Why did he ask me? The guy was a self-made millionaire at eighteen. Aren’t women lining up to spend a night with him? And why do I care? He’s a good guy, and this is a positive sign for my career prospects. The more he and I connect, the better my odds are of beating—
Aw . . . Shit.
Mia.
An image pops into my mind. Her, smiling in the convertible with my tie looped around her dark hair.
That was Tuesday.
The last time I was alone with her.
The last time we were easy with each other, before a wall went up.
It’s okay to just want things, she’d said that day at the park.
It’d taken everything in me not to say, You’re wrong, Mia. It’s not okay for me to want you.
All week I’ve been sitting across from her. I’ve learned she takes her sandwiches apart and puts them back together again before she eats them. I’ve learned she talks about her friends more than herself, and her family more than her friends. I’ve learned the film she’s making is about her grandma, who has Alzheimer’s. I’ve learned her hair is sort of like a barometer—a pretty good predictor of her mood.
And I’ve learned that I like everything about her.
Every. Single. Goddamn. Thing.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I pull up her name in my address book and send her a text.
Ethan: Hey Curls
My heart creeps into my throat as I watch the message post as sent. This is a bad call. Really fucking stupid. I’m about to toss my phone aside when her reply pops up.
Mia: Hey! What’s up?
Okay. Time to make up a reason to have texted her.
Ethan: Big plans tonight?
Mia: Nothing much. Family night. You?
Ethan: Nothing as exciting as last Sunday.
Mia: You spent it with Adam at Duke’s, didn’t you?
Ethan: That night was all you, Curls.
There’s a two-second pause.
Mia: Are you flirting with me?
Ethan: That would mean breaking company rules.
Mia: Yeah, but are you?
Ethan: Yes.
Ethan: I am.
Ethan: Speaking of
Ethan: what are you wearing?
I’m joking about that line, mostly. But I can’t resist trying out a classic since I’m pretty much a sexting virgin. Alison balked at any flirting I did with her this way. She wasn’t much for flirting, period.
I stare at my phone, waiting for Mia to put me in my place. Then her reply comes through and I almost fumble the phone.
Mia: Your necktie and nothing else.
Holy shit.
Ethan: Really???
Mia: No
Mia:
Mia: You still there?
Ethan: Yes. Getting into cold shower.
The wood I’m sporting is going to require more than a shower. Awesome. Nothing like a supersized helping of sexual frustration when you’re about to head out for the night.
Mia: You look good when you shower.
Jesus. She’s trying to kill me.
I stare at the words, my mind firing off images of us together. Shower. Standing. Bed. Chair. Rinse and repeat. It’s like the best kind of slide show in the universe.
I can’t remember the last time a girl’s gotten me this worked up. Whether it’s okay to want her or not has no apparent effect. I fucking want her.
I check the time. 6:57.
What did I do to deserve this?
Ethan: I have to go. Ride almost here.
Mia: Okay.
Ethan: Have fun tonight, Curls.
Mia: You too.
I sit there and reread our exchange until Adam texts me that he’s downstairs. I tell him I’m on my way then take a few seconds to pull myself together.
Vomit. Car wrecks.
Vomit in car wrecks.
Okay. Good enough.
I reach for my tie, but stop myself and drop it back on the dresser. Don’t need that distraction hanging around my neck all night. A white dress shirt is going to have to pass.
I find Adam waiting at the curb in a charcoal gray Bugatti. Getting in feels like climbing into a panther, all sinewy and low. I’m not much of a luxury car guy—my idea of a sweet ride is a great off-road truck—but Adam’s car converts me on the spot.
“It’s a little flashy,” Adam admits as he pulls onto the street, “but it was a symbolic gesture for me.”
“Symbolic?” The smells inside are strong: leather upholstery and a faint trace of motor oil. A badass combination. I breathe it in, my head returning to a Mia-free zone. “How so?”
“I had two early investors in my first start-up. One was French, the other German. Prior to going public, they tried to join together and squeeze me out.” Adam’s grin is devilish. “They failed.”
The dude is a boss. I feel a surge of optimism. Why was I bent out of shape earlier? I’m hanging out with Adam Blackwood. In a freakin’ Bugatti.
“Did you buy the car after the IPO?” I ask.
Adam nods. “It was the first thing I did. Bugattis are French design, but the company is a subsidiary of Volkswagen.”
“A German automaker,” I say, filling in the blank.
“Exactly. This car reminds me to be careful about who I bring close.” His voice drops, clouding with some dark emotion as he adds, “It’s a lesson I’ve taken to heart.”
He shifts into third as we merge onto the freeway. The car surges forward and we fall silent, that conversation over.
The way he navigates the traffic is defiant and a little vicious, like he’s racing his own demons. But then we pull off the freeway and he smiles, and charismatic, cool Adam is back.
“I appreciate you coming to this with me,” he says, the roar of the engine finally growing quieter. “I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity. Having you there will relieve any awkwardness.”
I’m totally lost. “Awkwardness?”
“Well, I am her boss.”
No.
No fucking way.
I have to remind myself to breathe. “Adam . . . Where exactly are we going?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” he says. “To Mia’s parents’ house for dinner. I’m a big fan of her mother’s work.” His gaze drops to my neck and his eyes narrow. “Check behind your seat. I think I have an extra tie back there. It’s probably best to play it safe.”
Yeah, that’s a negative. Seeing Mia tonight is going to be the exact opposite of playing it safe.
Chapter 17
Mia
Q: Do you like to cook?
Apparently, the globe has tilted off its axis because my mom has decided to cook. Which means the homey meal I’d planned—my dad’s special Lasagna Milanese—has turned into . . . well, I don’t know what, exactly. It’s blue; it smells like a foot; and it’s somehow taken every pot and pan within a fifteen-mile radius to produce.
“He’ll be here in ten minutes,” I say, attempting to straighten as she creates, which is exactly as effective as sweeping up after a tornado. “Why don’t you go get changed, Mom, and I’ll . . .” I look at my father, who has gone into his usual wine-selection fugue state, and mouth, “Order a pizza?”
I really should have thought this through. I couldn’t stand the idea of Adam and Ethan jocking it up together without my finding some way to even the odds, but now I feel as gross as I expected to feel in trotting out my mother. I feel guilty and frazzled, and Ethan’s flirty text messages do not help.
I try my best to thrust that aside. Along with the image of him handing me his tie in the car, smiling at me across our desks at work. Standing in the shower, water making a slow trail down the contours of his abs.
My mom dumps a chopping board full of what looks like chives into something brown and burbling. I’m pretty sure there’s an eye of newt in there somewhere.
“Pearl,” says my dad. He plunks three bottles on the table—a Chianti, a Pinot Grigio, and a half-consumed bottle of Jim Beam I’m
pretty sure is meant for him. “Let me take over for a bit. Go put on something nice so we can make the kid look good.”
“Fine!” My mother shoves lids onto a few pots and heads out of the kitchen, untying her apron as she goes. “Don’t let the messicant burn.”
“What the hell is messicant?” My dad puts his arm around me and gingerly lifts one of the lids. Steam rises, forming the shape of a skull-and-crossbones before wafting toward the range hood.
Okay, not really, but it smells like death’s armpit, and not one thing on the oven looks like actual food.
“Why did you let her cook?” I ask, mopping up Pollack-like spatters all over the slate countertops.
My dad pours a couple of fingers of bourbon and hands it to me. Then he pours a larger portion for himself. “Makes her frisky,” he says, and clinks his glass against mine. “Salud!”
Kill. Me. Now.
The doorbell rings, and I consider diving out the window, Cowardly Lion-style, but I shove my bourbon glass into my father’s hand. “Please, if you love me,” I say, gesturing at the stovetop. “Do something with this.”
Hurrying down the hallway, I smooth back my hair, brush the wrinkles from my peach linen dress, and slip back into the silver platform sandals I’d left near the front door.
I plaster a smile on my face and open the door to find Adam Blackwood there, a bottle of wine in one hand and a bouquet of pink daffodils in the other.
And Ethan beside him.
I blink, pretty sure I’m hallucinating, but no, it’s Ethan. He looks absolutely devastating in a sharp white dress shirt and slim black tie.
“Ethan,” I squeak. Clearing my throat, I try again. “Hey.”
“Surprise,” he says, with a small shrug.
Adam moves past me into the house. “Surprise?” he says, giving me a puzzled look. “I’m sorry. I phoned your mother and asked if it was all right to bring a colleague. She didn’t tell you?”
Of course she didn’t. “No, but that’s—”
“It’s all right that I asked him along, isn’t it?”
“Sorry to crash,” says Ethan, shutting the door behind him and stepping close. He smells fresh from the shower, and I am in major trouble. “I had no idea until we were on our way.”
“No, it’s fine.” I seem to have lost all major motor functions and just stand there, gaping at him. “Um . . . Come on in.”
We follow Adam down the short hall into the living room just as my mother enters from the other side. Dressed in flowing silk pants and a black kimono top, she extends an elegant hand to Adam. Now she’s Pearl Bertram, noted photographer, not Pearl Bertram, mom and horrific chef. She’s so smooth when she wants to be, and I’m such a dolt.
“Here’s the colleague I mentioned,” says Adam. He introduces Ethan to my mother and then to my father, who comes in with a charcuterie tray and wine glasses. Bless him.
“Ethan’s got an internship, like me,” I offer, forcing myself not to add how awesome it would have been to know he was joining this evening’s fun. Now’s not the time, and there’s no point making Ethan feel even more uncomfortable than he clearly feels.
“Interns and competitors,” Adam adds. “I like to keep things exciting.”
Ethan and I exchange a look, and I stuff an olive in my mouth to keep from breaking into an idiotic grin. I’d say we have exciting covered.
I catch Ethan looking around, and I try to see our home from his perspective. An expanse of floor-to-twenty-foot-ceiling windows overlooking an overgrown English garden, sleek Danish modern furniture in shades of slate, brown, and tan. A Lucien Freud hangs above the fireplace, and a pair of Judy Chicago sculptures prop up travel books on the mantel. Everything opulent and polished, thanks to Bitsy, our long-suffering housekeeper.
Suddenly, it all feels ostentatious to me, like I need to apologize for my parents or for myself. Or like I’m not entitled to want things because I come from wealth.
I want to explain that it’s because of my family’s wealth that this job is important to me. My mother has her art. My father had a business he built from nothing. I want that opportunity to create something entirely on my own, to feel utterly entitled to everything I earn. I want to take this person that’s so precious to me—my Nana—and immortalize her so that in some small way she’ll live forever. And I want to spend my life making films. This job isn’t only the best path; it’s the only path available to me right now.
“Adam, Ethan, why don’t I give you a tour of the studio?” my mother asks. “The light is gorgeous at this time of day, and we can finish our drinks out on the deck.”
Thank you, Pearl Bertram, for pulling out the normal when necessary.
I turn to go, and then I remember that my dad and I stashed all the nudes in my mom’s studio.
“Oh, uh, Mom, maybe you should just skip the studio.”
“Nonsense,” says Adam, rubbing his hands together. “I’d never forgive myself if I missed an opportunity to see your mother’s work in progress. It’s an honor.”
Crap.
It’s not so much that I don’t want Ethan to see me naked. Obviously. It’s that I don’t want him to see me naked and sitting in what looks like a cocktail glass filled with blood. Or covered in eyes and nipples.
“Ethan, why don’t you . . . uh, why don’t you come meet my Nana?”
“Sure,” says Ethan, giving me a puzzled look. “Though I’d love to see your mom’s work too.”
“I’m sure she’d be happy to bring out a few pieces to show you later,” I say as I try to shoot a telepathic message to my mother not to humiliate me.
Ethan follows me down the hall to my grandmother’s room but stops in front of a series of photographs my mother took of me—twenty-one of them, taken each year on my birthday. In each, I’m draped in white, my hair brushed back from my face, no makeup or other adornments. I love them, not because they’re of me but because more than any of her other photographs, they communicate something of my mother’s heart.
He stands there, looking at each one in order—baby to child to teen to . . . whatever I am today.
“These are amazing. Something in your eyes has stayed the same through the years.” Ethan turns to look at me, and the hall light haloes his hair, giving it a liquid sheen. “They say a lot . . . Your eyes do.”
“They do?” I ask. “What are they saying right now?” Oh, Mia, I think. You are playing with fire.
Something darts through my consciousness—Ethan wet, my hands in his hair. Our bodies bare, slippery. We’re kissing. And laughing. What the hell did we do that night?
We’re in dangerous territory here, standing inches apart in the hall, his sweet, thoughtful eyes locked onto mine. But right now, I don’t care. I just know I want it again.
I step toward him. I can’t help myself; his pull is too strong. The hell with the job. The hell with Kyle. I just need to wrap myself in his gorgeous beach-fire scent. I want to feel the length of him against me, want those soft, warm lips all over me again. And I want to remember it this time.
I take another step, and he watches me come toward him, his eyes half-lidded, lips moist and inviting.
And then Nana calls for me from the next room.
Chapter 18
Ethan
Q: Grow old and gray with your partner at your side, or blaze a solo trail into the sunset?
I follow Mia down a long hallway, past a glass atrium with a modern stone fountain, telling myself I’m just imagining our chemistry.
She did not just look like she wanted to kiss me. And she does not look amazing in that peach dress. And I’m not losing my head over her.
Nope. I’m good.
Mia pauses at a door and knocks softly. “Nana? Coming in!” She steps inside and moves right to a sitting alcove at the far end of a spacious bedroom. The decor is modern like the rest of the house, but a little more elegant, with crystal chandeliers and white furniture, and light brown walls. I think. They could be in my color-blind zon
e and actually be red.
Mia kneels in front of a slender woman reading a book. She’s in her late sixties by my best guess. I’m surprised by how young she actually seems, knowing she has Alzheimer’s.
“Hey, Nana,” Mia says. “This is my friend Ethan.” She smiles up at me. “Ethan, this is my Nana, Evelyn Bertram.”
Evelyn looks up at me with green eyes that are startlingly familiar until I notice that they’re foggy, like glass that’s been exposed to the elements for decades. Still, there’s enough of Mia’s humor and warmth in them that I find myself smiling at Nana like I’ve known her forever.
“Hello, Ethan.” Nana extends her hand. “Call me Evie.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Evie.”
Nana beams at me. Then at Mia. Then back at me. “Well, sit down.”
“Thanks.” I sit in the chair facing her. Mia settles on her knees, her hand over her grandmother’s, which rests on a book. There’s love in Mia’s posture and her smile. It’s in her entire being. Maybe I’m inspired, being in the house of a famous photographer, but I want to snap a picture of her like that.
“Are you a university friend?” Nana asks me.
“No. Mia and I work together.”
“Work?” Nana looks at Mia like she’s lost, and I want to take back what I said. Suddenly, words feel a little dangerous.
“It’s recent, Nana. I just started earlier this week. Ethan and I are coming up with marketing ideas for a company called Boomerang.”
She talks steadily and slowly, but without patronizing, and I get the feeling she’s told Nana all of this before. Then she glances at me, and the sadness in her eyes makes me hurt for her.
“Actually, Mia’s coming up with all of the good ideas. I’m mostly there for support.”
“You certainly look up to the task.”
Mia lets out a small laugh. “What do you mean, Nana?”
“Look at him. He’s cute.”
“Thank you, Evie. And you’re a beautiful woman.”
Mia shoots me a look. “Are you flirting with my grandmother?”
“Yes, but she started it,” I say. Then I notice the black-and-white photo in the silver frame on the table. “Wow . . . Is that you?”
Boomerang Page 8
