Unknown Past

‘When are you gonna tell Handsome Mat that you’re attracted to him?’ I asked Ed.

He ignored me and continued watching TV.

‘Try never,’ Thando said. ‘He’s shy and he thinks Mat is too handsome for him.’

‘You told her that? I thought I was your bff.’

Ed turned to me then. ‘I like him but I’m just afraid.’

‘Of what?’ I asked.

‘He’s just so hot and I’m afraid that he’ll reject me,’ Ed said.

I was surprised. ‘You must really like him. You’ve never been shy before.’

‘If I may interject here,’ Thando said. ‘Before you marry him off to a total stranger, you might want to think off… I don’t know… the fact that we know nothing about Matt. Like why did he leave Cape Town? Maybe he was in a gang and things went south, so he was forced to move, to run, to hide.’

Thando, always one with an over active imagination.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Thando,’ I said.

‘He’s pretty cagey about why he left Cape Town. Maybe he’s married and has kids.’

‘Maybe he was a stripper,’ I said. We laughed.

‘Or a pimp.’ We laughed. ‘All I’m saying is that we need to check him out. I don’t want to see Ed broken hearted again,’ Thando said.

That, I couldn’t argue with.

‘We need to find out more about him,’ I said. ‘Because I can see that you like him.’

‘No guys,’ Ed  said. ‘We’re not going to go dinging into Matt’s past. If he wants us to know something, he’ll tell us.’

‘But, Ed…’ Thando complained.

‘No! Absolutely not!’

I wanted to protest, but Ed said, ‘That’s final.’

Thando and I looked at each other. We nodded. Ed didn’t want us to check Matt’s past, then we simply had to do it behind his back.

So as it turns out, Matt had nothing to hide. No ex wife. No children. No gangs. We found that out the hard way.

We were inside Matt’s apartment. It was beautifully furnished and everything was in its place.

‘Gee, this guy is freakishly neat,’ Thando said. ‘He’s not going to be our friend.’

‘You mean, he’s not gonna be your friend,’ I said. ‘You are the slob of the group.’

She scowled.

We started searching the apartment. We weren’t sure what we were looking for, but we knew we’d know when we found it. While we were busy, we heard footsteps outside the apartment.

‘Oh my ghosh, I thought he was working till late,’ Thando said.

We franticly looked around, searching for a place to hide.

‘What do we do?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know!’

We ran around in circles before deciding to crouch behind the couch, just as the door opened.

Matt walked in. He went to the bedroom and dropped the gym bag there. We continued moving around the couch as Matt moved around the apartment.

I reached for my phone and dialled.

‘Hello,’ Ed said.

‘Ed,’ I whispered. ‘We need you to come down to Matt’s apartment and… take him away.’

‘What do you mean, “take him away”?’

‘We’re kinda in his apartment right now.’

‘What?’

‘And we weren’t expecting him to be back so soon.’

‘What are you doing at his apartment?’

‘Long story,’ I said.

‘Tell him to hurry, I need to pee,’ Thando said, crossing her legs. She looked really uncomfortable.

‘Hurry, before Thando ruins Matt’s expensive carpet.’

Ed cut the call without saying another word.

‘He’s really angry,’ I said.

‘What do we do now?’ Thando asked. She was getting desperate.

I shrugged.

There was a knock on the door. We both looked towards it.

Matt appeared from the kitchen and went to answer the door. As a result, we had to change our position behind the couch. Thando was crouching with her legs crossed, which made it difficult for her to move.

It was Ed! We were so relieved.

‘I made some dinner for my friends, they’ve gone MIA. So… I was wondering if you’d like to join me.’

Matt was silent for a while.

‘I’m the best cook in the group. My friends can’t cook. They are terrible cooks. They can’t even boil an egg,’ Ed said. Of course, that was not true; we weren’t that bad.

‘Ja, sure, I’d love to,’ Matt said. He locked the door behind him and they left.

Thando and I stood.

‘That was close,’ Thando said. She ran to the bathroom. I laughed.

We decided to stop prying on Handsome Matt’s life. If he became part of our group, we wanted it to happen naturally.