“Just depends,” Brad says with menacing quiet, “whether you’re more comfortable being a failure or a quitter.”
I down my wine, knowing I’ll regret drinking it so fast but also unable to stop myself because I need to do something other than stand here, listening to Brad give this poor, nice person her very negative year-end review in the middle of a party.
Snagging another glass from a passing tray, I turn and walk toward the Christmas tree, intent on admiring it and getting the hell away from the echo of that conversation.
But I can feel Carter on my heels, and he stops just behind me, staying quiet while we each take a few breaths.
“Wow,” he says quietly, and I nod.
A few more seconds pass before he whispers, “Evie?”
“Yeah?”
“What are Eskimo sisters?”
The anticipatory horror on his face when I turn is like a hammer to a pane of glass for the tension in my chest, and I burst out laughing. “Two women who have slept with the same man.”
If possible, the horror intensifies. “And this man would be . . . me?”
“I presume so, but I know I didn’t become a sister.”
His face straightens. “Only because of circumstances.”
“I assume whenever two people don’t sleep together, one way or another it’s because of circumstances.”
“Right,” he says, easy again now, with the smile and the eyes and the collarbones. “But those circumstances are entirely different from the ones surrounding why I didn’t sleep with Rose.”
I glance back over to where Rose is still in a tense conversation with Brad, having been abandoned by the rest of us. I want to joke some more, keep it light here with Carter, but it’s nearly impossible when the weight of the job seems to follow us everywhere. I’ve never been let go. I’m not even sure how to deal with that.
“You okay?”
I nod, numb. “Sometimes I just can’t believe I do this for a living.”
His brows pull together. “You don’t love it?”
Instinct makes me tread carefully. Why is it that the one person I want to confide in the most is the one who could use it against me so easily? “I do love it. I love making these things happen, and connecting people. I love the clients and the art they make. It’s the politics I hate. The team behind the curtain is starting to feel . . . terrible. I don’t want to become that.”
His hand is warm when it comes up and cups my shoulder. The touch feels like the most intimate thing he could do right now—beyond even kissing me—because it makes me remember. I remember his mouth there. I remember that Carter likes my shoulders. I remember how his eyes seemed to ignite when he saw them bare, in the dress, that first date, and again on Friday.
It doesn’t feel like an innocent touch, it feels like a message.
“You aren’t like that, Evie.”
But when I look up at his face, he smiles a little, and it carries a shadow of regret.
I know we’re thinking the same thing: But I’ve been like that with you.
chapter twenty
carter
Eighteen-hour workdays, no social life, and I’m boarding the plane for New York wondering if the fact that it’s December twenty-first and the only Los Angeles holiday parties I managed to attend were work-related makes me an amazing career man or a terrible single dude.
Michael Christopher and Steph were hosting one—no costumes this time, sadly—but it conflicted with the Paramount party. Jonah invited me to his new apartment in West Hollywood, but the only evening I was free overlapped with his meeting a bankruptcy lawyer. We ended up exchanging small gifts over lunch at a food truck outside my building.
I’ve barely seen Evie, but we seem to have reached a sort of cease-fire. I guess hand jobs foster goodwill? Or maybe it was because I told her she had a poppy seed between her teeth before a Monday meeting, and she gave me a grateful you’re no longer Satan look. Whatever the reason, things have softened between us, and I’m so goddamn grateful for it I nearly want to weep. I’ve never in my life been so busy at a job, so desperate to prove myself and make myself indispensable. But seeing her face as we pass in the hall or hearing her voice coming from her office has made the last three weeks more bearable.
It makes no sense, I realize that. Hers should be the voice that reminds me that the clock is ticking, that the direct deposit notice I find in my inbox every two weeks isn’t a sure thing. And still, hers is the presence that feels the most grounding, the most sane. It’s terrifying to realize that no matter how this turns out, I probably won’t have her as a colleague much longer. So I go into ostrich mode and just don’t think about it.
? ? ?
Christmas is in two days and I’m shopping with family. The mall is packed, but there’s this shared type of last-minute chaos that puts people in a good mood despite the number of bodies clogging the stores.
Doris and Dolores are my two favorite aunts. They’re my dad’s sisters—twins, of course—and although they might look identical, they couldn’t be more different. For as long as I can remember, if Doris was hot, Dolores was cold. If Doris wanted burgers for dinner, Dolores wanted fish. If one wanted to watch a comedy, the other was absolutely in the mood for sci-fi.
“Why so quiet, Scooter?” Doris says, apparently still refusing to believe I am nearing thirty. She peers at me across the clothing rack through glasses so thick her blue eyes are magnified to three times their actual size. “What are you thinking about?”
Dolores picks through a table piled high with brightly colored polo shirts and looks up at her sister. “He’s a boy. He’s not thinking about anything.”
I slide my eyes to her. “Easy, Dolores.”
Holiday music plays on a loop overhead and Doris squints at me. “Look at him. He’s percolating.”
My mom lays a gentle hand on my shoulder. “You stressed about work, honey?”
As far as she knows, work is fine. I haven’t told her that in the past two months her eldest son began bronzing women without their consent and dealing in contraband glitter and hot sauce. I haven’t told her about my boss and how it’s like working for a real-life Ron Burgundy. I certainly haven’t told her that there’s a small chance I could be transferred back here, because the sabotage I’ve seen from Evie would pale in comparison to what Mom would do to make that transfer happen. And I haven’t mentioned that the girl I met at the party all those months ago is becoming my favorite person in the world and I’m feeling mildly lovesick.
“Just wondering,” I say, pointing at the pile of shirts Dolores is upturning, “what kind of monster digs through clothes during Christmas shopping and pulls every single shirt from the pile, unfolding it?”