Perfect Match

by Monica Miller

  Okay, this was rather uncomfortable. Obviously, Jensen knew about us, considering when Matt and Monica got engaged I came here and he had to listen to all my complaining and everything, but Matt doesn’t know that Jensen knows and it suddenly turned into something really awkward.

  “Monica and I broke up,” Matt said and I was really surprised he said that.

  “Oh, I like that, keep going!”

  “And I need to talk to Emma. In private,” Matt continued as he looked at me.

  “See? You like gossips more than a girl. You really should stop watching Real Housewives, Jensen,” Gabrielle pointed and I laughed.

  “Okay, okay,” Jensen agreed. “But quickly, let me tell you my opinion. You, kid, didn’t do what I said and I’m a little mad at you, but it’s okay, I still like you. Now, Matt, I think it’s awesome that you broke up with Monica because you didn’t love her and eventually it would all come out and someone would’ve suffered more. That would be Monica, I think. Or Emma, and I don’t enjoy that possibility. So, now stop being a stupid prick as you are, and just take advantage and cherish what you have. That is Emma. Okay, Gabrielle, I’ll stop now,” he said as he followed her out of the room. “Oh, that would be 100 bucks for couple therapy,” Jensen joked and I couldn’t hide my smile.

  After they left there was again an awful silence and all I could think was how great things seemed when Monica came to my place and told me she and Matt broke up, but now Matt didn’t remember the fact that he told me he’d broke up with Monica for me.

  “Let’s take a walk, shall we?” Matt asked as he got up from the couch and stretched his hand out for me.

  I nodded and we silently exited Gabrielle’s apartment and walked in silence for a few minutes. But right now, holding his hand didn’t feel as awkward or uncomfortable. It was the good kind of silence I always had with Matt and I wondered if he felt that, too. I remember a particular line from Pulp Fiction, a movie I didn’t enjoy at all, but Matt made me watch it because it was “bad ass”, where Mia says “That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.” And the most annoying part is that I understood that.

  Gabrielle’s apartment wasn’t too far from the beach so we were there in no time, walking in silence like we did in our best times. It was a sunny day, and the beach wasn’t crowded so we could walk on the warm sand until we decided to stop.

  “So… What will we do now?” Matt asked as he looked at me with a smirk on his lips.

  “What do you mean?”

  “C’mon, am I such a good actor?” he asked before he started laughing.

  I looked at him and tried to understand why was he laughing, but it was just too hard to focus with the sun shines in his hair and his beautiful smile and the fact that now, after nearly ten months he was single again and we were sitting together on a beach. I wasn’t single, but I didn’t bother thinking about Alex too much.

  “I do remember what I told you last night, Ems,” he said as he took my hand in his. “I mean, I don’t remember everything, but it’s just… It’s not something you say just because you’re drunk as hell, although I was and let me tell you it’s awful, considering my huge headache, but I’d say that drunk or sober, because that’s what I feel. I love you.”

  I sighed and tried to remember how to breathe correctly, since my heart was already pounding in my chest. I felt tears in my eyes and I had no idea why, but all I know was that I was so happy I couldn’t even describe it in words. There were no words for what I felt.

  “I feel bad about Monica,” I burst out and he frowned for a moment then placed his arm on my shoulders and I smiled as I inhaled his manly perfume, the scent that would always drive me crazy.

  “I know, me too.”

  For a while we didn’t say anything, I was just sitting there with my head on his shoulder and his arm around me and everything felt better. Safe.

  “So what now, Ems?” he finally asked after a few minutes of silence.

  “I don’t know,” I replied sincerely and turned to look at him. “We could just…”

  “Take it slow,” he completed my sentence and I nodded, a little bit uncomfortable by the fact that he was reading my mind, but also happy because he understood me so well.

  “So you’re not going back to Monica, are you?” I asked as I grabbed his hand.

  “Do you want me to?”

  “No! Obviously not,” I hurried to say and he smiled and ran his hand through my hair. “I just… want to know what will happen. With Monica, Alex… us.”

  “What I’m gonna say… is gonna sound really selfish, but you know me, Ems, and you know I’m arrogant and selfish, obviously not when it comes to you, but… I really don’t care what happens to Monica and Alex right now,” he whispered as he leaned and kissed my cheek. “As for us… We’re taking it slow. Even though I’m not really excited about that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because. Plus I have to make sure everything will go right this time. And that you don’t hate me anymore for what happened to Monica. Because…”

  “I never hated you,” I said and he smiled.

  “That’s good. It’s actually… Good,” he said and I nodded. “I love Christmases,” he finally said and slowly ran his hand down my back. “You always make my Christmas perfect, Ems.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’m awesome,” I said and he started laughing.

  “Don’t take too much credit for that, you learned from the best.”

  “Who, Alex?” I asked laughing and his expression changed completely, which made it even funnier. “I was kidding, Nicholls,” I said still laughing.

  “That’s not a good joke. You know what, that’s not even a joke!” he said as he released my arm and took his hand from my shoulders. “It’s just mean, because that stupid-“

  “I love you,” I said and he stopped for a second then leaned on me and kissed me softly, my heart stopping for a second.

  I immediately kissed him back, placing my hand around his neck and his hand resting on my back while the other one slowly caressed my cheek. It felt just perfect and as our kiss deepened I felt like I really couldn’t be happier.

  “Still not a good joke, love,” Matt said as he pulled away and I just laughed and rested my head on his shoulder.

  *

  Matt walked me home after we watched the sunset together and talked the whole day and laughed and everything couldn’t have been more perfect. We had dinner at a little restaurant near the beach and he held my hand on the way home and basically, I was happy.

  I didn’t even think about Monica or Alex or anyone else for that matter, because I think I was as selfish as Matt and all that mattered then was that he was here now and that’s it. I avoided Alex’s phone calls, but Matt said I will eventually have to talk to him, and I knew that. It was just too hard, considering he knew from the start I was attracted to Matt and I denied that fiercely and now we were kind of dating? While I was still dating Alex? Yeah, Matt and I were definitely alike.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Matt said as we reached my apartment. “Alec will understand.”

  “It’s Alex,” I said laughing and he shrugged his shoulders. “But maybe he won’t. And he’ll hate me. And we work together and it would be so awful…”

  “No, it won’t. You work with me. Alec is unimportant,” he said as he leaned and kissed me. “So talk to him.”

  “I can’t break up with him on the phone, Nicholls, it wouldn’t be nice.”

  “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 even
tually. 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

  ~ Matt Nicholls ~

  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!”