Chapter
Eight:
Chapter
Eight:
Avoidance
Emily slammed the bathroom door hard and power walked back to the booth where her friends were sitting and laughing. All she could think about was getting the hell out of there, she was furious with Matt and she certainly didn't want to spend happy hour with him. "I think I'm going to take off now. See you guys tomorrow" She said to the group as she grabbed her jacket and purse from the booth.
"I thought you were getting a refill" Lia stated. She could tell that Emily was upset about something but knew better than to pry.
"Change of plans. I'll see you tomorrow" Emily said turning on her eel and walking out of the bar. As Emily left the bar, Matt returned to the booth and joined the festivities like nothing had happened.
Emily drove into the underground parking it was 7:30 the next morning. She shut off her car, she was actually trying to be late for work, trying to avoid a certain someone, if she ran over to the Starbucks around the corner that would killed sometime, she had a class at 8:00 so a coffee run would basically give her just enough time to get into the office and grab her notes before class and she would not have to talk to him.
Emily's planned worked just as she hoped; she got back to the office just in time to grab her binder of notes and head for class. She managed to mumble a good morning to Matt to be polite before taking off. Matt just nodded and continued to work on a couple of files he had left from the night before, he had no intention of being there when she got out of class, he would be downstairs at the shooting range, he could kill a few hours down there if needed.
An hour later, Emily was finishing up her lecture "Alright everyone that will wrap the hour and I'll see you on Tuesday." Everyone got up and got ready to leave as Emily started to gather up her notes and place them back into her binder. She noticed that Lia was just getting ready to leave. "Hey Lia can I talk to you for a second" Emily said
"Sure as long as we walk and talk I need an Advil." Lia said
"Late night?" Emily questioned
"I ended up doing shots with Duff after you left. And I didn't leave until 12:30, the guys were still there than." Lia told her
"Sounds interesting. Wait all of the guys were still there?" Emily asked. She just assumed that Matt took off right after her. She couldn't believe he had stayed.
"Yeah, well Jack left like ten minutes before me. But I think I heard Duff say they didn't leave until like two" Lia said "why does this matter?"
"Never mind it's not important" Emily said "I can't go out with your friend Colin. I'm kind of seeing someone I think, anyhow it's complicated but I don't want to screw it up, I just agreed last night because I didn't want you to pry. I'm not ready to talk about it yet Ok." Emily said
"I'm too hung over to be nosey anyhow." Lia said
"Alright, I guess I should go do something productive. I'll catch you later" Emily said as she left Lia and walked down the hall to her desk. She had gotten out of the date because she really didn't want to screw it up but she was in no mood to fix things with Matt just yet. She was relived to see that Matt was no where in sight. If she was lucky maybe she could avoid him for the rest of the day. Emily was aware that avoiding Matt was probably not the healthiest or mature solution but it worked for her. She sat down to her desk and started to do some work.
Meanwhile Matt was downstairs at the shooting range with the Frank and Duff. "Man, you are off today" Duff told Matt after the third time he miss the target.
"Not feeling very well today, Flannery?" Frank asked laughing
"Yeah I'm hung over" Matt said, that explanation was better than the truth. He couldn't concentrate on what he was doing. He kept thinking about Emily and last night. Now he had a few hours to calm down and look back, he figured he may have over reacted but he was too stubborn to admit that to her, so his answer was to avoid Emily.
The day seem to drag on forever, it takes a lot of effect to avoid your partner but finally the work day came to an end. Emily and Matt had managed to go the entire day without having to spend more than a few awkward moments together. At 5:00, Emily left work with Lia so she wouldn't have to walk out with Matt and Matt left with Frank for the exact same reason.
They both knew as they went their separate ways that something had to be done because it was impossible for them to continue working or living this way. But neither wanted to make the first move, both were letting their pride get in the way of fixing something great.