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“Matt?” she said hesitantly as she knocked on the door casing.
“What’s up?” I said as I looked up from my computer.
She stepped just inside the door and said, “I just wanted to let you know that Mac has taken a few sick days. . . just thought I’d let you know so you could redistribute anything you may have had her working on. ”
Immediate concern for Mac flushed through me. “What’s wrong with her?”
Karen shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not sure. ”
“You’re not sure?” I asked in disbelief.
“No. She just said she wasn’t feeling well and probably wouldn’t be in until next Monday. ”
She stood there and waited for me to say something.
“Is there anything else?” I asked, my eyebrows raised.
“Well… perhaps you should call her to see what’s wrong?” she said encouragingly.
I blinked at her, trying to comprehend what she was saying. That made me sit back in my chair, because never, in the ten years Karen has been working for me, has she known me to personally call an employee that was sick. The fact that she would suggest I do so now meant that she was probably very much aware of my feelings for Mac, and apparently was sanctioning said feelings. I kind of figured as much when she never questioned the fact I flew to Nashville.
I also found it ironic that my head of human resources, the person that is tasked to make sure everyone in this firm stays on the straight and narrow to abide by all labor laws and ensure we don’t commit any civil violations, was essentially condoning an affair I’m having with an employee.
I’m thinking she was due for a raise, but I didn’t let her know that. I just said, “I’m sure she’s fine,” then went over some other issues in the firm we needed to talk about.
About mid-morning, I got an email from Mac. I was in the middle of dictating a settlement demand letter, leaning way back in my chair, feet kicked up on my desk, when I heard the chime and saw the tiny pop-up box on my computer alerting me to the incoming message. When I saw From: McKayla Dawson, I pushed forward in my chair so fast I almost catapulted myself across the desk. I hit the mouse and opened the email, momentarily envisioning she was apologizing and begging me to come over and f**k her.
Instead, it was a brief email on the Jackson case. She had apparently made all the stupid changes I had requested and her message was short and impersonal.
Attached are the changes you requested.
Guilt crashed over me for making her do that, because her work was quite good. It was true what she said… most of my changes had to do with semantics and while it was also true what I said, that a poorly chosen word could cause major legal ramifications, she had not done that here.
Pushing the guilt aside, I fired back a quick email.
Are you okay? Miss Anders said you were taking a few sick days.
She never responded and after staring at my computer for fifteen minutes waiting for another email from her, I finally gave up and went back to work.
That evening, I cracked open a new bottle of twelve-year-old Macallan. I was again struck with the urge to call Mac, because f**k… I missed her and I was still floundering over my feelings of remorse for what I’ve done to her. I struggled, clutching tightly to my phone, reminding myself over and over again that I didn’t want to get involved with this shit. That I had made a pact with myself when my divorce was finalized that I was through with relationships.
I ended up drinking almost half the bottle while the war inside me raged, and even though I was hungover as shit the next morning, I was proud of myself that I didn’t break down and call her.
There was a correlation, I quickly figured.
Stay drunk, and defeat the urge to reach out to Mac. Eventually, my desire for her would wane, and I would be able to move on.
On Friday, I left work early. It’s something I never do, because I take my job seriously. I take my duties to my clients seriously. But I was restless, my thoughts constantly racing and my stomach constantly churning with the myriad of emotions I was suffering. I was working on some legal research when my mind wandered and I started thinking of Mac.
Shocker, right?
Except this time… I pushed past the guilt of my past actions, and started thinking about “what ifs”.
What if Marissa wasn’t the one I was supposed to be with, and it was supposed to be Mac? Maybe my marriage crumbled for a specific reason that Fate had planned out for me.
What if I would be insanely happy with Mac?
What if I’m missing out on the best thing that has happened to me outside of Gabe?
I was driving myself crazy with these suppositions and decided that the best way to numb the crazy was to get drunk.
I took a walk, wandering aimlessly, until I stumbled upon a tiny bar that looked pretty cool. It was simply called The Bar. The door was open, and I could hear laughter coming from inside. Seemed like a nice place, so I went in.
By seven PM, I found myself good and drunk again. I played a game of darts with some regular customers that hung out there. They were on first-name basis with all the bartenders, who supplied a steady flow of liquor. They were nice enough guys and I couldn’t remember what their names were, even though they kept reminding me. But they asked me if I wanted to join them, and I did, so we shot darts and drank. We actually made a rule, if your dart didn’t hit the board at all, you had to take a shot. The drunker we got, the more the darts went astray, which caused us to drink more, which made us drunker.
It was a vicious cycle and I know that I’m at the point now I need to get home and sleep this off.
I haven’t quite reached the point in my inebriation where I’m able to forget about Mac, but I’m coming out of my “woe is me” pity party. When I stop feeling a little sorry for myself, I start to remember that Mac is the one that I’ve aggrieved. Yes, I’m hurt… but f**k, I’ll admit—at least to myself right now—that was mostly my own doing.
But she’s hurt, and that is all on me.
I’ve caused every bit of her pain.
Pulling out my cell phone, I text Mac a message without much thought.
I’m sorry.
Within seconds, she responds, For what?
Good question. What exactly am I apologizing for? I’m not drunk enough that my brain is fried, and a variety of items for which I’m sorry flash before me.
I’m sorry for treating her like just a f**k toy.
I’m sorry for showing her care and tenderness, then pulling that away from her.
I’m sorry for being an ass and intentionally hurting her feelings.
I start to type a response, but I’ve never been a good texter and when you’re drunk, it makes it exponentially harder, especially when you’re trying to be quick.
So I go with direct and simple, typing Fot ebwryrhing, and then hit “Send”.
I wait for her response, and I get it.
?????
Why the question marks? Does she not understand my apology?
Then I see my texting skills truly do suck, and she has no clue what I just said. I quickly type back and hit “Send”, and only after the message flies off into the internet universe, do I realize it was no better.
For evwtthimf
Shit. I quickly text her again, Fuck, and hope she bears with me.
I try to slow down my fingers, and attempt one more time to apologize “For Everything”, but it just comes out as word salad again.
Fuck it.
I pull up my Contacts and hit Mac’s phone number. She answers on the second ring.
“Matt?”
“H-e-e-e-e-y Mac,” I drawl in what I hope is not too drunk of a voice. God, she sounds fantastic, and I never realized before just how much I love her voice until I had not heard it for a few days. “Didja get my text?”
“Are you drunk?” she asks with suspicion.
“Abso-fucking-lutely,” I tell her truthfully, because when you have as much alcohol in your system as I do, then you tend to say the truth. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice one of the dude’s darts flip end over end and thud against the dartboard, dropping to the floor. “You missed… drink, motherfucker. ”
The guy turns, gives me a sloppy grin, and everyone laughs. I’m so loving my new buds and grin happily back at them.
“I don’t have time for this shit,” Mac sneers, and my attention is jerked back to her. “Call me when you’re sober. ”
“Wait!” I practically yell, panicked, into the phone. “I need to tell you something. ”
“What?” she asks, and I’m not drunk enough to miss the annoyance in her voice. This so isn’t going how I had planned it.
Oh, who was I kidding. I hadn’t planned anything. “I just… it’s just… Aw, f**k. I just miss you, McKayla. ”
She’s quiet for a moment, and I wait anxiously for her to say something. When she does, it’s not what I wanted. “I’m hanging up, Matt. Don’t call back. ”
I turn on my barstool, putting my back to the noise of the rowdy dart game, and lower my voice to almost a whisper. “I lied, McKayla. ”
I hear someone in the background—Macy I assume—say “Hang up… you don’t need to listen to his bullshit. ”
I cringe, because Macy’s right and there’s no reason why Mac wouldn’t call “bullshit” on me.
Thankfully, she doesn’t hang up. “What did you lie about?”
I sigh in relief that she’s still listening to me. I hope she understands that I am laying the absolute truth out to her. “I didn’t use One Night Only again. I just couldn’t go through with it. ”
“Why not?” she whispers, with what I think is hope in her voice. Maybe she hasn’t given up on me completely.
“Because I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re all I want. ” That is the absolute f**king truth too, and it doesn’t hurt as much to admit it as I thought it would. But that still doesn’t mean I’m not scared… and I’m not drunk. I am, in fact, both of these things, so I clarify to her, “It’s why I left work at two o’clock today and hit a bar to get shitfaced. So I could drown you out of my mind… even if only briefly. You’re a blessing, Mac… but you’re also my curse. ”
Then I hang up, but not before I hear her gasp of dismay.
I hurt her again, and the only way to drown the guilt of that out is to continue drinking.
I repeat the same routine Saturday night, except I don’t go out and I don’t text or call Mac. I stay in my apartment and finish off the other half of the Macallan.
Chapter 23
It’s Sunday morning and just within the last forty minutes, I’ve gone from waking up on my bathroom floor with the taste of puke in my mouth to standing at Mac’s apartment door. Within that forty minutes, I showered, popped two Excedrin, brushed my teeth three times, and caught a cab to Mac’s place. Also within that forty minutes, I came up with what I wanted to say to her. It was going to be the most important closing argument of my career.
While this morning’s journey only took forty minutes, it actually took me a few days to come to the realization that this whole f**ked-up situation with Mac did not turn out the way I wanted. I bemoaned my fate for several days, some of which I spent drunk, before I finally got my head out of my ass and decided to take back control of my life.
When Mac walked out of my office five days ago, I was hurt and angry, just as I knew she was. But I was selfish, believing my hurt and anger was the only thing that was important.
By the time Saturday night rolled around, I really started thinking about risk and reward. I took stock of all the ways in which I have been happy and fulfilled since I’ve met Mac, and I really made myself consider whether this was something important enough for me to fight for.
It started to become very simple. I weighed how I was feeling at that very moment against how I was feeling when Mac and I were together. It sort of became a no brainer to me. That if my life is shitty right now, it’s really my own doing, because I clearly had someone that was making me happy.