“Thanks.” He motioned to the items I had brought with me.
“You’re welcome. I didn’t want you to have to make a special trip to pick them up.”
“So you went out of your way to drop them off?”
I shrugged. “It was the least I could do after single-handedly ruining your birthday party. And this way I can apologize for it, too.”
“Lauren,” he said softly, pronouncing my name almost reverently, “you didn’t ruin anything. Whatever you think you did, there’s no need to be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You had to leave your own birthday party because my – Eric – crashed it. If I hadn’t been involved, clearly that wouldn’t have happened. So I’m sorry for that. And I’m sorry on his behalf, since he would never apologize to you for what happened. In fact, the more I think about it, I believe he planned it that way.”
Matthew’s eyebrow raised, inviting me to continue.
“He knew you were going to be over there. I had talked to him about planning your birthday party with Blake. Isn’t a little convenient that he would pick your birthday, of all days, to drop by for an unexpected visit?”
“If I were him, with that question for you and that ring burning a hole in my pocket, I doubt I could have waited any longer, either. I’m sorry that I walked out like that; I just needed to leave before I said something to ruin the moment.”
“I can’t believe that you of all people are giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
He shrugged. “Where are my manners? I guess congratulations are in order.”
I shook my head. “I haven’t accepted his proposal.”
A flash of unadulterated emotion, perhaps joy, lit his face for a split second. Whatever it was, this was the first he was hearing of this development. Up until now he had clearly thought I was engaged. Either Blake hadn’t talked with him since last night at the party, or she had chosen not to reveal my indecision over the subject. His features returned to normal as he processed my words and the carefully chosen meaning behind them. “You haven’t yet, or you’re not going to?”
It was my turn to shrug.
“Oh, Lauren,” he whispered.
“I know,” I said flatly, “what the hell am I going to do?”
He laughed, though the short chuckle was without humor. “I am so the wrong person to ask. What about Gracie? Or my sister?”
“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.
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“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.
Without thinking, I merged onto the interstate, no plan of action in mind. With the inclement weather and the late hour, traffic was light but the roads weren’t that bad. I just had to be careful and not speed, and I would be fine. Driving always
helped to clear my head, and lord knew I needed that.
Before long, I was headed along the same route that Matthew and I had taken in the Mustang on that fateful night in November, albeit much more slowly. The mile markers slid past me, meaning nothing and everything all at once. The last time I had taken this stretch had been under much happier circumstances, in a way. That night had been deep in its own regard, though my torment had been pointed in the opposite direction.
For weeks I had been traveling the same circuitous path, bouncing between hostility and love toward the only man I had ever truly known. Sure, he had his faults, but he was consistent. He hadn’t acted out of character until yesterday when he had gotten down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. It had taken some time, but he had eventually offered me the commitment I thought I desired.
All along Eric had been wary of my decision to move up here, to get so involved with someone I barely knew. In the end he had been right. He knew me well enough to see I had fallen for Matthew, even before I was willing to admit it myself. When he had called me out, it pissed me off. Yet he hadn’t given up on me.
I wondered if he would be willing to hold me while I cried over his arch nemesis. Something told me that he would allow me a few moments of sorrow if it meant that Matthew would be out of my life forever.
Blake’s words echoed in my head as I drove: don’t hurt him. Like his feelings had ever been in question. As conflicted as he had appeared the night of his birthday, he had certainly regained enough composure to brush me off tonight. Whatever trace of friendship I had been cultivating with him had been trampled over in mere hours. She really needed to stop handling him with the kid gloves; he didn’t need it anymore. I hadn’t hurt him. I, however, was a completely different story.
Intoxicated Page 30
