DINNER WAS...NOT GOOD.
Oh, not the steak and ale pie, which was as it always was, but the general atmosphere of What the hell are we doing? that had pervaded the flat.
Or perhaps the more accurate question was What the hell am I doing? because Romy knew very well she was the one who’d pitched them into this awkward hell. She’d wanted to have sex; she’d blackmailed him into staying; she’d positioned her heart ready for a trampling at the end of the two weeks when Matt left—as he would do, no matter which of her two scenarios came to pass.
She might have enticed him into having sex with her—twice, now—but the scalding truth was that she loved Matt and he didn’t love her.
Love? Ha! He didn’t even like her anymore, judging by his nonexistent dinner conversation. Her own dogged attempts at it—questions about Matt’s flight, the chaos of Heathrow, the weather in San Francisco, his new business venture with Artie—were met with such headache-inducing vagueness, Romy almost wished for a return to the rage that had had her fearing he’d spontaneously combust before she’d shown him to the spare room and left him to froth at the mouth in peace.
When Matt opted to work in his room straight after dinner, Romy was relieved but also apprehensive. From tomorrow, she’d be at work during the days so the after-dinner hours would become important harbingers of the direction their relationship would take. Two weeks suddenly seemed a very short time to navigate their future as potential parents—it would be even shorter if they spent every possible minute of that time avoiding each other.
Romy didn’t expect to fall into an easy sleep—and she didn’t. Dreams of Matt had haunted her ever since she’d left San Francisco, and his presence in the flat acted on those dreams like an injection of steroids, supersizing them. The taste of his mouth, the feel of his hands, the way he fit inside her—they were all there. Right along with the things he’d said to her that night, which played in her head over and over... If I said I wanted to see you on your knees for me, with my cock in your mouth, sucking... All that’s of interest to me right now is if you’re wet... I won’t be satisfied until I’m buried inside you...
No romance, not love words, but dear God, so indescribably, feverishly arousing she had to struggle not to go to him and tell him she was ready to suck anything he wanted her to suck.
Such a night left her ill prepared for seeing him in her kitchen the next morning. He’d gone for a run—as he always did—and looked so sweatily, deliciously scruffy as he scrambled eggs, she didn’t trust herself not to lick him so she mumbled an apology about being late and left the flat without eating.
And despite lecturing herself half the day about Plan C’s restrictions, when she arrived home that night all it took was one look at Matt sitting on her couch with a beer in his hand to knock her straight into the same state of salivating hunger in which she’d left that morning.
Matt’s eyes locked with hers, the beer he’d been raising to his lips stalling halfway to its destination. He got to his feet as though hypnotized and the air thickened so that it would have taken a chain saw to cut through it—and Romy’s briefcase slipped from her now-nerveless fingers and hit the floor, jarring them out of a trance that had nothing of friendship about it and everything about sex. Saved by the briefcase!
Romy blurted out something about chicken curry, Matt said he’d set the table, and they proceeded to keep out of each other’s way until dinner was served.
They set the pattern that night for the rest of the week. A stilted conversation over dinner, followed by watching a movie on TV while occupying uncomfortably opposite-end-of-the-couch positions so as to avoid accidentally touching. Not exactly a return to their old friendship.
Matt gave up halfway through the movie, citing the need to check in with the manager he’d left in charge of his San Francisco hub, and Romy surrendered to a tension headache and went in search of painkillers and a restless night’s sleep.
The next morning, when Romy cried upon waking at the prospect of seeing Matt in his running gear and actually touched the walls in the shower as she imagined soaping Matt’s naked body, she knew she wasn’t going to survive two weeks of living this way.
It was with considerable trepidation that she ventured out to the kitchen, where she found Matt looking hotter than sin. He plonked a plate of scrambled eggs and a mug of steaming coffee on the counter for her, giving her a rusty “Good morning” that melted her insides. Thankfully he then promptly took himself off for his turn in the bathroom, leaving her to choke down her breakfast around a mouthful of drool.
As she paused outside the flat and laid her palm on the wood of the door like she was trying to feel Matt through it, she knew a storm was brewing between them and it was going to either break or suffocate them.
Something was going to have to give, and give soon. The only question about it was which of them would be the catalyst.
* * *
Matt had no idea how he was going to reclaim his position in the friend zone when he was fucking Romy all night in his sleep and thinking about fucking her every moment of the day.
His solution was to distract himself by invading Artie’s Wimbledon house. Annoyingly, he could think of only two business matters for them to discuss, and both were finalized by 11:20 a.m. on Matt’s first day.
At that point, Matt decided he had no option but to confess to Artie that impending fatherhood was responsible for his earlier-than-expected arrival in London. He felt a surge of energy after getting that off his chest, and urged Artie to join him in some steam-releasing activities. But he was doomed to disappointment. Artie, never the most intrepid of adventurers, was uninterested in abseiling down the ArcelorMittal Orbit, rap jumping down a tower or kayaking on the Thames, and informed Matt that he got all the daredevilry he needed from his DIY obsession: in fact, his only recent hair-raising stunt had been making a birdhouse in his mantuary—a.k.a. backyard shed—during which he’d narrowly avoided slicing off an arm with a circular saw.
Which was when Matt had the brilliant idea of making his baby a crib. What better way of a) keeping himself from going stir-crazy in that Romy-saturated apartment, and b) demonstrating to Romy that he didn’t really think fatherhood was all about slinging money at the kid?
By one o’clock, he and Artie had downloaded a design for a crib in a half-moon shape with cutout stars on the sides to match Romy’s nursery decor, ordered wood and paint, familiarized themselves with the necessary tools and were ready to blaze a home handyman trail starting Tuesday morning.
And thus, the pattern of Matt’s temporary life with Romy was set.
He’d go for his morning run, then make and eat his own breakfast. When Romy headed for the shower, he’d scramble her eggs the way she always made them, with mayonnaise, Parmesan and basil. She’d come to the kitchen counter, they’d exchange a subdued “Good morning” and he’d leave her to eat while he took his turn in the bathroom. By the time he was done Romy would have left for her Islington office and he’d be ready to head to Artie’s to get macho with the power tools. He’d then be back at the apartment showering off man-cave grime before Romy left her office at six o’clock for the trip home.
When she arrived, Matt would be reduced to farcical TV Sitcom Land, making use of anything readily available to hide his exhibitionist dick—his laptop, Romy’s London AZ guide, a cushion. If she’d had a damn pot plant in the place he may even have snapped off a frond and tied it around his groin! He’d get a reprieve while she cooked dinner, because she’d banned him from helping her in the kitchen on the—correct—grounds there wasn’t enough room for the two of them.
They’d eat dinner while making inane conversation, then watch TV until the rigidity of perching as far away from her as possible without falling off the damn couch gave him an actual pain in the neck. At that point, he’d excuse himself to catch up on his San Francisco projects while the time zones were favorable, after which he’d dream about Romy all night and wonder if she was dreaming about him.
In other words, it was Hell. On. Earth.
And then, on Friday night, everything changed.