Dating You / Hating You
Page 16

This time, she refrains.
Relieved, Steph turns back to me. “How was your date?”
MC perks up. I take a bite of my dinner and chew while I think, hoping my face doesn’t betray me. My heart jolts noticeably when I think about last night. I haven’t had this kind of physical reaction to a woman in years.
“It was great,” I say. “She’s just . . . she’s fu—” I glance at Morgan midsentence. “Fu-reaking great.”
“Great,” Steph agrees slowly, with a smile to match her tone. She watches me like I’m going to elaborate, but in reality what more can I say? I want things with Evie to go somewhere, and I really think that they can. It’s why I told her I didn’t want us to have sex yet, even though I really, really wanted to.
“She was similarly bare bones on details.” Stephanie stabs her chicken with a fork. “You’re both brats.”
“Am I supposed to tell you about our first kiss during study hall?”
She shoots up, eyes glimmering. “You guys kissed!”
“All right, crazy.” Michael puts his hand on her forearm. “Let’s not scare the nice boy away. They’ll tell us what they want us to know when they want us to know it. I mean, at the very least they’ll remember who brought them together when they’re deciding who’s best man at their wedding.”
“Is this what happens when you’re married with kids?” I grin at each of them in turn. “You have nothing to do but pair everyone off?”
On cue, they both lean in, voices erupting in unison.
“We haven’t slowed down.”
“We have a crazy social life!”
Morgan, who clearly finds the synchronized outburst cause for celebration, blows bubbles in her milk until it’s foaming over the sides.
“No, no,” I say, “full of youth. Of course. But you’re also sort of . . . settled.”
“ ‘Settled’?” Steph scoffs. “Please. We”—she points between the two of them—“are crazy. We can party with the best of them. Trust me.”
“You still hit the clubs sometimes?” I give them an encouraging nod.
“Of course we do.” She points to her arm and after a bewildered moment, I realize she’s wordlessly reminding me that she has a flower tattoo, and that people with tattoos are obviously likely to be found at clubs. “There’s this place called Foxtail that’s so cool. You should definitely take Evie there.”
“Or he could take her to Orchid, right, Steph?”
“That place is pretty good,” she agrees. “Craft cocktails, right? Or there’s that other one.” She snaps her fingers as if this will help her recall the name.
“Areola,” Michael finishes for her. “Now that place”—he whistles—“that place is insaaane,” he says, dragging the word out into about four syllables.
Steph is nodding.
I have to ask: “There’s a club called Areola?”
“Oh yeah, it’s like—the hippest place in LA,” she says. “Oh.” She deflates a little. “No, babe, I think it’s not Areola, that’s a nipple, right? I think it’s Ariela?”
“I mean, that’s a pretty big difference,” I note with a serious nod.
“Ariela,” Michael agrees, laughing as he avoids my gaze.
“Have you two gone?”
“Us? Come on,” MC says with a tight cough like of course we have. “We—well—no. We wanted to, but they don’t even open until like nine? I think, babe? Is it nine?” Steph nods as she attempts to extract crushed garbanzo beans from Morgan’s hair. “And that’s . . . that’s really late. I mean, not for us, but you know, for Morgan.”
“She doesn’t sleep well with a sitter, or God we’d be all over that place.” Steph does a grinding little dance in her chair. “It would be off the hook.”
“Off the hook,” he agrees. “Causing some trouble is what we’d be doing.”
“Areola,” I say, grinning. “Amazing.”
• • •
My phone chimes on the seat next to me as I make a left onto Santa Monica Boulevard. I ignore it, letting another Monday-morning commuter in front of me and waiting for the light to turn green so we can all move another twelve feet before it changes again. It will never stop bewildering me that a four-and-a-half-mile trip takes almost an hour.
I’m just about to reach for the dial on the radio when my phone chimes again . . . and again . . . and again. I glance over at it, the screen facedown on the seat, and mentally calculate the rest of my drive. In California it’s illegal to use a cell phone while driving, so it’s against the law to read or reply to any text messages. I’m about to tell myself I can wait when it goes off again.
And again.
When the light turns red, I slip my phone onto my lap and unlock the screen to reveal a slew of missed calls and messages from Becca.
My passcode isn’t working and I can’t get in the building.
Security says he can’t let me in.
Ok Tarah and Kyle can’t get in either.
What’s going on?
I can’t get into my email???
CARTER
911 EMERGENCY FIRE WHATEVER.
CALL ME NOW
I dial, listening to the phone ring through my Bluetooth.
“Carter.”
“Hey.” I accelerate, moving through the intersection. My heart is doing a weird dance in my chest. “What’s going on?”
“No idea.” Someone says something in the background, and Becca gives a quiet “Okay.” Louder, she says to me, “Check your email. We have a meeting at a building in West Hollywood. I’ll see you there.”
And then she’s gone. Bewildered, at the next red light I open my email program and find a two-line company-wide memo from CTM containing an address and instructions to be there by nine thirty.
Beyond that, nothing. Instead of heading straight, I turn right onto La Cienega.
• • •
Parked in an underground lot, I emerge and stare up at the glass-and-steel building. It looks like any other sleek new office structure; no identifying names or logos mark the front courtyard.
The only thing I can imagine is that we’re moving offices, or that something horrible has happened to our own building . . . but I’ve heard nothing on the news. And Becca—calm, collected, and immediately responsive ninety-nine percent of the time—hasn’t answered my follow-up call.
I’m hit in the face with a blast of refrigerated air as soon as I step inside, and combined with the adrenaline pulsing through my veins, it awakens something instinctively New Yorker in me.
It’s settling, oddly.
Turning down a marble hall, I check my phone a final time before slipping it into my pocket. A circular reception area is just ahead, topped by a set of large screens with the words Price & Dickle, and the logos and movie posters of some of the actors they represent, moving in and out of focus.
My pulse trills in my throat.
P&D recently moved. Is this where they’re located?
Off to the side is a smaller, temporary table with a paper sign that reads CTM sign-in taped to the top, a beautiful blonde sitting behind it, and two uniformed security guards hovering nearby.
Are we moving offices into the same building as P&D? The whole scene is odd enough to make me slow my steps; a red flare has just been shot up into the sky.