Dating You / Hating You
Page 59

“Did you not hear anything I said last night, Evie?” Brad says, voice cool. “About working together? About us all coming together as a team?”
“I heard every word.”
“Then maybe you should do yourself a favor and think on what that means. You don’t have another strike left.”
“What have any of my strikes been?” she asks, patience clearly thin. “Field Day was two years ago now, and there were about fifteen producers also on the hook. I’ve brought in more money than any other agent this year, male or female.”
“Playing the girl card, I see,” he says. “You know how I feel about that.”
He lets the sentence hang there, and a few moments later I hear a snap, the sound of a dog running past, and then the door closing, the chain sliding into place.
Evie throws open the closet and a blast of fresh, cold air rushes into my face.
“Thank God,” I say, my hand pressed to my chest as I attempt to slow my heart. “What the hell was that all about? What is his problem?”
Her jaw is tight as she looks past me, staring at the closed door. “I’ll tell you, for a moment I blacked out and fantasized about pushing him off the balcony. Just a little shove and he would bounce like a tennis ball.”
“Wow.” I straighten. “I don’t know what it says about me, but I am more than a little into your evil side.”
“He is the worst,” she whispers, “the worst.” Walking toward the bed, she grabs a pillow and hurls it at the wall. “Lucky for both of us we weren’t anywhere near it,” she says. “I carry way too much guilt to be a very good killer.”
“I mean, technically it would be gravity that’d kill him, so you just have to be a relatively good pusher.”
She throws another pillow. “Why did he come to my room? Did he go to yours first?”
I sigh. “I suspect we both know the answer to that. I promise I would have said something if I hadn’t been naked and—”
I motion to where the condom has probably permanently dried to my dick.
She winces, and I slip into the bathroom, taking a moment to clean myself up.
“Of course he let his horse-dog in to destroy my hotel room,” she says from the bedroom. “Next he’ll want me t—” She goes silent, then lets out a horrified “Oh my God.”
I lean out of the bathroom, looking across the room to where Evie is staring wide-eyed at something on the floor. “What’s wrong?”
She looks up at me. “How many times did we have sex last night?”
“Ah, there it is.” I laugh, giving her a winning smile. “Just sinking in for you now that you slept with the enemy?”
“No,” she says, pointing down. “Bear got into the trash over here. I’m trying to figure out how many condoms he ate.”
• • •
Are we dog killers?
I mean . . . I’m pretty sure we’re not. I Googled it, and if Morgan can swallow a souvenir pressed penny the size of her entire windpipe and have it come out the other end just fine, Bear will be okay, too.
I think.
Evie is slightly less convinced and makes me clear my browser history so that if something goes awry it can’t be used against us as evidence. I have some time until our first team-building activity, and I go to my room to shower before pulling out my laptop to check email. There’s one from the creative director from the Vanity Fair shoot, and I’m initially afraid to open it.
I needn’t be, because despite Jonah’s diva entrance and Evie and I nearly losing our minds being idiots to each other before groping in the dark mixing room, the photos are great. So great, in fact, that they want to book Jonah for another shoot. My brother might be a giant asshat half of the time, but he clearly has the talent to back it up.
It’s still early, but I take a chance and call him. He picks up after four rings. I hear the sound of a lawnmower somewhere in the distance, so I assume he must be up and outside.
A good sign.
“Listen,” I say, buzzing with genuine excitement. “Have you checked your email? There are proofs from Vanity Fair, and they look great. Also, they want you to do another job.”
Nothing but silence greets me on the other end of the line. I pull the phone away to make sure it hasn’t disconnected.
“Did you hear me, Jones? They want you back.”
“I saw,” he says, but falls quiet again.
“You saw? That’s it? Dude, this is exactly what we wanted. What you wanted—to work. To continue to live in the lifestyle to which you have so richly become accustomed.”
“I’m just not sure that’s what I want,” he says. “Doing features shoots.”
I gape for a few breaths, staring unseeing at the wall of my hotel room. “But isn’t that the way you pay back your bills?”
“Yeah, but . . . I went to this gallery the other day, run by the friend of a friend, and some of the stuff was pretty good. Not fashion or anything, but like, abstracts and portraits.”
“You’re saying you want to go back to the kind of work you did in school?” I ask, confused. Wasn’t the reason Jonah came out to Hollywood in the first place to be a star? I can’t help but see doing small art shows as a step down on the particular ladder he chose.
“Do you remember the photo that won me the scholarship?” he asks, and I know exactly which one he means because it still hangs in our parents’ house.
“The power lines,” I say. “That’s what you want to do?”
“A little here and there? Like if I could do a few shoots to pay the bills but the other stuff on the side. Maybe get a show or something.”
I sit back in my chair. This has to be the most un-LA thing my brother has said since he was eighteen.
“What do you think?” he presses.
I come back to the conversation and realize I still haven’t said anything. “Yeah, Jones. If you think that’s what will make you happy then you should totally do it. And if you can do both and still make some money, well, that’s even better. I guess what I’m saying is that you have that option, with Vanity Fair.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll figure it out.” My phone clicks and I look down at the screen. Caleb, Dan’s manager. “Listen, Jonah, I have another call and it’s sort of important. Can I call you back?”
“No worries.” I think he’s going to hang up, but he speaks again: “Oh, and Carter?” He pauses. “Thanks.”
Then he’s gone.
I don’t have time to reflect on this newfound vulnerability displayed by my douchenozzle brother, so I switch over and stand to pace the room. “Caleb, hi.”
“Hey,” he says, “I have Dan here. You free?”
“Absolutely.”
There’s some shuffling as the phone is passed around, and then Dan is there. “Carter, finally we connect.”
“Dan, how’s it going, man?”
“Good. Just finished reading a script and it’s terrible.” He laughs. “They’re all pretty terrible, if I’m being honest.”
I think of the last thing I saw Dan in—a giant action movie that takes place on a tanker stranded at sea; before that he played a cop trying to bring down a band of drug dealers—and wonder if the scripts he’s being sent are all just carbon copies of what he’s already done. I jot down a note to find out.