Off-Limits Box Set

by Ella James

  “Quaint,” that smug hipster had said. “And kind of rapey.”

  I smacked him so hard, he had a purple rim around his eye the next day. “I haven’t had sex with her, you fuck.”

  All that year, that long, hard, awful year, I had to stay away from Georgia, and I ached for Ammy. It was strangely, terribly simple, what I wanted: just to sit with her and listen to her comments on a movie. To hear her voice or touch her hand or shoulder.

  At night, after class and art and Frisbee or soccer or whatever we had going, I would strip down to my boxers, lie under my covers, and pretend she was beside me. That her hands were on me. That her sweet, soft voice was in my ear. I thought of calling her ten thousand times, but…couldn’t.

  I know it hurt her. She told me it did.

  And what happened the next summer by the lake… That was unforgivable.

  I can see it in the way she moves, even as we cross the lobby: anger. Once upon a time, this girl loved me. I never deserved it, but she gave it to me anyway. She gave me her heart and her body, and I broke her.

  I feel like shit as we walk in silence toward the small park about three blocks away from Imagine’s geodesic building.

  I want to tell her something, but I’m not sure what. I can’t tell her the truth, that’s for fucking sure. It would wreck me, but it would be hell on her as well. I rub my temple, trying to think. I haven’t thought about that shit in quite a while. It hadn’t crossed my mind for probably a year before Weiss called.

  Amelia slows her pace, and I notice she’s looking at a pet store. “Do you want to go inside? Like…see them in their cages?”

  I can tell she does, so I nod and get the door for her. They don’t have doves, but six parakeets and one parrot that screeches, “Have a nice day!”

  Amelia’s kneeling down before I get a chance to see the reason why, but it’s apparent soon enough: puppies.

  They’re white with brown spots, floppy-eared like those quintessential pups in children’s board books and cartoons.

  “Oh my goodness… How sweet are you?” she coos, rubbing one long, brown ear.

  I look around the room, searching for the reptiles, because there’s no fucking way I’m getting hard from seeing her rub a damn dog’s ear.

  “Yes… What a good boy—or girl. And look at your sister, maybe brother. You have a brown ring around your eye, you little sweetie. Yes you do…”

  I grit my teeth as Ammy fusses over the puppies. It’s weird to hear her going on and on the way she is, using that adoring tone of voice. Her manner seems so different since I saw her again. I realize as I listen to her, she’s just different with me.

  It makes me mad.

  Mad at myself.

  Finally she stands, and with the briefest, most apathetic glance at me, she steps toward the door. I follow her outside, walking a half step behind her for the rest of the block, before I realize that I’ll need to pull ahead, since she has no clue where we’re headed. I find I like her eyes on me, even like walking beside her. It gives me a strange feeling… A certain restfulness I don’t have words for.

  Then we’re rounding a busy street corner, and just beyond a cement parking deck, I see the park pond and big, green trees around it. People are there with dogs and strollers; I see a couple on a bench, the man’s arm wrapped around the woman’s shoulders.

  Beside me, I can feel her grow more stormy. The feeling intensifies as we step off the sidewalk and start crossing the grassy field beside the pond. Ducks paddle in the water, birds crisscross from tree to tree. I look up, watching them glide—as if I need to watch birds fly. I could animate a bird if I had seen it fly just once.

  I wait for her to steer our course, kind of hoping she’ll sit on one of the benches so I can sit beside her. Instead she stops at the water’s edge and looks out at the dark green pond. It’s not big, maybe the size of a football field. There’s not much to look at, but you wouldn’t know it from her face. She looks transfixed, her round eyes clear, her mouth soft and curious. She can’t keep her features that way long, though. Pretty soon her mouth is tighter. She pulls sunglasses out of her purse, staring at them for a moment before sliding them on her face.

  Pretty. Fuck, she’s so damn pretty in that black getup, her coppery hair falling long and pencil straight around her shoulders.

  “Is this what you were hoping for?” she asks after a minute.

  Her words are slightly serrated, even though I’m pretty sure she doesn’t mean for them to be. I watch her shoulders rise, then fall as she exhales. She seems frustrated; tired.

  “It’s not,” I tell her honestly.

  She turns to me. “Why not?”

  “Amelia…” I grit down on my molars, weighing risks and benefits, and then I know it doesn’t matter. I can’t leave this shit hanging any longer. “Am…I know what I did was unforgivable,” I say softly, “but—”

  “No!” She holds both hands up. They’re clearly shaking. “No, Dash! I don’t know where you’re going with that, but I don’t want to.”

  “Don’t want to what?”

  “I don’t want to know! Keep it to yourself, okay?”

  “I—”

  “I don’t care!” Even through the dark gray of her glasses lenses, I can see her eyes are wide. Her mouth is pulled into a panicked “o.”

  “Don’t talk about that stuff. We have to work together, Dash! This isn’t the reminiscing hour! It’s all gone, it’s over, it’s in the past. Let’s keep it there.”

  She whirls around and just like that, I’ve lost my gamble.

  Amelia

  I leave him in the park and I don’t stop until I get to my apartment.

  Good job, Amelia. Reeeeeal professional.

  I can’t help it. That’s the worst part. He started talking and I simply lost it. I don’t know why. I spend the afternoon and evening thinking about why. Also, watching for a text or phone call telling me I’m fired.

  Neither comes, not call nor answer.

  Why was I afraid to hear him? The answer comes with clarity as I roll over in the middle of the night. So obvious: I’m afraid it won’t be good enough. In my mind, over the years, I built up this fantasy. I didn’t really let myself believe it, but neither did I disbelieve: he had a good reason to go.

  How could he take me to a peaceful city park and rip that Band-Aid off? I lie in bed, watching the blue light of morning move across my ceiling. I’m afraid he’ll say he couldn’t help it. He was scared, and so he left.

  I’m afraid if he says that, I can’t forgive him. If I can’t forgive him, I can’t work with him. And if I go, I know for sure I’ll never see Dash Frasier again.

  I’m not ready for that, so I smooth the tattered Band-Aid down, get dressed, and go to work like nothing happened.

  Dash makes it too easy. He seems quiet and sad, but that’s only because I know him so well. To the others in the studio, I’m sure he seems pleasantly polite.

  I let it lie.

  I’m satisfied by noise of him: the shifting whisper of his pants against the chair, the sound of Dash’s steps about the room. Nothing more pathetic—but I relish it. The story moves along. We make decisions. I agree that we should call her Dove. Meredith, Bryan, Carrie and I plot a course for her through New York City in the spring. She has a puppy friend, I suggest. Meredith thinks that they should settle near a library and draw attention from a kindly old man librarian.

  Dash sets Adam and Ashley to work on the computer side of animation, gets Mallorie and Amber going on the props, and then he sits there and he draws…and draws, and draws. Wednesday and Thursday pass like nights before a funeral. And then it’s Friday—and I know why I have this churning feeling in my stomach.

  Friday is the dinner. The dinner for Imagine and its interns at the home of Sara Blaise, the company’s chief.

  The ghost of Amelia toils away alongside the rest of our team that day, barely breathing. Then I’m home and all too soon I’m getting ready, dressing for a cocktail party,
dinner, or a meet and greet; I’m not sure which, so I wear a shortish, sleeveless A-line dress by Alice + Olivia. It’s a vaguely tropical print, with green leaves and some kind of pink bird on a white background. Paired with sparse black high-heel sandals, I think the ensemble looks clean and modern, like I’m not too dolled up and also not casual. I can’t think of many things worse than dressing casually. It’s just not me.

  I finish dressing early, call an Uber, and stop by the bar at the bottom of my building for a quick lemon martini. Anything to fortify myself against Dash in a suit.

  And then, as if by magic, there is Dash—wearing a suit. I’m at the entryway of the bar/restaurant, perched on a red leather couch, sipping my drink while waiting for my ride, so I’ve got a good view of the elevators.

  Dash strides into the lobby, and I almost choke. I stand up, but I can’t move as he walks toward the revolving doors that line the front of the apartment building.

  I set my drink down on the bar with a ten dollar bill and try to pretend I’m not rushing to get outside.

  Dash is standing near the curb when I reach him.

  I watch him see me in his periphery before turning slowly toward me.

  “Am. Amelia. Hi.” He smiles, but it seems strained. His face looks weighted. Scratch that: disappointed, I think, as a white Jeep Patriot rolls up beside the curb.

  He gives the Jeep a nod—at which point, I notice: his hair’s shorter!—then casts a sidelong look at me. “You need a ride?”

  “I could use one, actually.”

  Internally, I’ve just slapped my hand over my mouth. That’s not only untrue; my Uber—a gray van—has just pulled up behind us.

  “Hop on in.” He opens the door, and I climb up gracefully, without exposing anything to him.

  I can feel him move behind me, feel the faint heat of his body through his clothes and mine. He tells our driver the address and settles in beside me to strap on his seatbelt. Which is when I remember to buckle my own.

  By the time I get the guts to look at him again, the weird look on his face is gone. I’m dumbstruck by how hot he looks with short hair. How much like he used to look when I knew him. But older. Handsomer.

  “That’s a nice suit,” I blurt out. Shocked by my uncharacteristic outburst, I wave in his direction. “The cut, you know. The tie. It’s…modern. Stylish.”

  Dash laughs, a hearty sound that warms me right down to the bone. “Is it?” He grins. “I’m a stylish guy, Amelia.”

  “Are those bird eggs on the tie?”

  He winks.

  I’m pretty sure my face is red-headed-for-purple. This is not good.

  “What’s the color of the suit?” I ask him fumblingly.

  He looks down at it, lips twisting thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I don’t think they come with colors like car paint. I think of it as Yale blue.”

  “You look beautiful,” he says after a moment, and it’s so matter-of-fact, my heart aches just a little. It’s the kind of thing a friend would say.

  I spend the rest of the ride playing on my phone—more specifically, texting Lucy lies about how great everything is at Imagine. Next time I look up, I find Dash is on his phone as well. I wonder who he’s texting, then I hate myself for caring.

  Ten

  Amelia

  The Uber turns into a neighborhood that looks a lot like Chatham Hills, where Dash and I grew up. The lawns around the homes are huge—two or three acres, easily; the houses are super-sized and flashy. We pass a few homes while I avoid Dash’s eyes, and then our Uber turns into a long driveway lined with mid-sized willow trees.

  Sara Blaise’s house has a stone façade and a slate roof, plus two towers on each end that make it look a bit like a chalet. In front of the house, there’s a big, copper statue of a stallion on its hind hooves. Our driver follows the line of traffic to a spot beside the statue, where a valet with a light wand waves us forward, toward parking on the left side of the house.

  “Here is fine,” Dash interjects.

  I reach into my purse, then feel his hand on my wrist. He reaches between the two seats, handing the driver some cash. His left knee presses against the outside of my thigh. I feel like I can’t breathe. It takes forever for the driver to pocket the money and Dash to move.

  I hurry out of the car, and am headed around the rear when I meet Dash at the right tail light. His eyes travel partway down my body as he gives me a little nod.

  Awkward.

  But what are we going to do? Not walk in together? We have no choice, at this point, but to take the stairs up side-by-side. I make a banal comment about the pretty house as we climb. As we near the doors, I say, “Thanks for the ride. Have a good night.”

  Dash goes one way, I go the other, and that’s the way it should be. I don’t feel sad. That’s insanity.

  I know of Sara Blaise in name only. She ran the studio before Disney bought it, and I think she still does—mostly. I’m not sure her age, and it’s impossible to tell because this place is not the kind with family snapshots on display.

  The Blaise house is a showpiece, spit-shined and incredibly appointed—a work of art in its own right. I spend my first half hour sipping champagne and wandering through rooms with Meredith and Carrie, trying to pretend my heart’s not dangling outside me, sensing Dash in every room.

  I tell myself that this is normal. Of course I still have feelings for him. Anybody would in my shoes. I’ve been in therapy enough to know you can’t just snap your fingers and change your feelings. I need to change the way I think before I can change the way I feel.

  I need to think of Dash as someone who abandoned me, not as an old friend.

  As for what happened at the park the other day, when I ran off instead of listening to him? It doesn’t matter what he would have said. Nothing would excuse what he did. Nothing could make me trust him.

  I run into Weiss—“Things are going great!”—and then Meredith, Carrie, and I bump into Ashley. We pal around together for a while, rubbing elbows with Nashville big shots and marveling a two-story wall of tissue-paper flowers, a round foyer table showcasing a tree carved out of ivory, and a hairless cat perched on a bannister (we think he’s fake before he stretches, then hops down).

  Elaborate buffets are set up in three separate dining rooms, but none of us are hungry, so we mostly stick to champagne. I’m on my second glass, and laughing at a joke Meredith told, when we move into a billiards room and come across a group of guys at a card table.

  My eyes shoot to Dash like magnets. Dash—and the tall blonde behind him. She’s got her hand on his head, sifting through his hair like she owns it.

  “Sara Blaise,” Carrie whispers.

  “Where?”

  “She’s the one with the blonde updo, over there by Dash!”

  “I’ve heard they’re friendly,” Ashley marvels.

  I try to keep my face blank. “That’s her? Isn’t she young?”

  “She is so young,” Carrie whispers conspiratorially. “She’s only thirty-two.”

  “Really? Wow.”

  The next half hour has to be one of the longest of my life. Evil Sara Blaise is stuck to Dash like white on rice: like she’s his date. Servers swarm their table, where Dash is playing a card game with Adam, plus a few people I don’t know. Finally the evil witch releases him, but while half of their table gets up, Dash, Adam, and one woman stay, talking intensely about something I can’t hear for the crush of bodies in between us.

  I try to feign interest in Ashley’s story about her boyfriend’s internship at “a covert government agency” and keep my shoulders squared, even as I stalk Dash with my eyes.

  He seems happy, at ease. I notice him drinking something, but I’m not close enough to gauge the color of the liquid in his glass. Whiskey? At some point, he removes his tie and loosens his shirt. Sara Blaise comes back, squeezing his shoulder, so I’m shocked when one of the men near Dash strolls over and pats her lightly on the backside.

  “That’s Dirk Jackso
n,” Carrie tells me. “He’s a big country music producer. He’s her husband.”

  Color me confused—until I realize: Dash’s parents. He must know Mrs. Blaise via her husband and his parents, since Mr. and Mrs. Frasier also work in the music industry.

  Dash gets up and works the nearby crowd, chatting with two men and a woman for a while as I start on my third glass of champagne.

  I’m how far from him? Fifteen yards?

  I feel a little queasy.

  I finish my glass as a new woman descends, touching Dash’s elbow. He pushes his sleeve back, revealing a watch, and for whatever reason, the woman hugs him.

  My work friends are contemplating going behind the house to the dance floor when I decide it’s time for me to go outside. I’ve made the requisite contacts and connections. I can take a breather, maybe even go home early.

  Luckily, we’re on the second floor, and almost every room has a balcony.

  I make excuses to my crew and, as I head toward a nearby door, I hear Dash’s laughter. I encounter a waitress near the balcony door; when she offers another flute of champagne, I happily accept.

  Once through the doors, I realize I’m on the side of the house, on a spacious, cement balcony that seems to be tacked onto one of the home’s big, round towers. It’s the size of a small bedroom and littered with high-end lounge chairs.

  I walk over to one in the far corner, partially hidden behind some sort of potted plant, and sink down, nursing my drink as I watch the starry sky. Country-rock music floats through the humid air, and I realize it’s the Gin Rangers playing out back, behind the house.

  What are the odds?

  I hear a squeak, followed by a cacophony of chatter, as the balcony door is pushed open and two figures emerge. Wouldn’t you know, it’s Dash—and our studio’s assistant, Mallorie. Her frizzy, red hair is smooth and clearly styled tonight. She’s got on a green pantsuit that makes her ass look really nice—and from my angle, she looks younger than I think she really is.