I fucked up.
Emily sat slumped at her dining room table, her head on her forearms. Rin sat at the opposite end of the table, her rat-like tail swishing as she waited for her master to pay her some attention. Unfortunately Emily was in no mood for playing with her cat.
She pulled her head off her arms just long enough to reach over to the bottle of cheap Smirnoff cherry vodka she'd picked up on the way home and take a swig straight from it. It was as disgusting as she'd expected. She took another drink anyway.
Jessica was miserable. Matt seemed miserable. And her re-entrance into their lives just seemed to make things even worse. As usual. I'm just a poison in everyone else's lives.
She hated this house. How cold and empty it was. She hated that she'd tried to pick a Modern and Fashionable white-walls-black-furniture-large-windows aesthetic that ended up feeling nothing but soulless and devoid of personality. Sam's home was brimming with life. With love. There were things inside it that clashed with one another, like mismatched furniture sets and styles that were obviously from multiple different designer visions – and yet it worked. Sam's home was strangely beautiful.
Yet again Emily had chosen sterile aesthetic appeal over warmth and comfort. It seemed an inescapable pattern in her life.
She took another gulp of Smirnoff. It burned all the way down.
Her phone was on the table, just a few inches from her extended arm. She stretched her fingers and managed to drag it back toward herself.
Sam? she texted, not bothering with formalities.
A minute later Sam responded. Yes?
Em took another, slower sip of her drink, letting it sit in her mouth for a moment before swallowing it. She could feel it starting to hit her a little. What's Mike's number
It took Sam a minute to respond. When she did, she texted back a phone number and nothing else.
Thanks, Emily wrote back anyway. She touched the number. When the 'call' option popped up, she tapped it.
I hate myself.
Mike answered on the third ring. "Hello?" His tone was brisk and professional. He didn't know who was calling him.
"It's Emily," Em said bluntly.
"Oh. Hey!" He immediately dropped the professionalism. "How'd you get my number? Not that I mind–"
"Are you free tonight?"
That seemed to throw him off for a beat. "Oh, um, I should be…I think I am…why?"
"Do you want to come over? Maybe around 8?"
"Uh, nine would probably be better, but yeah, sure–"
"Okay, well there's a chance I might be passed out by nine." Hell, there was a chance she might be passed out in the next hour if she kept up at her current rate.
"…Eight can probably work," Mike conceded.
"Good." She took another swig. "I'll text you my address. Bring a condom, or it's no deal."
"Okay. Yeah, definitely. I definitely will. Um, see you then, Emily."
"Yeah."
She hung up, then gulped down another mouthful. I really hate myself.
Her alarm clock the next morning might as well have been a jackhammer in Emily's ears. As she slowly regained consciousness, she realized she was boiling hot. She tried to pull her blanket off, only to find herself pinned by something – an arm.
She turned over in her queen bed. Sure enough, there was Mike. Having apparently slept right through Em's alarm clock, his toned arms were wrapped intimately around her waist. He appeared to still be naked. Upon a momentary inspection under the covers, Emily noticed that she was as well.
If someone were to show young Emily a snapshot of her future, she sure as hell hoped it wouldn't be one of her naked and hungover in bed with her ex. Christ, she didn't even want to think about it at her current age.
She wished she could blame this awful decision on the vodka. But the alcohol had only given her the bull-headed confidence to go through with what she'd already decided before she even bought the drink.
The bedroom still smelled of sex. Em could feel a slickness between her legs, that gross morning feeling when you didn't clean things up afterward. Thankfully she'd been with it enough to insist Mike wear a condom, and the idiot was just sober enough to manage to actually get it on, so the wetness that lingered down there was all her own.
For a form of drunken self-punishment, the sex had been surprisingly nice. Relaxing, almost. Mike knew exactly how and where to push all a girl's buttons. Em knew she could just lie back and let him do his thing – namely, driving her to a mind-blowing climax. And he did not fail to deliver.
What she enjoyed perhaps the most of all, though, was the fact that she knew she wasn't a toxin in Mike's life. He wasn't pissing off any significant other of his by visiting her, and she didn't feel she was likely to drive him to a mental breakdown because of her inability to accept not being able to save people from themselves. No, he was just as single and just as mentally sound – she hoped – as her. He was probably just about as toxic, too. Maybe together they canceled each other out.
She wiggled a little tighter into his arms. The movement finally roused Mike from his hungover slumber. "…Mornin', Em," he murmured, stifling a yawn as he absently ran his fingers through her hair. The gesture sent a tingle through her, the same way it always had. God, it's been ten years and I'm just as pathetic as ever.
"Hey. I have to get ready for work." She drew back from him and swung one bare leg over her side of the bed.
He stretched. "Yeah, me too. That was fun, though. We should get together more often."
"Yeah, I don't think so." Emily grabbed her bra and underwear off the floor by the nightstand and hurriedly threw them on.
"No?" Mike picked his own clothes off the floor on the other side of the bed. "Why not? We're both single…in fact we're the only ones from the old group that still are, seems like."
So he had noticed. "That's true, but it doesn't mean I'm looking for a fuck buddy. I just needed it last night. That's all."
"Okay, fair enough." He got up out of her bed and slipped on his boxers, pants, and shirt. He picked up the tie he'd worn as well, but simply pocketed it.
"You can shower here if you want, but then I need you out." Emily folded her arms and nodded to her bathroom door.
"Nah, I don't want to get in your way. I'll just head home and get ready there."
"Okay fine, whatever." Emily tossed on a shirt and saw him to the front door. They paused for a moment in the doorway. Taking advantage of the pause, Mike leaned in and planted a light kiss on Emily's lips. Emily felt her face flush.
"See you," he said as he strolled out to his parked car.
Emily watched him walk away, two fingers lightly touching her lips.
She had to kick off the work day with a presentation to her inferiors. And what a presentation to be giving that day – a talk on moving the company's vision forward while she was hungover from a drunken romp with her ex-boyfriend of over a decade ago. At present she didn't seem like the best person to be advising others how to move on.
She couldn't help but wonder if she was coming across differently to her senior advisor board – they were acting much more casual today. Several times they made derailing jokes and ended up getting off-topic. Emily half-heartedly told them to stop, but truthfully she felt like shit and was barely giving a coherent presentation anyway. By the time she was finished even she didn't care what she was saying anymore.
As soon as the presentation was over she retreated to her office. She had a shitload of corporate e-mails to send out, and no energy to send a single one. She found herself instead sitting idly at her computer desk, thinking of all that had transpired over the weekend. Despite her "encounter" with Michael, her thoughts kept returning to Matt and Jess. Matt made time to travel nearly six hours to see Jess at least somewhat often, despite the fact that he was apparently moving up in the sports world and making something of himself. And he was so good to her. So gentle. Then there was Jess herself – her old best friend, who still held so many of Emily's ancient secrets and memories. Their feud during their teenage years seemed a million miles away from where either of them was now. And despite everything, knowing Jessica was back in her life, even in a relatively minor facet, made Emily's heart skip with joy more than she'd care to admit. Jessica. Her first and closest friend.
She wondered if Matt had feelings for Jess. It certainly seemed like it. Did Jessica return those feelings? Was that why Matt went out of his way to visit and spend time with her? Why his wife absolutely hated him seeing her?
A pang of petty jealousy bit down on her exhausted, vulnerable heart. She wanted someone like that. Someone who could see her at her absolute worst and still have nothing but love and patience for her. Someone who knew all her old secrets, someone she could gossip with and prattle on to about any stupid thing.
She wished she could somehow smash Matt and Jess into one person and make them fall in love with her. Was that an admission of feelings for Jessica? She'd never been entirely sure how she felt about her, even when they were at their closest. Especially when Jess had come out to her as bisexual in their tween years, giving Emily's confusing feelings a frightening potential in reality.
God, my entire love life is a fucking mess.
Her phone started buzzing on the desk. Emily snatched it up. Incoming call from…Ashley? Why the hell is she calling me?
Ensuring her office door was tightly closed, Em reluctantly answered the call. "Hello?"
"Hi, Emily." Ashley sounded more than a little nervous. "I'm sorry to bother you, are – are you free?"
"Not really. I'm at work."
"Oh, crap. I'm sorry. I'll call you later, then."
"Hold on – what did you want?"
"You sure you can talk?"
Emily reclined in her office chair. "Just tell me what you want to tell me."
"Okay, um, I was wondering if we could meet somewhere and talk for a little while. I mean, if you can. I need to discuss something with someone, and I don't have a lot of options."
Emily snorted. "So I'm the last resort?"
"No! I don't mean it like that! I mean – I have to explain it all for you to understand–"
Emily tapped her fingers on her desk. "Calm down, I don't really care. Is it urgent?"
"Kind of, yeah."
"Kind of, or it is?"
There was a pause. "It is."
Emily rolled her eyes, thankful Ashley couldn't see her (not that she was big on concealing her emotions for other people's sake anyway). "Where would you prefer to meet, then? If it's not too far away I can probably do it tonight."
"Would you mind coming over? I can make you dinner or something as leverage. I just don't think I can get a sitter on such short notice, and…"
You're the one who wanted to arrange a meet-up in the first place. Emily toyed with the hem of her blazer. "Okay. Text me your address and I'll stop by after work."
"Oh, thank you, Emily." The relief was audible in Ashley's voice. "I really, really appreciate this."
"Yeah, whatever. Just text me the address. I have to go."
"Sure, sure! Thanks again, Emily." With that she disconnected.
A moment later Emily received a text with an L.A. address. Thankfully it wasn't too far from her. Maybe a twenty minute ride. She hardly wanted to return to her own house anyway, so she decided she'd make the trip straight from work.
