Noelle August - Boomerang

Jesus Christ.

“Go see Rhett for a company credit card,” she adds. “The booth company is out in the valley. Winning Displays. I’m going to assume the two of you are smart enough to find it on your own. I want plans and a budget by morning. Get out there and make this booth happen.”

“No problem,” Mia says. “We’ll take care of everything.”

I have to give to her. The girl is good. Solid under pressure.

Cookie snorts. “We’ll see about that.”

I don’t know if it’s the attitude she’s giving Mia, or just plain stupidity that gets into me, but something snaps inside me.

“Hey, Cookie. Hold up a second.” Reaching into my messenger bag, I pull out a plastic lunch bag. “My roommate baked these last night. I thought you might like them.” I hold the bag out. “For you.”

She looks at me like I just offered her a serving of crap instead of chocolate chip cookies. Then she yanks open the door and marches out.

“Do you have a death wish?” Mia says under her breath as we head for Rhett’s office.

“I wanted to see what she’d do.”

“How the Cookie crumbles?” she says.

“Exactly. I was thinking that if she hurt me, maybe I’d get an offer of permanent employment as part of a settlement. You know, with fun things like benefits and paychecks.”

“Hmm. Using guerrilla tactics, is it?”

“Can you blame me?” I say.

“No. I thought she was going to eviscerate me on the spot.”

“I thought she was going to gouge my eyes out and feed them to the crows.”

Mia stops just outside of Rhett’s door. She rolls up onto her tiptoes and draws close, staring deep into my eyes. “Well, you’re in luck. Looks like they’re still there.”

What’s still there is my attraction to her. My pulse picks up, and I can’t look away. I see the same richness in her eyes as I did yesterday, in the cab, and my mind fills with questions. I want to know more about her film and her family. I want to tell her my toaster oven misses her thong.

Someone comes down the hall and Mia settles back onto her heels, but I’m still locked in.

Come on, Vance. Break eye contact. You can do this.

I manage it, and my gaze drops to her sexy, lopsided smile, and then moves lower, and I’m picturing her the way she looked at my apartment. Naked.

Awesome, Ethan. Big improvement.

Behind me, I hear Rhett’s office door swing open. I turn just as Adam steps out.

“Hey, Ethan!” Rhett calls from his desk. “I was just telling Adam that we’re coaching together.”

Mia shifts at my side. “You guys knew each other?” she asks me. “Before Boomerang?”

“No—we didn’t.” I know how this must look to her, like I’m brown-nosing. Maybe I am brown-nosing, but only because I need Rhett as my chauffeur.

“I hear you’re very good.” Adam leans against the doorjamb, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Four years at UCLA. Rhett told me about your records there. I’m impressed.”

“Thanks. It was a good run.” I resist the urge to see Mia’s reaction. This is on the verge of getting embarrassing. I have no problem bragging for sport, but doing it to impress your boss is low. Coach Williams’ voice pops into my head. When it comes to showing your strengths, eyes over ears: don’t tell them you’re good, show them. It’s become my strategy, too.

“Do you still play?” Adam asks me.

“Just a pickup game on Saturdays with some of the guys who stayed local and whoever else jumps in.”

“Hey,” Rhett says. “You’re letting me play this weekend. Right, E?”

I fight the urge to throttle him. Only my closest friends call me “E,” and I don’t want Rhett playing soccer with me this weekend. But with Adam here, my options for shutting him out are zero.

“Sure, Rhett.”

“I used to play a little myself,” Adam says. “Center mid.”

Unlike Rhett, Adam’s too cool to invite himself on Saturday, but I see a spark in his eyes that tells me his competitive spirit just kindled.

He wants to play.

Now I’m the one who’s impressed. Guys who think they can hang with collegiate level players are either ballsy as hell, or idiots. Between Adam and Rhett, looks like both camps are covered.

“You’re welcome to join, Adam. Anytime.”

“Thanks,” he says, clapping me on the shoulder as he leaves. “Count me in for Saturday.”

Mia

Q: How well do you handle pressure?

I spend a long, long elevator ride down to the parking lot, mentally rehearsing and then rejecting a series of withering comments I’m dying to make. Like, “How’s that view from inside Adam Blackwood’s butt?” and “Did you and Rhett fondle each other’s balls?”

But I keep my lips clamped and my eyes on the elevator control panel. For one thing, Ethan looked like he wanted to crawl out of his own skin and beat Rhett with it, which tells me he’s not exactly wooing the guy. For another, I’m not mad at Ethan, but at the whole let’s-hoist-some-brews-after-a-sweaty-game-of-soccer-boys-club vibe of their little exchange. I’ve got the athletic grace of a puppy on Ritalin, so there’s no way I’m meeting Adam on that level. Which means I have to find another arena, something I own.

That brings me back to the portrait in the conference room. Which I happen to know sold at auction for probably a decade’s worth of paychecks from this place. So Adam’s serious about collecting. And he likes my mother’s work.

It gives me a pang of conscience to consider using this knowledge as leverage, but I file it away—for emergencies only, of course. I want to do this on my own, without hopping on the Pearl Bertram express train. There’s no challenge in it otherwise. And more than that, zero satisfaction if I win.

When I win.

The elevator doors whoosh open, and we step into the sultry parking garage. The odors of baking asphalt and oil waft over me, a scent I weirdly love.

“So, what are we looking for?” I ask, sizing up the rows and rows of Lexuses and BMWs. I imagine Blackwood in something zippy, like an Aston Martin or a Bugatti. He seems like a guy who likes to go fast. But for a company car? I’m clueless.

Ethan’s hair stirs in the breeze, revealing a tiny half-moon-shaped scar over his left eyebrow. Something about it seems boyish and endearing. But his blank expression tells me he has no idea.

He digs into his pants pocket for the key—a valet key, which he holds in a flat palm for my inspection.

“Wow, a valet key. I’m touched by Cookie’s trust in us,” I say, taking it. “Well, we know it’s a Toyota.”

“Thank God no one in LA drives one of those.”

“Right. Thank God.”

We stand there for a moment, looking out at row after row of cars, which stretch out toward the shadowy recesses at the far end of the cavernous garage.

I give voice to the unthinkable: “Should we go back up and ask?”

“Yeah, I definitely think we should do that,” he says and sweeps an arm toward the elevator door. “After you.”

“Why do I think you’re going to shove me in and barricade it behind me?”

“You cut me, Curls. You really do.”

I look up at him, into those blue eyes—electric and fathomless at the same time, slight creases turning them up at the outside corners. The shadows of the garage sharpen the planes of his face, making him look older and more ridiculously gorgeous—like a glimpse of the man he’ll be in ten years.

“Somehow, I think you’ll live,” I tell him. Turning back to the rows of cars, I say, “Can’t we just, you know, go around sticking our key in all the Toyotas.”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind leaving next Tuesday.” He surprises me by grabbing my hand and tugging me back toward the elevator. “Come on, we’ll do it together.”

I dig in my heels playfully and tug back. “Oh, God, don’t make me face that . . . that beast again! She’s got a vicious streak a mile wide. I can’t—I won’t!”

“Where’s your grit, dude?” Ethan teases, giving another tug that launches me against him. Then we’re scuffling and laughing. And he’s so close to me, I feel his warmth, the coiled energy of his muscles.

I try to grab the key back from him, but he holds it about a mile above my head.

“Come on, Curls,” Ethan taunts. “Try and get it.”

“You’re going down.” I make a suicide leap and nab it, but as I spin away, he grabs me around the waist, catching me in a firm grip.

I try to wriggle from his grasp, but I’m weak from laughing so hard. “Let me go, you jerk, or I’ll feed your bones to that monstrous Yeti.”

The elevator door opens to reveal Cookie, her eyes beaming roughly one thousand kilowatts of pure hate in our direction.

“Red Solara, dumbasses,” she says, and the doors snap closed in front of her with magical swiftness, as if evil has a special velocity.

Ethan lets me drive, which comes as a surprise because no guy has ever let me drive. We put the top down and enjoy the golden clarity of the Los Angeles afternoon, the stirring of palm trees. It smells like tar and honeysuckle outside, and my hair pulls free of its braid and whips around my face. I know I’ll be terrifying to behold by the time we reach our destination, but I don’t care. The sun warms my skin; the 405 is miraculously clear; and we’re moving toward an actual destination.

I holler over the roar of the engine and the fluttering of my blouse flapping in the wind, “What are you thinking for a theme?”

“Theme?” Ethan sits with his eyes closed, face turned up to the sunlight. His smile holds such contentment that I feel almost guilty bringing up actual work.