Dating You / Hating You by Christina Lauren
chapter twenty-two
carter
Iwake to scratchy sheets, an unfamiliar ceiling, and the kind of artificial darkness that only comes from heavy curtains. There’s movement at my side and for one horror-filled moment I remember Kylie, with her overglossed lips and no concept of personal space, and my heart nearly stops, starting again only when I see Evie sleeping next to me.
An electric shock rolls through my body when I think of how we got here, how kissing felt like drowning and never wanting to come back up.
Evie looks soft like this. Maybe soft isn’t exactly the right word, but there’s a stillness I’ve not seen in her before, like her walls are down and I could touch her skin and move straight past it to her bones.
She’s so close—we’re almost nose to nose—and I can make out every eyelash, count each tiny freckle. She’s also naked, which I’m pretty happy about, but then I worry how she’ll react when she wakes up and sees that I’m naked, too.
Are we still friends today?
Did she hear me say that I was in love with her?
A part of me wants to be more scared than I am. It would be easier if we came to our senses and chalked this up to a good time and crazy lapse in judgment. But my brain and body are a united front on this in love with Eviething. The sheet is low on her back, her dark hair is tangled across the pillow. I think we had sex four times last night. I stretch my legs, clench my stomach. It feels like we had sex twenty times last night.
I reach out and run a finger over the hand tucked under her chin and up the length of her arm, and she starts to stir.
I suddenly realize I have no idea what I’m going to say and close my eyes, steadying my breaths so she thinks I’m still asleep. A few moments of silence pass before curiosity gets the best of me. I feel ridiculous; I’m a grown man pretending to sleep to avoid a grown-up conversation. A smile begins to tug at my mouth and I chance a peek, both of us bursting into laughter when we find the other doing the same thing.
With a hand on my face she pushes me away. “You’re an idiot.”
Warmth pools in my chest. “I’m the idiot? Have you seen your hair?” I reach to smooth it down and she laughs, trying to escape.
“Have you seen yours?” she asks with a grin.
I pause, serious for a moment. “Still freaking out?”
She plays with her lip and hesitates before answering. “A little. Are you?”
I tell her the truth: “A little.”
“Do you want to stop this . . . whatever this is?”
I lean forward and press a kiss to the corner of her mouth before meeting her eyes. “No . . .”
“Okay,” she says, her gaze falling to my lips. “Do you want to avoid discussing it and have sex again?”
I move until I’m hovering over her, marveling at how much of her body I can cover with mine. I look down between us, to where her legs bracket my hips. I rock forward, experimentally, and feel the way I easily slip across her skin, smooth and already wet.
She groans softly and I know that sound. I remember the way it echoed around the room.
Her hands move along my sides, nails dragging up my ribs and across my nipples to my shoulders. With a hand on the back of my neck she pulls me down and then there’s nothing between us at all, not even air.
For a moment I think we could come from this, two bodies moving against each other at just the right speed, in just the right spot, like we did that night in her apartment. But that’s not what I want.
Evie must be on the same page because her arm is already stretched to the side, fingers fumbling with the strip of gift shop condoms I tossed there at some point during the night.
My eyes nearly cross when she rolls the latex over me, and I give her a reproachful look, batting her hand away. There’s no waiting after that. The sheet comes up and over our heads, a tent of white. My heart is racing and she rolls us over to straddle my hips, taking me inside and moving in tiny little starts and stops until she figures it out, gets where she really needs to be.
Her palms press into my chest as she shifts forward and back, over and over, and it feels so good I put my hands on her hips to distract myself, line up my thumbs with the gentle contours of her navel. I thrust up and into her, harder and then harder still, and her mouth falls open, the headboard tapping near the wall, the springs creaking beneath us. Her eyes are closed, mouth partially open, and I wonder why we waited so fucking long for this, how we managed to let everything else get in the way, because this—fuck—nothing compares to this.
She rolls her hips again, a tight little circle, and swears, her fingers moving between her legs in a practiced motion.
“You gonna fuck me?” I ask her in a whisper, mouth watering at the way her nipples harden further.
Her response is wordless, a soft little gasp that gets lost against my own sounds when she comes down harder, takes more of me inside. All I can do is watch her, nodding in time with her movements and feeling the muscles in my stomach tighten, the pressure build.
Her hair is damp against her forehead and where it curls along the curve of her breast and I think she’s almost there, too, her movements getting choppy, rhythm frantic.
“Yeah?” I say, placing my fingers next to hers and circling.
“Tha—” she starts to say back when there’s a pounding at her door, followed by a frantic scratching.
Our eyes meet, bodies immediately frozen, neither of us breathing. “Oh my God! Did I dead-bolt the door last night?” she whisper-hisses. “Housekeeping could—”
But it’s not housekeeping, it’s about a million times worse, because following another knock, and some more scratching, is Brad’s voice.
Brad, our boss, on the other side of the door.
“Evie?” he calls, and knocks again.
I’ve never moved so fast in my life. It’s a flurry of arms and legs, sheets and pillows. Evie jumps into a T-shirt and a pair of sweats at a speed that couldn’t possibly be human. Meanwhile I’m naked, wearing a condom, and still pretty hard when she starts herding me in the direction of the closet.
“One second!” she calls, and then whispers, “I’ll get rid of him. Stay in here and don’t move.” Her face is flushed, cheeks rosy with a light sheen of sweat, and there’s no way he won’t know what she’s been doing.
I hold up my hand to object and she closes the door, shutting me inside. Shit.
I can’t see anything but a strip of light down the center, and okay, that’s mildly terrifying, but I’m an optimist so I’m going to see it less as this is where Brad could see me standing naked and still wearing a condom, and more as this is where all the oxygen is coming in.
They say when one sense is taken away, all the rest of them are heightened. It must be true because not only can I smell Evie’s perfume when she sprays it lightly in the bedroom—good call, by the way—but I can hear her footsteps as she crosses to the door, then the sound of the lock disengaging, and can almost sense the moment that Brad is there, less than four feet from where I’m hiding.
“Brad, hi.” Evie clears her throat. “Sorry, I was getting dressed. It’s—” There’s a pause and I imagine her checking her watch and giving him her best passive-aggressive smile. “Wow, it’s not even seven. What can I do for you?”
There’s some sort of scuffle and then Brad is yelling. “Bear, get back out here.”
“You brought your dog?” Evie says, and I stifle a groan. Brad has a Great Dane that is basically the size of a horse, and if he’s managed to escape from Brad and into the room, who knows what he’ll find. Namely, me. I’m briefly overwhelmed with the mental image of him easily barreling through these cheap veneer doors and dragging my naked ass out into the room.
“Maxine drove him up last night. Bear,” he yells again, but it sounds half-assed at best. “He’ll be fine,” he says more quietly to Evie, “just sniffing around. Now, I wanted to ask you about the schedule today. What have you planned?”
I can vaguely hear Evie rattling off the itinerary, and while I want to be furious at the way he’s talking to her, there’s a more pressing matter. Bear has obviously figured out that something about this closet isn’t on the up-and-up, and he’s sniffing around, his nose and dark eyes clogging up my oxygen crack.
I’m silently trying to will Bear away when he finds something more interesting and wanders off. Without the cloud of dog breath and sounds of his panting echoing around the closet, I can finally make out parts of the conversation again.
“And I guess I’m not really sure why you’re asking me?” Evie is saying. “The event planner put most of the schedule together; we just okayed it all and picked between the steak and the fish. I have to be honest”—a pause—“Brad, what is he doing? He’s in the trash.”
“Bear, get out of there!” Brad shouts, and claps his hands. “What are you eating?” By the tinkling of his collar, I think Bear has run back to Brad, and he continues.
“I also wanted to talk to you about your assistant,” he says.
“Jess?”
“Why are you having her email Kylie about vendors? Kylie doesn’t have time for things like that, and frankly, neither do you.”
“I was having her verify some of the—”
“You seem to forget I’m the coach here and I set the plays. Send all the invoices and receipts to Kylie to handle, where I’m assuming they were headed in the first place. I put you in charge of this event and that’s what you should be worrying about. Not—”
“Carter,” she interrupts, and I stop breathing. Whatever flagging erection I still had is no longer an issue.
“You put me and Carter in charge of this event, and yet I’m the only one you seem to be holding accountable. And you do realize none of this is anywhere in my job description.”
There’s a long pause and I’m afraid to move, afraid to blink, wondering whether my hammering pulse is actually audible outside the closet.
“Did you not hear anything I said last night, Evie?” Brad says, voice cool. “About working together? About us all coming together as a team?”
“I heard every word.”
“Then maybe you should do yourself a favor and think on what that means. You don’t have another strike left.”
“What have any of my strikes been?” she asks, patience clearly thin. “Field Day was two years ago now, and there were about fifteen producers also on the hook. I’ve brought in more money than any other agent this year, male or female.”
“Playing the girl card, I see,” he says. “You know how I feel about that.”
He lets the sentence hang there, and a few moments later I hear a snap, the sound of a dog running past, and then the door closing, the chain sliding into place.
Evie throws open the closet and a blast of fresh, cold air rushes into my face.
“Thank God,” I say, my hand pressed to my chest as I attempt to slow my heart. “What the hell was that all about? What is his problem?”
Her jaw is tight as she looks past me, staring at the closed door. “I’ll tell you, for a moment I blacked out and fantasized about pushing him off the balcony. Just a little shove and he would bounce like a tennis ball.”
“Wow.” I straighten. “I don’t know what it says about me, but I am more than a little into your evil side.”
“He is the worst,” she whispers, “the worst.” Walking toward the bed, she grabs a pillow and hurls it at the wall. “Lucky for both of us we weren’t anywhere near it,” she says. “I carry way too much guilt to be a very good killer.”
“I mean, technically it would be gravity that’d kill him, so you just have to be a relatively good pusher.”
She throws another pillow. “Why did he come to my room? Did he go to yours first?”
I sigh. “I suspect we both know the answer to that. I promise I would have said something if I hadn’t been naked and—”
I motion to where the condom has probably permanently dried to my dick.
She winces, and I slip into the bathroom, taking a moment to clean myself up.
“Of course he let his horse-dog in to destroy my hotel room,” she says from the bedroom. “Next he’ll want me t—” She goes silent, then lets out a horrified “Oh my God.”
I lean out of the bathroom, looking across the room to where Evie is staring wide-eyed at something on the floor. “What’s wrong?”
She looks up at me. “How many times did we have sex last night?”
“Ah, there it is.” I laugh, giving her a winning smile. “Just sinking in for you now that you slept with the enemy?”
“No,” she says, pointing down. “Bear got into the trash over here. I’m trying to figure out how many condoms he ate.”
• • •
Are we dog killers?
I mean . . . I’m pretty sure we’re not. I Googled it, and if Morgan can swallow a souvenir pressed penny the size of her entire windpipe and have it come out the other end just fine, Bear will be okay, too.
I think.
Evie is slightly less convinced and makes me clear my browser history so that if something goes awry it can’t be used against us as evidence. I have some time until our first team-building activity, and I go to my room to shower before pulling out my laptop to check email. There’s one from the creative director from the Vanity Fair shoot, and I’m initially afraid to open it.
I needn’t be, because despite Jonah’s diva entrance and Evie and I nearly losing our minds being idiots to each other before groping in the dark mixing room, the photos are great. So great, in fact, that they want to book Jonah for another shoot. My brother might be a giant asshat half of the time, but he clearly has the talent to back it up.
It’s still early, but I take a chance and call him. He picks up after four rings. I hear the sound of a lawnmower somewhere in the distance, so I assume he must be up and outside.
A good sign.
“Listen,” I say, buzzing with genuine excitement. “Have you checked your email? There are proofs from Vanity Fair, and they look great. Also, they want you to do another job.”
Nothing but silence greets me on the other end of the line. I pull the phone away to make sure it hasn’t disconnected.
“Did you hear me, Jones? They want you back.”
“I saw,” he says, but falls quiet again.
“You saw? That’s it? Dude, this is exactly what we wanted. What you wanted—to work. To continue to live in the lifestyle to which you have so richly become accustomed.”
“I’m just not sure that’s what I want,” he says. “Doing features shoots.”
I gape for a few breaths, staring unseeing at the wall of my hotel room. “But isn’t that the way you pay back your bills?”
“Yeah, but . . . I went to this gallery the other day, run by the friend of a friend, and some of the stuff was pretty good. Not fashion or anything, but like, abstracts and portraits.”
“You’re saying you want to go back to the kind of work you did in school?” I ask, confused. Wasn’t the reason Jonah came out to Hollywood in the first place to be a star? I can’t help but see doing small art shows as a step down on the particular ladder he chose.
“Do you remember the photo that won me the scholarship?” he asks, and I know exactly which one he means because it still hangs in our parents’ house.
“The power lines,” I say. “That’s what you want to do?”
“A little here and there? Like if I could do a few shoots to pay the bills but the other stuff on the side. Maybe get a show or something.”
I sit back in my chair. This has to be the most un-LA thing my brother has said since he was eighteen.
“What do you think?” he presses.
I come back to the conversation and realize I still haven’t said anything. “Yeah, Jones. If you think that’s what will make you happy then you should totally do it. And if you can do both and still make some money, well, that’s even better. I guess what I’m saying is that you have that option, with Vanity Fair.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll figure it out.” My phone clicks and I look down at the screen. Caleb, Dan’s manager. “Listen, Jonah, I have another call and it’s sort of important. Can I call you back?”
“No worries.” I think he’s going to hang up, but he speaks again: “Oh, and Carter?” He pauses. “Thanks.”
Then he’s gone.
I don’t have time to reflect on this newfound vulnerability displayed by my douchenozzle brother, so I switch over and stand to pace the room. “Caleb, hi.”
“Hey,” he says, “I have Dan here. You free?”
“Absolutely.”
There’s some shuffling as the phone is passed around, and then Dan is there. “Carter, finally we connect.”
“Dan, how’s it going, man?”
“Good. Just finished reading a script and it’s terrible.” He laughs. “They’re all pretty terrible, if I’m being honest.”
I think of the last thing I saw Dan in—a giant action movie that takes place on a tanker stranded at sea; before that he played a cop trying to bring down a band of drug dealers—and wonder if the scripts he’s being sent are all just carbon copies of what he’s already done. I jot down a note to find out.
“What is it exactly you’re looking for?” I ask, mentally filing through the stack of great scripts Brad recently sent me.
“What I’m looking for is an agent who sees what I am, but also what I can be. Jared Leto won an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club but also gets to play the Joker.”
“He gets to be a rock star, too,” I say, and Dan laughs at this. “Pretty sweet gig if you can get it.”
“Exactly,” he agrees. “Nobody’s telling him he can’t pull off the Joker. He wanted it and he just did it.”
“He’s also got the talent to back it up,” I say, leading him.
“You think I don’t?”
“I wouldn’t be having this conversation if I thought that,” I tell him. “At least as an actor. I have to be honest, though, Dan. You’d be a shit rock star.”
He laughs again. “That’s what I need. An agent who gets me the parts I need but also the parts I want. And one who steers me away from the things that won’t work.”
“It doesn’t help anyone for me to kiss your ass,” I tell him. “Neither of us gets paid that way.”
“You think you’re that guy?”
“I’m positive I’m that guy. You are a career, not just a role.”
“Let’s do this then,” he says. “I need to get back on set, but Caleb can take care of the details. Let’s make some movies, man!”
“And win some awards,” I say in response and can hear his quiet “Hell yeah” as he passes the phone to Caleb.
I finish up the call, and when I hang up, I’m not quite sure if I imagined the entire thing.
There’s some official stuff to be done, but I’m Dan Printz’s new agent.
Me.
I push my hands into my hair and pace the room again before moving to pick up my phone, ready to call Evie with the good news when I stop, dropping it back to the bed.
There is absolutely no way I can tell Evie this today. She thinks Brad is trying to push her out, and after hearing their little altercation this morning, I agree. Not only did I pick up Dan from her in a semishady way, but I’m confident I can do things for him precisely because I have access to a stack of hot scripts that Evie never got to read.
I pick up my phone again, feeling the weight of it in my palm and wondering if there’s some sort of twenty-four-hour grace period I get on delivering a possibly devastating blow to my new girlfriend’s career.
I open the calendar app and send Justin a note to block out an hour on Tuesday, after I’ve had a chance to confirm the details with Dan. Best not to rush it. I’ll finish out the weekend, get us back to LA, and then talk to Evie about it as soon as possible.
• • •
There’s basically one goal for any team-building weekend: make a bunch of grown, moderately successful adults behave like idiots for a forty-eight-hour period all in the name of corporate bonding. This weekend is no different.
It’s not that the games themselves are silly—they’re actually a lot of fun—it’s just hard to immediately spot the real-world utility. I mean, how can fighting off a zombie in a locked conference room ever help me tell my coworker in a calm and rational manner that I’m upset he ate my lunch?
Aptly, the first game is called Zombie Escape. A “zombie” is tethered to the center of the room and gradually given more floor space. The other team members are meant to solve various puzzles before the zombie is freed entirely. The best moment in this particular game comes when Evie’s team sacrifices Ashton to get another three minutes.
The event planner, Libby, gives them kudos for real-world problem solving, but reminds them it wasn’t exactly in the spirit of the game. But let me be clear: I would have done the same thing if the situation were real. Ashton is an ass.
Next up is Office Trivia. We’re divided into new teams and earn points by answering questions correctly. The questions start out easy enough, and are meant to test our observation and recollection skills: On what floor is the shared bathroom? What color is the couch in Evie’s office?
See? Simple.
But when the exercise devolves into a scene right out of Cards Against Humanity, with questions like “What most accurately fits the description of: An hour of fun, perfect for lunch breaks” and half the group shouts, “Rose!” it’s time to pack it in.
The correct answer was break-room yoga, by the way.
It’s hard to keep from watching Evie during all this, making my way over to her team and coming up with excuses to touch her. By the time lunch is over and everyone meets for a nature walk around the lake, if you’d dusted Evie for my fingerprints, she would’ve looked like a powdered doughnut.
The temperature is just above freezing, and we good little Californians pile on our bought-specifically-for-this-trip winter clothing and start the walk. I run to catch up with my girl—my girl!—and then tug on her hand so we’re both lingering at the back of the group.
Evie’s cheeks are pink from the cold, and I move in as close as I can without looking like I’m up to something.
“What’s this all about?” she says, grinning as she watches the distance between us and the others grow.
I slip one hand out of my pocket and twist my pinkie around hers. “Just wanted to hold your hand.”
“You’re such a puppy,” she says, but she squeezes my finger anyway.
Speaking of puppies . . . Bear runs around, ducking and dodging through the group as we walk along the lake. At one point he gingerly steps into the shallows and begins crouching.
“Oh God,” I murmur, gently elbowing Evie.
She turns to follow my attention and lets out a quiet gasp.
His back legs shake, his spine is awkwardly curved, and if I had to guess, I would say Bear is feeling some intestinal distress.
“Bear!” Brad yells, and everyone looks awkwardly away from the pooping dog. “What in the hell are you doing? Get out of that water, it’s freezing!”
Bear will not be moved. He carefully steps a little farther in, crouches a little more, whines, and looks back at us all.
Evie glances up at me, and then we both turn to watch in horror as Brad continues to yell and Bear continues to . . . well, bear down. Everyone is standing at the water’s edge and it’s like a slow-motion car accident. Nobody can seem to look away.
I let go of Evie’s hand and make my way to the front of the group, on the verge of confessing and suggesting we run Bear to the nearest emergency vet, when the problem seems to solve itself. Bear barks happily and straightens, bounding back into the snow.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Kylie says. “I thought he was having puppies or something.” Every head in the group turns to look at her with the same confused expression when someone speaks up.
“Oh my God. Brad,” Rose says. “I think Bear has worms.”
We all look, because honestly, at this point what else can we do? Four pale yellow things are floating at the very surface of the water.
And I wince, turning toward Evie just in time to hear someone say, “Are those . . . wait, are those condoms?”
• • •
It is safe to say that I have never been more excited for a trip to end than I am right now. The retreat itself was fine—great if you count it was two nights and eight condoms (only seven of those used to completion)—but to say I was distracted would be a gross understatement. This weekend has felt like some kind of test, but aside from the Condom Incident, as we’ve decided to call it, and Brad and Evie’s little altercation in her room, it feels like an overwhelming success.
Everyone is packed and having a final cup of coffee Sunday morning before the cars arrive to drive us back. The fire is roaring, a row of suitcases waits in a neat line near the doorway, and I’m counting down the minutes until Evie and I are alone again. I want to be alone so I can tell her about Dan, yes, but also to talk over and digest everything that’s happened between us and to make a plan for how to deal with Brad, together.
Evie is on the phone with the drivers, and I’m near the fireplace, watching her as inconspicuously as I can manage. Brad and Kylie are talking in a corner nearby; I can hear bits and pieces of their conversation, not that I’m really paying much attention. I’m just ready to get out of here.
“I don’t know,” Kylie says. “I told them specifically that all of that was supposed to go straight to you.” Brad nods. “I’m not sure where the miscommunication happened. I told them, Brad.”
“I know you did,” he says, and there’s softness in his tone that suddenly has my attention. “People have too much time on their hands; I’ll take care of it.”
I don’t realize that I’m staring until Brad looks over Kylie’s shoulder and his eyes lock with mine. Shit.
He sends Kylie away, telling her to make sure everyone is accounted for, and moves to stand at my side.
“Carter,” he says, eyebrows pulled in tight as he glances around the rest of the bar. “You weren’t here last year, but did you think the retreat was a success?”
“Absolutely,” I tell him. “Evie deserves every bit of the credit.”
He leans against the fireplace and reaches for a few mints in a bowl there before popping one into his mouth. “You don’t have to cover for her, you know. If she wasn’t pulling her weight,” he says, “you can tell me.” He places an encouraging hand on my shoulder. “I know that you like her, Carter, and I do, too. Evie is a great girl. But she also has a reputation in this business.”
“You mean Field Day.”
“Exactly. And I’d hate to see you get caught up in anything that could jeopardize your trajectory. Especially considering I’d like to talk sometime this week about renewing your contract.”
I straighten and take a step back. “With all due respect, Evie is one of the—”
I’m cut off by a round of cheers and applause inside the lobby. The cars have arrived, and a smiling Evie is now walking toward us.
“Time to go,” she says, smile faltering as she looks between us. “Everything okay over here?”
Brad smiles that fucking smile of his. “We were just talking about how the weekend went.”
“Yeah? I think it was pretty great.” She gives us both a sweetly proud grin.
“It was amazing,” I say. “I was just telling Brad here that I know we did this together, but you really impressed me: leading this, with everything else on your plate.”
Her face lights up. “Thank you.” She looks from me to Brad for some kind of confirmation.
Of course, it doesn’t come. “Looks like it’s time to head out,” he says flatly. “I’ll see you both tomorrow morning. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
Evie’s face falls, and I know that her fears were just confirmed. For whatever reason, Brad was hoping she would screw up.
Suddenly it occurs to me that it isn’t just about Evie being a woman, or any hundred other possible forms of bigotry.
I mean, it is partly that. Evie’s not crazy regarding all the double standards. But Brad isn’t trying to get rid of every woman in the firm, even if he treats them all like shit. So his grudge isn’t just that.
No. Evie has something on Brad.
The question I have, when I look over at her, is whether she even realizes it.
