“Matt Reynolds brought my mom funny movies and buttered rolls from the deli when she was going through chemo. He taught my sister how to ride a two-wheel bike. You can’t buy loyalty like that.”
Jack Moskowitz, Northeastern Entrepreneur Summit
“Shit!” Jack jumped up.
“Who is that?” Kate whispered while she used her hands to cover her most naked parts.
“Hold on! I’ll be right out!” Jack pulled his jeans on and grabbed his tee-shirt. He pulled his shirt and slipped his sneakers on at the same time.
Kate crawled on the floor till she had grabbed every piece of clothing that Jack had thrown all over the room. “The one time I try something Fifty Shades-ish,” she muttered under her breath.
Jack leaned down and kissed Kate, quick and light on the lips. “I’ll be right back.”
Matt’s hair stood up in rain-darkened spikes and his damp shirt clung to him, illuminating the faintest hint of a burgeoning beer belly which Jack had never noticed before. He held his skateboard under the crook of his arm so that the muddy wheels left a dark mark under his armpit.
Jack grabbed Matt’s arm and steered him through the corridor to the hollow spot where the Coke machine used to be, so they would be away from the dance studio.
“What’re you doing here?” hissed Jack.
“It was the only way I could nail your ass down.”
“I said I would meet you first thing tomorrow,” said Jack. “I’m in the middle of something right now.”
“Because you’re dealing with Irina, right?”
“Right.”
“Then, how come Irina’s in her office while you’re hanging out in a ballet studio with the fem-bot? What the fuck’s going on, Jack?” Matt, who was normally a close talker, tended to push the boundary even more when he was angry.
“Keep your voice down. We’re just having dinner.” Jack took a step back and wound up crammed against the wall.
“Are you really going to stand there with your crazy sex hair, reeking of pussy, and tell me you were just having dinner?”
“You’re the one who told me to get to know her in the first place, so don’t give me shit about this.” Jack smoothed down the top of his hair.
“Seriously? I can’t believe you were just banging our archenemy in a dance studio! What the fuck?!”
“Keep your voice down.”
“And why did you feed me some bullshit line about meeting with Irina?”
“It’s a long story. I can’t get into it here—too many people.”
Matt dropped his skateboard by his feet and cradled both hands on top of his wet head.
“What’s really going on?” Jack knew this was about more than just him and Kate. It was clear Matt had been in meltdown mode long before he stumbled upon them in the dance studio.
“Anne’s pregnant.” Matt’s eyes darted back and forth from Jack to his own clenched fists and back to Jack again.
“Shit, I didn’t think she was dating anyone else yet.” It had been bad enough when Matt had come home from a day at the skate park to find most of his apartment boxed up with a two-line Dear John letter sitting on top of the empty dog crate. Anne having a baby with someone else was sure to finish the poor guy off.
“It’s mine.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“We had killer breakup sex the day we signed the divorce papers.”
“Let me get rid of Kate. I’ll meet you at your apartment in ten.”
Jack watched as Matt sloshed down the hall. He took a deep breath and smoothed his hair back.
When Jack got back to the room, Kate was tossing their emptied take out containers into the large garbage can by the ballet barre. She had all of her clothes back on and her hair pulled up in that bunch of curls that made Jack just want to rip her clothes right back off again.
“Everything okay?” Kate leaned down and blew out the candles.
“This time I really did double book myself.”
“You planned another romantic picnic for Studio C?”
“I have one of those can’t miss—my future hangs in the balance kind of business meetings.” The lie slipped clean and smooth off Jack’s lips and he realized that lying was becoming second nature to him these days.
“Web site designing, romantic dinners, business meetings, what else do you do at Chelsea Piers?”
“I scheduled it before I found out about David. With everything going on I just…”
“It’s okay, Jack. I get it.”
Kate grabbed one side of the tablecloth and motioned for Jack to grab the other side. Her hands touched his as they both reached to grab the halved cloth. She held her hands against his as they folded the cloth together.
“Shit. I don’t want to go.” Jack dropped the folded tablecloth on the floor and grabbed Kate. As soon as his mouth touched hers, Jack wanted to rip her clothes back off again. He figured Matt could wait another few minutes, or ten or twenty, couldn’t he?
Kate pulled away first, the reluctance written all over her face. “You better go. Call me later.” She waved her hands around the room. “I’ll take care of all this.”
The skies had opened up, one of those quick volatile storms that resolved just as quickly as it started. The Hudson River was still rippled with angry waves, and the harbored boats were pockmarked with bubbles of water on the wax-coated varnish. All Jack could think about on the five-block walk to Matt’s was Kate and what he would’ve done to her if they hadn’t been interrupted.
Jack used his key when Matt didn’t answer the door right away. As soon as he walked in, it hit him that he hadn’t been back since Anne had first left. Sun broke through the clouds and streamed in through the uncovered windows, illuminating the shinier space on the floor where the couch had once sat. The only piece of furniture left in the living room was the battered leather armchair Matt and Jack had rescued off the corner of Ninth and 23rd Street when Matt had first moved in. The chair had always been a bone of contention between Anne and Matt, so Jack wasn’t surprised that Anne had left it behind.
Matt walked into the bare living room in a dry tee-shirt and gray cargo pants, vigorously rubbing a towel through his water darkened hair.
“Hey man. How you holding up?”
“I feel like I’m having one of those weird dreams where you know you’re dreaming but you can’t wake yourself up. I am really awake, right?”
Jack punched Matt in the arm.
“Dude! What the fuck?”
“You’re awake.”
“Bastard.” Matt lunged for Jack, but Jack was too quick for him.
“This whole thing is crazy. You guys were trying for two years with no luck. Then one round of break up sex and Anne’s pregnant.”
“It wasn’t really once. It was more like…” started Matt.
“I really don’t need the details.”
“I just don’t get why it never worked before. I had sex with her every time that damn pee stick said she was ovulating.” Matt plopped down in his chair and opened the mini black fridge left over from his time in the dorms. He pulled out two Heinekens and handed one to Jack.
“Remember that God awful fertility tea she bought from that quack in Chinatown? That shit smelled like dirty socks.”
“You don’t want to know what it tasted like.” Matt shuddered.
“What about the book Anne got with all those poses that were supposed to help get her pregnant? I made a mental note not to try any of those.”
“She got that book in the beginning, when it was all still good.”
“It was great for a long time with you guys. Anne just lost her shit when she couldn’t get pregnant.”
“I knew we were in trouble when she started buying pregnancy tests at Costco. There would be four or five negative test strips lined up on the counter when I came home from work.”
“Do you think she had sex with you to try one last time for a baby?”
“Hell no. It wasn’t that premeditated. Trust me. I haven’t seen pubes like that since the last time I checked out my collection of ‘80s Playboys.”
“Way too much information, man.”
“She wants to raise the baby alone.” The remnants of Matt’s smile dimmed.
“What do you want?” asked Jack, before taking a long pull of his beer.
“Anne. The baby. All of it. I just need to prove to her that she should take me back. And that’s not going to happen if we fuck up this new line and sink the business.”
“Who said anything about sinking the business?”
“Says the guy who’s been dragging his feet and whining like a pussy in between his sexcapades with the Ann Coulter of childhood obesity.”
“My questioning the new line has nothing to do with Kate.”
“But it has everything to do with Anne and the baby. She thinks I’ve been a drunk fuck up since she left.”
“You kinda have been.”
“Asshole! I got my shit together and nothing’s gonna prove that to Anne like some kickass numbers with the new line.” Matt’s hoarse voice was laced with desperation.
Jack brought his beer down to the dusty floor and sat down on his haunches. “The new line’s solid. I’m in.”
“Fuck yeah!” Matt shouted in a voice left over from his high school football days.
“We need to meet with the marketing team to make sure we go at this the right way.” Jack took a long sip of beer. “I still have my concerns about the company’s image.”
“Whatever. Let me handle that. I need you to focus all of your energy on getting those designs done.”
“The damn undercarriage keeps tripping me up. We need to use more metal this time around to support all the extra weight.”
“You’ll figure it out. You always do.” Matt finished his last drop of beer and grabbed two more from the fridge. “Now that we got that straightened out, can you tell me what the fuck’s going on with you and the fem-bot?”
“I don’t know man. It just happened.” Jack shook his head, thinking back to that day at the dog park. It was all over the minute he saw Kate. “And stop calling her that.”
“I have a few other choice names for her. She-Devil, Anti-Christ, Skinny Bitch…”
“If only you were this creative with stroller names.”
“How does it just happen with a bitch who’s been bad mouthing our company to anyone who will listen? You know it just wasn’t Straight Talk right? She’s been on Twitter too saying all sorts of crap.”
“She’s cool as shit when she’s not talking about strollers.”
“Clearly she still doesn’t know who you are. What the fuck does Kate Richards think you do for a living?”
“I told her I freelance for dot coms.”
“The dot com bubble burst over a decade ago. She must be a total moron!”
“She had no reason to think I would lie to her. That doesn’t make her stupid. It makes me a douchebag.” Jack finished off his beer and cracked open the second one Matt had put in front of him.
“I just don’t get it.” Matt shook his head. “She’s declared all out warfare on our company. What are you thinking?”
“I haven’t felt this way about anyone since Stephanie Riggins. You know the one…”
“How could I forget the med student who got away? We’re fucked.”
“Tell me about it. I’ve gotten myself in deeper and deeper and as soon as she finds out I lied to her it’s all over.”
“You shouldn’t have slept with her. Trust me, I never thought that would be coming out of my mouth. But she’s going to be ripshit when she finds out you lied about who you were and slept with her.”
“You don’t have to tell me that. What the fuck do I do now?”
Matt stood up with a loud groan and stretched. He rolled a basketball out from under the couch and started rapid fire dribbling back and forth across the hard wood floor. He made it to the window and back four times before the downstairs neighbor thumped the ceiling with what sounded like a baseball bat.
“Those assholes from downstairs never leave the apartment! I can’t take a shit without them complaining.”
“I’m fucked. I’m totally fucked.” Jack polished off the last sip of beer and let out a loud burp.
“Don’t tell her who you are just yet. The more attached she gets, the harder it’ll be for her to leave your ass when she finds out what a lying bastard you are.”