Tate laughs and points to the sushi bar. And that’s when I notice that a conveyer belt runs around the bar. And on the conveyer belt are plates and plates of sushi and appetizers. They are covered in clear domes so you can see what’s inside.
“Is this a conveyer belt of sushi?” I ask, awestricken. “Now I’ve seen everything.”
“Yes, a never-ending train of sushi is my heaven,” Tate says as he leads me through the main floor. There’s a giant crowd of people mingling by another bar, and they all look like they just came from filming something. They look worn down and weary, and I can see traces of heavy makeup that were hastily rubbed off, but not entirely. Tate squeezes between them, but not before he grabs my hand to guide me through the mob of people.
I study Tate’s hand wrapped securely in mine. It’s definitely not in a romantic way, because our fingers aren’t interlocked. It’s more so he can make sure I don’t get lost. Tate all but drags me across the room. It feels like a metaphor for our friendship thus far. Out of my control. Clumsy. Comforting.
We finally get to Elise, who sits at the bar looking perfect in an all-black jumpsuit with her hair piled on top of her head. She is both sexy and sweet—how does she do that? I try not to subconsciously fiddle with my own outfit of black leggings and an oversized heather gray sweater that slips off my shoulder a bit. I thought it would be playful and casual, but maybe I should have worn heels instead of ankle-length lace-up boots.
Before I throw myself further down the spiral of self-pity, it’s time to act.
“Elise, this is Dani. She’s a new intern,” Tate says as he gestures between me and Elise. She smiles politely and holds out her hand.
How is she acting so calm and collected? I wonder. I’m sweating over here. In my sweater. Why did I wear a sweater?!
“Dani, it’s so nice to meet you,” Elise trills, as if meeting me is the single most exciting thing that’s ever happened to her. I give her a smile that I’m sure looks stiff as hell.
“Nice to meet you, too, Elise. Tate has told me a lot about you,” I say robotically, trying to speed this along.
Elise giggles and slaps at Tate’s arm in a cute, girly way. “Oh he’s talking about me, huh? Only good things, I hope.”
“Um, yes. Good things.”
Tate motions for me to sit, and for a few blissful minutes, we are all distracted by the sushi coming down the line. Tate explains that the price of the food depends on the color of the plate. You can take whatever you want, and the wait staff tallies up your plates at the end of the meal.
“Of course, tonight is comped by Lowell, right, baby?” Elise asks with a pout. I smother a grimace by taking a sip of water. I had forgotten what Elise turns into around boyfriends. She goes from being a strong and decisive woman to a lash-fluttering butterfly.
“Yes, Lowell is handling the bill. So eat up!”
The sushi tastes great, and Tate and I laugh at the fact that we have the same soy sauce routine: stir in wasabi and pile in as much pickled ginger as possible. I feel Elise watching us, but I don’t dare meet her gaze.
I’m afraid of what she sees when she watches me with Tate. Am I too comfortable? Too smiley? Too flirty?
I can’t really look at Tate, either.
We’re lying to him. She’s lying to him and I’m lying to him and together we’re lying to him. We’re just a bunch of lying liars who lie.
But then Tate might be lying to Elise about why he’s dating her.
My stomach twists more and more with each passing minute, and I have to cram my mouth full of appetizers to keep from blurting out the truth to both of them.
Watching Tate and Elise interact doesn’t help with my twisting stomach either. Every once in a while she reaches over and tugs on his ear, like it’s her own quirky way to say “I adore you.” Tate wrinkles his nose whenever she does it, but I think he enjoys it because he never tells her to stop.
“Elise, how do you know if you don’t like eel if you’ve never tried it?” Tate asks while holding a piece of sushi on the end of his chopsticks toward her. She holds her hand up, making her gold, stacked bracelets clang and jingle as if in protest.
“I know I like chicken teriyaki, so why can’t I just eat that?”
“Be more adventurous. Just try it! I promise you’ll like it.”
“Gross. No,” she says, pulling farther away from the offending piece of food. Tate sighs and then turns toward me. “Dani will try it. Right?”
“Um, no thanks. I’ll stick to my spicy tuna.”
“Just try it,” Tate pushes. He moves the chopsticks closer to me. Is he going to feed me eel in front of his girlfriend? Elise is watching; her face is unreadable. I stupidly hold my hand out to accept the piece of sushi roll. Tate gives me a funny look and drops it in my palm. I shove the food in my mouth and swallow it without tasting it.
“It’s good,” I tell them. They are both staring at me like I’ve never eaten food before. I know I’m acting awkward, but once you know you are acting a certain way, it’s impossible to stop.
“It’s eel-licious,” I joke, clenching my hands in my lap to keep from smacking myself on the forehead. I sound so lame.
A friend of theirs stops by our table, and the three of them talk about a movie they all saw together recently. I am firmly pushed into outsider zone, even though I haven’t moved.
“That movie was boring. Next time, I’m picking. I haven’t seen the new Matthew McConaughey movie,” Elise says. Tate groans.
“We haven’t seen it because it looks awful. That dude needs to stick to dramas. No more romantic comedies.”
“Don’t be stuck up!” Elise complains while tugging at his ear. This time, Tate seems to be bothered, either by the ear tug or “stuck up” comment.
If Tate and Elise’s relationship didn’t feel real to me before, it does now. It’s making my palms sweat. I tell myself that I hate seeing them together because it makes the lying and scheming that much worse, but a tiny voice hanging out in the shadows of my brain is whispering that there’s another reason I can’t bear to watch Elise tug on Tate’s ear one more time.
I stand up suddenly and push my chair away. “I gotta go to the restroom, excuse me,” I mumble.
“Oh, I’ll come, too!” Elise announces, getting up from her seat. She kisses Tate on the cheek and puts her arm around me as we walk to the bathroom, just like we’re old pals. Which we are.
This whole scheme is screwing with my head. I debate telling Elise that, but as soon as the bathroom door shuts behind us, she all but jumps into my arms in excitement.
“This is going great! He has no idea. And did you see the people who are at this thing? Every TV director in town is here, I swear. I can’t wait to talk to all of them.”
I put my hand on her shoulders to calm her down.
“Don’t you feel weird about this? We’re lying to him. Both of us,” I sigh. “I think it’s time to end this.”
“What? No, he’s just now getting close to you! We have to keep going or I’ll never know.”
“Elise, I don’t like lying to him. I feel bad,” I admit, hoping she’ll understand and finally let me off the hook. It’s the first time I’ve hinted that I care about Tate’s feelings, but she brushes it off as if I just said I might start parting my hair down the middle instead of on the side.
“It’ll be fine! It’s only for a little while longer, right? You’ll be fine. We’re almost done.”
“Elise, I—”
“Hold that thought. I saw the woman who directed How I Met Your Mother and I’m dying to meet her. I’ll see you out there, okay?”
She’s out the door before I can even respond, leaving behind a wake of her citrusy perfume. The moment after she leaves, a gaggle of girls comes in, all dead set on hogging the mirror and gossiping about the people at the party. I hear one of them comment on Tate’s body, and though I’ve seen it first hand in all its glory, their comments make me feel dirty all over. If they only knew him . . .
>
I beeline for the door and don’t stop walking until I feel cold air stinging my cheeks. I look around and see glittering lights strung up in the rafters and a couple tables set up. I must have stumbled onto the back patio.
“Needed fresh air, too?”
I turn around and lock eyes with none other than Tate, who is leaning against the wall with his tie loosened and the top collar button slipped open. He looks perfectly disheveled and my heart clenches inside my chest.
“Oh, yeah. It’s hot and crowded,” I answer lamely. Tate pushes himself off the wall and stands next to me. We both stare up at the lights.
“Yeah, tell me about it. I’ve been to tons of these parties and you wanna know what I discovered?”
“What?”
“It’s all the same people. Maybe not actually the same people, but the same kind of people. The big shots. The people who think they’re big shots. The people who just want to be close to big shots. The groupies. The people who want to be groupies. They’re all here. At every party.”
Tate started out his little speech in a joking way, but by the time he gets to the end, he’s almost fuming. I can’t help myself. I reach out and touch his shoulder gently, just with my fingertips.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine. Sorry, I ranted a bit. I just hate this Hollywood rubbing-shoulders scene,” he says, tugging at his tie to loosen it more. “I love my job. I really do. But if it were up to me, I would quit acting and never walk in front of a camera again.”
“But, isn’t it up to you? You can do that whenever you want, right?”
“Technically, I guess. But in order to get where I want to go, I have to build a fan base. And I’m not stupid, I know that this time next year I could be out of a job. I need to keep working and save my money. Plus, I really want to help my sister with her interior design business, and obviously, that takes money.”
“But I bet your sister wouldn’t want your money if she knew you were miserable making it.”
“Oh, I know she wouldn’t. But she’s the one who drove me to my auditions when I was a kid. She’s the one who stayed up late running lines with me. She’s the one who practiced with me and rehearsed with me and she’s the one who was there when I was sure I would never get a job. I owe her everything. The least I can do is fund her dream.”
I’m mesmerized by the pink color of Tate’s cheeks as he talks about his sister. He’s all worked up about paying her back. It’s endearing, and it’s yet another layer of Tate Lawrence that I get to peel back.
“Plus, the kitties,” I near whisper. He smiles, which lights his face brighter than the city in front of us.
I suddenly feel the need to put space between us, so I take a step back. But Tate follows, as he always does.
“I don’t want to play the motorcycle-jacket wearing bad boy forever. If I stay in this role and on this show for another two years, I won’t be able to get the parts I really want. And would anyone take me seriously as an editor after I play a half-naked vampire running around a fake forest? But there are so many great people who work on Vamp Camp. And it’s such an amazing opportunity. It’s like I’m stuck, but . . .”
“But you’re stuck right where you want to be,” I finish. Tate shuts his mouth and stares at me, really stares at me. The glittering lights above us seem to dim as I realize that I’m also stuck right where I want to be. Tate’s eyes finally dance away from my face and he squints down at my wrist before reaching out and grabbing it.
I don’t dare move a single inch, not even to breathe, as he slowly turns my arm over so my tattoo is facing up. Tate looks down at it intently for a few seconds and then meets my eye again.
“Is this real?” he asks. I nod wordlessly.
He rubs a thumb along the markings, and I mentally try to smother the goose bumps threatening to pop and announce my ridiculous reaction to the slightest touch from this man. I shrug to try and navigate my sweater up higher on my shoulders, but the movement only makes it fall farther down my arm, exposing my collarbone. Tate glances at the newly exposed skin and then smiles devishly, his all-too-big smile suddenly not seeming silly at all. It’s sexy. Dangerous. I close my eyes and will away the image of Tate taking my other arm and locking them both above my head as he presses me to the brick wall right behind us, the rough edges scratching at my back and shoulders . . .
“What does it mean?”
I open my eyes to bring myself back to the moment. He’s just holding my wrist loosely in his arm, swinging it ever so slightly back and forth.
“The coordinates to my hometown,” I whisper. I bring my wrist closer to his face so he can see the numbers.
“So you don’t forget where you live?” Tate teases, that dangerous smile growing wider and sexier by the moment.
“So I don’t forget where I came from,” I tell him. Tate closes his fingers around my wrist and he pulls my arm until it’s straight out in front of me. He could yank me toward him right now and close the gap. All it would take is one, hard tug.
I swear I can see the muscles in his arm tense like he’s about to do just that, when two guys burst through the door, laughing loudly about something. Tate drops my arm and looks toward them. I take a tiny step away from him and run my fingers through my hair, shaking myself out of my Tate stupor.
“Reinvention is possible, you know,” I tell Tate, who watches the guys light cigarettes and blow smoke toward the sky. He turns back to me with a little grin.
“It takes years to build up, it takes moments to destroy,” he says. “It’s from Hard Boiled Wonderland, that book I lent you?”
“Right. I haven’t cracked it open, yet. I promise I will.”
“Dani, if you can’t read, just tell me. I will gladly read it to you.”
“You’re an asshole,” I remind him. He throws his head back and laughs, and I’m happy to be in the safe zone of making fun of each other.
“There you are!”
We both turn to the door to see Elise stumbling out of the restaurant. How she got this drunk in the last ten minutes is beyond me. Tate lurches forward to catch her as she catches her high heel on a table leg.
“Whoopsie,” she slurs as she falls into Tate’s arms. “I met so many great people tonight, baby. I did shots with the cast of that show. That one show . . . um . . . I can’t remember now.”
“Are you sure they were actors?” I ask her. Elise blows her hair out of her face and peers at me.
“Yes, Danika. I’m sure.”
My eyes widen as I try to mentally and furiously scream at Elise to not call me by my full name. I was introduced to her as Dani, not Danika.
If Tate caught her little mistake, he doesn’t show it. He’s too busy making sure Elise stays upright. And if Elise is so drunk that she’s forgetting that we’re not supposed to know each other, it’s definitely time I leave.
I’m just about to say good night and walk toward the nearest bus stop when Margo steps out onto the patio. I swear, it feels like the air gets sucked out of the room when she’s around. And we’re outside. That’s how intimidating she can be.
She nods curtly at me before acknowledging her client.
“Tate. It’s probably time to take Elise home,” she says, her voice clipped. “I had the valet pull your car around. Paps are there, so just be the knight in shining armor that you are. It will make for some good pictures to run tomorrow. I’m giving the exclusive to E! Online. They’ve been good to you. Got it?”
“Got it. But next time, can you give me more notice about the cameras? You know I don’t like being ambushed.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know they’d be here,” she insists as Tate leads Elise back into the restaurant. I scoff. Of course she knew. I bet she called them.
Margo definitely heard me, because instead of following Tate and Elise, she abruptly turns and comes over to me. She narrows her eyes at me and points one perfectly manicured finger at my chest.
“You know, Tate really needs to focus o
n his career right now,” she says. “It’s nice that he has friends, but I don’t care for the type of friends who . . . distract him. Or lie to him.”
“Lie?” I croak out. She couldn’t know about the ploy with Elise, could she? I open my mouth to respond, but nothing comes out.
“You’re not a journalist. I know every editor at every magazine and website in this business and I sent some emails to see if you were sent to that party for interviews. Guess what I found out? You weren’t there that night to interview Tate.”
“Margo,” I start, but she’s on a roll. A tightly constructed, perfectly paced roll.
“I don’t know why you were there that night, but I do know that you should not be near my client. So just stop. Whatever you are doing . . . stop.”
Margo is already halfway across the patio before I even register what she’s said. My pulse is thundering in my head as I try and process everything that happened in the back patio. The lying part of her lecture I understand . . . and I’m terrified that I understand the distraction part, too.
Did Margo see what happened between me and Tate? But what did happen? I don’t even know.
I decide to find Camden, even if he did blow me off for the big people. He’ll be a welcome distraction. A couple kisses, some sweet compliments. That will help.
I ask around inside the party until one of the assistant directors tells me she thinks she saw him headed toward the kitchen. I weave my way toward the back of the restaurant until I find a dimly lit hallway that leads to the kitchen.
I hear hushed voices, a giggle here and there, as I step into the dark kitchen and think about turning back. I don’t want to interrupt two people obviously having a private moment, but I just want to press myself against Camden and forget about the unpleasant truth that I feel bubbling beneath the surface.
Whoever is in here getting their rocks off can deal with my intrusion. I find a light switch and walk farther into the kitchen.
I flip on the switch as I realize the two people making out in here could be Tate and Elise—which is the absolute last thing I want to see—but it’s too late. The kitchen is flooded with bright, fluorescent lights.
Rules of Seduction Page 20
