Noelle August - Boomerang

“A complication?”

“A cancellation. Late. A late cancellation.” She kneads the back of the seat as she talks. I’m not sure why. Mia doesn’t get nervous around me. “Cookie sent me a text, though, and, um—they set you up with someone else. She should be here any minute.”

“Great. Thanks for the message, Mia.”

“You’re welcome. Have fun tonight, Ethan.” My attitude’s finally getting through to her, because her tone of voice really says you’re an asshole.

“Oh, I will,” I say, like I’m planning to take my super-hot unknown emergency backup date up against a wall first chance I get.

Mia cocks her head to the side, her eyes narrowing on me. “Huh,” she says. “So will I.”

“Awesome. Great.”

“Yeah . . . Great,” she says, meeting me toe-to-toe.

“So, I’ll see you at work?”

“Sure. See you at work.” Mia gives a tiny shoulder shrug. “I might be a little late, though. You know. If things go well.”

“Ah,” I say, nodding. “Nice, Curls. Thinking about going for number six tonight, are you?” I hear myself say. It’s actually amazing that I haven’t lost my shit right now. Truly amazing.

“Well, it’s too early to call. But he’d actually be number five, since you and I never happened.”

“We happened, Curls. I guarantee it. Not just once, either. We happened a few times. At least.” She rolls her eyes and walks away, but I’m not done. “I’m your number five, Mia!” I yell, like a complete fucking lunatic. “I am your five!”

A family in the next table looks over their sizzling fajitas at me, but Mia doesn’t stop. I watch her join Brian Kubrick—who keeps looking over like he’s trying to figure out whether he should be worried about me or not.

I send him a silent message, clearing that right up.

It was stupid of me to worry about her dating another Robby. The guy was an asshole, but he never stood a chance. Brian Kubrick, on the other hand, is a real threat. He has the potential to screw everything up.

If I allowed myself to care, which I do not, I remind myself.

Right. Keep telling yourself that.

The waiter comes by, taking my drink order. He’s barely walked away when my awareness shifts to a blond knockout weaving through the tables. She heads my way, looking right at me, and—

The blood drains out of my skull, and my vision grows spotty around the edges, like I’m about to pass out. But I don’t. I only watch as she walks up to my table.

Alison.

My ex.

Is here.

“Hi, Ethan,” she says, her mouth tugging up in a one-sided smile.

Seconds pass. Lifetimes. Millennia. And I still don’t have the capacity to grasp what the fuck is happening.

Alison pulls out the chair Mia had just stood behind and sits down. Her smile fades, and I see two years of memories emerge in her teary blue eyes.

“Thank you, Ethan,” she says. “Thanks for giving me a chance.”

Mia

Q: Do you ever feel awkward in social situations?

I walk away from Ethan, one billion percent sure that this little social experiment of Adam Blackwood’s is going to turn me off both food and boys for life. A lead weight sits in my belly, and the air inside the restaurant seems suddenly hazy, thick with the cloying sweet-sharp scent of sizzling onions and peppers.

Ethan made me mean, and I hate to be mean.

Okay, he didn’t make me, not exactly. He just brings it out in me—chafes all the raw bits until I want to curl into a protective ball.

I slip back onto my stool next to my date Brian and give him a smile that feels fleeting and phony.

“Everything okay?” he asks. He’s got one of those square, boyish faces with ruddy cheeks and a fantastic nose that looks like it’s been broken a time or two. His eyes are an almost reddish brown—like cacao plants—and they drink you in, slow between blinks as though afraid to miss a single thing.

I like him.

The thought registers with a rocklike thud in my brain and promises to go absolutely nowhere. Poor Brian.

Reaching for a chip, I nod, swirl it around in a stone mortar full of chunky guac, and stuff it in my mouth with little thought to the effect that garlic and cilantro will have on my breath.

“Yeah, fine,” I finally say. “Just a co-worker. Had to, um, chat about some work stuff.”

“Seemed pretty intense,” Brian says, and gives me this watchful look—all curiosity, no judgment. It makes me want to tell him things. “It also looked like he wanted to rip my head off.” He picks up the pitcher of sangria and pours some into my half-filled glass, and then he tops off his own.

“Oh, that’s just his face.” Even the joke makes me feel dumb and disloyal. Because it’s not true. And because it’s such a beautiful face.

Jesus, I have to pull myself together. But I feel wired, unsettled. I remind myself of Baudelaire, mincing along the edge of a chair, twitching, a second from flight.

I breathe out, try to come back to the moment, try not to think about gorgeous, jerk-face Ethan.

“What made you sign up for Boomerang?” I ask Brian in the least subtle attempt to change the subject ever.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a ripple of blue and look up as an absolutely stunning blond girl slinks by. She’s in a blue halter dress with a jeweled collar that circles a pale swan neck. Her gray Louboutin pumps cover the distance between the front door and Ethan’s table in about five steps.

And then it dawns on me. I’m looking at her. My precious ice queen.

Suck that, Vance, I think, dying to swivel on my stool so I can watch the whole awkward evening unfold. I feel guilty for the setup but less than I did before he acted like a jerk tonight.

Brian’s eyes flick over for a couple of beats but then dutifully return to me. I like that too. He doesn’t pretend not to notice a gorgeous human being. But he’s not all ogly and gross. Like Robby. And, I allow myself to admit, like Kyle. That tool.

“It seems safer, somehow.” It takes me a second to realize Brian’s answering my question.

“Safer, really?”

He dips his head to catch a glob of guacamole before it slides off his chip. “Well, to use a filmmakers’ analogy, maybe it’s like narrowing the aperture a bit.” He makes a frame of his hands and looks at me through it. “Like it’s less pressure to say, ‘I’m focused on this one night, this one date, rather than the first night of what we’re both hoping will be an entire lifetime.’ ”

It seems like a fair answer. A good one. But I can barely home in on it. I know there’s a juicy drama playing out behind me, and I’m dying to see for myself.

Brian asks, “What about you?” at the same time that I suggest, “Hey, want to move over to a booth?”

“Sorry.” He grins. “Sure.”

We tell the bartender. Brian grabs our glasses and pitcher, nodding at me to nab the chips and guacamole. I follow him as he weaves between booths and places us, miraculously, in the perfect spot.

Only my date slides into the booth facing Ethan and the Ice Queen, leaving me to either sit with my back turned to them or slide in next to him, which feels like a signal I don’t want to send.

I hover there dumbly for a second, the stone bowl of guacamole growing heavy in my hand.

If I sit next to Brian, I’m saying I want to get close, snuggle up to him.

But I’ll be able to see Ethan.

If I sit across from him, I won’t come across like some desperate goof with boundary issues, but I won’t be able to see the action. Which is kind of the whole point.

Suddenly, the idea of decades more of this dating crap makes me want to smother myself to death in the guacamole bowl.

I set down the bowl and chips and smile at him. Nodding in the vicinity of his lap, I ask, “Hey, mind if I . . .”

Lucky for my ego, he lights up immediately and makes room for me. “Sorry. Of course. I mean, I didn’t know if you think it’s awkward.”

Yeah. It’s definitely awkward. I mean, it’s not like I’m a trout with eyes on the side of my face. I don’t get why people do it. And now I’m one of those people.

I slide in, turning toward Ethan’s booth at the exact moment a server comes to stand directly in my eye line, blocking my view.

Come on!

“Dinner, kids?” the server asks. He’s got a white-blond televangelist’s pompadour and two stylized red “X’s” tattooed above his eyebrow, which I realize with some dismay, is actually the Dos Equis logo. I’m guessing he’s going to regret that in roughly . . . well, now.

“What do you think, Mia?” asks Brian. “Want to split something? Fajitas, maybe?”

“Sounds great.” I try to employ my x-ray vision to see through the waiter’s scrawny chest, but sadly don’t seem to have them charged up this evening.

Finally, we get through an excruciating process of choosing protein source, flour or corn tortillas, vegetables and other sides until I just want to scream at him to put some goddamn food on a plate and bring it to us already.

He moves away, and my attention zeroes in on Ethan and his date.

I expected to see the untouched drinks, to see Ethan’s frown, his posture of disaffection. And I do. He looks miserable. The girl looks miserable. But it’s the wrong kind of miserable. It’s—intimate somehow. They lean their heads toward one another. The girl’s long pale fingers rest there, close to him, suggesting she wants to touch him.

“Why are you on the Boomerang site?” Jason asks, and the question feels stale, like it’s part of a conversation I had sixty years ago. “What are you looking for?”