Troublemaker

by Kayley Loring

  “If I go out with you this one time, will you let me stay at home for the rest of the summer and stay in with me at least one night a week?”

  “Absolutely not, young lady. Why are you so opposed to having fun?”

  “Why is fun such an important thing to be had? And who says it’s not fun for me to stay home with Atticus and do my crafting?”

  “First of all—never say the word ‘crafting’ to me again. Secondly, it doesn’t matter how much you bedazzle your vibrator; it’s never going to turn into a real sparkly penis. This is not a negotiation.”

  He pulls me up and then opens up the closet to pick out an outfit for me to wear. His face falls immediately. “Oh God. It’s worse than I thought.”

  “What? I organized everything by garment type and color. The color scheme matches the color blocking of my book collection. See?”

  He doesn’t even attempt to look at my bookshelves of awesomeness. One judge-y fist snaps to his hip as he flicks his other hand dismissively. “Okay, this is not an organized closet.” He makes a supremely dramatic, sweeping gesture. “This is a declaration of celibacy and a silent cry for help.”

  “These aren’t celibate clothes. I wore these clothes back when I was still having sex with Brent.”

  “You mean before or after you broke up for the last last time?”

  I sigh. “No comment.” I may have had sex with Brent once or twice in the four months since we officially broke up—but in my defense—it was really boring sex and it made it easier for me to get over him. And we were still living together because I didn’t have time to find a new apartment while I was finishing out the school year in Paso Robles, and it seemed like a better option than moving back in with my parents. And I was a little bit drunk.

  Franklin continues to stare into the abyss of my somewhat conservative apparel. “Permission to take this dumpster fire of a wardrobe, which represents your dumpster fire of a love life, to an actual dumpster and set fire to it.”

  “Permission not granted. These are very work appropriate. Seven-year-olds like and respect me when I wear these clothes.”

  “Right, well, my grown man penis literally started shriveling up as soon as I saw these cardigans.”

  “It’s taken me years to assemble this selection of fun cardigans.”

  “That is the saddest sentence I have ever heard, and there is no such thing as a fun cardigan.”

  “Could you maybe wait until you’re actually the host of a makeover show before acting like the snippy host of a makeover show all the time?”

  “Just because you don’t see any cameras following me around, that doesn’t mean I’m not the snippy host of a makeover show. And I’m about to remind you of who you really are and not who you thought Brent and your parents wanted you to be. You know what the title of this episode is? It’s called ‘Dress You Up in Self Love.’ Cue Black Eyed Peas song. Commence shopping and makeover sequence.”

  “It’s very confusing when you reference a Madonna song and then cue up a Black Eyed Peas song.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut, rubbing his temples like I’ve given him a migraine. “Shut up. Just shut up and be your fun self, I’m begging you.”

  “This is my fun self. Dude, I just moved to Los Angeles. And I just called you ‘dude.’ That’s like…next level fun.”

  I get zero response for that, not even an eye roll.

  I cross my arms and frown at him. “Cardigans can be very sexy with the right accessories, you know?”

  He scoffs. “Did you hear that, Atticus?”

  Atticus barks and gazes up at me lovingly. Such a big, sweet, nonjudgmental dog. Why can’t everyone be a dog?

  “Ferris. I’m not going to buy all-new clothes just for one night out.”

  “No, you aren’t. You’re buying quality secondhand clothes for every night that’s not a school night. I’m taking you to my favorite consignment stores before dinner. You don’t have to spend big to live large. Mantra.”

  “See, but to me, living large means staying in to read a six-hundred-page book and eating an entire bag of white cheddar popcorn.”

  He slaps his hands to his face like Macauley Culkin on the Home Alone poster. “My darling Emilia. What has life done to you?”

  Good question.

  I guess I’m not opposed to doing some harmless LA Cute Guy Sightseeing.

  Okay, I’m so ready to do some semi-harmless LA Cute Guy Sightseeing.

  Franklin entwines his arm with mine. “We are going to take Atticus for a quick walk, and then—cue Lizzo song—I’m taking you shopping for our nights out.”

  Atticus is already up, tail wagging and looking back and forth between us. He’s such a good, sweet dog. Never any trouble. If I could find a guy like Atticus, I would date him in a heartbeat.

  “Fine. But you better not abandon me for a hot guy.”

  “When have I ever done that?”

  I give him the side-eye.

  “Aside from all the times I’ve done that.”

  We make our way out of my cozy bedroom toward the front door. “You aren’t going to make me look fierce though, are you?”

  “Only if I get my time machine working and we travel back to 2008. I’m thinking more of a sexy boho nerdy chic vibe. Like very Hi, I’m on my way to Coachella but I have to stop off at the library first.”

  I can’t help but smile at that.

  “Yeah, you like that, don’t you?”

  Yeah. Maybe I am ready for this. Maybe I’m ready to meet someone new tonight.

  The New Me.

  I wrap my arms around Franklin’s waist and give him a squeeze, grateful to have this well-groomed, well-intentioned asshole to remind me that I’m not running away from a life that I don’t want anymore. I’m heading into a life that I want, and it starts tonight. With a sexy boho nerdy chic outfit. And sushi. And one or two shots of whatever. Whatever it takes to make me feel like I can fly again.

  2

  Alex

  I can’t even remember the last time I walked into a club with a sense of excitement instead of dread. I can feel the bass thumping in my bones, but in my head all I hear is Danny Glover’s voice. Because I’m getting too old for this shit. Joke’s on you, last year’s US Weekly list of Hollywood’s Most Eligible Bachelors. Your token single dad director doesn’t even look forward to meeting horny drunk women anymore at the ripe old age of thirty-two. Should have just given my spot to Leonardo. He needs all the help he can get, and he doesn’t keep wet wipes and juice boxes in his glove compartment.

  I’m just here to see a couple of my favorite people. Every few years, Barry Weiner decides to celebrate his birthday baller style. The fifty-something man created the Disney Channel show that launched the careers of such beloved stars as Shane Miller, Nico Todd, and yours truly. So we endure ear-splitting music, insane valet parking fees, and hearing the same old stories and jokes over and over again, to pay homage to him. He always invites a bunch of film and TV industry assholes along with his former cast and crew for a little reunion and a lot of alcohol at the bottle service table of some trendy bar or club.

  At least Barry reserved tables up on the mezzanine, away from the DJ and the dance floor. I’ll have one beer, stay for half an hour, and then I’m going home. I haven’t been to this venue on the Sunset Strip since it was rebranded, and I already hate it. I will never let my son come here when he’s old enough. I don’t even care if that’s a double standard. He can do as I say, not as I do.

  …

  Fuck, I’m old.

  I pass a group of five women on my way up the wide staircase. They’re all wearing tight shiny mini dresses, they all look airbrushed, and I’m pretty sure they were in kindergarten when I graduated high school. The giggling suddenly stops, and they suck in their cheeks while tossing their hair to one side. It’s the club girl salute. I nod, say, “How’s it going?” to no one in particular, and continue up the stairs, resisting the urge to offer them cab fare and a lecture about safe sex a
nd self-respect.

  I do a quick visual sweep of the VIP tables. There’s the CAA agent who didn’t want to sign me when I was a theatre director and now calls me every week because he wants me to cast his clients in my movies. He can kiss my Tony-nominated ass. There’s the producer who didn’t want to hire me to direct that family comedy because he thought my work was “too highbrow for a four-quadrant studio film,” and now he’s always calling my manager to get me attached to his HBO project. He can kiss my twenty-million-dollar-opening-weekend ass. And there’s the two best-looking guys in the club, huddled together, probably arguing about which one of them has a hotter wife or cuter kids.

  Shanico.

  Everyone was so in love with the fact that Shane and Nico were two cute guys who played best friends on You’re So Wizard! and became best friends in real life. Well, I was friends with them too. I had a prominent recurring role in Seasons One and Two as Greyson Manning’s super cool high school nemesis who—spoiler alert—turned out to be a werewolf. But I was friends with both Shane and Nico. You never read about it in Tiger Beat magazine, but I was the guy who told Nico Todd he should learn to play guitar. You’re welcome, ladies. And I was the guy who showed Shane how to use hair product to make his hair stand up. You’re welcome again, ladies. But all anyone ever talked about was Shanico. I actually tried to make Shanicolex happen for a while, but…

  Whatever. I left LA as soon as I graduated high school and moved to New York for theatre school, but we stayed in touch. I’ve always had my own thing going on with each of them. Back when Nico and I were both single, we’d get into some trouble together whenever he was in New York for gigs. When Shane heard that I was going to be a dad, he called me up, said he was there for me if I ever needed to talk, and told me what I had to look forward to—endless love for the kid, sleepless nights for the foreseeable future, zero sex drive, and probably divorce. That sounds dick-ish, but he said it in a really sweet, honest way. And he was one hundred percent correct.

  Now they’re both happily married with kids, and I’m depressingly divorced with a kid, and good for fucking them. They deserve it. Been a while since we’ve all seen each other out in the wild. It’s usually a work-related lunch meeting or dinner at home with the families. Shane’s wife is pregnant, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Nico’s is too one of these days. I’m so happy to see them, it’s embarrassing.

  “Vega, baby!” Shane and Nico call out to me at the same time, raising their hands in the air, but they don’t stand up. They know I’ll be paying my respects to Barry first, or maybe they’re just lazy assholes. I saunter over to the balding birthday boy, who’s holding court at another table. He pauses mid-sentence to pull me down and kiss me on the top of my head.

  “Happy birthday, sir.” I still call him sir—I can’t help it. “You don’t look a day over fifty.”

  “Look at this ridiculously handsome guy—Mr. Big Time Director over here. This kid used to call me Professor Wiener. Little prick! Now look at him! Great to see you. Thanks for coming, Alejandro.” He’s always called me Alejandro, even though my legal name is Alexander. Disney loved to play up the fact that I’m half Spanish. He hooks his arm around my neck, raises his glass, and launches into the story about the time I had a hot mic on when I was chatting up one of the extras on set. And everyone listens and laughs like we’ve never heard it before. I order him a bottle of the club’s cheapest nine-hundred-dollar champagne (fuck you, club owner) and excuse myself to join Shane and Nico because it looks like they’re already thinking about going home.

  “Gentlemen…”

  Shane gets up to give me a bro hug and lets me slide in to sit between him and Nico. I say hi to everyone else at the table, pretending to ignore Nico, even when he wraps his arms around me and bites my earlobe while Shane takes pictures with his phone. Even when he puts one leg up on my lap and messes up my hair.

  “You love me, you dick,” he says, finally giving me a shove. “Don’t try to hide it.”

  I hold my hand out to shake his. “Hi, I’m Alex Vega. I love your work. ‘Your Body is a Wonderland’ is one of my favorite songs.” I can’t even say it with a straight face, but anytime I can get a John Mayer dig in, I go for it.

  He smacks my hand away. “Asshole.”

  “God dammit, you both smell amazing.” Nico’s sister/Shane’s wife is a perfumer who custom designs scents for them. I nearly choked to death from all the Axe body spray and overpowering cologne and perfume when I walked through this club, but these guys are literally a breath of fresh air. “I’ve missed you guys.” I put my arms around their shoulders.

  “We’re leaving in like five minutes,” Shane says apologetically. “I promised Willa I’d pick up matzo ball soup from Canter’s on the way home.”

  “And I promised Kat I wouldn’t stay here past ten because I don’t want to.”

  “I knew it.” I shake my head. It’s barely ten o’clock. “I should have come earlier. But I didn’t want to.”

  “Par-tayyyyy!” Shane flashes the sign of the horns with his hands, and then we all show each other the latest pictures of our kids like total badasses.

  “Ryder with Nova tonight?” Nico asks.

  “Yeah.” I don’t need to get into why I haven’t seen my son in over a week. They were never big fans of Nova’s, even back when I was madly in love with her.

  “Let me guess,” Shane says, reading my face like a creepy face reader. “She’s been feeling down lately and asked to keep him at her place because he cheers her up.”

  “You’re not an actual wizard, okay? You can’t read minds.”

  “No.” He blinks at me, empathetically reaching for my hand. “But I can read hearts.”

  I snatch my hand away. “You’re both assholes. Yes, that is basically why I don’t have him this week. She hasn’t booked any dance gigs in a while. I miss Ryder, but it’s better for everyone if she’s not depressed. And don’t tell me it’s too much responsibility to put on Ryder, because it was his idea.”

  “Okay,” Shane says, patting my knee and obviously thinking it. “I won’t tell you that, then.”

  “Let’s talk about your sad love life instead.” Nico smirks. “You still seeing that goth makeup artist?”

  “She went to one goth night thing one time, and no. I finally introduced her to Ryder, and it…wasn’t a good match. Haven’t seen her in months.”

  “So you want us to be your lazy wingmen?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “Let’s be lazy wingmen,” Shane says, ignoring me.

  They both lean back, cross their arms, and do the annoying comedy bit that they’ve been subjecting me to ever since they both became smug married people.

  Surveying the all-you-can-eat buffet of totally inappropriate female clubgoers before us, Nico raises his chin at an orange-tinted busty young lady who’s currently taking a selfie about twenty feet away. “How about this guy? You two probably have a lot in common,” he mutters, pointing his thumb in my direction while looking at his phone. She can’t see or hear him, and that’s the point.

  Hilarious, right?

  “She looks nice.” Shane nods in the direction of about ten women. “Hey,” he mumbles into his glass of seltzer water. “This guy’s great. You should bone him.”

  “Take your pick, hotshot.”

  “We got ’em lined up for you.”

  “Thanks, fellas. You’re the wind beneath my wings.”

  “Our work here is done.” Nico polishes off his ginger ale. “We’re gonna take off.”

  I turn to him, waggling my eyebrows. “Okay, but tell me…how’s Grammie doing? She still single?”

  He glowers at me. “She would eat you alive, and she is way out of your league.” I get a smack up the side of the head. “Putz.”

  “Hey. We’ve always had chemistry—had to ask.” Truth is, Nico’s grandmother scares the shit out of me. She caught me making out with a production assistant on the Wizard set once and tore me a new one. After that, s
he scowled every time she saw me and referred to me as The Tongue.

  Shane pulls his phone out of his pocket and answers by saying, “Leaving now, babe.” He looks at me and mouths, I’m not whipped at all. Back into the phone, he says, “Summer, is that you? Does Willa know you have her phone? … No, Zac Efron is not here, I told you … Yes, Nico is here, but you can’t talk to him—why are you awake? Go to bed.” He ends the call and slides out of the booth. I do too, to let Nico out, although I’m not emotionally ready to stop being the meat in this Shanico sandwich already. “Shit, I almost forgot…” Shane slaps his forehead and turns back to me. “Willa wanted me to tell you that she has a client who wants to meet you, if you’re ‘single and ready to mingle.’ Her words, not mine. This friend is definitely hot but probably crazy. My words, not Willa’s. If you want, we can have you both over for ‘a grown-up dinner sometime.’ Say no say no say no.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Fuckin’ A! I hate you.” He pats me on the back.

  “I’m not really interested. But please thank Willa so much for the offer. Hey, Nico—you got any even younger sisters that I don’t know about?”

  “I also hate you.” He gives me a warm hug. “Hey, we’re gonna do a Disneyland trip one of these days. I’ll let you know.”

  “Awesome—Ryder’s been begging me to take him again. Great to see you guys. Have a blessed evening, filled with love and light!”

  They blow me kisses and then say goodbye to everyone else before walking out, leaving a trail of disappointed gawkers who are pretending not to notice them in their wake.

  Danny, a former script supervisor from You’re So Wizard! starts telling me about the Ron Howard thriller he’s working on, and I scan the mezzanine for a reason why I should stay long enough to even finish one beer. It is not promising. Not that it’s even possible to have a real conversation with anyone in here. Not that that’s the point of coming to a place like this. But I doubt any of the women here want to talk about anything other than their favorite tanning salon or spin class.