"What?" Monica's laughter stopped abruptly.
"I deleted it. I'm not a fucking perv or controlling. Just a lapse in judgment, I wanted to know if you were seeing him again. I felt so disgusted I even talked to fucking Dinesh about it." Monica had never heard Gilfoyle talk so fast.
"You cloned my phone?" She was confused. "Oh, when you took it to upgrade its security, you cloned it?" He nodded. "But you never looked?"
He intensely studied the coffee table, "Dinesh and I SWOTed it." Monica pursed her lips to stop from laughing. It was creepy as fuck, but what a fucking nerd!
"Nerd!" she said accusatorily, "you SWOTed with your best friend on whether to invade my privacy. Fuck Gilfoyle!" She couldn't hold in the laugher anymore.
"He's not my best friend," Gilfoyle quietly groused.
"Yes. He. Is. You pervy nerd! And not my point, you are such a dork, you SWOTed committing illegal wire-tapping" she stood up howling with laughter. "Jared must be so proud!" Tear starting to form in the corners of her eyes, Monica startled Gilfoyle when she gently grabbed his face in both hands and turned his gaze from the coffee table. "You are a creepy fucking nerd, and a giant fucking dork" she smiled down at him before quickly kissing him on the lips. It was sweet, but so fucking creepy, and he looked so ashamed, but the image of him carefully considering it with Dinesh just warmed her heart. What a fucking dork.
Gilfoyle made a sound like a whimper when she pulled away, and Monica's laughter faded away, the energy in the room shifted. His hands came up to her hips, their faces still close. His hands felt heavy, though he was barely holding her, there was a pull in her stomach, and her whole body ached. She watched his gaze at it flickered between lips and her eyes; it made her heart skip a beat. He slowly rose from the chair, forcing her to straighten. They stood there barely touching, Monica felt arousal and anticipation pull in her pelvis, as his hands weighed heavily on her hips, even though they were barely touching her. He let out a heavy breath, and walked to the kitchen for another beer, his hands in fists, she could see the conflict in his body. It was confusing, she knew he wanted to kiss her back.
"Where was this self-control when you were cloning my phone?" She half-heartily teased.
Turning from the fridge he said levelly "I crossed a serious line legally, ethically, and morally, and you think it's funny."
"Yes and no," Monica said in a frustrated tone following him to the kitchen. "It's creepy as fuck, and only cute because I like you, but still deeply problematic, but if you didn't look it's theoretically no harm, no foul. We can file it away as one of Pied Piper's leadership's many ethically questionable actions."
"What if I did look?"
"What?" Monica said cooly leaning against the counter and crossing her arms, remembering Gilfoyle's penchant for true what-ifs
"What if we SWOTed and decided Dinesh could look at your messages with that dick, and only that dick, from the day of your date to when I cloned the phone? What if I know you're fucking him and he's engaged?"
"Are you fucking serious Gilfoyle? Fuck off with the what if? Did you do that? Did you decide it was okay for Dinesh to invade my privacy as long as it abided by the arbitrary rules you set in order to justify it?" Monica could feel her rage building.
"Yes."
"Jesus FUCK Gilfoyle, how is that okay? How could you do that?" Monica grabbed her phone and scrolled to the days in question wondering what she and Matty had even texted about.
While she did so Gilfoyle, helpfully digging his own grave added "I didn't come to work because I was angry that you would fuck a taken dickhole instead of me, angry with myself for being angry with you like some fucking controlling perv, angry I opened Schrödinger's box. I was.." He trailed off as Monica held up hand to silence him.
Wednesday (day of their "date"):
Matty [01:03 PM]: Pink roses? Seriously. It's hella gay. Fuck this wedding bullshit
Monica [01:04 PM]: I'll reaffirm your manhood on Friday big boy
Thursday:
Matty [09:00 PM]: El has night shift, call you around 8?
Monica [09:15 PM]: sounds good
Friday:
Matty [11:30 AM]: Can't wait for tonight! You should wear that red number, so fucking hot!
Saturday:
Monica [12:00 PM]: When is El next on night shift, trying to plan my week?
Matty [12:35 PM]: screenshot of El's work calendar
Monica [12:45 PM]: Looks like I'll be having lots of fun without you next week, but we're on for tomorrow night right?
Matty [01:00 PM]: absolutely, bring tequila. gotta make sure we replace what we used. Can't make El mad, happy future wife, happy life bullshit and etcetera
Monica saw Gilfoyle start to head towards the door. "Where do you think you're going? We aren't done here."
Monday:
Monica [09:30 AM]: Jesus fucking Christ, Pied Piper is a disaster. We got a box of dead rats, and deep fakes fucking each other. Fucking fuck! This place is cursed
Matty [09:40 AM]: I don't even know what that means… Call tonight or save it for Saturday and we can do something to make you forget all about it
Monica [09:41 AM]: why not both?
Matty [09:41 AM]: Your wish = my command
Monica eyed Gilfoyle coolly, rolling around this new information in her head. Reading it as though they were texts between lovers, it did look like incriminating evidence of her being a homewrecker. Monica had to admit, she could see why Dinesh and Gilfoyle thought she was fucking Matty. Especially after he called their lunch a date for the whole office to hear.
She took a deep breath, steadying the pure rage she felt building in her.
"You and Dinesh have THE MOST disgusting, destructive, enabling friendship I have ever seen. This is a violation. You two autistic FUCKS could rationalize your way in to murder. Cloning my phone? And then being angry with me for what you find? Is incel behavior, you sick sick bastard" Gilfoyle started to object but Monica raised her voice "I'm. Not. Done. I don't think I have ever been so angry." Her tone turned icy. "You sat here and told me how you felt about me was different, but this shit is exactly how you and Dinesh behave with any girl that looks at him. So, the only way I'm 'different' is instead of having the misfortune of catching Dinesh's eye and being your guys' entertainment for the week, I had the distinct misfortune to catch yours."
"I would argue," Monica's eyebrows shot up as he started to speak but he carried on, "it is a reflection of how confused I was by my feelings for you that I turned to Dinesh for guidance."
"Convenient, trying to blame Dinesh like you two don't use each other to enable your behavior constantly. You are both adults and responsible for your own actions, and you are both disgusting."
"I fucked up, I know I fucked up. I can avoid you at work, I can never talk to you again if you want. You can hate me. I can hate myself. We don't need to hash it out." He started to leave.
"Oh, fuck off you cretin. I'm mad, I don't hate you, you fucking asshole. So, you will stand here and let me be mad at you. And we will air all of this out, and then decide if we are able to handle these feelings in a mature way from now on, alright?" Gilfoyle's mouth fell open and his eyes went wide with shock, Monica continued in the same clipped tone. "This was childish. And immature. And DISGUSTING. And we will thoroughly dissect your feelings of jealousy at some point, should we decide to continue this" Monica's tone switched to one of disgust as she gestured between them, "thing."
Gilfoyle nodded.
"Matty and I last fucked" she rolled her eyes when she saw Gilfoyle's hands curl in to fists, "over 3 years ago, he is my best friend! My very best friend who, after listening to me bitch and moan about your dwebish declaration, decided to rattle your cage at the office," she started speaking faster, her fury rising even more. "He thinks my feelings for you are cute, and that you may be a nice change of pace for me, we'll see if he still thinks so after I let him know the American psycho bullshit his childish gambit triggered in you." Gilfoyle's face was completely unreadable to Monica, "his fiancé El, was here last night, if you looked further, like I don't know, bothered to see that I also received texts from El or you could have checked facebook like a normal fucking human being and seen we are friends! But being a colossally pervy, single focused, autism spectrum fuck, you did not look at the whole picture, you took the creepiest route. Not that you should have been looking at the picture at all!"
There was silence for several minutes until Gilfoyle broke it.
"I'm not on the spectrum," he stated. He wanted to take full responsibility for this, it's why he told her to begin with, and her constantly calling him autistic felt like it was removing blame from him somehow.
"Even thinking that's somehow relevant to point out right now is not disproving the statement, asshole," Monica snapped at him, but he saw some of the tension leave her shoulders, "Dinesh must think I'm some kind of home wrecking whore." Her face showed disgust and anger.
"He was too busy taunting me about having a crush on you to realize what the texts could mean. Beyond that it meant you were fucking that guy and not going to be fucking me," He hadn't wanted to start something without her having all the information, healthy relationships are built on honesty, but he was struggling to understand her response. He took the risk in telling her, but fully expected her to kick him out, to never want to see him again.
"Damn it Gilfoyle, this is so fucked up," her voice was quiet. "You didn't look at my pictures?"
He shook his head no.
Monica exhaled, "let me be clearer, neither you nor Dinesh looked at my pictures?" Her authoritarian schoolmarm tone was kind of hot, and he smirked despite the seriousness in the air.
"No, Monica. No one looked at your pictures." He said earnestly.
"Neither you nor Dinesh, looked at anything else on my phone besides the messages?"
"Dinesh also looked to see how often you call Matty," this feels like it heading in a promising direction Gilfoyle thought, his heart starting to hope that maybe he hadn't fucked things up with Monica before they'd even started.
"Thank you, for being honest," her half smile made his heart skip a beat. "No one besides you and Dinesh were involved in this, or know about it?"
"I don't know for sure, but I don't think he told anyone. Jared would have started playing Uncle Jerry's game if he knew, or just told you" Gilfoyle stated confident that Jared would have done that creepy thing where he pretends all is well, or immediately told Monica.
She took a step towards him, and he thought of that one line from the Expanse series. He hadn't understood how instincts could be fragmented like that, and yet here he was, with his lizard brain screaming 'mate with it, run from it, hide from it, kiss it!' like it was having some sort of schizophrenic episode. He was terrified, and hopeful, and so scared he might fuck up right now he didn't want to move a muscle.
"You have completely removed the clone, there is no copy? No backup? Nothing?"
"Yes," he answered and she took another step towards him.
"Do you have any other confessions to make? Any other creepy fucking shit you've done regarding me?"
"I considered fucking up his life, but I never put anything in to action," Gilfoyle was going with unbridled honesty because it seemed to be working.
Monica took another step and put her hands on his chest, he hoped she couldn't feel his heart start racing. "And going forward you will resist behaving like an autistic incel? You'll opt for maturity, and we'll maintain this level of honesty?" She was smiling at him, he couldn't believe his luck, that he had somehow navigated this successfully.
"Of course," he was frozen in place for a second as she reached up and gently pressed her lips to his. But only a second, before the feeling of her lips on his overrode his self-control and he brought a hand to her head to deepen the kiss.