Boomerang (9 page)

I take this in with complete fascination. “Could you be more specific about what you saw?”

His gaze narrows. “Come on . . . Are you telling me you really don’t remember last night? You actually
blacked out
?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

Jason lets out a high-pitched laugh. “That’s a tragedy, bro.”

“I know. I think I might be scarred.” I realize I’ve been taking my frustration out on the cilantro, which I’ve chopped down to green mush.

“I liked her,” Isis says as she pulls the ground beef off the stove. “I didn’t have much chance to talk to her since you were monopolizing her mouth, but she seemed cool. Are you going to see her again?”

“Yep. I’m going to see her tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day after that. She works with me.”

Isis gasps. “
Seriously
? Okay, I need to know
everything
.”

We load up our plates and sit down. As we mow through our tacos, I tell them what happened at Boomerang. By the time I take down a few warm chocolate chip cookies, Jason and Isis have me laughing at how bizarre the whole thing is, and I feel better than I have all day.

“Wow. Talk about full disclosure,” Isis says, when I get to the questionnaires Mia and I filled out.

“Rest easy, my friend,” Jason says. “You and Mia went all the way. We were practically witnesses to it at Duke’s. You’re at ten.”

Isis reaches for another cookie. “I don’t know about that. I’m with Mia on this. I don’t think you did.”

“I’m going to try not to take that as a personal affront,” I say.

“You definitely shouldn’t,” she says through a mouthful. “Your masculine prowess was on display last night, E. You were rockin’ it. I was
mighty
impressed.”

Jason gives her a mock scowl. “What the frick, Isis?”

“I mean objectively impressed. As a completely impartial bystander.”

“It’s on, girl.” Jason does the
my eyes/your eyes
gesture. “You and me. Mighty prowess. Later.”

“Okay, love doctor, I’ll be there,” she says, before turning back to me. “Anyway, what’s the big deal if you and Mia did or didn’t last night?”

“Is that a serious question?”

“I just mean that you
work
together. Your story with her is far from finished.”

“The fun part is. She’s off limits. Company policy. We were given a strict warning to keep it professional.”

“What do you think, Spicy?” Jason says, using his nickname for her. “How long until our boy here behaves unprofessionally?”

Isis stops chewing and looks at me like she just developed x-ray vision. “Two weeks.”

“How sure are you?” Jason asks. “Twenty bucks sure?”

“Forty. And I get to redecorate the apartment when I win.”

“Done,” Jason says, and they actually shake on it.

“It’s not happening, kids,” I say. “I’m a man of my word. And I can’t afford to screw up this job.”

I finish my beer then toss the bottle and our paper plates in the trash. “Thanks for dinner, Roomie,” I say to Isis. But even as I’m leaving, their debate continues.

“I’m going to lose, aren’t I?” Isis says.

“Yeah,” Jason answers. “He won’t last a week.”

“You suck, Jason,” I call over my shoulder.

I pull the door to my room closed, shutting out the sound of his laughter. Then I kick off my cleats and nose-dive into my bed.

My pillow smells faintly sweet and floral. Maybe lilacs or violets? One thing I am sure about: it’s not
my
smell.

The image of Mia smiling at me in the backseat of the cab fills my mind. Then Mia smiling from her desk at the office. Then I start putting my imagination into it, and she’s right here, naked beneath me, her dark curls splayed around her face. Still smiling. Ready for me.

Shit. Jason might be right.

Chapter 11

Mia

Q: Guy-crazy or sisters-before-misters?

I
’m in the shower, shaving my legs and plotting my strategy for the day, when Skyler barges in and sits down to pee.

“How’s it coming in there?” she asks, and I peek around the Hello Kitty shower curtain to see her stretched out in a t-shirt, red shorts crumpled at her ankles, with a copy of
Vanity Fair
across her lap and a compact and eyeliner in her hands.

“Seriously, Sky?”

“What? I’m multitasking.” She pulls back her white-blond hair and pencils around her eyes. “Plus, holding it can give you a UTI.”

I finish one leg and squirt a line of lavender scented shaving foam on the other. “I feel like this whole moment falls into the category of too much information.”

“Come on, it’s one big vulva fest around here. You’re not going to get squeamish on me now, are you?”

The next thing I know, Beth’s also slipped into the room. “A what fest?” she asks.

“Oh God,” I groan.

Beth shoves her hand into the shower to waggle silver-polished nails at me, and then I watch her silhouette move back and forth in front of the long vanity. The bathroom lights dim, telling me she’s plugged in her hot rollers.

“Speaking of,” says Sky. “You planning to break some rules with Jocky McStudpants over there?”

I’d told them about my first day at the job and Adam Blackwood’s strict no-fraternizing policy. Which makes the prospect of my further hookups with Ethan even more tantalizing to them than to me. It’s my future, but it’s their
entertainment
.

“No, no rule breaking.” I switch off the water and push open the curtain. “Plus, I don’t think he’s all that into me. Towel,” I add, and Sky passes over an aqua bath sheet.

“Right,” says Beth. She has half her hair in rollers in the time it takes me to dry off and step out of the tub. “Cause the guys all hate smart, pretty girls with big boobs.”

“I’m not saying he hates me,” I tell them, trying to push away the specter of my on-again-off-again-please-someone-shoot-me relationship with Kyle. “And it doesn’t matter anyway. I want to get my film done, and I want that job. It’s an awesome opportunity, and a way into the business.”

“So’s he,” says Beth. “An awesome opportunity, I mean.” She finishes her rollers, then hops up on the counter and starts to paint her toenails.

“There are other guys.”

“When?” asks Sky, finally pulling up her shorts and flushing the toilet. She goes over to the sink, and Beth swings her feet out of the way so Sky can wash her hands. It’s pretty impressive choreography for a seven-by-nine space.

“When what?”

“When are there other guys?” She turns to me and leans back against the counter, arms folded. “You’re letting
that tool
Kyle turn you into Miss Havisham.”

I laugh. “I am not Miss Havisham. For one thing, I don’t have a moldy old wedding dress.”

“Laugh about it, but you’re still letting him get under your skin.”

I want to argue, but as usual, it’s like she’s read my mind. Not that I think it’s about Kyle. Not really. We were never a good fit because he didn’t have any passion. Not for me. Not for much of anything.

But there’s something else there, something that’s kept me in a holding pattern for the past year, something that keeps chafing at me, a subtle wearing of my desire to put myself out there again.

The pebbled glass of the bathroom window flames orange as the sun crosses to this side of our building. I better get moving.

“You know what it is,” I say, just realizing it myself. “It’s the whole situation. I don’t want to have to fight for anything. I don’t want to have to sneak around or prove I’m worth breaking rules for, you know? I want someone who just wants me, without question. And I want to want him back. And just go for it.”

I don’t say the rest of it, that I want the kind of love that feels like an arrow snapping from a bow—sharp, inevitable, soaring. It’s too early for poetry, and the conversation’s already making me feel dumb and teary.

I want this job. I want to make my film. And I don’t want anyone who doesn’t know whether or not he wants me.

Simple, right?

When I arrive at Boomerang twenty minutes early, I find Ethan’s chair still empty and extend a smug congratulations to myself for beating him to work. I tuck away my purse, switch on my tablet, and sit there, staring at the space he’ll soon occupy and reminding myself to treat him like a colleague, nothing more.

I turn in my chair, and something in the movement brings a sliver of memory back to me: swiveling on my barstool, my leg brushing Ethan’s, a swooping feeling in the pit of my stomach. I taste sambuca on my lips and feel myself leaning in toward him, my hand on his thigh, my face turned up to his, and a kiss, light and warm, right there in a bar full of people.

I have a flash of pulling back and of him looking down at me with those blue, blue eyes, those long dark eyelashes, his face alive with surprise and amusement.

So, I made the first move.

Go, me.

“Now, there’s the hustle I like to see.”

I look up to find Adam Blackwood leaning against the long kitchen counter. He’s all starched luxury and twinkle, his gray suit tailored to elegant perfection. How can someone so young, just a year older than me, look like he sprang from the womb in Armani?

“Thanks.” Damn, I don’t want to let that memory go, but—reluctantly—I do. “I, um, couldn’t wait to get to work.”

Smooth, Mia.

“Excellent!” He punctuates the comment with a clap. “We’re gathered in the conference room. Want to join us?”

So much for being the early bird. “Absolutely.”

“Great. Grab your tablet, and meet me in there. I’m off to round up the usual suspects.”

He walks off, and I gather my things and head past his office to the conference room. Its walls are an opaque moss-colored concrete, and a glossy chrome boomerang serves as a door handle.

I pull open the door and find myself face-to-face with a room full of people.

And a wall-sized vista of a deconstructed pinup girl—an abstract mandala of dark hair and tawny flesh, red high heels, cherries, and sailor hats. It’s more a pattern than a portrait, but I recognize the artist and the subject.

Because it’s my mom’s work.

And the pinup girl? That’s me.

Chapter 12