Boomerang (31 page)

“You said he couldn’t keep his hands off you—even in front of his ex.”

“Exactly.” I take a reading of her face and adjust some of the reflectors to bounce more light in her direction. “The problem’s not physical.”

“Not with that rack, it ain’t.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Seriously, what
is
the problem? Enlighten me.”

I kneel down next to her and smooth the simple flowered dress we borrowed from Sky over her knees, then spend some time playing with her hair until she slaps my hands out of the way and fixes it herself.

“We’ve already talked about this.”

She rolls her eyes. “You mean the ‘I need to be chosen’ bullshit?”

“How is it bullshit?”

I start to rise, but she clamps two hands on my shoulders and stares me down. “Let me ask you something, okay?”

“What?”

“When you wanted to go to film school, how did you go about doing that?”

I sigh. “What’s your point?”

“I’m just wondering if you waited around in your house for film school to come to your door and say, ‘Mia, we choose you.’ ”

“It’s not the—”

“And when you wanted this swanky gig here, what did you do? Did you wait for baby Ryan Gosling to call you up? Or did you storm the damn castle and get yourself a job?”

“An internship,” I remind her. “That I have to
share
.”

“It’ll be a job at the end of all this,” she says. “You know how I know?”

“No.” Because I don’t know anything of the sort. Except that I’ve accidentally stacked the deck in my favor by putting Ethan and Cookie on a path to the apocalypse, something I still
have
to fix.

“Because when you want something, girl, you don’t screw around. You go for it. You’ve never waited for me to
choose
to do the dishes or give you back stuff I’ve borrowed. Or for Skyler to
choose
to pay the light bill. You don’t wait around for anyone or anything. But with boys, you act like goddamn Sleeping Beauty. Like they’re the
only
ones with choices to make.”

“That’s not fair.” I twist away from her and get to my feet. Though I busy myself looking through my camera viewfinder, tears threaten, and I blink them back.

“I’m not about being fair right now. I’m about being real.”

“Well, spare me, okay?”

She gets up, blowing all the work I just put into arranging her, getting the lighting just right.

“Damn it, Beth,” I start, but she takes the camera gently from my hands and sets it on the table beside us.

“Listen to me, honey,” she says. Her voice is warm and melting, which is just not like her. And her expression is kind enough to undo me on the spot. “You know how we always call Kyle
that tool
?”

I nod.

“Seems to me that you’re the one acting like a tool. Like you’re something that gets to be picked up or put down whenever some boy wants. You know?”

I put my face in my hands because I feel the truth of it, sizzling along my every limb, rooting my feet to the floor. I wasted so much time with Kyle, waiting for him to see me for who I am, someone who has value, who deserves to be picked. I waited without asking myself if I actually wanted
him
.

Oh, hell.

Just then, Paolo slides into the room. “Date time!” he exclaims, and I’ve never been so happy for an interruption.

“Yep,” I say and lift the camera once again. “Why don’t you both take seats?”

Beth hesitates for a second, but I give her a cool end-of-discussion smile, and she flops back onto her cube.

“Awesome,” I murmur, though nothing about this feels awesome at all. “Let’s get started.”

Chapter 40

Ethan

Q: Does the truth set you free, or does it set you on fire?

S
o what happened to your parents?” I ask Alison. “Didn’t you have big plans for the weekend at the family cabin?”

She looks at me, her eyes hooded in the dimness. The small window behind her frames a circle of a sky that’s fading from blue to black. It’s Friday night, and we’re thousands of feet in the air, somewhere halfway between LA and Loveland—the private airfield we’re flying to outside of Fort Collins.

Alison takes a careful sip of her vodka tonic and sets it down. “Something came up. Two somethings, actually. My dad had to fly to New York for a work emergency, and my mom had a social emergency.”

“Social emergency?”

She smiles—something I know she does to mask her disappointment. “A bridal shower she happened to remember right when my dad had to cancel. It’s that middle-school maneuver. You know . . .
You can’t break up with me because I’m breaking up with you
first?
He’s too busy for her, so she’s
way
too busy for him.”

“Sorry,” I say, but it’s typical of them. I know she’s used to it.

Alison’s smile goes a little wider. “It’s okay.”

In the faint light of the cabin, her teeth are too white, too perfectly straight. She looks down and gently shakes the ice in her glass. It’s still half full, but mine is empty. No more vodka. No ice. Even the lime looks sucked dry.

“You could’ve canceled, Alison. You’re going all this way to spend a weekend by your . . .” I cut myself short, because I know why she didn’t cancel. I know why she’s here. She didn’t want to let me down again. “Listen, Alison, I don’t—”

“It’s okay, Ethan. I don’t expect anything. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I just couldn’t say no to the chance to be with you again—even for a few hours. And I didn’t want you to miss your father’s birthday.”

“Why don’t you come out to dinner tonight?”

As soon I say the words, an odd feeling settles over me, like I’m betraying someone. But I push it away before I can examine it. I don’t have to answer to anyone, and Alison can’t hurt me again. The
remaking us
campaign has actually done me a world of good. Emotionally, there’s nothing there anymore. Nothing drawing me toward her.

“Aren’t you going to dinner with your family?” she asks.

I nod. “Yeah, but it’s all right. They’ll be happy to see you.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely,” I say. Then I unbuckle my seat belt and move to the small bar console, where I make myself another drink.

“What the hell are you doing, E?” Chris grabs my elbow and tows me toward the bar at Jimmy’s—our family’s favorite pub. “How could you bring her to Dad’s birthday dinner?”

I take a long pull of my beer and consider my little brother. College has changed him for the better. It’s subtle, in the way he holds himself, his shoulders a little squarer, his voice a little deeper, but it’s there. I freakin’ love the kid. It’s so damn good to see him, but I don’t need him playing mother hen.

“Drop it, Chris. It’s done. No need to make it a huge deal.”

Dinner with the family—and Alison—is behind me. Two hours and three Jack and Cokes later, and I’m still alive. Feeling the booze, definitely, but otherwise no worse for the wear.

“It’s obviously not done, Ethan. She’s still here.” Chris leans closer, and I realize he’s taller than me now. That sucks. “None of us like her. And we sure as hell don’t like her after what she—”

“You’re ruining my buzz, Chris.” I’m swaying a little, my head too light. Which is the opposite of how my stomach feels. The rib-eye steak I put away at dinner has settled like an anchor in my stomach. I lean my back against the bar, and now the crowd blurs behind Chris, all rust-colored flannels and jeans. Everything looks faded and worn compared to LA’s sparkle and shine.

Chris assesses me like he’s making a forensic analysis of my clothes, my face, my posture. I don’t know what he sees, but judging by the worry in his eyes, I’m guessing it’s the opposite of the growth and maturity I just saw in him.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asks, lowering his voice so I almost can’t hear him above the bar noise. “Is it because you’re not playing ball anymore?”

He’s dead-on about me feeling off kilter, but it’s not because I miss soccer. At least I don’t think so. And I know that I don’t
want
to know. The whole point of the vodka, the whiskey, and the beer in my hand is to get away from
knowing
.

“Please shut up, bro.” I take a sip, almost missing my lips. “I’m asking you to—just stop.”

Across the crowded bar, I see Alison rise from my parents’ table. As soon as she turns her back, my parents and their closest friends, the Davises, exchange looks of relief.

At dinner she mentioned wanting to take my family to Palace Arms in Denver sometime—a restaurant that’s ten times fancier than where we were. It was a passing comment, but it was enough to put a damper on things. My mellow working-class parents don’t see things the way she does, like there are quality ratings on everything. They were just happy to have us all together.

Beside me, Chris lets out a muffled curse when he sees Alison coming. “Great . . . The Anti-Christ cometh.”

As I watch her thread toward us through the crowded bar, her tight body wrapped in designer leather and denim, it occurs to me that both Rhett and Chris are convinced that Alison and I are hooking up again this weekend. Then it occurs to me that the thought would
never
have occurred to me otherwise.

It wasn’t anywhere in my thoughts.

But now it is.

And I wonder.

What if we did?

Beside me, I feel Chris looking from me to her. “Well, this sure looks like it’s going to end well. It’s painful to watch. In fact, I’m not doing it. Give me your phone.”

“My phone?”

Chris holds out his hand. “My battery’s dead and I’m trying to get ahold of Jake and Connor.”

His high school buddies. I fish my phone out of my pocket.

Chris takes it and then snatches the beer from my hands. “I’m taking this too. Your judgment’s already impaired.”

He leaves to join my parents, who are now laughing and doing Jell-O shots with the Davises, happier than they’ve looked all night.

“Hey,” Alison says. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Nah, he was just leaving.” It’s crowded, and I have nowhere to stand except either behind her, or wedged right beside her. I take option two, because option one would bring Mia instantly back into my thoughts, and that’s the last thing I need, remembering how she felt at the bowling alley, or how she looked at work today in a green dress blouse that matched the color of her—

“Ethan?”

“Yeah?”

“I asked if you’d have champagne with me if I ordered a bottle?”

I glance around me. Jimmy’s isn’t a dive, but it’s not a place for drinking champagne either. Not by a long shot. But then this is the girl who got a manicure before she went on safari.

“Sure,” I say. “Why not?”

The bartender gives Alison a mildly irritated look when she orders and leaves the bar to retrieve a bottle from their stock in the back.

“So,” Alison says, smiling at me.

We’re getting pressed in from all sides, so our legs are smashed together.

“So,” I say back. I’ve got nothing else. I don’t want to talk to her. A dark, primal urge to just get her naked hits me. It slams into me, but it’s gone in a flash. I know how she feels. I was with her for two years, but she’s not who I want. Alison never made me feel the way Mia does. No one makes me feel the way Mia does—except Mia.

Fuck.
So much for numbing my brain with alcohol.

Suddenly it feels like the rib-eye steak is sprouting thorns in my stomach.

“You okay, Ethan?”

“Absolutely.”

Not.

The bartender sets an ice bucket down in front of us with a clank. He hands me two champagne flutes filled with bubbling liquid, the rims spotted with dishwashing soap. I hand one to Alison, sweat breaking out along my spine.

“To new beginnings,” Alison says.