Perfect Match (39 page)

So it took me another half an hour to reply an “
of course
” to her.

All I knew about Emma was that she went back home for a while to her parents’ house. Maybe she needed some time or something and I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t even try calling my mom, cause I figured it out she already knew about me and Emma being… apart?

Talking about my mom, yeah she recently visited me apparently for no reason. I had no idea she knew about Monica, because I returned home on a Friday night and found my mom on my couch talking to Monica like they knew each other since the beginning of the world. Later on, I found out Monica talked to her on the phone one day and they just continued talking without even telling me about it and my beautiful girlfriend invited her to Los Angeles to get to know each other.

Monica liked my mom so much and it made me wonder why I never heard her talk about her parents, but she just cut me out saying they are not “that close” and they just send her money and stuff if she needs anything. My mom liked her too, even though she couldn’t stop herself not to make comments about Emma every now and then. I knew she wanted Emma and I to be together, but somehow that wasn’t possible. Not anymore anyway.

I hated that besides the fact that Emma and I were not together anymore, I lost my best friend too. And Rick. Rick hated me, probably because he knew what I did to Emma and because of Monica too, since he always had that stupid crush on her. I liked Rick from the beginning and we got along so good, we were bros and everything, but Monica was way out of his league to be serious.

I always pictured Monica with Ben cause they looked stunning together, but right now I couldn’t picture Monica with anyone else but me. Because she completed me even though I was kind of in between, wanting Monica and Emma at the same time.

Just before I wanted to close my laptop and go to bed and find something interesting to watch, I checked my e-mail account once more and there was another e-mail from Emma, which briefly said “
Good, can I come back?”
and I replied immediately with a “
Yes
” and smiled to myself. Maybe at least I could get back my best friend.

*

The rest of the weekend went well, the next day I really took advantage of my spare time and went to the gym and I saw Morgue there and since he had no relations with Emma right now, we got along pretty well I might say.

Not that I would take advice from Morgue in any situations, but I felt like forever alone being at the gym by myself without having someone to talk to. And when I saw Morgan coming towards me I felt relieved. I hated the fact that Rick didn’t talk to me anymore. Not that I blame him.

The last time I saw him was about a month ago and he was hanging out with Gabrielle. I could understand why he hated me that much, but I felt bad. Bad because I screwed everything up, but still I don’t feel as bad as I should.

“You’re a douche bag, Matt,” Rick said that day. “Just because you look like that and have a nice job and that attitude doesn’t give you the right to screw all of us!”

“Look, Rick…”

“Save it. I thought you were more of a man, you know? There are some simple rules as a guy. Firstly, you don’t hook up with a friend’s girl. Monica was your best friend’s girlfriend, even though they were over. Is it worth the fact that Ben doesn’t talk to you anymore? Or I? Secondly, you don’t mess with a bro’s sister. And here goes Emma. And the only thing that keeps me from punching your stupid face is the fact that you clearly aren’t worth it. At all. And thirdly, you don’t hook up with a girl a bro of yours has a crush on. And that’s Monica. And you know just how much I liked her. But obviously you didn’t care. So for me you’re dead, Nicholls,” Rick finished his speech with a shrug and I couldn’t say anything else.

And he was right, but after all it felt pretty good when I was around Monica. I never felt awkward, we were just… great together. But how could that change the fact that I made the wrong moves to get here?

So it was really refreshing that Morgue had no idea about what I had done or that I even had something with Emma, and he seemed like he didn’t want to talk about her either so we had a lot of fun today forgetting everyone else.

Around 7 PM I went to the airport to wait for Monica and I tried the entire night to change my excitement of having Emma working with me. Actually, it wasn’t that hard since Monica was so happy about her job and she was talking so enthusiastic about it.

The next morning I was way too excited about seeing Emma again so I would stumble all around the house, ending up in a hurry and make Monica laugh all the time.

“You’re cute when your head’s in the clouds,” she commented as she took a sip from her coffee and sat on a chair next to me. “Everything okay?”

“Yep,” I replied with a smile as I bent over and kissed her cheek. “Need a lift?”

“Nope, I’m in the mood to take a cab today. You can pick me up tonight though,” she said with the grin I loved about her. “If that’s okay.”

“Sure, babe. Just give me a call,” I said as I finished my coffee and kissed her before heading out of the kitchen. “Have a good day!” I yelled towards the kitchen before opening the door.

“You too, I love you!” she yelled back and I froze with the hand on the door handle.

What did she say? No, I can’t do this now. Shit! I’m not… We’re…

“I’m…” she appeared behind me and I turned to look at her and didn’t even bother to hide the surprise in my face. “I’m sorry, I just, I…”

Shit! I don’t know how to do this ‘I love you’ thing. No, I’m a man. We don’t do that.

Even though you said it to Emma?

Hey, Emma was Emma!

Are you seriously thinking about Emma after Monica told you she loved you for the first time? You’re so fucked.

“Monica, I…”

“No, I’m sorry! It’s too fast, I know and I don’t know, it just… I-I… didn’t even think about it! It just slipped, okay? I’m sorry. I don’t wanna rush into anything, I’m… I’m sorry!”

“No, look! Don’t… I…” I wanted so bad to find the right words to say right now, but everything was a blur. I couldn’t say ‘I love you’ back. I just couldn’t.

“Just… go, okay? You don’t have to say it back. I just… I…”

“I get it, Monica, okay? It just… took me by surprise, okay?”

“You and me both,” she said and I smiled and leaned over her to kiss her one more time.

“Pick you up tonight, okay?” I asked and she nodded and I finally made my way out the door.

Fuck! This wasn’t in my plan for today.

I drove way too fast to the office and got there before everyone else, and by that I meant Emma. I closed my office door behind me and ran my hand through my hair. This couldn’t be happening.

Why are you making such a big deal about it? You’re dating Monica for over two months and you live together. That says a lot, right? No need to freak out about it. It’s normal.

But is it normal for me to still love Emma? Because I’m more excited about seeing her than hearing Monica say ‘I love you’ one more time.

I sat on my desk and turned on my computer as I tried to push away Monica’s words. I could deal with this later.

‘
Deal with this’
? You make it sound like a problem. It should be awesome that Monica loves you. Normally you should say that back. Especially to someone as special as Monica. She loves you. For who you are. And she’s hot.

Anyway, as I signed into my e-mail account there was an e-mail from… yeah, you guessed obviously, the one and only person who sends me e-mails like this. Except from people who I work with, but that’s other business. After avoiding clicking it for two whole minutes, I did it!

From
: Emma West

Subject
: Work

To
: Matt Nicholls

So, we’re not friends. We won’t do small talk, we won’t talk at all. We’re not even coworkers, do you understand? So basically I can do my job without talking to you.

Is that okay?

Emma

I looked at the screen and a smile appeared on my lips before bursting into hysterical laughter. Was she serious about this? I think she is. But God help me if I didn’t think this was way too cute. Because she still cared.

And that leads us to the fact that Monica was the one who cared now. Because she said she
loved
me. She didn’t say she was in love with me, she loved me. Like… the whole deal. I mean, maybe I was in love with Monica, because she was amazing and she really made my day, night, week, month whatever and I was happy only to think about her, but… love? I mean, being in love is that awesome feeling and you just don’t care about anything else and you’re happy, but actually loving someone is… terrifying. It means responsibility and devotion and… Oh, man, I’m not ready for this.

I replied to Emma with an “okay” and tried to get back to the things I had to do for today.

*

A week has passed since the incident. Since Monica told me she loved me and since Emma returned to work and I still haven’t talked to her face to face. Of course we ran into each other around, when she needed to hand me something or to give someone something or in the mornings in the elevator, making the both of us uncomfortable like hell or something like that.

And about Monica… Well… We kinda talked about it and she agreed with the fact that we weren’t quite there and I had this awful feeling she wasn’t that happy I didn’t say it back, but she took me by surprise! So things were a little awkward at first, but now it all seemed better now.

Emma was being incredibly immature right now. I mean, at first I really thought this was a joke. This whole e-mailing thing, but it wasn’t. I got a lot of one worded e-mails from her with indications and people who called or all this shits and I could understand she really hated me for what I did to her, but could she be even more immature? We worked together, for Christ’s sake!

So I decided I had to talk to her.

“Emma, can I see you for a moment?” I asked standing in the door frame and I observed she sighed and avoided my eyes as she nodded.

Everyone in the department looked at us, like it was so weird to call my secretary in my office. I guess everyone noticed we haven’t talked in about two months. She refused to even look at me, and she e-mailed everything I needed, and when she came to give or take documents she simply avoided me. It was cruel and I hated it.

She sat on the blue chair in front of my desk and I kept pacing around the office, without having an idea how should I start. What should I say to make it better?

“So could you please at least let me explain?” I asked running a hand through my hair.

“No,” Emma replied shortly avoiding eye contact.

“Emma, I’m sorry, okay?” I told her taking her hand in mine, but she moved it away. “I know it sucks, but it was a mistake, okay? I don’t know, I was just…”

“I don’t care!” she hissed and took a step back. “It doesn’t seem such a big mistake, right?”

“What do you mean?”

She ran a hand through her dark straightened hair and rolled her eyes. She seemed extremely tired and her eyes were red like she’d been crying all night and she didn’t sleep too much. I hated myself for it. I didn’t know how things were gonna end up after I slept with Monica. And then with Emma. Then Monica decided that we should date out of the blue. I mean, what the hell? I had no intention of dating Monica, but I knew how fucked up she was because Ben left, so I thought I could play along for a while until she gets better.

And she was different, considering her hair seemed a little darker now, previously her hair being light brown and now it was way darker, her clothes were different and she looked even classier than before, with a shirt unbuttoned at the top and a really short black skirt. I never saw her wearing skirts so short at work, but I wasn’t complaining. She actually looked amazing. It really showed that she had spent some time on her style lately.

But then the thing with Emma happened and it was all I ever wanted and now was slipping out of my fingers and I couldn’t do anything about it.

And now all was so different than I would picture it. I wouldn’t have thought not in a million years I’d end up dating Monica and this to be so serious. And now Monica
loved
me. And I had no idea if I loved her back, just because of Emma.

I hated that she was in front of me looking so hurt and I couldn’t do anything to make it better. I’ve became exactly what I never wanted to be, I hurt Emma and that was what I’ve been trying not to do during all these years. I’ve been trying to avoid her having a broken heart, stupid boyfriends who didn’t deserve her or things like that.

And now I was the main source of her pain and I couldn’t help it. I felt useless because I wanted her to know it all, but I had no idea how to express everything I felt. It was like the day after Prom, when I had all those feelings, but she wouldn’t listen. And now it was the same situation, but now it was far worse. Now she really hated me and I couldn’t blame her. I only wanted a chance to explain, but how can you actually explain something like this?

That I’ve been so stupid enough to sleep with her best friend who was also my best friend’s girlfriend, and then with her, who was Rick’s sister and he wouldn’t talk to me anymore after that night when we last talked at Destiny’s. He was right after all.

“I mean that it doesn’t seem too big mistake if you’re still dating Monica,” she whispered and I felt my heart stop at those words.

“No, it’s just… It doesn’t mean anything, Emma…”

What? It doesn’t mean anything?

“What?” she yelled back at me, with her eyes wide opened. “How could you even say something like that? That she doesn’t mean anything? Okay, I understood none of the bitches you previously dated meant nothing, because they were just stupid enough not to care that you didn’t give a damn about them, but Monica is different! And you’re saying that “it doesn’t mean anything”? What’s the matter with you?”

“No, I just wanted to…”

“You know, you’re nothing like the Matt I used to know,” she said and I felt a terrible ache in my chest. I tried reaching for her, but she just avoided my touch. I sighed and she continued, “Maybe I didn’t even know you at all,” she whispered and I reached to her and took her in my arms and for a moment she didn’t even move.