of blind dates and living alone with cats.”

“Being alone isn’t the worst thing that can
happen to you,” Matthew said, a touch defensively, “and you
wouldn’t have to get a cat. I hear fish are nice.”

“Hell,” I said, deciding at that moment to
give it all I had, “according to Eric, you’re chomping at the bit
to have a chance with me. Maybe you could step in and fill the
position.”

That garnered a reaction from him. He
practically choked on his own tongue, his face turning bright
red.

“Hey,” I continued as if the thought had just
entered my mind, “that night in the garage, you were about to say
something to me. We started talking at the same time, and then I
promised you we would talk about it later.”

“It wasn’t anything important,” he insisted,
“I was just going to thank you for doing what you did for
Blake.”

“Oh,” I said softly. I couldn’t tell if he
was bluffing or not. Maybe I had read more into it than was
reality. But Blake, Gracie, Eric and my father, to a certain
degree, couldn’t all be wrong. Right?

I slid closer to him, almost near enough to
him that we were touching. I could feel the heat radiating off of
him. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and bury myself against
him, but I restrained myself. Here I was giving him all the bait he
needed to admit his feelings for me and he wasn’t about to take it.
In fact, he was staying obnoxiously mum on the subject.

A horrible, twisting feeling struck my
insides as I wondered if I was nothing more to him than his
sister’s roommate. In my eagerness to fault Eric, had I raised
Matthew up on too high of a pedestal? Had I accepted his natural
charisma as meaning more than it did? Had he reluctantly helped me
just to be nice?

Desperation snapped something inside of me,
and I impulsively decided that if I was going to hang myself, it
would be on my own terms with my own rope.

I reached up to touch his face, my fingers
tracing his jaw and passing over his lips. His breath was warm on
my hands, inviting. He didn’t flinch or push me away. Perhaps he
was too much in shock to react. I took that as my cue to continue.
I grabbed a handful of tousled blond hair and bent his lips down to
meet mine.

For a moment, it was like kissing marble.
Then something happened and he began responding to me in earnest,
his mouth moving against mine as if we had done this a million
times before. If ever there was a fairy tale moment with violins
playing in the background and the heavens opening up, this was it.
This was my moment of clarity. One of us moaned; I couldn’t be sure
who. We were a mass of arms and legs and desire, and I had never
been happier in my entire life. One of his hands traveled up my
spine to support me as he laid me back against the couch cushion.
As he positioned himself on top of me, I realized that he dressed
to the left.

His eyes burned with an intensity that I had
always known was there, or at least had always wanted there to be.
At that moment, I would have followed him anywhere, done anything
he asked me to.

“I love you, Matthew,” I whispered, not sure
if it was out loud.

Apparently it was, for in the next instant he
had untangled himself from me and had stood up, backing himself
against the wall. I sat up, confused.

“What’s wrong?” I asked stupidly.

“I – you – we – can’t,” he stuttered, the
emphasis most definitely on the latter word.

Can’t.

I winced, keeping my eyes shut to try to ward
off the tears I knew were fast approaching. I wasn’t about to cry
in front of him, even though I already had more times than I cared
to admit. This time it would be over him, and I couldn’t do that. I
couldn’t expect him to comfort me and be the culprit at the same
time. When I felt like I had a good enough handle on my emotions, I
opened my eyes, looking everywhere except directly at him.

“You’re practically married,” he was saying
in the background as I gathered my purse and threw on my jacket.
“Lauren, look at me.”

I shook my head, fumbling with my coat
zipper. I only had a few seconds left before I completely melted
down. The room suddenly felt stuffy, and if I didn’t know better I
would swear it began spinning.

“We can’t do this. We can’t do something
stupid like this. Do you want to be the person that Eric is
accusing you of being? Do you really want to cheat on him like
this?”

Maybe those weren’t direct quotes, but it was
the gist of what he meant. I was having a hard time making heads or
tails of anything. It was like I was underwater, hearing only bits
and pieces of dialogue and attempting to fill in the blanks.

My zipper finally cooperated, and I tucked my
head down and walked past him towards the door. My purse hung
limply at my side, bouncing off my leg as I moved. I felt him reach
out for me, presumably to stop me from leaving, but I fought him
off.

“Leave me alone!” I growled in a voice I
didn’t recognize as my own.

“Lauren, wait,” he pleaded.

“No,” I said firmly, placing my hand on the
doorknob and pulling it open, “I know where I’m not wanted.”

He made no move to stop me, but I could feel
his presence behind me. Standing in the threshold, I had two
choices. Shut the door and remain inside, and talk whatever this
was that had happened out. Watch as all my self-confidence oozed
out of my body and landed in a puddle at his feet. Have this
awkward moment become a funny story to tell at parties. Or go out
into the icy waiting arms of winter to lick my wounds alone.

I stepped out onto the porch, slamming the
door on his pleas for reconsideration. The door was heavier than
I’d anticipated, and I nearly wrenched my arm out of socket doing
so. I rubbed my shoulder to dull the physical pain as the emotional
anguish slid over my cheeks via hot tears. I waited a beat to see
if he would follow me, which he didn’t, before heading towards my
car.

The combination of my altered emotional state
and the fine freezing mist that filled the air left the concrete
slippery. My right foot slid out from underneath me, leaving me to
grab the railing for support. That was all I needed to add insult
to injury, to wind up in a heap on the ground in front of his
house. If I’d have fallen, I doubted I’d have the willpower to get
back up. It would be rather fitting to curl up in a ball and die of
humiliation right there, at the scene of the crime.

I composed myself enough to unlock the car
and climb into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind me for
effect. Still not as angry sounding as the slamming of a BMW door,
but it would do. I mashed my thumb against the push button start,
wishing the engine would roar to life instead of hum. In fact, with
it being a hybrid, I could barely tell it was on at all. How
disappointing. I couldn’t even do a big dramatic exit right.

I took a deep breath and tried to steady my
shaking hands. I gripped the steering wheel at ten and two until my
knuckles turned white. My arms ached with the attempt, screaming
for me to relax at least a fraction. I loosened my hold on the
wheel slightly, flexing at the elbows as I tried to prepare myself
for driving away.

I made the mistake of looking back at the
house as I reversed the car to head back down the driveway and to
the road. The lights shone warm and inviting through the windows,
reminding me of what I was leaving behind. I squinted to see if I
could make out Matthew’s silhouette in one of them. If he was
watching me leave, I wasn’t aware of it.

What had Gracie said about him on
Thanksgiving? That he had orbited around me like I was the sun? She
had been wrong. He was my sun; now that that bright star had burnt
out, there was nothing left but pitch black.

My headlights did little to illuminate the
darkness that surrounded me, both literally and figuratively. Like
I had noted many before, even though Matthew’s house was only a few
miles from the interstate, it was almost as if he lived out in the
country. His was the perfect location for someone who wanted the
best of both worlds.

Only his world didn’t include me.

Instead of turning off on the road that led
home, I continued driving. Home. I snorted. Who was I kidding? It
was Blake’s house, not mine. I was nothing more than a glorified
guest there. After tonight, maybe not even that. I could only
imagine the kind of conversation that was happening over the cell
phone towers now. By the time I arrived at her doorstep, I might be
public enemy number one. Hell, it wouldn’t be too late for her to
call a locksmith and have the locks changed, making my key
obsolete.