Perfect Match (49 page)

“Okay, text him. Or better yet, stop calling.”

“Don’t be such a guy!” I complained, but he placed his hands on my waist and I looked at him and he smiled, as he softly kissed me one more time.

“I’d like to stay, thank you, love, but I think Dick would kill me.”

“Don’t start mocking my brother too, Nicholls,” I warned him and he nodded. “He’ll stop hating you eventually. Plus he has had the whole day to make Monica feel okay, so maybe he’s in a good mood. But we’ll leave that for later,” I said and Matt smiled.

“Yes. I miss my apartment, though,” he said as he looked around.

“Well, maybe Monica will take you back…” I started unsure.

“No, our apartment. I wonder if we could rent it again. It was perfect.”

“Oh. Yes, I know!” I said as I wrapped my hands around him. “Okay, just go now. This doesn’t mean we’re taking it slow,” I said and he laughed, but kissed me again and then turned to leave and my eyes involuntarily checked him out.

“You’re staring, Miss West, and that’s not nice,” Matt said and stopped after a few steps and then came closer to me again.

“I was… not… How do you even do that?”

“Hey, I’m irresistible, give me some credit here,” he joked and I shook my head and he just wrapped his hands around me. “See you tomorrow at work, right?” he asked as he ran his hand down my back.

“Yes. Or maybe we can go to your hotel and… show me the view,” I joked.

“Nope. Too soon. But thanks for the offer, baby,” he said and kissed me again before finally deciding to go. “Don’t forget to dream about me, okay?” he said and I laughed. “It’s optional if I’m dressed or not. Better not.”

“Just go!” I said laughing and I turned to open the door.

The apartment was dark, except from the light from the TV and Rick was sitting on the couch watching football. But he was pretty quiet. I smiled and went to sit next to him, and he placed his arm around my shoulder protectively and I noticed he was watching a Manchester United-Chelsea game. I didn’t say anything for a while, but after all, I had no idea what I could say.

“So… Monica is sleeping now. She had a really rough day. Could I hate Nicholls more?” he asked with a sarcastic-Chandler tone.

“Don’t be like that… You know you’re just…”

“Don’t you dare to defend him. Actually, I don’t even want you close to him. Don’t you dare to think about getting back with him, because Emma, I promise, I will kill him. I don’t want you near him. He’s the worst guy ever. I’d prefer you with Justin Bieber, and I fucking hate that brat.”

“Okay, too far, Ricky,” I said laughing.

“I’m serious.”

“Please not Justin Bieber!” I said looking at him completely terrified.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a jerk,” he said and I nodded. “Just stay with Alec, okay? He’s a good guy.”

“And his name is Alex.”

“Crap!” he swore and I laughed. “Anyway, Monica is basically a mess. I haven’t seen her that way, not even after Ben left. And she was pretty messed up then, but now… Matt is just a douche bag.”

“Remember back then when you and Matt used to be friends?”

“Yes, and I hate myself for being that stupid.”

I sighed and placed my hand on his. It was hard to make Rick realize that Matt wasn’t that bad. Or maybe he was, but he was my jerk and I couldn’t stand the fact that everyone seemed to hate him for making a stupid mistake of dating Monica.

It’s true, it has bothered the hell out of me and I hated seeing them together, but now that they were over, I couldn’t miss the opportunity. I missed too much when I waited for things to go perfectly without me doing anything, so now I couldn’t rely on that. I wanted to be with Matt, and no matter what people would say now, I didn’t care.

“I’m… I’m sorry for Monica.”

“Yes, me too. But I’m glad I could be there for her, you know?” he said and I nodded.

“You really love her, don’t you?”

“What gave me up?” Rick asked sarcastically and I laughed. “Of course I do, but I don’t know why no one believed it. I just want her to be happy, you know?”

I nodded and rested my head on his shoulder and we continued to watch the match, arguing because I liked Chelsea and he liked Manchester United. Of course I thought Torres was better than Van Persie, but Rick was insisting that Van Persie was a god, which was wrong. The god of football is Iker Casillas. Or I can give in to Ronaldo. But I won’t say that again.

The rest of the night passed by uneventfully, I just spent time with my brother, laughing and arguing about football and after the match we watched a horror movie and he kept his arm around me while I complained about every bloody scene and since Monica stayed in his room, he came and slept in mine, like we did when we were younger. I couldn’t fall asleep right away and I thought about how awesome my relationship with Rick was and that I’d literally give my life for him. We had that Monica-Ross relationship type and I loved it. Every moment of it.

Then my phone buzzed on the nightstand and I carefully moved, trying not to wake Rick up.

Good night, love.

I love you.

Just that was enough to make me the happiest person on Earth. I smiled to myself and even though it was 3 AM, I texted him back and closed my eyes with a smile on my face.

And then I opened my eyes, grabbed my phone again and hurried to type “
Matt and I are dating!!!”
with a lot of exclamation marks at the end and sent it to Gabrielle and Katerine. The first one to reply was Gabrielle, whose words were “
Oh. My. God!
” and Katerine replied a few minutes later with “
Yay!”.
I placed the phone again on my nightstand and closed my eyes with a big smile on my face.

And after a long, long time everything seemed so good right now.

Chapter 35

Falling into place

~
M
att
N
icholls ~

The room I had at the hotel was crappy, considering I was used to the things I had back at Monica’s place. I woke up around 6 AM because of the annoying noise outside, and the sun wouldn’t allow me another minute of sleep.

Before I managed to get out of bed I found the phone on the nightstand and texted Emma with “
Good morning
”. I smiled and then got out of the bed.

I took a quick shower, and decided to go over at Monica’s and see if I could talk to her like grown-ups. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to her, but I needed my stuff. And now all I had was this crappy hotel room with the ocean view. The ocean view was kickin’, but there was nothing interesting here, comparing to the hotel room in the Empire where I stayed with Emma in New York.

It took me about 20 minutes to get to Monica’s place and I noticed she wasn’t there. Maybe she stayed at Gabrielle’s place or… Emma’s? But that would be kind of terrible. So I took my stuff, which made me feel bad because she wasn’t here to talk about it or apologize or anything. I didn’t want her to hate me, I really didn’t. But Christmas made me realize we had nothing as a couple, and so I couldn’t stay with her any longer. I had to be with Emma since she was the one I wanted.

Since I didn’t have so many things, I stuffed them in the backseat of my car and drove to work listening to an OneRepublic album. It was a present from Emma who insisted me on listening to them. And to be honest, it was pretty awesome. When I stopped at Starbucks and got coffee for Emma, “If I lose myself” was playing and I found myself moving my head to the beat of the acoustic version until I reached my office’s building. I was a little sad at first when I noticed Emma wasn’t there yet.

“Hey, boss.”

“Sabrina! Come in,” I said with a smile and she smiled back.

“How are you, Matt?”

“Pretty good,” I admitted as I drank from my coffee. “What about you? Everything good?”

“Sure. Listen, I saw you arguing with Monica at the Christmas party on Saturday. Everything okay?” she asked as she sat on the chair in front of my desk and ran a hand through her hair. This girl was always eager for rumors, but I have to admit, I liked talking to her. She
barely
convinced me Emma was the one I should be with.

“No, it’s not okay,” I replied with a shrug as I opened my computer. “We broke up.”

“Yay!” Sabrina exclaimed and I raised an eyebrow. “So you’ll finally be with Emma now,” she continued casually with a big, bright smile.

“You might say that,” I admitted and she clapped her hands in excitement. “Okay, don’t get too excited. I don’t know. I wish I could.”

“You can, you’re Matt Nicholls. And you’re Emmatt,” she added with a smile. “Hey, good luck to that meeting today. I heard it’s pretty important and didn’t seem too happy this morning. So behave.”

“I always behave. Thank you, Sabrina. Always a pleasure,” I said with a smile and she nodded.

“I know.”

She left my office and I started to reply my e-mails and make sure I had everything for the meeting. It wasn’t a big deal, I know there was just a recap of the activity of the current year and the accountants had the toughest job right now with the evidence of our assets, but other than that, I didn’t think I had too much to do.

“Hello,” Emma said as she knocked on my office door which was still left open by Sabrina.

I looked at her and immediately a smile spread on my face when I noticed just how perfect she was. She was wearing a little black dress, short enough to make my day awesome and her hair was straightened. Like always she didn’t wear too much makeup, and she was still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.

“Hey, beautiful,” I said as she slowly walked towards me and sat on my lap. “I missed you,” I told her and she smiled as she leaned and kissed me. “Oh, wait, have you talked to Alex?” I asked and she froze.

“I… God. I forgot!” she said as she ran her hand through her hair.

“And that shows just how important Alec is,” I joked and she frowned. “Sorry.”

She sighed and I kissed her cheek and she seemed to relax a little.

“I had breakfast with Monica,” she suddenly said. “She stayed at my place last night, considering Rick said she was a mess, so… And Rick hates you even more if you can believe that. I can’t do anything about it and it’s driving me crazy!”

“Oh, c’mon, love, you know Dick will come around. Rick,” I corrected when she raised an eyebrow. “I’m irresistible, he’ll realize that soon enough.”

“Yeah, you so are,” Emma said with a sarcastic tone as she ruffled my hair.

“Hey, you still can’t do that!” I complained and she laughed. “So… How…”

“Is Monica? She’s a mess. And now I feel awful,” she said as she started playing with her bracelet and I smiled to myself remembering that was a present from me for the last Christmas. “I don’t know what to do, because we can’t tell her, but I have to tell Alex cause he works here and it’s more likely to notice us being… like this,” she said and I laughed. “And Rick is so worried for her and everything it’s just… messed up. And what’s even more messed up is that… I really don’t care at some point. Because…” she sighed and I kissed her forehead.

“I know. I love you, too,” I said and she gave me a small smile. “Hey, it’s okay to feel that way. I think. But I’m an insensitive bastard so…”

“Yes, you are,” Emma agreed laughing and I kissed her. “Okay, maybe not that insensitive,” she said and I smiled back at her.

*

“The meeting sucked,” I told Emma when it was finally over. I’ve been in there with crazy boring people and I couldn’t think of no one else but Emma. “And… What sucks is that I have to go to New York. For three freakin’ days!” I said as I leaned onto her desk and sighed. “Can you get me a coffee, please?”

“Sure. Three days it’s not that much, stop overreacting, baby. And since you’re in New York you could… visit Ben.”

Obviously I could show up at my best friend’s door after I almost married his longtime girlfriend, and practically didn’t give a shit about what he wanted. Yeah, I could do that.

I sighed and waited for Emma to return with the coffee as I noticed the rest of the people in the department. I’ve been working here for over three years and still I had no idea what their names were because I didn’t care. And I slept with most of the girls out there. I guess I was a jerk indeed. I know I was one because of what I did to Emma, but before that…

“What are you thinking about, Nicholls?” Emma asked as she placed her hand on my shoulder.

“That I’m a jerk.”

“Oh, I’m so glad we finally agree,” she said laughing and then noticed my serious expression. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened, just… I had two boring hours to think about stuff in that meeting. And I’m such a jerk. I knew I was a jerk with
you
, but before you I was…”

“Are you really thinking about that?” she said as she grabbed my hand and led me into my office. “It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re not like that now, Matt.”

“How do you know?” I asked her and she looked at me surprised. “How do you know I won’t do the same thing I’ve done a few months ago with Monica? Seriously, how can you even trust me?”

She opened her mouth to say something, but she changed her mind and shrugged. I sat on a chair in front of my office and she sat next to me and placed her hand on top of mine and I sighed. I knew I was completely wrong for her, before I even started the thing with Monica, but how was I able to act like I deserve her now? Cause I don’t and she knows it.

“I don’t know how I can trust you, but Matt… You’re not like that. Not anymore. I know it.”

“No, you don’t!” I snapped. “I don’t even know myself, how do you think you know me?”

“Why are you being so hard on yourself? And why are you doing this now?” she sighed and I avoided to look at her.

“Maybe it’s stupid to think we could be together.”

“No, it’s not!” Emma said and I could feel the desperation in her voice. “You can’t rely on what you did in the past and think you’ll do the same. You can’t live in the past, Matthew, and it doesn’t define you. I would’ve expected that you learned something, though.”

“I did. That I don’t deserve you. And if I didn’t deserve you back then, how could I deserve you now? It’s stupid. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”