Dating You / Hating You
Page 40

“Come in,” I say, eyes still on my computer screen as the bottom of the door whispers across the carpet.
“Hey, did you see that email about the aud—holy hell!” Jess gasps, and I look up to meet her wide eyes.
“What? What?”
She shakes her head, a hand coming over her mouth. “Evie, oh my God. I’ll be right back.”
She rushes out of the room, returning a moment later with Daryl at her heels and closing the door behind them.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “Why are you two looking at me like that?”
Daryl can barely keep it together. “What did you do, Garfield?”
“I—what?” I reach for the compact I keep in the bottom drawer, and I immediately see it. My hands, mostly my palms and up to my wrists, are orange. “Oh my God.”
“You look like a construction cone,” Daryl says, and she finally loses it, barely managing to add, “You’re making me crave buffalo wings.”
“Oh my God, would you shut it?” In fumbling with the mirror, I manage to nearly hurl it across the room.
My face is orange, too. Not just orange but shimmery. I look like a sparkly Circus Peanut.
Daryl moves to stand next to me. “What did you use?”
“I didn’t—!”
I stop, reaching for the lotion bottle I used earlier.
No.
Unscrewing the cap, I bring it up to my nose and sniff.
No.
Instead of the subtle vanilla scent I’m used to, I now notice a faint chemical smell.
“Nooooo,” I growl, my voice low and savage. “I’m going to kill him.”
“He put sunless tanner in your lotion bottle?” Daryl whispers, sounding horrified . . . but also a little impressed.
Jess runs out and runs right back in again. Coming around the desk, she kneels on the floor next to me, pulling a makeup wipe from a little plastic package. “I’m now afraid for him.” She reaches for my arm and starts to scrub. “Okay, a lot of it is coming off. It’s just bronzer.”
Daryl laughs. “Give it eight hours.”
“Oh, Evie, what happened ?” a deep, mocking voice says, and we all look up to see a smiling Carter leaning against the doorframe. Jess practically falls backward in her attempt to flee.
“You did this!”
“You want to start pointing fingers, Chef Decaf?”
I giggle in spite of myself. “Pardon?”
Pushing off the doorway, he steps closer. Daryl and Jess, wisely, clear the room. “I ran home at lunch to make some of my own coffee, because the cups here just weren’t cutting it. But sure enough, the ones at home are decaf, too. In the grocery store parking lot I couldn’t remember where I parked my car and nearly got arrested trying to get into a different silver Audi.”
I feel a surge of pride rush through my blood. “You did?”
He grins, shaking his head at me. “I did. Not cool.”
Holding out an arm for him to inspect, I say, “You don’t get to come in here and play the victim card, sir.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” He steps closer, so close that I can feel the warmth of his skin against mine. The playfully contentious mood slips away and I can practically feel the sweep of his attention as he moves his gaze briefly to my lips.
As if he might kiss me again.
No way. I think we both know that that won’t ever happen.
“I liked you,” he whispers.
An ache worms itself between my ribs when he says this, and my response comes out more raw than I’d planned: “I liked you, too.”
He stares at me, unblinking. “Evie—”
“I’m just glad I figured out who you really are before we got in too deep.”
• • •
From deep in a pile of bubbles in Steph’s bathtub I address everyone and my innermost core at once. “I’m going to bury him.”
We’re all here, crowded into Michael and Steph’s small bathroom: Daryl, Amelia, Jess, Steph, and, of course, me. Naked and slightly less orange.
“That’s great, honey,” Daryl says, handing me another loofah around the shower curtain. “Just not tonight.”
“You have to admit that was pretty fucking clever,” Amelia says. “To figure out how to use your lotion fetish against you?”
I look sullenly at the murky water around me. Makeup kept most of the bronzer from absorbing into my face, and it washed off pretty easily. But my palms and elbows absorbed more of the color, and both remain a faded, sickly shade of orange.
“It’s not a fetish. More of a nervous tic. And he didn’t figure anything out, I told him about the lotion thing. He took something I shared and used it against me. Dirty traitor.”
“Yeah, let’s not let that halo slip too far there, Evie. You did strike first,” Amelia reminds me. “His decaffeinated self walked into a wall in front of my office.”
I peek my head around the shower curtain. “He did?” I say gleefully, wishing I’d been there to see it.
My smile straightens as she stares at me with a single stern eyebrow raised.
“Come on,” I whine, breaking under the pressure, “it was coffee. I struck first with coffee. Besides, he pulled Dan Printz away from me, swapped out the Vanity Fair photographer for his brother without consulting me, and ditched our joint meeting with the chatty retreat coordinator. I wanted him to know I wasn’t going to roll over.”
“So all he did was up the stakes,” Amelia says calmly. “And if I know anything about you, you’re already plotting retaliation.”
“You’re damn right I am. Jess?” I say. “I’m going to need you to do some unsavory things.”
She looks over at me from where she’s sitting on the bathroom counter. “Am I going to be doing anything illegal?”
“Ummmm . . . not sure yet.”
She rolls her eyes. “Will you at least take the fall if I get busted?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’d like to go on record as saying I think this is a bad idea, but fine, I’m in.”
“You know, as Carter’s friend, I feel I should step in here,” Steph says.
I tilt my head. “Perhaps you’d like to see the inside of your bathtub?”
She holds her hands up to stop me from moving. “No, no. Not necessary.” She looks over her shoulder toward the sound of the doorbell. “I’ll be right back.”
Slipping back behind the curtain, I pick up the bar of soap and lather the loofah again. “The shoot is next week—and he may have won this battle, but I’m winning the war.”
“Before I forget,” Jess says, “I was originally coming into your office today to ask if you’d seen the email from Accounting. They’re doing an audit and I need copies of all your expense reports.”
“Audit?” Daryl repeats.
“Yeah,” Jess says, “it has something to do with the private equity firm that backed P&D in the merge. I guess outside money means a closer eye on things. They want everyone’s records, even mine.”
“Just reconciling the books post-merge,” Amelia says. “Pretty normal stuff.”
Footsteps carry down the hall and I peek out again to see Steph walking back into the bathroom with Daryl’s assistant, Eric, right behind her.
“What are you doing?” I shout, clutching the shower curtain to my chest.