Dating You / Hating You
Page 52

“She’s an agent back in LA.”
“Same agency?”
“Yeah. Sort of. It’s a long story.”
“You’re dating an agent you work with? My life is so boring right now—thank God I made Zach ask you to come.”
“Not dating.” Even I hear the ew, girls implied by my tone.
“Snooze,” Avya complains, bending forward, her long black hair hiding her face. “Then why would she particularly care about this class? Entertain me, Carter.”
“She was with P&D before the merge,” I say, and Avya nods. “Anyway, she goes with the wife and child of one of her clients to a sensory class in Beverly Hills.”
“Let me guess: they paid the equivalent of one month’s rent on a one-bedroom in Queens to have their kids play in some totally basic thing, like pudding or bedsheets.”
“Pasta, actually. How’d you know?”
“I went to something similar when Joshua was little, but with parachutes.”
“Parachutes?”
“We adopted Joshua from his birth mother when he was a newborn,” she explains, “so I missed the whole birthing thing with him. Hence this class.” She gives me another smile over her shoulder. “We laid all the babies down in a big circle, and all the mommies lifted this giant, circus-tent-looking parachute over them, fanning it up and down. It sounds great in theory, but the babies were just way too young to enjoy it. You’re basically yanking this parachute out of their faces and scaring the shit out of them. Half are crying, a few are trying to get away, and the rest are too scared to move.”
“Oh my God,” I say, biting my lip and looking around for the instructor. The last thing I need is to get a client’s wife kicked out of her birthing class. “I’m sorry, that’s not funny.”
“Oh, it’s totally funny. As parents we put our kids through the strangest things because we think it’s giving them some sort of advantage.”
The instructor has the mothers-to-be move into a squat that looks a lot like they’re sitting on a toilet, and explains the benefits of this position, including what it’s doing to the perineum, and some other things I can’t focus on.
“How’s the perineum?” I say. “Good?”
Avya shakes her head like she can’t believe we’re doing this. “Relaxed. Thanks. Now, more about this Evie.”
I sigh, then just let it all out. “Simply put, Evelyn Abbey is my former almost-girlfriend-turned-archnemesis-turned-tentative-ally whom I would now very much like to permanently seduce.”
The glee on Avya’s face tells me I should continue. “It’s a long, complicated story involving first dates followed by corporate greed, competing for a single position, and sabotage.”
“Okay, that is decidedly not as fun as I imagined.”
“The thing is, she’s smart and gorgeous and funny and amazing at her job, and it was infuriating. We were essentially told they could only keep one of us, and it made us into maniacs. I’d be listening to her in a meeting, totally mesmerized, then I would snap back to the conversation and want to let the air out of her tires for distracting me from my goal.”
“And your goal was . . .”
“Total annihilation, of course.”
We move to the next seated position, with Avya in front of me and between my legs, her back against my chest.
“And now?” she asks.
“Now she seems like the best person there.”
“Have you two . . .” she starts, letting the question hang in the space between us while she practices her breathing exercises.
“I mean . . . almost? There was some under-the-clothes touching to completion, if you know what I’m saying.”
She snickers. “And it was good?”
Fuck. “Yeah.”
“I’m assuming you’d definitely like to do it again.”
“Shouldn’t you be focusing on something wholesome?” I ask.
“How can I be expected to focus when there’s all this forbidden love and pining going on?”
“You can focus because at this point I fear there’s a better chance of me touching to completion with any one of these ladies”—I say, motioning to the pregnant women around us—“than there is with Evie.”
“Why? Because of the job? That feels like a detail to me.”
“It’s a pretty big detail, though. We’re both married to our jobs. Jobs that may not even be around in three months. Not to mention we have this retreat thing in Big Bear coming up. I want to be around her, but we always fight. I really don’t want us to end up stabbing each other. She’s too bossy for prison and I have a hard time saying no.”
“Okay, so big question here,” Avya says. “Would you be with her if there were no job or anything else on the line?”
“That’s a pretty fucking big if, Avya.”
“You didn’t answer the question, Carter.”
“Would I be with Evie if there was nothing else in the way? Probably.” I scratch my jaw, wincing at this cop-out. “No, not ‘probably.’ For sure I would.”
“So fix it.”
“Oh my God, why didn’t I think of that?”
“Carter, women are not that complicated,” Avya says, half turning and smiling back at me. “Smarter? Yes. Complicated? Not really. We want progress, not perfection.”
• • •
That night at my parents’ house, I think about what Avya said.
Progress, not perfection.
I don’t have to be perfect; I don’t necessarily even have to fix everything with Evie, but I can at least own up to the things I did that even I’m not okay with. I can try to be a little less terrible.
Reaching across the bed, I find my phone where it’s charging on the table. I scroll through the conversations until I find the one labeled Evil and open it.
I do the time zone math in my head; just after ten here, just after seven there. Definitely not too late.
Hey.
I hold my breath, staring at the phone and hoping to see the little dots indicating she’s typing. Just when I let out a long exhale and start to put my phone down, the bubble pops up. My heart bounces into my throat.
Hey, you.
Here goes. Time to get it all out there.
I feel like I need to go back a bit.
Starting with: I should have called you to talk about Dan Printz first.
I should have told you your shirt was unbuttoned. I should have ASKED you about Jonah doing the shoot.
Have you been visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past?
Something like that.
Well, thanks.
No problem.
I can’t apologize for the glitter though.
The glitter was pretty great.
And honestly, I’m sorry, too.
But not for the onion.
You’re forgiven.
The onion was terrible/genius.
The mixing room, however, was enjoyable.
Will she appreciate my understating the obvious? Will she agree? Another minute goes by. My heart is basically inside my mouth, in my eyes, pounding my head off. Finally, my phone vibrates again.
You can say that again.
I exhale and roll into my pillow. Thank God.
Are you in New York?
Yeah. What are you up to?
I had dinner with Daryl and have to finish up my expense reports before I go to Burbank tomorrow.
Expense reports over the holiday?
Hiss.
I know, but I think I’m the only one they’re waiting on to finish up the audit.