Authors: Kate Perry
Project Date (8 page)
Chapter Seven
Lessons Learned from MacGyver
#7
Desperation makes one kind of flexible.
#7
Desperation makes one kind of flexible.
“Let me get this straight, Doc. Daphne’s on her way to Portland and she’s going to stay with you.”
I frowned at Matt. “What could I say? ‘No, you can’t sleep here?’ I can’t say there’s no room. There’s an extra bed in my office.”
He wiped his hands on a crumpled paper napkin—I don’t know why, since he reached for another slice of pizza. “How is that going to go for you?”
“Grr.”
He grinned. “That’s what I thought.”
I scowled. I would have said something rude, but I was at his apartment and that would have been impolite. Tempting, though.
Matt lives on the third floor of an old apartment building. It’s a little cave-like if you ask me—the ceilings aren’t especially high and it’s facing the wrong way to get much light, but it has lots of funky charm.
Kind of like me.
Anyway, one of the features I hold in morbid fascination is the wall of mirrors in his bedroom. If the mirrors were in anyone else’s room, I would have had a field day with them. Smirks abound.
Not so in Matt’s. Thinking of him and the mirrors was like thinking about my parents having sex. Gag. Not a visual I needed in my head. So I avoided going anywhere near his bedroom.
I nabbed another wedge of pizza before he ate the whole thing. “I didn’t know she was coming tonight. When she asked, I thought she meant she was coming a day or two before the party, not for two weeks. Two weeks!”
Matt chuckled. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”
I stared at him.
“Or maybe it will.” He sprinkled red pepper flakes from a to-go packet on his slice. “One good thing’s come out of Daphne arriving early.”
“What?”
“You came over with pizza and beer.”
Trust Matt to think of his stomach. I handed him a fresh napkin.
He wiped his mouth. “How are things going on the man front?”
I snorted.
“That good, huh?”
“I’m running out of time and I have no prospects.” I picked off a green bell pepper and tossed it into the pizza box lid.
Matt swallowed his bite before he replied. “None? There’s got to be some fool out there who’ll go out with you. Aside from the fact that you suck in bed. No pun intended.”
“Watch it or I’ll break a couple of your fingers the next time we work out.”
“You’re so violent. No wonder you can’t get a man.” He studied me as he took a swig of beer.
It took two minutes of silent scrutiny to get to me. I threw down my napkin. “
What
already?”
What
already?”
He shook his head. “Just tell your mom you broke up with Barrington. She’ll understand. He may have been a nice guy, but he wasn’t for you.”
“Why not?” I asked indignantly.
“You’re kidding, right?”
I pouted.
He froze midbite. “You aren’t kidding. Don’t you remember why you broke up with him? The lack of spontaneity? The boring routine? The slug-like kisses?”
I lowered my eyes to the piece of pizza I was picking apart. “Maybe he can change.”
“I can’t believe it.” He tossed his napkin into the pizza box lid. “What are you saying?”
“That maybe Mom was right. Maybe Barry was the best choice for me.”
Matt showed off his gutter vocabulary. (I always found it amusing that a nice guy like Matt would have a mouth like that on him.)
Once he finished venting, I said, “I’ve been rethinking my plan.”
“Aw, hell.”
“I think maybe I should ask Barry if he wants to get together again.”
Matt leaned back in his chair and gaped at me.
I took that look to mean he was amazed at my ability to forgive Barry for saying I was boring in bed. “Like you said, Barry’s a great guy. He makes an excellent living and he’s handsome. If I make Barry more like MacGyver ...”
“Stop with this MacGyver fetish already.” He gazed at me like I was an escapee from the state mental hospital. “A mullet-sporting loner is not the epitome of manhood.”
“But what he could do with a Swiss Army knife!” Shiver. Then I thought about Rio’s hands and shivered again.
“Doc, you are seriously disturbed.”
I needed to get him to focus on the important issue here. “MacGyver aside, Barry’s the only shot I have to be in the limelight.” I gasped as something occurred to me. “What if I can get Barry to propose before the party? Can you imagine the attention having a honking diamond on my finger will get?”
He pushed away from the table. “I need another beer.”
“Get me one too, okay?”
He mumbled something but I ignored it. Instead I dreamed about Barry slipping a ring on my finger. Maybe I could get him to do it
at
the party.
at
the party.
“Doc, you’re forgetting one thing,” Matt said when he came back and set a beer bottle in front of me.
“What?”
“You broke up with Barrington. Badly.” He sat down and drank from his bottle. “He’s never going to want you back.”
Smiling like the siren I am, I shook my finger at him. “Don’t underestimate the power of my feminine wiles.”
“I’m telling you, no guy will go back to a woman who said she thought of other men while she had sex with him.”
“We’ll see.” I smiled enigmatically (I hoped).
“You’re better off calling Jeremy,” he muttered as he began to clean up our dinner mess. The look on my face must have given something away because he closed his eyes and groaned. “You called him, didn’t you?”
“What do you take me for? I’m not
that
desperate.” I rubbed the tip of my nose. “I emailed him.”
that
desperate.” I rubbed the tip of my nose. “I emailed him.”
He groaned again.
“But you were right. Jeremy isn’t for me.”
“Turned you down, huh?”
I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out at him.
“I don’t know why you can’t find a man. You’re so charming.” He picked up our trash and headed for the kitchen.
I followed him, hopped onto the counter, and sipped beer while he rinsed out our empty bottles.
If we were at my place, I would have left the pizza debris on the table overnight. Maybe longer.
Unlike me, Matt’s tidy. Not anally immaculate like Daphne (alphabetizing your kitchen utensils is just plain freakish), but his bed is always made, his office is always orderly, and his bathroom is clean.
I waited for him to say something. And I waited. Then I waited some more.
But it became apparent by the care he was taking in wiping the sink down that he wasn’t going to volunteer anything. So I stepped into the fray. “You’ve got no comments?”
He glanced at me before resuming his scrubbing. “Would you listen to anything I said?”
I pursed my lips. “Depends on what you say.”
“You already know how I feel.”
I nodded. He’d made that abundantly clear, but I still thought making up with Barry was the most logical course of action given my timeframe.
But Matt was my best friend, and I didn’t want him to be angry at me. I put my hand on his arm and squeezed. “I promise I’ll stop this scheming and actually look for my soulmate.”
He blinked in surprise.
“After the party.”
He shook his head. “You’re impossible, Doc.”
“But you still love me.”
“Kind of like an old shoe I can’t bring myself to throw away because it’s so comfortable.” He tugged me off the counter and smacked my butt. “Get going. Your sister’s due to arrive at any time.”
I pretended to gag.
He grinned, put his arm around my shoulders, and propelled me toward the door. “You know what Dwight says?”
“To always wear a cup?”
“No. That you reap what you sow.” He stopped in front of the door and faced me. “Be careful what you do because it’ll come back and bite you in the ass.”
I smiled at him and patted his cheek. “That’s sweet, but you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to do anything crazy.”
He snorted as he opened the door and pushed me out.
I resisted as a token gesture of displeasure. “I’m not.”
“No. You crossed the line from crazy to downright insane a week ago.”
I stuck my tongue out at him as he closed the door in my face, his laughter seeping through the crack.
As I walked to my car, I considered what Matt said. Only a little, though. I didn’t take it too seriously because he never made his lack of fondness for Barry a secret. Aside from calling him Barrington (which
was
his real name, even if no one called him that), Matt never overtly said anything disparaging. But I could tell how he felt anyway.
was
his real name, even if no one called him that), Matt never overtly said anything disparaging. But I could tell how he felt anyway.
I didn’t mind his warnings. Matt loved me; of course he was going to look out for me. I did the same for him. Not that he’d dated anyone in forever.
I frowned as I let myself into my car. I should ask him what was up with that.
On the ten-minute ride home, I weighed everything: my desire for a soulmate, being the apple of my parents’ eyes, what Matt said, being the apple of my parents’ eyes, the other guys I’d met, being the apple of my parents’ eyes, and Barry’s kisses.
Maybe I was placing too much importance on being my parents’ pride and joy instead of Daphne. Maybe Matt was right; it wasn’t that important.
I parked in front of my house and stared out the windshield. Instead of seeing the bumper of the car in front of me, the other houses, or even darkness, I flashed on the day in the sixth grade when I got my period for the first time. I wasn’t scared or anything—I knew what was going on. I’d seen the sex ed movies. And I’d caught it soon enough that it didn’t leak and embarrass me in front of my classmates (God, what a horror that would have been).
In fact, I was kind of excited. I remembered how Mom and Daphne had a special women’s tea to mark Daphne’s passing into womanhood, and I couldn’t wait for Mom to pick me up and take me out to celebrate. I thought we could get a banana split with extra cherries.
So I sat in the nurse’s office and watched the clock over the doorway click each minute by, and still my mom wasn’t there to get me. Every fifteen minutes, I bugged the nurse, asking if she was sure she talked to my mom when she called our house. The answer was always yes with a barely disguised eye roll.
I found out later that afternoon when I got home that my mom forgot, because right after the nurse called her, she got a call from my sister’s principal saying Daphne was chosen to attend some special summer program for kids at Lawrence Livermore Labs in California. She’d be the youngest teenager to ever attend.
How could getting your period compare with that?
I shook my head to clear the memory and got out of the car with renewed determination. Matt didn’t understand—how could he?
There was nothing to consider. I needed Barry back.
The porch light was on. I hadn’t been home since that morning, so it meant Daphne had arrived.
I ran up the steps to my front door and made a face as I unlocked the door. Then I made another face just to get it out of my system before I confronted my nemesis.
Pasting a smile on, I entered, closed the door behind me without locking it, and skipped up the steps to my living area. “Daph! You here?”
“Don’t call me Daph.”
I grinned. I loved yanking her chain.
She came out of the front room, aka my office, as I hit the landing in the living room. It was dark everywhere but for a light in the hallway (leading to the bathroom and my room at the back of the house) and the blaze of illumination behind Daphne from my office.
All the light coming from the office was the first thing I noticed. I only had one desk lamp in there. I frowned. Where did the rest of it come from?
The second thing that caught my eye was how the light made a halo around Daphne. Like she was a living angel.
I’d forgotten just how angelic she looked. Her hair was perfect—gold and gleaming—and her clothes were immaculate even at the end of the day.
I glanced down at myself and picked at a strand of cheese stuck to my T-shirt.
“Aren’t you being loud? What about your tenant downstairs?”
Hello to you, too. “Magda’s out of town.”
“Oh.” Her forehead crinkled, like the idea of being out of town was a foreign concept. “Did you have a good time out? You’re back so late.”
A deaf person would have heard her faintly disapproving tone. Grr. She was so passive-aggressive. She herself said it was okay if I was out.
Instead of showing my irritation, I smiled and said, “Yeah. I had a great time. Matt says hi.”
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