Chapter Text
Monica leaned back about two seconds after Gilfoyle leaned forward, nearly falling off her bar stool in the process.
"I'm sorry, what?" she sputtered, fixing Gilfoyle with her trademark wince.
She wasn't prepared for how crushed and flustered Gilfoyle looked. Unfortunately, the added vulnerability of rejection made him look even more attractive than usual. He was so stoic usually that she felt like she'd unlocked the secret level in a video game. Her senses were receiving so much conflicting information that she couldn't process it. She decided to switch on her 'hardass professional' persona until she had more information.
"You said you didn't like me like that," she said. "You literally said it. You know what would be refreshing, if one goddamn time, a guy friend actually said we were just friends and meant it!"
Gilfoyle's entire body sagged. "I thought ... we'd been hanging out a lot, and ..."
"I work in an industry that is ninety percent men!" she roared. "And I've been working eighty hour weeks lately. Surprise, asshole, most of my friends are guys!"
She curled an arm around her elbow. "And you know, I thought things might be different with you guys. God knows Raviga was one big frat party, what with the tequila, and the fucking shirts and skins basketball games at fucking Oracle arena ... I actually played once, you know, just to prove a point, even played in my sports bra, thought it would be empowering but actually they just laughed at me."
"Bream Hall wasn't like that though, was it?" Gilfoyle said, beginning to relax.
Monica looked up in surprise. Was he actually listening to what she was saying, even after discovering she didn't want to kiss him? He hadn't even made a crude joke about the mental image of her in a sports bra.
"No," she said. "Bream Hall was just ... weird. Like, I'd finally made partner, something I've been dreaming about since high school, but then ... I wasn't actually Laurie's partner at all. And all her weird social mannerisms got way more annoying when I had to spend that much time with her. And the meetings with clients, oh god, you should've seen her trying to talk to Keenan Feldspar. It was like if you put an iceberg and a forest fire in the same room, him trying soooo hard to get her to express any sort of excitement and she was just like ..." she did a highly accurate impression of Laurie's blank face.
"Smart lady," said Gilfoyle. "You guys were the only ones who saw through him. Sometimes being a cold fish has its advantages in the business world."
Monica exhaled. "Not exactly a great workplace though. And then when Richard finally invited me to come work for Pied Piper, it was like ... I mean I've known you guys for years, and you're, you know, mildly disastrous, but you've always been like this weird brotherhood. And I thought, finally, I'll get to handle money my own way, not have to answer to some other VC, and I'll be a part of ..."
"The guys," Gilfoyle supplied. "No, I get it." He shook his head sadly. "Got it. You're not attracted to me. Won't happen again."
Monica tilted her head to the side. "Well I didn't say that."
Gilfoyle frowned.
"Look, you are attractive, Gilfoyle. Physically, you are very much my type. So if I gave off ... signals ... I'm sorry."
"You don't want to mess up our professional relationship, then," said Gilfoyle.
"Yeah," said Monica. "That, and ... you're kind of an asshole sometimes. I've dated enough people like you in college to know I don't want that."
He wasn't being an asshole now though, she thought. He was actually pretty sensitive when he wanted to be. His eyes were so warm right now...
Noooooo, she also thought. He's doing this because he still wants to sleep with you! He's still an asshole! You can't "fix him"!
Gilfoyle pouted gorgeously at her. "I guess I kind of thought you saw through my, you know ... Once you get to know me, I don't have to be that way."
"You're still that way to other people though," she explained. "I don't want to date a guy who's nice to me but mean to his family, friends, coworkers, and the wait staff, who misses meetings as a power move and says racist shit for shock value. I want a boyfriend I can be proud to be with."
He looked even sadder than before, like maybe he was even seriously considering his flaws as a person. "Okay, so no charmingly acerbic boyfriend for you. We could still hook up, you know."
She looked around. "Actually I'm a Catholic," she whispered. "I don't do hookups."
Gilfoyle's eyes widened in surprise and amusement. "No shit. I thought you were too intelligent to go for the Nazarene."
Monica folded his arms. "Don't give me that intolerant bullshit. Also, not everybody has their religious beliefs literally tattooed on themselves, Hellspawn. You know what it's like being a Christian in the Valley."
He crossed one leg over the other slowly. "Just didn't think of you as the sexually repressed type."
"I have a vibrator," she growled. "Men aren't as important as they think."
"Aren't you divorced, anyway?" he asked.
"Widowed," she corrected him, a shadow crossing her heart.
"Shit," he said.
"And before you ask, we didn't even use birth control. My cervix is fucked up. So yes, I am Catholic, I don't have sex outside of marriage, and no, that does not reflect on my intelligence, or make me less of a woman, or less of an adult, or less enlightened, or oppressed. I've heard them all. It's my choice and it's none of your business."
She looked down at her glass of wine. She'd said more than she'd meant to. Why did Gilfoyle have to be so easy to talk to?
"I'm sorry about what I said about your late husband cheating on you," he said sincerely.
"Save it," she said. "So. Now that you know we have diametrically opposed personalities and religious beliefs, are you satisfied that we can't be together in any sense of the word? Or are you going to get all macho and decide that I'm just one more stupid hill to conquer?"
Gilfoyle's eyes gleamed, and she had her answer.