Eventually, after drinking several more gulps of water, he recovered enough to rasp, “What?”
“I mentioned weeks ago that the article I’m writing will include dry humpers, right? New York is where the best dry humpers are. Well, New York and LA. But my writing partner is covering the ones in LA, so I’m flying to New York to check out one in particular. I had to book the spot over a month ago, as this guy is very popular.”
“A guy?” He choked on nothing this time, making a face.
“Yes. A guy. Tommy—in LA—will be visiting a female humper.”
Matt was quiet for a long moment, inspecting me, and then asked, “This weekend, you say?”
“That’s right. I fly out Friday morning. My appointment is Friday late afternoon, then I’ll fly back to Chicago Saturday morning.”
“What airline?”
“Why?”
“I fly a lot. Just curious.”
“Midwest Air.”
“Hmm.” He was frowning, inspecting me with a new kind of intensity. “Are you going by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“What if he’s a serial killer?”
That made me laugh. “He’s not a serial killer. I had to call in a few favors just to get his number. He’s the most sought-after dry humper in New York.”
Matt shook his head at me, his face telling me that he either thought I was crazy, or something in his mouth tasted like garbage. “Can you hear the words coming out of your mouth? ‘The most sought-after dry humper in New York.’ You’re insane, admit it. You’re insane, this is a cry for help, and you need your best friend Matt to step in and save you from yourself.”
My cell phone buzzed from my bag, prompting me to reach for it. “Says the man who wants to replace human relationships with companion robots. Maybe one of your robots could specialize in dry humping, then would you think it’s crazy?”
“No. Because it would be a robot and not a human man shoving his—” Matt shook his head, cutting himself off and looking a little nauseated. “I can’t even say it.”
I glanced at my phone screen, sighed, sent it to voicemail, and placed it on my desk face down.
Matt’s attention moved between the phone and me. “Was that your ex?”
“Yep.”
“You’re still sending his calls to voicemail?”
“Yep.”
“It’s been months. You still haven’t talked to him?”
“No. Not yet.” I squirmed in my seat.
“Marie . . .” Matt shook his head at me, as though I disappointed him.
“You know he won’t leave a message. Who calls twice a week for months and doesn’t leave a message?”
I snapped my mouth shut after asking the question because it actually sounded like something I would do. David was being stubborn, giving me a heads-up that we needed to talk without giving me any hints as to why. And I was being stubborn, refusing to pick up or call him back.
In a nutshell, this was exactly the kind of behavior that caused our relationship to fail.
“If you want to know, it appears you’ll have to call him back.” His tone was heavily laden with sarcasm.
“Or I could change my number.”
Matt gave me a plaintive look. The look distracted me long enough for him to swipe my phone.
“Wait, what are you doing?” I reached across my desk.
“Let’s call him.” Matt was tapping through screens, navigating to my recent call list.
“Let’s not.” I tried to grab his wrist, endeavoring to snatch my phone back, and cursing myself for not making it password protected.
“Too late.” He flashed me the screen, then brought it to his ear.
“Matt, don’t—”
“Hi? Is this David? Hi, David. Long story short, this is Marie’s boyfriend, Matt. Nice to meet you. I’d really appreciate it if you—wait, what was that?”
My mouth dropped open at his claim and I shook my head, whispering adamantly, “Stop it!”
“The party? Oh, yes. We got the invitation, but we’re not sure if we can make it. Marie has a work conflict that she’s been trying to reschedule.”
I buried my face in my hands, continuing to shake my head.
“How about I contact you tomorrow with a firm answer? Does that work?”
He paused, as though listening to David on the other end. I peeked through my fingers and found Matt had retrieved his own phone and was entering something into it.
“Yep. I have your number. I’ll text you either way. Okay. Yeah. Ha ha,” Matt’s eyes sharpened on me, “tell me about it. Yep. Okay. Bye.”
I pulled my hands from my face and accepted my phone back, glaring at my so-called friend. “You overstepped.”
“I pushed. Big difference.” He gave me a look that was somehow both apologetic and unrepentant.
“Yes. You did. And you lied.”
“Technically I didn’t lie. I’m a boy, who is your friend.”
“The last time I heard someone say those words, I was thirteen.”
His gaze softened. “If you’re ever going to find happiness, then you need to get over this guy.”
I fought the urge to surrender to uncontrollable laughter. Pot. Meet Kettle. You have everything in common.
“I am over him.”
“No. You’re not. Evading his calls for weeks—no, months!—isn’t the way to do it. Avoidance isn’t the way. You need to confront things head-on.”
“Like you confront things head-on?”
“Yes. Exactly like me. Which brings me to the second part of my proposition.”
I braced myself, honestly worried about what it could be.
Something about my expression must’ve been funny, because Matt laughed. “Don’t look so afraid.”
“I can’t help it. I never know what to expect with you.”
“But that keeps things interesting, right?” He gave me a saucy and over-exaggerated wink that had me rolling my eyes.
“Just tell me what it is.”
“Okay. I propose that, in return for your help next weekend with Kerry and Marcus . . .”
Matt paused, his eyes holding mine with an unsmiling, unwavering stare. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he almost looked nervous. But before I could consider this as a possibility, he finished his thought on a rush. “I’ll go—as your date—to your ex’s engagement party.”
18
Cyc
A “thinking” artificial intelligence project that attempts to assemble a comprehensive ontology and knowledge base of everyday common sense knowledge, with the goal of enabling AI applications to perform human-like reasoning.
Source: Cycorp
I turned Matt down.
He told me to reconsider, both his offer to escort me to David’s party and my trip to New York to engage a professional dry humper.
And that’s where we left it because I had a conference call to prepare for.
At least, I thought that was where we left it.
But then Friday morning, as I was waiting outside the gate for my flight to New York, who should I see but Matt Simmons.
Walking toward me.
With an effervescent smile, entirely too effervescent for 6:00 AM.
Wearing black dress pants, a sky-blue button-down shirt, and Converse.