Dating You / Hating You

by Christina Lauren

  Kylie does this weird catlike stretch and then slides her arm behind her a little so she’s pressing her boob to his shoulder.

  Carter startles, shifting away on instinct, and suddenly I am living.

  “Hey,” she says, looking at him like she’s admiring herself in a hand mirror.

  “Hey,” he says, smiling briefly at her before returning to the papers on his lap.

  “Excited for the trip?”

  He nods. “Yeah. Should be good.”

  “Have you ever stayed at the Big Bear Lodge and Suites before?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s really nice,” she tells him. “Big bar, big cozy lobby . . . big rooms.”

  And now I’m uncomfortable for them both, because Lord is she laying it on thick. He looks up and catches me eavesdropping, so I look away but it’s a horribly executed startle-blink and I have to pretend that I have something in my eye—which I don’t, which we both know.

  When I look back at Carter, he’s still several inches away from Kylie, and he’s still watching me, clearly wondering just how jealous I am right now. Carter’s smile this time isn’t cocky or teasing, it’s happy. Just pure, quiet happy. Maybe cutting the shit in person won’t be impossible after all.

  • • •

  For once, the reality lives up to the hype: the resort really is beautiful. Set near the top of one of the summits, the main building is an immense log-cabin-style lodge with several deluxe small cabins surrounding it. Towering ponderosa pines cluster around the grounds, and the air is so crisp it feels a little like I’ve never been outside before. The LA basin is notoriously smoggy, being trapped between the mountains and the marine layer, and although it’s much better than it was when I was a kid, it still makes it easy to forget the sensation of truly fresh air.

  I feel pretty optimistic as we emerge from the limos, squinting into the brilliant sun. The snowpack is light this year, but at least it’s there. Even if everything else about this weekend sucks, it’s beautiful and promises a lot of alcohol.

  Brad stops us all outside the grand entrance, decorated with gold tassels and an impeccable red carpet leading from the curved driveway to the wide lobby. “Welcome to the P&D Features Seventh Annual Retreat.”

  We clap politely: the most awkward round of applause ever witnessed.

  “Thank you for taking the time to join me this weekend,” he continues. “I want to thank each of you for your commitment to the agency and your continued dedication. Needless to say, it’s been an interesting year.”

  A small laugh moves through the group.

  “Understatement of the decade, am I right?” he adds, looking at the assembled crowd of agents and staff. “But none of that matters, because this, right here? This is what it’s all about: seeing my team around me, ready to really show the world how it’s done. Now more than ever we need talent that can do it all—TV, film, media—and they need a team behind them that can do it all, too. That’s why I have you all here together, where you can learn to cheer each other on and become unstoppable. How do we do that?”

  “As a team,” someone says, and Brad nods.

  “That’s right. Not two individual companies, but as a team.” Brad stops to look around before waving me to the front of the group. “Now, come on up here, Evie. You’ve done a great job as event planner. Tell us what we can expect for the night. Dazzle us.”

  Carter looks to me, frowning.

  “We have a welcome dinner in the lodge,” I tell them, glancing at my watch, “in about forty-five minutes. That should give everyone time to drop off their things and get sorted. The real fun starts tomorrow at ten.”

  At my side, Brad nods enthusiastically. “Can’t wait. Now, I can tell you guys are chomping at the bit to get rolling! Let’s go check in, team.”

  Looking up, I meet Carter’s eyes. His expression is grim, his mouth a slash of disapproval.

  Brad claps me on the back, shooting me forward toward the doors of the lodge. “Lead the way, kiddo!”

  Sweet hellacious hellfire, this weekend is going to be a doozy.

  • • •

  When we all split off with room keys in our hands, I could be a CIA agent the way I covertly watch which way Carter goes (and also maybe which direction Kylie goes, too, celebrating internally when they turn down opposite halls).

  I wheel my small suitcase behind me to 207, a few doors away from Rose. Inside, it’s gorgeous, with an enormous bed in the middle of a spacious room, and a breathtaking view of the lake beyond a wide balcony. I mentally high-five Kylie for securing such a great deal with this place and walk outside to get a better look at the view.

  It’s never cold enough for the lake to freeze over, and so deep blue water laps gently against frost-covered rocks at the shore. The trees are brilliant green speckled with white, and for just a moment—a tiny, perfect inhale—I am absolutely giddy to be here.

  Knowing I have a few minutes, I step back inside and pull the files Jess gave me from my bag. Jess’s recordkeeping is usually flawless, but when I glance over the retreat vendors she mentioned, I see what she meant: I don’t recall most of them, either. I’m in the middle of sending her a note to verify some of the entries with Kylie when my phone buzzes on the table with a text to me—and only me—from Brad:

  Please arrive to the lodge restaurant early to ensure everything is in order.

  I give myself exactly three deep what the actual hell is up with Brad? breaths before I find my purse and my key and head downstairs.

  • • •

  As it happens, dinner is lovely. Or at least it is after Brad thanks everyone again for coming and asks me to get in front of the group and explain what we can expect on tonight’s menu. I move from my seat, but the tension in my spine over being treated like his assistant—or an event coordinator—is slowly ratcheting tighter.

  “I’m happy to explain the menu,” Carter interrupts, beginning to stand.

  Brad shakes his head. “Let Evie do it.”

  I hear Brad’s message loud and clear aimed at me: You’re my puppet. You’ll do this if you want a job come Monday.

  Slowly, Carter sits down, his face red. I give him a little nod and smile, grateful for his attempt at least, and rattle off the basics. Salad. Meat. Potatoes. Green beans. It’s really nothing in need of explanation. Carter was smart to insist we go with traditional on our rather limited budget, knowing that they probably prepare it pretty nicely up at the lodge. We’d also selected a white wine and a red wine, and we run out of both before we’re done with the salad course.

  Thank God for the cash bar, I guess?

  Forks and knives scrape and screech across porcelain as everyone chows down. We are at a small handful of long tables in the center of a cavernous private room, but I can’t really accept blame for the oddity of this, since it was on Brad’s list of demands that we take our meal here, together. Like a team.

  A fire roars in a stone fireplace so enormous I could probably stand inside, and there are seven waiters milling timidly around the room, hoping they can be helpful in some way but unwilling to ask too often. It’s the Brad Kingman Effect. You don’t even have to know who he is to be mildly afraid of him.

  Carter is at my left during dinner and it’s strange to be in a room full of people and sounds and yet still be so aware of him. His arm brushes against mine as he cuts his steak, as he reaches for his wine, as he adjusts his napkin below the table. Is he trying to touch me? The more wine I have, the more my brain screams YES! to this question, and I start trying to reciprocate a little, leaning closer, resting my left arm lightly on the table so he has easier access.

  Subtle stuff. I am a seduction ninja.

  I’m so focused on what Carter’s doing and saying and how amazing he smells that I’m somewhat startled when a few of the waiters start clearing plates, and I look down to realize I’ve barely touched mine.

  The party transitions to the outdoor patio, where heat lamps glow from each corner and strings o
f paper lanterns frame a view of the lake just beyond.

  Brad rarely lets go enough to really get drunk at these things, but when he does he’s one of those intoxicated people who seems to have a volume knob attached to his drinking arm. By the time ten o’clock rolls around, most of the group is pretty tanked, but Brad isn’t just tanked, it’s like he’s hooked up to some PA system.

  Don’t get me wrong; fewer people have better stories in this business than Brad Kingman, and sober, he’s as sealed as a two-hundred-year-old grave, so we’re all—even the ones who hate him—pretty enthralled. Tonight he is really on a roll.

  Some highlights:

  His wife paid for college by stripping. (I’m sure Maxine, the studio executive, would be thrilled he’s shared this.)

  He watched one of the most famous actors in the history of film (five Academy Awards, to be exact) “do some blow off a hooker’s ass in Vegas.”

  The first time he met one of the industry’s most powerful producers, said producer was so high he fell asleep in his salad, woke up, and pretended nothing had happened. He finished the meeting with shredded carrots in his hair and a smear of French dressing along the entire left side of his face. The movie they were discussing went on to win four Academy Awards and two Golden Globes, and made nearly a billion worldwide.

  After some more stories, it’s midnight, the outdoor bar has closed, and my wineglass is empty. A passing server offers to find me a refill, but it’s a perfect excuse to mosey to the bar inside, where it’s quiet and warm, and get a few minutes to myself.

  The bartender comes over and leans on the bar expectantly. “What’ll it be, gorgeous?”

  “Whatever your best red wine is,” I tell him, reading his name tag. Woody. “I was drinking the pinot outside, but I think they ran out a while ago.”

  Woody smiles, revealing a top row of perfectly white, even teeth . . . with one front tooth completely missing. It’s such an odd paradox, I am instantly fascinated. Was it pulled? If so, why? How could one tooth be so bad when the others are perfect?

  These are the things that take up brain space that should be used to come up with snappy comebacks when Brad calls me kiddo or sport and insists that being a team player means I pass someone else my commission.

  “I’ll give you the Ravenswood zin then,” he says, rapping his knuckles against the bar. “Not much to choose from, but that one is pretty decent.”

  Woody leaves to go grab a bottle, and I lean more heavily against the bar, wondering for a beat if I could just lay my head down here and take a little nap.

  Oh, wine makes me sleepy.

  And amorous, apparently, because tonight Carter is looking pretty—

  “How’s it going over here?”

  Straightening, I look over my shoulder as the man himself approaches and pulls out the barstool next to me.

  It’s a struggle to keep my tipsy attention focused on his face and not stare at the smooth, exposed collarbone. “I’m wiped. And tipsy. I just want to head to bed.”

  “Me too.” Glancing to the doors he’s just come in through, he adds, “But I fear they’re just getting started.”

  I find myself leaning into him, laughing into the shoulder of his jacket. God, he smells good. “Crazy kids. I guess we can’t just disappear. Being the hosts and all.”

  He laughs. “How the fuck did we manage to get this gig?”

  “No idea.”

  He looks down, running the tip of his index finger back and forth over a pattern in the wood bar top. “Brad is still treating you like his assistant.”

  “I know.” I bite my lip, looking to the side.

  “Evie,” he says, “I’m so sorry. I contributed by ignoring it. I don’t want to do that anymore.”

  His words make my windpipe feel tight, make my thoughts turn defensive.

  Everything’s fine.

  You’re just new to this, Carter.

  I’ve dealt with Brad for years, I know his game.

  Cut the shit, Evie.

  Letting out a tiny steam whistle of vulnerability, I admit, “It always makes me mad, but now it’s making me anxious. I have this strange itch in the back of my brain, this persistent worry that he’s really trying to push me out.”

  He nods. “I see it. I see it, and I don’t know what to do.”

  My chest, it aches. “I hate feeling helpless.”

  I didn’t expect this to be our crescendo moment. In the movies, these admissions either soften someone up or harden them further, but they rarely come out as quietly as I’ve said it and still make a huge impact.

  But somehow, this one does.

  Carter leans down and slides his hand along my jaw, and then bends, kissing me in a way I’ve been dreaming about almost nonstop since that night in my apartment. It’s different from the frantic kisses in the mixing room, rough and hurried. Those felt like secret, semiviolent betrayals of our better instincts.

  But this. This is a stream of tiny tastes and pecks, little pieces of dialogue. They go from I’m sorry to what are we doing to how do we do this deeper and all night and I don’t even notice when Woody has to place my drink on the bar because Carter has my back pressed to it.

  I do notice when Carter pulls away to hand him a twenty.

  My hand comes up, pressing to my mouth as if holding the sensation there. “You don’t have to pay for my wine.”

  “I’m invested in getting this tab settled so we can leave.”

  “I thought we couldn’t leave our party.”

  “Fuck this party.”

  The giggle that escapes me is high, and girlish, and very excited at the prospect of us leaving, together.

  “What did you say?” I ask, mock scandalized.

  “You heard me.”

  Drunken roars reach us from outside, and are followed by the unmistakable splashing of water.

  “Skinny-dipping!” Kylie yells, and in the background rises a chorus of male cheers.

  Carter is still looking at my mouth. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  His smile droops. “I have two full-size beds in my room.”

  My eyes shine, my smile goes wide. “Well, that’s just fine. Because I have a king.”

  • • •

  We trip through the doorway, laughing and breathless over having raced into the gift shop for condoms and throwing way too much money at the bewildered teenager working the night shift. I feel like I’m full of tiny bubbles or brilliant stars: inside, everything is alive.

  Somehow, despite how many months it’s been and all the games we’ve played between us, awkwardness never descends. It’s us alone, smiling into kisses, pulling off clothes with the comfort of a couple long together and the excitement of two virgins. I swear his body is unreal and I can’t stop touching it, memorizing it like my hands are scanning it into some memory database. I give my brain permission to overwrite anything it wants—take away my ability to ride a bike or crochet; the planes and dips of Carter’s abdomen are way more important.

  “Is this too fast?” he asks, barely pausing as he flings my bra behind him somewhere.

  I laugh. “Hell no.”

  He leads us both farther into the room and then I’m lying down, the sheets cool along the back of my body and Carter pressed along the front.

  He kisses a path down my neck. “Can we be friends now?”

  The feel of his lips against my skin makes it hard to form words, but I swallow and do my best to focus. “Is that what you want?” I ask, a question that might be taken more seriously if his belt weren’t hanging open, the metal buckle clinking in the space between us. “Friends?”

  “Yes,” he says, teeth scraping along my collarbone. “And no.” He pulls back to look at me. “Does that make sense?”

  “I think so.” I finish unbuttoning his pants and push the fabric down his hips, smiling when the cold air leaves a trail of goose bumps across his skin. He kicks them the rest of the way off and then it’s naked legs against naked legs, bare torso against
bare torso.

  He says something else, but the shape of his words is lost against my shoulder and then my breast as he moves lower. I arch my back when he takes my nipple into his mouth, and the sound I make surprises me.

  Fuck. Why did we waste so much time?

  I have the brief thought that we need to be quiet, that eventually Rose will be only two doors down or someone we know might be in the room right next door, but I can’t even hear the shrieks of the skinny-dippers anymore, and the lake is right there.

  We’re in a fortress.

  Carter’s mouth is everywhere: he worships my breasts, sucking each nipple in turn while rolling the other between his fingers. His eyes are wild as he looks up my body, holding my gaze as he moves lower and lower still, pulling off my panties and finally settling between my legs. He leans forward, tentative at first and then greedy like I’m the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted. I feel his breath and his sounds and he presses each into my skin and I want him to push them deeper so that I feel them vibrating up my spine, radiating out along my ribs. I feel empty; I might actually say this out loud because his fingers come alongside his kisses and then deep into me.

  The world outside seems to stop. The idea of a retreat going on out there feels almost comically surreal. Everything collapses down to the insistent press of his tongue. Heat curls like ribbons around my spine and I pull his hair, arch my body into his touch, and try to tell him that I’m close, so so close.

  “Carter,” I gasp, grabbing at him again and oh God I’m coming . . . coming . . . so loud and fuck, I no longer understand why we ever left this place. No job is worth losing this.

  There’s a flash of cool air against my skin and then Carter is there, kissing me like I’m oxygen. His lips taste of me and, impossibly, it makes me want him more.

  He reaches for the box on the bedside table, fumbling and opening it blindly while he kisses me with his eyes sweetly closed.

  I can’t close my eyes for even a second, though. I’m unwilling to miss the details I know I’ll play over and over inside my head tomorrow. The curve of his shoulder, the way his arm flexes as he reaches between us, rolling the condom on before lining himself up against me.