If nothing’s meant to come of my one night with Ethan and that one amazing kiss, fine. But the least I can do—for myself—is stack the cards in favor of him continuing to find Ms. Wrong. Spare myself the torment of seeing his love connection unfold right in front of my face.
So that’s my answer, the sum total of what drove me here like a lunatic. I have to accept that he wants but doesn’t want me. I don’t have to accept that he’s meant for someone else.
Judging by his sudden and inexplicable attachment to Raylene, I might want to bypass all the obviously crazy ones. What else will scare him un-stiff? Rodeo clown? Panhandling “freegan” who lives in her truck? I second-guess each one—rodeo clown equals adventurous; freegan equals resourceful and not bound by the trappings of materialism.
I rub my temple while I scroll through image after image, profile after profile. Somewhere in here must be a girl who is one thousand percent wrong for Ethan. An absolute catastrophe. Oil to his water.
Finally, I stop at a profile of a toned blonde in a perfectly tailored gray suit. She’s beautiful, but her features seem overly refined, like the maker’s tools kept chiseling just a beat too long. Her chin and nose are pointed, and her eyes are wide-set and the gray blue of glaciers. Something in them, an expression of haughtiness or distance, makes me feel like she could turn you inside out with a glance. From her stiff posture to her cool, burrowing gaze, she seems like someone who’s never had an orgasm in her life. And doesn’t want one.
I read over her details: works for her father’s venture capitalism company, loves horses and haute couture, and has a quote from Kierkegaard prominent on her page: “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
Uptight, quotes Danish existentialists. Daddy’s girl.
I think I’ve found the one.
Chapter 30
Ethan
Q: Get mad or get even?
Everything good with you, E?” Rhett asks me as we hop into the Mini after work.
I have exactly half an hour to get home, change into casual clothes, and over to the Pink Taco—the location for tonight’s torture session.
“Yeah. Fine,” I say, stuffing my legs into the car.
“Cool, cool,” Rhett says. He pulls out of the garage, but I know he’s not through with me yet. Rhett picks up a lot more than you think he does. I know that’s why Adam trusts him. It makes him great at his job.
“You just seemed preoccupied,” Rhett says, making a left onto Santa Monica. “Not like your usual self, you know?”
What can I say? It’s the truth. I was probably a bit of an asshole today, if I’m being honest. But I had no other recourse.
My day could have gone one of two ways: I could’ve worried about my dwindling bank account—and more importantly, the fact that Mia’s going on a date with another guy tonight. Or I could’ve turned all that angry juice into something positive—which is what I did.
While Mia, Paolo, and Sadie played two truths and a lie, and then disappeared to a lunch where they probably braided each other’s hair and traded best-friend necklaces, I put my head down and worked on my booth for the Vegas show. Complete professional focus, I’ve learned, is the only way I can stay sane while Mia sits three feet away from me laughing with people who are—well, who aren’t me.
The result wasn’t bad. I got a ton of stuff done.
“Just working hard,” I answer Rhett. “Trying to get things lined up for Vegas.” I adjust the air-conditioning vents away from me so they’re blasting at Rhett.
“How’s that going?” he asks.
“Good. I think I found a DJ for my side of the booth. A guy called Rasputin.” Having music at the booth is part of my movement strategy.
Rhett makes a face. “You hired an old Russian dude to be our DJ?”
“I don’t know if he’s Russian, but he’s definitely not old. He’s only eighteen. Supposedly he’s the shit right now. I think I’ve caught him at the front-end of a huge career.”
“Sweet.” We stop at a light. Rhett flips his visor mirror down and checks himself out. “And the video game?”
This is my favorite idea—a custom-made game where people can launch virtual boomerangs.
“Also locked and loaded. Jason’s cousin, Zeke, designs games for Naughty Dog and he’s setting me up. It’s going to be super realistic. Projected onto screens so everyone can see it. It’ll have a motion-sensitive glove, changeable targets, rankings, the whole deal. Zeke’s pumped. I talked to him this morning and he’d been working on it all night.”
Rhett grins at me, driving again as the light turns green. “You are gonna kill it, bro. The job’s going to be yours.”
“That’s the goal,” I say, but I’m not so sure. Mia’s just too damn smart and creative to write off.
For the rest of the drive, Rhett and I talk about the Dynamos and our newest addition, Parker, but my mind is stuck on his comment.
The job’s going to be yours.
It should’ve made me happier to hear that.
Half an hour later, I ask the hostess for a table at Pink Taco. Specifically a table. After Raylene, I’ve sworn off booths.
As she leads me past the bar, I see that Mia’s already here—and that her date is, too. I slow down a little, taking a good long look at them, since neither she nor Prince Charming have spotted me yet.
For two days, I resisted the urge to pull up the guy’s profile—my lame way of pretending he doesn’t exist—but I can’t do that anymore. He’s right there, on a barstool that’s turned toward Mia, a pitcher of Sangria between them.
He’s a decent-looking guy. Olive-skinned. Tall and lean, with longish wavy hair that I’m sure girls dig. He’s dressed in a dark tailored suit, which makes me wish I hadn’t changed into jeans and a casual polo. But, seriously. Who wears a fuckin’ suit to grab a burrito?
Mia is still in the floral dress she wore to work, but she’s changed her earrings from the small gold stars I noticed earlier. While diligently ignoring her. She changed her hair, too, pulling it into a braid that hangs like a dark rope over one shoulder.
With her hair that way, her small chin and her bright eyes stand out more. So does all the smooth, perfect skin along her neck. She looks delicate—and that makes me want to wrap myself around her.
Or watch her share a pitcher of Sangria with some other dude.
Fuck. These dates are going to kill me.
I shake off the tension in my shoulders, catch up to the hostess and sit my ass down. Then I pull my phone out of my pocket and fire up my Boomerang app. What’s interesting about all of this, I think, as I furiously search for Prince Charming’s profile, is that I have never been the possessive type—and yet, when it comes to Mia, the girl who isn’t even mine, I am that guy.
There.
Found him.
Brian Bergren. Originally from Scottsdale, Arizona, plays in a band, and is also currently the personal assistant to an Oscar-winning director who I’ve never heard of. Brian is looking for dates with someone funny, smart, and interested in the arts. On and on it goes, like a freaking joke. Like I’m reading a list of Mia’s ideal characteristics in a guy.
I scroll down to the Dealbreaker column, where people usually list things like smoking, drug use, criminal records, but ole’ Brian’s answer is just adorable.
Dealbreaker: Stanley Kubrick. I can’t date anyone who doesn’t have at least a superficial knowledge of his work. I wish I were kidding, but I’m not.
How great for Mia.
She’s just met herself in attractive male form.
“Ethan?”
I almost drop my phone.
Mia stands across from me, hands resting on the back of a chair.
“Hey—what are you doing here?” It comes out sharp, but she just busted me doing recon on her date. I think.
“I’m on my date.” She looks over her shoulder, at Brian Freakin’ Kubrick, who’s watching us from t
he bar.
“I can see that. I meant here at my table.”
“Oh.” Mia looks down at her hands for a second. When she looks back up, her green eyes are a shade darker. I know I’m being a dick. But I can’t stop myself. I’m a derailed train. “Well, I got a text about your date. There was a complication or something.”
“A complication?”
“A cancellation. Late. A late cancellation.” She kneads the back of the seat as she talks. I’m not sure why. Mia doesn’t get nervous around me. “Cookie sent me a text, though, and, um—they set you up with someone else. She should be here any minute.”
“Great. Thanks for the message, Mia.”
“You’re welcome. Have fun tonight, Ethan.” My attitude’s finally getting through to her, because her tone of voice really says you’re an asshole.
“Oh, I will,” I say, like I’m planning to take my super-hot unknown emergency backup date up against a wall first chance I get.
Mia cocks her head to the side, her eyes narrowing on me. “Huh,” she says. “So will I.”
“Awesome. Great.”
“Yeah . . . Great,” she says, meeting me toe-to-toe.
“So, I’ll see you at work?”
“Sure. See you at work.” Mia gives a tiny shoulder shrug. “I might be a little late, though. You know. If things go well.”
“Ah,” I say, nodding. “Nice, Curls. Thinking about going for number six tonight, are you?” I hear myself say. It’s actually amazing that I haven’t lost my shit right now. Truly amazing.
“Well, it’s too early to call. But he’d actually be number five, since you and I never happened.”
“We happened, Curls. I guarantee it. Not just once, either. We happened a few times. At least.” She rolls her eyes and walks away, but I’m not done. “I’m your number five, Mia!” I yell, like a complete fucking lunatic. “I am your five!”
A family in the next table looks over their sizzling fajitas at me, but Mia doesn’t stop. I watch her join Brian Kubrick—who keeps looking over like he’s trying to figure out whether he should be worried about me or not.
I send him a silent message, clearing that right up.
It was stupid of me to worry about her dating another Robby. The guy was an asshole, but he never stood a chance. Brian Kubrick, on the other hand, is a real threat. He has the potential to screw everything up.
If I allowed myself to care, which I do not, I remind myself.
Right. Keep telling yourself that.
The waiter comes by, taking my drink order. He’s barely walked away when my awareness shifts to a blond knockout weaving through the tables. She heads my way, looking right at me, and—
The blood drains out of my skull, and my vision grows spotty around the edges, like I’m about to pass out. But I don’t. I only watch as she walks up to my table.
Alison.
My ex.
Is here.
“Hi, Ethan,” she says, her mouth tugging up in a one-sided smile.
Seconds pass. Lifetimes. Millennia. And I still don’t have the capacity to grasp what the fuck is happening.
Alison pulls out the chair Mia had just stood behind and sits down. Her smile fades, and I see two years of memories emerge in her teary blue eyes.
“Thank you, Ethan,” she says. “Thanks for giving me a chance.”
Chapter 31
Mia
Q: Do you ever feel awkward in social situations?
I walk away from Ethan, one billion percent sure that this little social experiment of Adam Blackwood’s is going to turn me off both food and boys for life. A lead weight sits in my belly, and the air inside the restaurant seems suddenly hazy, thick with the cloying sweet-sharp scent of sizzling onions and peppers.
Ethan made me mean, and I hate to be mean.
Okay, he didn’t make me, not exactly. He just brings it out in me—chafes all the raw bits until I want to curl into a protective ball.
I slip back onto my stool next to my date Brian and give him a smile that feels fleeting and phony.
“Everything okay?” he asks. He’s got one of those square, boyish faces with ruddy cheeks and a fantastic nose that looks like it’s been broken a time or two. His eyes are an almost reddish brown—like cacao plants—and they drink you in, slow between blinks as though afraid to miss a single thing.
I like him.
The thought registers with a rocklike thud in my brain and promises to go absolutely nowhere. Poor Brian.
Reaching for a chip, I nod, swirl it around in a stone mortar full of chunky guac, and stuff it in my mouth with little thought to the effect that garlic and cilantro will have on my breath.
“Yeah, fine,” I finally say. “Just a co-worker. Had to, um, chat about some work stuff.”
“Seemed pretty intense,” Brian says, and gives me this watchful look—all curiosity, no judgment. It makes me want to tell him things. “It also looked like he wanted to rip my head off.” He picks up the pitcher of sangria and pours some into my half-filled glass, and then he tops off his own.
“Oh, that’s just his face.” Even the joke makes me feel dumb and disloyal. Because it’s not true. And because it’s such a beautiful face.
Jesus, I have to pull myself together. But I feel wired, unsettled. I remind myself of Baudelaire, mincing along the edge of a chair, twitching, a second from flight.
I breathe out, try to come back to the moment, try not to think about gorgeous, jerk-face Ethan.
“What made you sign up for Boomerang?” I ask Brian in the least subtle attempt to change the subject ever.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a ripple of blue and look up as an absolutely stunning blond girl slinks by. She’s in a blue halter dress with a jeweled collar that circles a pale swan neck. Her gray Louboutin pumps cover the distance between the front door and Ethan’s table in about five steps.
And then it dawns on me. I’m looking at her. My precious ice queen.
Suck that, Vance, I think, dying to swivel on my stool so I can watch the whole awkward evening unfold. I feel guilty for the setup but less than I did before he acted like a jerk tonight.
Brian’s eyes flick over for a couple of beats but then dutifully return to me. I like that too. He doesn’t pretend not to notice a gorgeous human being. But he’s not all ogly and gross. Like Robby. And, I allow myself to admit, like Kyle. That tool.
“It seems safer, somehow.” It takes me a second to realize Brian’s answering my question.
“Safer, really?”
He dips his head to catch a glob of guacamole before it slides off his chip. “Well, to use a filmmakers’ analogy, maybe it’s like narrowing the aperture a bit.” He makes a frame of his hands and looks at me through it. “Like it’s less pressure to say, ‘I’m focused on this one night, this one date, rather than the first night of what we’re both hoping will be an entire lifetime.’ ”
It seems like a fair answer. A good one. But I can barely home in on it. I know there’s a juicy drama playing out behind me, and I’m dying to see for myself.
Brian asks, “What about you?” at the same time that I suggest, “Hey, want to move over to a booth?”
“Sorry.” He grins. “Sure.”
We tell the bartender. Brian grabs our glasses and pitcher, nodding at me to nab the chips and guacamole. I follow him as he weaves between booths and places us, miraculously, in the perfect spot.
Only my date slides into the booth facing Ethan and the Ice Queen, leaving me to either sit with my back turned to them or slide in next to him, which feels like a signal I don’t want to send.
I hover there dumbly for a second, the stone bowl of guacamole growing heavy in my hand.
If I sit next to Brian, I’m saying I want to get close, snuggle up to him.
But I’ll be able to see Ethan.
If I sit across from him, I won’t come across like some desperate goof with boundary issues, but I won’t be able to see the action. Which is kind of the whole point
.
Suddenly, the idea of decades more of this dating crap makes me want to smother myself to death in the guacamole bowl.
I set down the bowl and chips and smile at him. Nodding in the vicinity of his lap, I ask, “Hey, mind if I . . .”
Lucky for my ego, he lights up immediately and makes room for me. “Sorry. Of course. I mean, I didn’t know if you think it’s awkward.”
Yeah. It’s definitely awkward. I mean, it’s not like I’m a trout with eyes on the side of my face. I don’t get why people do it. And now I’m one of those people.
I slide in, turning toward Ethan’s booth at the exact moment a server comes to stand directly in my eye line, blocking my view.
Come on!
“Dinner, kids?” the server asks. He’s got a white-blond televangelist’s pompadour and two stylized red “X’s” tattooed above his eyebrow, which I realize with some dismay, is actually the Dos Equis logo. I’m guessing he’s going to regret that in roughly . . . well, now.
“What do you think, Mia?” asks Brian. “Want to split something? Fajitas, maybe?”
“Sounds great.” I try to employ my x-ray vision to see through the waiter’s scrawny chest, but sadly don’t seem to have them charged up this evening.
Finally, we get through an excruciating process of choosing protein source, flour or corn tortillas, vegetables and other sides until I just want to scream at him to put some goddamn food on a plate and bring it to us already.
He moves away, and my attention zeroes in on Ethan and his date.
I expected to see the untouched drinks, to see Ethan’s frown, his posture of disaffection. And I do. He looks miserable. The girl looks miserable. But it’s the wrong kind of miserable. It’s—intimate somehow. They lean their heads toward one another. The girl’s long pale fingers rest there, close to him, suggesting she wants to touch him.
“Why are you on the Boomerang site?” Jason asks, and the question feels stale, like it’s part of a conversation I had sixty years ago. “What are you looking for?”
I tear my gaze away and murmur, “Good question.” But I don’t know what I want except to stop sitting here, burning with curiosity and miserable at seeing Ethan with another girl. Even a girl whose company he clearly does not enjoy. “I guess I just want to be . . . I don’t know. Authentic?”
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