Noelle August - Boomerang

Rhett stares at me in that human resource-ey way, all perception and insight.

“Definitely not all,” he says finally.

“Whatever.” I grab my messenger bag and jump out of the Mini, shutting the door harder than I need to.

Rhett and I are silent on our way into the offices, but I’m done being judged by him. What does he know, anyway?

I won’t spend the weekend watching Jason and Isis cuddle on the couch while I try not to think about Mia. About how she felt against me. Or remembering the way I hurt her. I need to get out of town or I’m going to lose my fucking mind, and if I want to go home to Colorado, then I’m goddamn doing it.

Rhett’s wrong. Nothing’s going to happen with Alison.

I’m getting a free ride, and that is definitely all.

Mia

Q: Can your friends tell you everything?

Through elaborate machinations involving cupcakes, a promise to film a bridal shower for Paolo’s cousin, and a little bit of extra sweet-talking of anyone I know won’t narc me out to Cookie, I have commandeered the Boomerang production studio so I can shoot Beth for the convention booth. I’ve also commandeered Paolo, who’ll act the part of Beth’s dates. I plan to have them improvise some datelike chitchat, maybe hold hands or make out a little, and then I’ll play around with backgrounds and settings in post. Brian offered to help, and I may take him up on it, since effects are not my thing.

The equipment here is so high-end it makes me salivate. Some of it’s nicer than the stuff we used in film school. Guess that’s yet another benefit of working for a big-time media mogul. I doubt eHarmony has a full-scale editing bay in their basement.

Just being around all of this piques my hunger for the job. The money is one thing. But all of this—the resources, the equipment, the creative trust that serves Adam across all of Blackwood Entertainment—makes for a ridiculously rare opportunity. An opportunity I really, really want.

“Okay,” Beth says, settling onto a green-painted cube that will become a divan or a high-backed cushioned chair or, who knows, maybe the captain’s seat on a spaceship. “Before your friend comes down, you have to talk to me about this Colorado situation. You’re being too calm, girl. It’s freaking me out.”

“It’s fine,” I tell her, though my throat closes around the words, making them sound strained. “It just means I can totally shut the door on all of this nonsense.”

What is there to say? From the minute Paolo stuck a mug of latte in my hands and laid the news on me about Ethan’s big trip, I’ve felt sick and deflated. If I let myself think of them together in that way—the way we were, in my mother’s studio, in the back of the cab, in the cool shadows of his kitchen—I won’t be able to accomplish a thing.

She folds her arms across her chest and raises an eyebrow. “Which nonsense is that? The nonsense where you’re totally into him? Or where he’s totally into you?”

“The nonsense where he clearly still cares about his ex. The nonsense where I have much better things to do with my life than kill my career to go grubbing around after someone who’s not into me. Again.”

“You said he couldn’t keep his hands off you—even in front of his ex.”

“Exactly.” I take a reading of her face and adjust some of the reflectors to bounce more light in her direction. “The problem’s not physical.”

“Not with that rack, it ain’t.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“Seriously, what is the problem? Enlighten me.”

I kneel down next to her and smooth the simple flowered dress we borrowed from Sky over her knees, then spend some time playing with her hair until she slaps my hands out of the way and fixes it herself.

“We’ve already talked about this.”

She rolls her eyes. “You mean the ‘I need to be chosen’ bullshit?”

“How is it bullshit?”

I start to rise, but she clamps two hands on my shoulders and stares me down. “Let me ask you something, okay?”

“What?”

“When you wanted to go to film school, how did you go about doing that?”

I sigh. “What’s your point?”

“I’m just wondering if you waited around in your house for film school to come to your door and say, ‘Mia, we choose you.’ ”

“It’s not the—”

“And when you wanted this swanky gig here, what did you do? Did you wait for baby Ryan Gosling to call you up? Or did you storm the damn castle and get yourself a job?”

“An internship,” I remind her. “That I have to share.”

“It’ll be a job at the end of all this,” she says. “You know how I know?”

“No.” Because I don’t know anything of the sort. Except that I’ve accidentally stacked the deck in my favor by putting Ethan and Cookie on a path to the apocalypse, something I still have to fix.

“Because when you want something, girl, you don’t screw around. You go for it. You’ve never waited for me to choose to do the dishes or give you back stuff I’ve borrowed. Or for Skyler to choose to pay the light bill. You don’t wait around for anyone or anything. But with boys, you act like goddamn Sleeping Beauty. Like they’re the only ones with choices to make.”

“That’s not fair.” I twist away from her and get to my feet. Though I busy myself looking through my camera viewfinder, tears threaten, and I blink them back.

“I’m not about being fair right now. I’m about being real.”

“Well, spare me, okay?”

She gets up, blowing all the work I just put into arranging her, getting the lighting just right.

“Damn it, Beth,” I start, but she takes the camera gently from my hands and sets it on the table beside us.

“Listen to me, honey,” she says. Her voice is warm and melting, which is just not like her. And her expression is kind enough to undo me on the spot. “You know how we always call Kyle that tool?”

I nod.

“Seems to me that you’re the one acting like a tool. Like you’re something that gets to be picked up or put down whenever some boy wants. You know?”

I put my face in my hands because I feel the truth of it, sizzling along my every limb, rooting my feet to the floor. I wasted so much time with Kyle, waiting for him to see me for who I am, someone who has value, who deserves to be picked. I waited without asking myself if I actually wanted him.

Oh, hell.

Just then, Paolo slides into the room. “Date time!” he exclaims, and I’ve never been so happy for an interruption.

“Yep,” I say and lift the camera once again. “Why don’t you both take seats?”

Beth hesitates for a second, but I give her a cool end-of-discussion smile, and she flops back onto her cube.

“Awesome,” I murmur, though nothing about this feels awesome at all. “Let’s get started.”

Ethan

Q: Does the truth set you free, or does it set you on fire?

So what happened to your parents?” I ask Alison. “Didn’t you have big plans for the weekend at the family cabin?”

She looks at me, her eyes hooded in the dimness. The small window behind her frames a circle of a sky that’s fading from blue to black. It’s Friday night, and we’re thousands of feet in the air, somewhere halfway between LA and Loveland—the private airfield we’re flying to outside of Fort Collins.

Alison takes a careful sip of her vodka tonic and sets it down. “Something came up. Two somethings, actually. My dad had to fly to New York for a work emergency, and my mom had a social emergency.”

“Social emergency?”

She smiles—something I know she does to mask her disappointment. “A bridal shower she happened to remember right when my dad had to cancel. It’s that middle-school maneuver. You know . . . You can’t break up with me because I’m breaking up with you first? He’s too busy for her, so she’s way too busy for him.”

“Sorry,” I say, but it’s typical of them. I know she’s used to it.

Alison’s smile goes a little wider. “It’s okay.”

In the faint light of the cabin, her teeth are too white, too perfectly straight. She looks down and gently shakes the ice in her glass. It’s still half full, but mine is empty. No more vodka. No ice. Even the lime looks sucked dry.

“You could’ve canceled, Alison. You’re going all this way to spend a weekend by your . . .” I cut myself short, because I know why she didn’t cancel. I know why she’s here. She didn’t want to let me down again. “Listen, Alison, I don’t—”

“It’s okay, Ethan. I don’t expect anything. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I just couldn’t say no to the chance to be with you again—even for a few hours. And I didn’t want you to miss your father’s birthday.”

“Why don’t you come out to dinner tonight?”

As soon I say the words, an odd feeling settles over me, like I’m betraying someone. But I push it away before I can examine it. I don’t have to answer to anyone, and Alison can’t hurt me again. The remaking us campaign has actually done me a world of good. Emotionally, there’s nothing there anymore. Nothing drawing me toward her.

“Aren’t you going to dinner with your family?” she asks.

I nod. “Yeah, but it’s all right. They’ll be happy to see you.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely,” I say. Then I unbuckle my seat belt and move to the small bar console, where I make myself another drink.

“What the hell are you doing, E?” Chris grabs my elbow and tows me toward the bar at Jimmy’s—our family’s favorite pub. “How could you bring her to Dad’s birthday dinner?”