Page 86 of Save the Date

“I know, I’m sorry.” Emma scrambled out of the car.

“What are you doing?” Matt demanded, climbing out after her. They stood facing each other over his Porsche Panamera. “What the hell is going on? Are you having some sort of—”

“Psychotic break? No. I don’t think so. But I was starting to have a full-blown anxiety attack until I realized we don’t have to do this. We don’t have to get married.”

Matt’s confusion quickly turned to hurt. “Where is this coming from? Because I like to watch sunsets and not talk all the time? Or did Kelly say something the other night that turned you off?”

Emma shook her head. When Matt had shut down their conversation about Kelly’s late-night visit, Emma had tried to convince herself it was because Kelly no longer meant anything to him. But now, in light of her own epiphany, it was glaringly obvious.

The real reason Matt couldn’t talk about Kelly was because she still meant too much to him.

“Kelly didn’t say anything bad. She’s still in love with you and I don’t want to be the reason you two aren’t together.”

“You aren’t. I was already getting divorced when we met.”

“I know, but that was a mistake. You shouldn’t throw away what you and Kelly have over one mistake.”

“Shecheatedon me.”

“One time, under duress! I’d bet good money she’d never do it again.”

Matt shook his head in frustration. “This doesn’t make any sense. I thought your whole thing was that there is no such thing as soulmates, and we can be happy with a bunch of different people. Do you not agree with that anymore?”

“No, I do.”

“Then why do you keep acting like Kelly is the only person for me when I—” Matt stopped himself.

“When you what?”

“I was going to say ‘when I love you’ but I realized we haven’t said that to each other yet.”

“Exactly.” Emma was glad that Matt had gotten to the heart of their issues himself, even if he hadn’t meant to. “Whyhaven’t we said it yet? We’re engaged and we’ve been together for a few months. Most regular couples would have already said it at this point.”

Matt shrugged. “Nothing about us has been regular.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t explain why it’s been so easy for us to wait until marriage to have sex. Shouldn’t we want to rip each other’s clothes off? Have you even thought about how weird that is?”

“If sex is your big problem, we can have sex right now. The windows are tinted. I can lower the seats down. Just get in.”

“Matt,” Emma said gently. “You know that won’t solve anything. The whole point of Operation: Save My Date was that if two people have a certain level of chemistry and compatibility they can make a marriage work even if they don’t know each other for a long time. But what if we don’t have enough chemistry or compatibility?”

Matt hung his head, showing his first sign of defeat. “I really wanted this to work.”

“Believe me, I did too. And so did my book editor.”

Matt chuckled as he wiped his eyes. “Maybe I messed things up by not letting us sleep together. That could have prevented us from getting closer.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it. We tried our best, but you need a spark to start a flame. And it just wasn’t there.”

Matt nodded. It was a relief to know that underneath all his certainty, he had felt the same lack of connection. Perhaps if neither of them had properly been in love before they would have thought what they had together was enough. But they each knew what it was like to be fully tethered, in your heart and in your mind, to another person—and this wasn’t it.

“What now?” Matt asked gently.

“I think you should get in your car and you go find Kelly.”

Matt barked out a laugh. It was maybe the loudest one she’d heard from him yet.

“I can’t just show up and ask for my ex-wife back. We’re divorced, remember?”

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