Dating You / Hating You
Page 43

I’m just about to head out when my phone rings.
“This is Carter.”
“Hello?” I think the caller says. I fiddle with the volume.
“Hello,” I repeat. “This is Carter Aaron. Hello?” The voice on the other end is so faint, I find myself squinting as I try to hear. “I’m sorry, I think we have a bad connection. Can you call back? Hello?”
The line disconnects, only to ring a moment later.
“Carter Aaron,” I say.
“Carter, this is Caleb,” I make out. Caleb Ferraz, Dan Printz’s manager. We’ve been playing phone tag for two weeks now.
“Caleb, there’s . . . Can you hear me? I think there’s something wrong with my phone.” I’m shouting. I look at the handset, shaking it before bringing it back to my ear. “Can you call my cell?”
“Can’t,” I think I make out. Followed by “Taking off.” There are more words, but I’m not sure whether I’m hearing them or just making them up. “Dan . . . talk . . . trip . . . weeks.”
Fuck.
“Caleb, send me a text when you can and I’ll talk to you soon!”
I think he says good-bye, but I’m not even sure. I hang up and dial Michael Christopher’s number. He answers and it’s more of the same. I think he can hear me, but there’s no way to tell because I can’t hear him. I send him a text letting him know I’ll explain later.
Grabbing the needed files, I head out, a little disappointed when I find that Evie’s door is still closed. Why am I in a hurry to run into her? I’m sure she’s furious, and the last thing I’ll see before I die will be an orange-tinted Evie with her hands wrapped around my neck.
With Justin gone, I stop at Kylie’s desk on my way out. She’s talking to some guy from the mailroom and so I pull out my phone while I wait.
“Just make sure that anything with a PO box goes straight to Mr. Kingman, okay? He was very specific about that.”
“Post office box. Got it,” the kid says, typing a note into a little handheld machine. “Later, Ky.”
Kylie peeks around the departing employee and smiles widely at me. “Carter! How are you?”
“I’m well, how are you?”
“Great! Want to grab lunch today?”
I make a show of looking disappointed, when in fact I’m a little relieved to have an excuse. “I’m meeting a client,” I say, and her face falls into an attractive pout. Something tells me that look almost always works. “I was just leaving, but wanted to see if we could get someone to check my phone.”
“Your phone?”
“Something’s wrong with the volume,” I tell her.
She follows me down the hall, picking up the handset and holding it up to her ear, pressing the volume buttons a few times before unscrewing the earpiece.
“Oh,” she says, and I lean in, too. “There’s a piece of tape in here. That’s weird.”
Carefully, she removes the offending item and puts the handset back together.
I stare at the curl of plastic in her outstretched palm. “Yeah. Weird.”
On her way out, she leans against the doorway instead. “Glad I could help. Don’t be afraid to call if you, uh . . . need anything else,” she says, pausing at the sound of Evie’s opening door. “Or want to grab lunch sometime . . .”
Evie steps out into the hall and pauses behind where Kylie stands, now straighter in awareness.
With a little smile and a quiet “Hi, Evie,” Kylie heads down the hall.
Leaning against her open doorway with a pair of—thank God—normal-colored arms folded across her chest, Evie smiles at me. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Close your door next time?”
Ignoring this, I tell her, “Funny story: my phone wasn’t working and Kylie helped me figure out why. Seems someone put a piece of tape over the earpiece. Wonder who would have done that?”
“No idea,” Evie says with a shrug. “I just got in. But if we’re going by the number of people who are out to make you look bad, there’s probably a few to choose from.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I ask, genuinely offended now, and following when she pushes away from her door and heads into the break room. “People like me. You’re the one they’re afraid of.”
She pulls a mug down from the cupboard and pours herself a cup of coffee. “Okay, Carter.”
“What do you mean—?” I stop in my tracks. “Don’t do that.”
She slowly pours cream into her cup and looks up at me. “Do what?”
“Pretend that none of this gets to you. Play some juvenile mind game.”
“You’re the one who followed me down here.” Unaffected, she puts the cream away and heads for the door.
“Fine,” I say.
“Fine.”
Her evil laugh rings down the hallway.
Chapter seventeen
evie
Steph—Steph—taping Carter’s phone was pretty great.
So simple.
Maybe my best idea ever.
Evie, did you do something to Carter’s suit?
The one that was in the bathroom?
What? I can’t hear you.
I’m going through Laurel Canyon.
We’re texting, asshole.
Did you?
Maybe a little
In which case I’m going to change my previous answer and say that THIS was my best idea ever.
Sigh
Don’t worry!
A little fun, totally harmless.
You realize this isn’t normal behavior, right??
Chapter eighteen
Carter
Things have not been pretty at P&D. Monday was the stupid tape incident. Tuesday I snuck a pretty healthy splash of Dave’s Ghost Pepper hot sauce into Evie’s burrito, and quite enjoyed her angry, sexy little growl as she ran back to the break room and chugged down some half-and-half we keep in the fridge. She returned the favor on Wednesday by soaking my desk chair so my ass was visibly wet for the rest of my meetings.
She didn’t come straight to the office Thursday, so I didn’t get to enjoy how she might have looked with all the glitter I put in the vents of her car, but it was a chilly morning and I’m sure the glitter got pretty sticky when it blew out with all that nice warm air. Admittedly, after that I was so paranoid she’d booby-trapped my office that I could barely touch anything without wincing. She stopped by at the end of the day—still a little sparkly around the hairline—just in time to see me bite into what I thought was a candy apple from Kylie but was actually a candy onion from Evie.
I was thwarted in my desire to murder her by the news that Steve Gainor in Television was let go. Nothing like a dose of reality to put things in perspective.
We’re supposed to be on set with Jonah by eight thirty on Friday, but my Evil paranoia has me there by eight, standing outside the locked studio, shivering. My jacket feels tight—my pants, too—and I can barely wrap my arms around my shoulders to keep warm.
Great. All the stress-eating is taking a toll.
About half of the crew arrives a few minutes after I do, including Jamie’s manager, who—as soon as we get inside—begins arguing with the Vanity Fair creative director and one of Jonah’s assistants about the lighting.
“Carter, hey,” Allie says, excusing herself and crossing over to where craft services are just starting to set up behind me.
“Hey.” Just like Brad mentioned when he initially placed Jamie on my list, Allie is what you would call a hands-on manager. Whereas some managers are just yes men, there to make their client happy and get a producer credit along the way, Allie is involved in almost every aspect of Jamie’s career. My life will be a hell of a lot easier because of it. “Do we know what time to expect Jamie—?”