Dating You / Hating You by Christina Lauren

chapter twenty-six

carter

As it turns out, you can’t manage the career of the Next Big Thing from the kitchen of your tiny, one-bedroom Beverly Hills apartment.

It took approximately two weeks to come to this conclusion. Two weeks in which Evie and I shared the pantsless joy of not having an actual office to go to every morning or an actual boss checking in on us, and being able to have sex on the kitchen table whenever we want and not even have to close the door.

It was a beautiful time.

But eventually the pants had to go back on and we had to decide how we were going to do this. I had Dan and a handful of other clients but needed somewhere I could take meetings and . . . well, work.

Evie had toyed with the idea of going back to Alterman, but had already come to the conclusion that while she loved the people and the job, she could no longer stomach the games that seemed to inevitably dominate big-firm work. Luckily, Adam Elliott and Sarah Hill had signed on with Evie at P&D for project-by-project contracts only, and those two would follow her anywhere, it would seem.

And boom—we had an agency.

So going rogue meant we needed an office.

This is when I realized exactly how connected Evie was. Having already helped me find a great legal adviser, she found us a screaming deal on a handful of vacant offices . . . in a very nice building next to P&D.

•  •  •

There isn’t any sort of official grand opening at Abbey & Aaron, but the Wi-Fi is connected on a Tuesday, and I get the password to the security system the day after that, which is good enough for us. We have the entire space repainted, line the lobby walls with Jonah’s new black-and-white prints, and install the best Keurig machine money can buy. There isn’t a need for a row of sixteen well-groomed and neatly arranged assistants, but there’s more than enough need for Becca and Jess.

Becca and Evie spend thirty minutes on the phone—during which they immediately bond and become best friends forever through a rousing version of Carter Aaron’s Top Ten Most Embarrassing Moments. Evie offers her a job and Becca—thank God—accepts. I am ecstatic. I will be surrounded by the two women who call me out the most, but I will never be disorganized or undercaffeinated again.

That first morning at the official office is fucking surreal. The sky looks exactly like it did my first day in LA—powder blue with just a trace of haze along the edge—and I make the familiar turn into the parking garage.

It’s already warm as I climb out of my car just after eight and start the walk from the third-floor terrace of the garage to the lobby. Making a right turn instead of a left, I head into Building A, site of our new endeavor.

I make a quick check of my reflection in the door. Hair: good. Tie: Ol’ Lucky this time around, not some fancy new mistake. I burned that one.

It’s mid-March, but I’m hit in the face with the same rush of refrigerated air as soon as I step inside. My blood feels carbonated; my stomach is tied in a hundred knots as I cross the marble floors.

In Building B—owned entirely by P&D—there are giant screens with scrolling head shots and posters for some of the larger clients the firm represents. But in Building A, it’s more subdued. A simple gold plaque affixed to the wall lists the several offices housed inside the building, and there we are, Abbey & Aaron: Suite 303. Whereas P&D required floors and floors of staff and a step short of a retinal scan just to get into the elevator, it’s pretty much just the two of us, a legal adviser we keep on payroll, Becca and Jess, and hopefully Steph, if we can ever convince her to come over with us.

I haven’t seen Evie since I left her apartment this morning, and my fingers already itch with the need to touch her. We all met up yesterday for Morgan’s birthday in Griffith Park, complete with food trucks and the biggest bouncy house I’ve ever seen.

Evie’s favorite people hung with my favorite people, and seeing them all together—my future and my past—felt like stretching out a leg and putting my foot down on the right path. Michael Christopher is already planning my bachelor party. Which . . . isn’t official or anything, but . . . you never know.

I followed Evie back to her apartment at the end of the night. Her kisses still tasted like sunshine and birthday cake, and she giggled while I checked every other inch of her to see whether the rest of her tasted like frosting, too. I left this morning just before five, feeling the best kind of exhausted, pressing kisses to her mouth and saying I’d see her at our office. Which is a really great thing I get to say now.

Becca is there when I step off the elevator; a strange sense of nostalgia and hope fills my chest.

“Here’s your schedule,” she says, handing me a few slips of paper from her desk. I can barely read any of them, but pocket them happily. “There’s a phone call you’ll want to get on right away. One of Jamie Huang’s friends wants to talk to you, and Allie Brynn is about to have kittens in her excitement over it.”

“Awesome,” I say. “Is Evie here yet?”

“Conference room,” she says, looking up at me through narrowed eyes. “It’s so weird seeing you like this again, in your suit with that familiar, crazy caffeinated glaze to your eyes. It’s pretty great. Or maybe I’m just jazzed to be in an office with an In-N-Out down the street.”

I grin. “I am so fucking happy you’re here.”

“Same,” she says, glancing down to her desk before handing me a small stack of mail. “Now get to work.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It’s quiet as I make my way to the conference room. The door’s ajar, and I poke my head in when I knock and wait for Evie to look up.

She’s sitting on a ledge that runs along the window, sun in her hair and a contract in her lap. She looks beautiful and confident and happy, and while I’d (probably) never engage in workplace PDA, there are only a handful of us here. We could revisit my earlier fantasy and make out on the table if we wanted, and only have to suffer Becca’s fake-horrified groan. I’ve heard conference tables are good for that sort of thing.

“Hey, you,” Evie says, and motions me inside.

I’d like to say I keep it cool, but I practically jog over, bending at the waist to press a warm, lingering kiss to her lips. “Hey.”

She runs her fingers down my chest and to my tie before looking up at me with a smirk.

“This tie works,” I insist.

“I have an important meeting with Paramount in an hour,” she says, smoothing it down again. “If it works as well as you say it does, you can wear your lucky tie every day and you won’t see me complain.”

“Maybe you can wear it later. And I’ll get lucky?”

She grins. “Maybe.”

I tap the pages in front of her. “You ready for this?”

“I have a kickass package and just need their yes. Hey, did you hear that Seamus hit a photographer outside LAX last night?”

My eyes go wide. “Like with a fist?”

“Like with his car. P&D can have fun with that one; he’s their problem now.”

“I think they have a long list of problems. I’m just glad not to be one of them anymore.”

She straightens my tie and lifts her chin. “Amen.”

“What do you think about going to New York with me this summer?” I ask her. “It’s miserable and hot, but it’s my parents’ anniversary, and I want my family to embarrass me in front of you. It might be awful.”

Evie tilts her head and studies me for a moment. “Maybe you could come to Burbank with me this weekend? The TV will be on too loud and my dad will hassle you about how much he hates the Yankees. My mom will probably tell you that you need a haircut. You’ll probably have a terrible time.”

Her eyes meet mine, and I don’t have to have known her a long time to know she’s never been this happy, or this secure.

“We’ll just have to make the worst of it,” I agree, smiling as I lean into her kiss.