After another -
“I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“That means I win, Lachster!!”
“Nope, nope. I’m fine. Pour another.”
After another –
“You know what’s really weird? Plants. Plants are really weird.”
“Imagine if they were pink.”
(my contribution to drunk talk)
We were in fits of laughter.
After another –
“We’re all going now,” Nat declares. Matt, Melissa, Nathan and Dan are all standing, too.
“We’ll see you back at the house, pisshead.”
“We’ll get her home!” Lach shouts, then hiccups.
We’re in fits again.
After another –
“Pinky, what do you think would happen if I pulled this.”
“I think you’d set the fire alarm off, Lachie.”
He pulls it down, and an ear-piercing alarm sounds. He laughs, shouts “FUCK!!”, grabs me, and we run to our table, grab the near-empty Sambucca bottle, and flee the scene of the crime, grabbing Melinda and Lachie’s sister on the way.
That’s the second time at a Sin event I’ve been involved in the accidental/on purpose fire alarm being set off.
The first time, it was me who’d pressed it, and evacuated an entire hotel in Sydney.
And yet another –
“One more, while we wait for the taxi,” Lachie slurs, while fire trucks arrive, lights flashing.
“God, you two are maggotted,” Louise, Lach’s sister, laughs.
“Okay, one more,” I concede, as hot firemen race past me. We pour the final shot each of the bottle, slam it back…
And Lach starts puking everywhere. “Oh look. Plants,” he says, bent over in the garden. The fire alarm is still going off.
“I won!! I won!!” I start screaming, jumping up and down.
After barely remembering how I ended up in my own bed, I awoke today to the smells of cooking.
Matt was in the kitchen, making bacon and eggs and some fancy bread/egg combo for all of us.
(he is perfect, isn’t he???)
Matt ended up staying all day, which was SO NICE, and Melissa and Nathan till about lunch time. Matt and I just lounged around together on the couches, talking and laughing and playing Playstation.
Lachie and Melinda unexpectedly stopped in about 2pm, and Lachie walked in, laughing, declaring I was such a bad influence.
“He puked his guts up for hours,” Melinda laughed.
“Really?? I didn’t!!” I laughed.
“Drunks never do,” interjected Nat.
Lachie was in some kind of awe, at how okay I was after all that Sambucca.
“You got your ass handed to you by a girl!” I declared, and we all were in fits.
“So, come on, let’s do something,” Lachie said, after an hour of us all sitting around, chatting.
“What about the movies?” I suggested.
You’d think I’d just invented sliced bread, how excited everybody got (except Nat and Dan).
Matt and I climbed in my hire car, him jumping in behind the wheel, which turned me on so much, cause it seemed like such a boyfriend thing to do, and Lach and Melinda jumped in Lach’s mustard yellow Commodore ute.
We drove to Balmoral, and ran into Julia and Michael there in the foyer!! She came running up to me and wrapped me in a big bear hug.
So the 6 of us saw the 6.40pm session of ‘Unbreakable’ together.
I was having THE best time, sitting next to Matt, smelling that delicious after shave he wears and wanting to snuggle up to him so bad, when midway through the movie, a guy in front moved and I got a bird’s-eye view of his forearm and wrist, complete with a watch identical to the one I bought Evvy.
Even his forearm looked freakishly like Ever’s. That plummeted me. I crashed then, with overwhelming pain and sadness. I suddenly missed Evvy so much it KILLED, and
I wanted him more than anything in that moment.
Spent the rest of the movie bummed, but perked up when after the movie, we all decided to walk down to Earth and Sea and have dinner together.
We were a rowdy bunch. We were all doing ‘A Night at the Roxbury’ and Goonies’ impersonations, cracking each other up. We were loud!!
And none of us were drinking either! We were on the jugs of iced Coke.
(after the night before)
Lachie then insisted on driving the hire car back to theirs, so I went with Lach and Matt went with Melin so she wouldn’t be alone, and Lach seriously thrashed the hire car. He was going 150kms around corners, and I, I hate to say it, was loving it. I was cracking up laughing.
(I may have died, but I was gonna die laughing)
Matt thrashed it on the way to Balmoral, too. What is with guys and hire cars?? They just want to thrash them!!
After saying goodbye to Lachie and Melin, Matt again jumped behind the wheel, and ten minutes into the drive, I was all, “You know Moorooka is back that way, hey?”
Matt just laughed, and replied, “I’m taking you back to my place.”
(oh my God, how can that one line be so sexy?)
And that is where Matt made his move.
As it was near midnight, his whole household was in bed. He sat me on the couch
(in his beautiful home I just marvel at and adore),
then sat himself down on the coffee table right in front of me, slinging his knees on either side of my legs and leaning in.
(oh God, I am in so much trouble here)
I KNEW what he was going to say by the tone of his voice, the way he was acting, the loving look in his eyes.
God, he LOOKS at me already like he’s in love with me!! I have to fight and bitch and pitch fits for Ever to look at me like that. Matt does it as often and as unconsciously as breathing.
“I want to be with you, Karina,” he began, looking sexy as all hell.
I mean, HOLY FUCK. What is going on??? I beg and plead and sob at Everard’s feet for him to say this shit, and HERE MATT SUDDENLY IS, saying it!!!!!
I feel like my world has been tilted on its axis.
“What do you think?” he questioned, his eyes searching mine.
(I think I’m incredibly turned on and astonished)
“Ah, ahhh, um, er – ”
There was nothing intelligent coming out of me.
(is there ever??)
Matt laughed. “I know you like me, Karina.”
“I do. It’s not that, it’s…” Fucking Everard.
“It’s what?”
“It’s complicated. I’m kinda freaking out here. In a good way. I do like you. REALLY like you. But still…this is a freak out.”
He laughed, and grabbed my hands. I just about stopped breathing.
This was INSANE. This is what I want Evvy to do! For six LONG motherfucking months. And suddenly here’s Matt, being the romantic hero.
I was torn. I feel sure of Matt, in some weird, instinctual way, but not ready to let Ever go yet.
Matt had found my car a week ago. We have a great story already. Fucking already!!
What do Ever and I have??
Matt rushed over when I most needed someone.
His actions speak volumes.
As do Evvy’s.
“Let’s just see where this takes us,” I half pleaded.
Oh my God, I can’t believe those words came out of my mouth.
I’m suddenly Stupid Sexy Everard.
“Come on then, I’ll drive you home.” He pulled me up by my hands, till we were standing chest to chest.
He looked so delicious, the way he was looking at me, like he wanted to eat me right up.
(I wanted him to eat me up. And was/am terrified of it, too)
“Karina – ” he growled.
I put my hands on his chest. “No, Matt. I’m not ready.”
He just pulled me tighter to him, leaned his forehead against mine. “Your eyes tell me all I need to know, Karina.”
/> (God, the way he says my name, sends chills up my spine)
He basically had to carry me back out to the car, my legs were so weak.
He said, “I find you so adorable, Karina,” as he helped me into the car
(seriously, something had gone all funny with my legs)
Ugh. There goes my heart!!
Again.
I got home to a missed call from Evvy.
Damn him.
Monday 4 December 2000
7.41am
I’ve never had happiness before in a relationship. They’ve all been shit.
(except Danny, I guess. But he dumped me and married the very next girl he went out with, straight from school. Bastard)
What if with Matt I can finally have a happy, functional relationship?
I want it so bad, this elusive love…I want to jump into it with Matt.
Evvy stops me. Who would I choose if Evvy could act like Matt does?
There’s a question to send me into a tizzy for days. DAYS, I tell ya.
7.26pm
I’m so tired from the weekend.
Renee wanted to know who set off the fire alarm and ended the Christmas party. If it had been Benny, I so would have dobbed him in!!! Just to get in before he dobbed me in.
But I kept Lachie’s Flaming Sambucca secrets.
My direct line at work rang this arvo, like at 4.10pm, and I almost died of a heart attack, thinking it was Ever. For real. My heart went on turbo speed and I started shaking all over!!
It was Tee! False heart attack.
“Hey, I almost waited till four-thirty, but I thought that would be really cruel,” Tee laughed.
Ha ha. She knows all about Ever and I’s ‘special time.’
Matt was so sweet to me today. He has his sights set on me alright, all of a sudden. He’s stopped thinking about it and he’s jumped all in.
I felt I was acting a bit odd, though. Keeping to myself, avoiding the warehouse and the boys
(when I’m normally always down there, hanging with Benny),
slinking around corners.
I was doing some film noir or detective noir sly chick routine. Was odd.
Matt still found me, however. And heaped his sweetness, hotness, damn stableness I find so hot, onto me.
I’m not strong enough to fight this! I’m like wide fucking open and ready to have love just dumped on me.
I’m very scared!
1.01am
Reading a Christina Skye romance in the middle of the night.
Swoon.
Matt Matt Matt Matt Matt.
Tuesday 5 December 2000
7.07pm
Soon as I walked into the warehouse this morning, Matt asked me to go on his boat with him, Lach and Melin this Saturday.
Apparently we’re going to go over to Straddie from The Spit, and go surfing there.
Lach called out, “Get ready, Pinky, there’s some barrels over there!”
“Yee har!!” I replied.
(I’m not sure why, but I can’t stop calling him cowboy. He’s like a surf cowboy)
Lachie cracked me up today. Every time he called for a query on an invoice for an order, or to tell me something was out of stock
(“So stop motherfucking invoicing it!!” he’d pretend yell, while actually yelling),
he’d end the conversation saying, “Bye bye,” like Seinfeld does.
I was in stiches every time he did it.
It was so busy this afternoon, and it was just me, Nat and Renee on. Four o’clock hit and for some reason the phones went off, and the salon world went mad. We were run off our feet.
“I think that deserves some champagne, hey Pinky?” Renee laughed, cracking open a bottle.
“You’re always talking my language, Renee!”
Nat rolled her eyes at us.
(my sister’s eyes are gonna roll right out of her head one day, she does it so often)
I’m getting more and more excited by the prospect of Matt and I.
Yet I still desperately miss Ever.
I’m torn.
8.01pm
I did something very stupid then.
I rang Ever.
I know, I know!!! I’m a fucking idiot. What’s the deal, Paul Mecurio? Ugh. I’m such an idiot. Face facts, woman!!!!
He just made me cry all over again.
He said he cares, which is just amazing in itself, that he can admit it so easily now, and that he wants to “see me.”
Yeah, see me naked and that’s it.
Ever told me it’s up to me if I take that chance or not.
I hung up on him.
Wednesday 6 December 2000
7.25pm
Mark rang here tonight, and I chatted to him for a bit.
I got all sad, cause I love him and Josie. I’m gonna miss them! I feel that whole group slipping away from me.
Makes me sad. I love the Scooby Gang.
Matt rang soon as I got home from work, asking me what I’m up to tonight. Said he was going to come round.
That both excited me and freaked me the fuck out. I’m not ready for this shit!!
But I had
(had. I cancelled. Not for Matt, just so I could go to bed)
plans with Graham.
I can feel Evvy sliding further and further away. Last night, my calling him, was like a last-ditch attempt to hold onto him, before anything happens with Matt.
Tee rang after I spoke to Asshole last night. She was laughing at me. She told me it amazes her how openly loving I am, STILL, after all I’ve gone through, that I don’t play games, I’m just honest and upfront with my feelings. She said most women aren’t like that. They play hard to get.
(I’m not very good at that)
Thursday 7 December 2000
9.07pm
Just got home from that course at work.
Why is Matt never at these courses? How does he get out of them??
Work’s been really good lately. I went through a stage where work was really sucking. So I don’t know whether work has improved or I’m just happier and my attitude is better.
I bought Nat and Joy flowers at lunch. Beautiful canary yellow and
(can’t think of an orange description other than orange)
orange gerberas. They both love yellow, and AARRGH, their faces when I handed them to them. They were overjoyed.
Makes me so happy.
I walked into work today and had my quick chat with Matt, like we seem to be doing every morning lately
(while all the warehouse boys – and Faye - pretend not to listen but you can practically hear a pin drop, they’re eavesdropping so hard),
and then I went to walk off, and he said something else…
“Hey, Karina – ”
and cornered me near the hallway to the salon and downstairs kitchen.
He stood so close to me, that I just about died looking up into those blue eyes of his. They’re so intense and BLUE, like sapphire blue…
I don’t think it’s so much his eyes but how he USES those eyes on me. With an intensity that sears into me.
“Do you want to go shopping tonight?” he asked.
“I can’t, I’ve got that course tonight…”
“Come to mine instead. And stay over.”
I just about mimed clutching my heart. I definitely went all wobbly.
I told him I couldn’t get out of it, and continued staring into his eyes. I was lost in them.
The way he looked back at me, too. My God.
I love that look. I could get used to that look. I basically floated upstairs.
We worked out we’re spending the entire weekend together!
I am so frickin’ excited.
How did this happen? And so quickly? It seems to have built and built for awhile, and then suddenly is just here.
Sunday 10 December 2000
5.45pm
I have had THE best weekend ever. So much fun.
Friday night I went over to Matt’s
straight from work, and we met his mates at Fitzy’s.
Oh my God, I had such a great time.
I arrived at Matt’s to his mum making such a fuss I felt like I was someone special. She even had pink champagne on ice for me.
I’ve fallen in love with her. Forget Matt!! I want his mum.
And his dad is so cool and calm and casual, floating about, giving off happy vibes.
His brother is adorable, the cute, younger sibling. They’re like the perfect family.
I think when you come from a family as fucked up as mine has been, when you walk into this sort of family stability and perfection, you just go, “I’m here, I’m home, adopt me. I can relax now.”
So I showered upstairs, got ready, and Matt drove us to the pub, where his giant group of hot guy mates were waiting for us. I was the only girl, and Matt acted like I was his girlfriend and doted on me all night.
It’s all I ever wanted ALREADY.
All the guys doted on me – I felt like a superstar.
We had couches near the pool table area, and Matt sat next to me the whole time, fetching me drinks, reaching out and twirling a strand of my hair round his fingers…leaning in super close to me, so that our lips were practically kissing, and telling me, “You’re so beautiful, Karina.”
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