Dating You / Hating You by Christina Lauren
“Okay, Mom. It might take some time to get our schedules worked out, but I’ll call him.”
“That’s my sweet boy.”
• • •
In this business, not hearing back from someone for seven days is nothing. We’re all busy, with stacks of scripts and books and audition footage to go through, phone calls to return, and emails to read. Callbacks get shuffled around and ranked in order of priority.
A week is nothing.
I gently remind clients of this truth on a daily basis. I remind them that no news is good news. No news means they haven’t heard no. But when it’s your dream on the line, time takes on an entirely different meaning, and even the most patient person can lose it.
“But wouldn’t they know right away if they loved it?”
“If they wanted me they’d have called by now, right?”
Being patient is a lot easier said than done. I should know, because despite what I told Michael Christopher about not getting involved with Evie, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. By the time Thursday afternoon rolls around and I haven’t heard from her, I’m devolving into a hot mess.
I think about what I said when I gave her my number Friday night: “I know what we said about dating someone in this business, but I could really use more evil friends. The ball’s in your court, and if you want to smack-talk our bosses or coworkers a little bit, or even just hang out and plot world domination with zero romantic expectations, you have my number.”
She’d laughed, ruffled my hair a little longer than was probably platonically appropriate, and then left.
What I should have said was “I really like you. Could we exchange numbers and make plans to see each other naked?”
My phone rings and I jump to answer, snatching it from where it vibrates across a stack of files.
“Hello?” I’m breathless.
“Hey.” It’s Michael Christopher. “How’s your day?”
Standing, I walk around the side of my desk and push the door closed with my foot. “Pretty good. I haven’t heard from her, in case that’s why you’re calling. Again.”
He pauses. “Did you have that tie on Friday night?”
I drop back into my chair and grin. “Which tie would that be?”
“You know which tie. The crime against humanity.”
I look down at my shirt and smooth the very same tie over my chest. He knows me pretty well, apparently. “Yes,” I tell him. “This tie is my good luck charm. Bonus points for being Harry Potter appropriate.”
He groans. “You’re wearing it today, aren’t you? It’s so bad, Carter.”
“Evie wouldn’t not call because of a tie.”
“Look, I’m a dude, and Stephanie still has to convince me that I can’t wear sweatpants when we meet friends for dinner, so I’m not casting any stones here. But even I—a slovenly wreck of a man—know that that thing should be shot and put out of its misery. I feel like I’m being visually assaulted whenever you have it on.”
“But not to be dramatic?” A cup of paper clips sits next to my monitor and I reach for one, absently straightening the end.
“I’m not saying it’d be the tie’s fault,” he continues. “What I am saying is that you should not be wearing something you wore while attending a sophomore-year Mathletes competition, Carter.”
“Winning a Mathletes competition,” I correct, tossing the paper clip in the direction of the trash can and raising my arm in victory when it hits the rim and falls inside. “Winning, not just attending. And for your information, I wore that same tie the day I had my scholarship interview, the day I took the SAT, and the night I got lucky with Samantha Rigby at freshman rush. Quality items get better with age, and that tie is one of them.”
“You are the most superstitious person I know,” he says.
“I’m a complicated man,” I tell him. “But you’re getting a little overly involved in this, I think. Did you really call just to hassle me?”
“That part was a bonus. I was sitting here at work, making plans with Steph for the weekend, when I realized the weekend means it’s been almost a week and we aren’t double-dating yet. Then I started thinking about that tie . . .”
I flip a pencil along my knuckles. “Michael.”
“You know I’m just yanking your chain. You’re my favorite third wheel.”
“Very funny.” My phone vibrates against my ear with an incoming text. My mom has called twice since we last spoke—to ask if I’ve reached out to Jonah yet, I’m sure—but I haven’t called her back either time. It’s terrible, I know this, and I know that if she’s texting me right now, I have two choices: man up and call my brother, or learn how to make my own lasagna when I visit. I really don’t want to do that because Mom is the best cook on the planet.
I pull the phone away to check, but it’s not my mom’s name on the screen. It’s Evie’s, and she’s texted me a few times already.
“I need to call you back,” I tell Michael, and quickly end the call.
Hi stranger.
Not to be a total creeper but, do you know an agent named Elsa Tippett?
She’s interviewing here.
We’re having drinks tonight and Steph mentioned she used to work with you.
I did work with her, at Bradford.
She was nice.
And hi back!
A few minutes pass and I wonder if that’s it, if that’s all she had to say.
Elsa worked at Bradford for four years, overlapping with me for three of them before I moved to LA. Some of the grosser men called her the Bone Collector for her propensity to sleep around the office. For the record: I never slept with Elsa, nor did I ever call her by that name. But the idea of her and Evie talking about me makes a nauseating hum take up residence in my blood.
I turn back to the open script on my desk. I read. I check my phone. Nothing. Another minute ticks by. I’m halfway down the page and have no idea what any of it said. I glance at my phone again.
Should I elaborate on my connection to Elsa? Say something else?
Probably yes.
Should I ask her out? Think, Carter.
My phone buzzes again.
I emailed confirming tonight and happened to mention your name.
Apparently she has a few Carter Aaron stories . . .
Oh Jesus.
/is intrigued
I have no Elsa stories. Others, however . . .
Heading out. I’ll report back later.
An hour goes by with nothing from Evie, and I’ve just forgotten about it when her name pops up again on my phone.
Oh boy. Elsa LOVES you.
Oh, God.
This is like meeting a Penthouse letter in person.
She joined the firm about a year after I did.
She may have . . . known some of the men there. I am not one of those men.
Ugh I feel faintly queasy imagining what yarns she is currently spinning.
Five minutes go by, then ten. Nothing. Crap.
Evil?
I’m watching TV almost two hours later when I finally get a response.
Okay drinks are over.
And yes her stories were really oversold.
Also lol @ Evil
Told you.
And my phone autocompletes it.
It’s like it knows.
I was hoping for some dirt.
Apparently you’re sweet, sexy and responsible.
Snore.
I want to point out you called me sexy.
Do you want to grab dinner next week?
Yes. Yes I do.
So of course I immediately text Michael Christopher.
ALL HAIL THE LUCKY TIE
No.
Yes.
NO!
YES!
We’re having dinner.
YES
I’M GOING STREAKING
Noooooooooooooooo
chapter five
evie
“Are you nervous?”
I look up at Daryl from where I’m currently curled in half in the leg-press machine. “For what?” My eyes go wide in fear. “Are you adding more weight?”
She stares at me, unblinking, and then looks across the gym with a pointed sigh.
“Oh. Because of Carter?”
“Yes, because of Carter,” she says, and follows it with this deep little growl. “I can’t believe you have me sucked into this soap opera. I’m basically wandering the social Sahara by myself, but I could probably recite your text messages from memory. What am I doing with my life?”
“Sorry, I’ve been trying not to think about it,” I say. “Like, if I pretend I’m hanging out with any old agent buddy it won’t be as big a deal.”
“I still can’t believe you asked him out.” She takes a drink from her water bottle. “You’re usually so good about sticking to your guns, but you folded. You’re so going to bang him.”
I cover my ears. Don’t get me wrong, I do want to bang him, but Carter and I have been texting back and forth over the last week, and with each exchange I actually like him just a little more. And this is why the nerves are really starting to sink in. It’s all well and good to have this flirtation when he’s on the other end of a screen. It’s harder to mess up when I have minutes to craft perfect witty responses. But face-to-face I’m likely to mess it up somehow, right?
As much as I try to avoid this way of thinking, it’s hard not to be cynical. Like every single woman my age, I’ve been fixed up, from the bar scene to the book club and everything in between; had plenty of spectacularly bad one-night stands; and test-driven my fair share of dating sites. Personally, I’d rather die alone in a house full of cats in tiny matching sweaters than ever attempt any of it again.
I try to ignore the pressure to be coupled up, but it’s everywhere. Romance is the subject of movies and books and practically every song on the radio. There’s my own biological clock, quietly yet persistently ticking away. My parents—who had me later in life—are nearing their seventies. They’ve long since retired from their own Hollywood careers, and when they aren’t gardening or grooming their shih tzu, they’re asking me about my dating life.
But of course there’s that niggling voice suggesting I not care about any of it, that maybe I should give in and buy the cats instead. The problem is that I don’t like them. I may be a terrible married person someday, but I know for sure I would be an even worse cat lady.
“Evie?”
“Sorry,” I say, exhaling as I push the weight up, extending my legs. “I was just trying to figure out whether I could still be a crazy cat lady without the actual animals.”
“Don’t be weird,” Daryl says. Helping me up, she reminds me, “It’s just a date. If you hit it off, you tell me every filthy detail tomorrow. If it sucks, you go home and we plan how we’re finally going to give up on this whole dating thing and just marry each other for the tax breaks.”
“It’ll be fine.” I inhale, watching as she takes my place on the bench. “Anyway, how’s your new assistant?”
Daryl lets out a loud laugh, looking up at me as she moves through her reps. “Eric? Let’s just say I probably do more of his work than he does.”
“Oh, no.”
On top of all the other weirdness at work right now, Daryl’s boss called her into his office on Monday to inform her that she’s got a new assistant on her desk: Brad Kingman’s nephew. Recently injured UCLA quarterback Eric Kingman is six foot three, gorgeous, and not the sharpest tool in the shed. It took him two days to realize that the people calling his desk and asking for Daryl did not, in fact, have the wrong number.
A little smile plucks at me. “It’s not getting any better then?”
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.” She sits up, shrugging as she stands from the machine. “The dryer in his apartment complex overheated and all his shirts shrank. So at least the view from my office door has greatly improved.”
I grin as we both move to the treadmills. My assistant, Jess, is a godsend, and I would cut down anyone who tried to take her. “Hot or not, I’m not trading you.”
Daryl shrugs. “He’s sweet and makes me laugh, but come staffing season I will burn the place to the ground if he still hasn’t learned how to answer a damn email.”
I’m sure Daryl will be fine—she runs with the upper middle of the pack performance-wise, but she’s undoubtedly beautiful, and charming enough that any agency would want to keep her around.
“You’re so good at this, Evie,” she says. “You’re so good at handling the stress and the personalities.” Blowing her cheeks out, Daryl releases a long breath. “Eric is probably never going to remember everything we went over this week. Hopefully Brad will eventually figure out that this isn’t the kid for the job.”
And I just hope Daryl isn’t blamed when Eric messes something up. Because it’s true that there are a million little things to remember, and when you try to make your brain roll through them like a list, they feel overwhelming. On top of that, the P&D organization itself seems to be made up of a constellation of eccentricities. Of tiny, nitpicky, really irritating eccentricities.
Like the way the legal department won’t read emails or contracts that aren’t in one of two specific fonts.
Or John Fineman’s odd—and dramatic—disdain for scripts with female characters named Maria.
And the fact that Brad once outright fired an assistant whose heels clicked too loudly on the marble floors near the elevators.
Being an agent is about a lot of things—balancing egos, coordinating projects, managing expectations, and above all, making money—but one thing it is never about is how something makes us feel.
And as Daryl and I each retreat into our own heads and I put on my headphones, something slowly dawns on me. Perhaps one of the reasons I’m not in a relationship is that I live all of my life precisely like that: assuming that nothing is ever about how I feel.
• • •
Carter and I are meeting at Eveleigh, a rustic farm-to-table joint on Sunset in West Hollywood. It’s perfectly situated between our two offices, as though we might simply leave work and stroll down the road for dinner. And although our texts have grown increasingly flirty, I wish it had occurred to me sooner that this might really just be a casual work-buddy dinner, because I have very clearly not come straight from work. Do I look too eager? Too high maintenance? I’m already concocting a credible explanation for why I might have worn a strapless black jersey dress and gold sandals to work, but when I hand my keys to the valet and look up under the vine-wrapped awning, I see Carter there, right in front of me in a dress shirt and freshly pressed trousers. He looks too crisp; there’s no way he’s just come from work, either.
In the time since I saw him last, I think I’d somehow convinced myself that he couldn’t be as cute as I remembered. Which would be fine because I like his personality a lot. But he is that cute; he’s even better-looking than I remembered, with dark shaggy hair and a sharp jaw, and this sweetly earnest gaze behind his glasses. And when he smiles, charisma just pours out of him and onto the sidewalk.
“Hey, Evil,” he says, walking toward me.
It doesn’t feel weird to reach up and hug him.
He wraps his arms all the way around me, and I shiver a little when I feel the solidness of his body against mine.
“It’s so good to see you.”
Don’t think dirty thoughts. Don’t think dirty thoughts. “You too,” I say.
The embrace lingers, like we’re old friends seeing each other after a long separation. It isn’t weird, though—it’s easy, just like before.
I know relationships are work. My mom reminds me of this all the time, and of the balance it takes for two people to combine their lives into one. But I’ve always felt like it shouldn’t be work right away. Over time, yeah, I can see some effort needing to come into play when the honeymoon phase wears off and you can finally admit to yourself that it’s really irritating when they leave their so
I’ve never really felt that chemistry before, but I definitely feel it with Carter. My blood hums just being near him, and I can’t stop grinning. He smells amazing and holds me so tight, squeezing a little more just before letting go.
Straightening, he gazes down at my face. “I think I forgot how pretty you are.”
“Me too.”
Wait, what did I just say?
“Aww,” he says, laughing. “I like being called pretty.”
Linking his fingers with mine, he turns and we check in at the hostess stand. His hand is big and secure—like a clamp around mine—and I can’t stop focusing on the way it feels. So not a buddy dinner then.
Hand-holding might seem like a simple, innocent way to signify closeness and attraction, but my hand in Carter’s feels anything but simple.
They say we have more nerve endings in our fingertips than we do in our lips, and as we snake our way through the dining area and to our table I swear I feel every millimeter of contact between us. When he lets go so we can sit, my entire body feels cold.
He swallows, and I’m mesmerized by his neck and the bobbing of his Adam’s apple, the way his smile slowly creeps in from the side of his mouth.
“You’re quiet,” he says.
“I’m really glad to be here.” It’s not like me to be so forthcoming, but I can’t help myself. My filter seems to have malfunctioned on the walk from the front of the restaurant to my chair.
“Me too,” he says, and then turns his attention to the incoming waiter, who tells us the specials and takes our drink orders.
“I’ll have a Red Bull and vodka,” Carter says, and I snort. When the waiter makes a slight face but starts to write it down, Carter stops him. “Not really. Sorry. I’m kidding. Inside joke. Bad joke. I’ll have whatever IPA you have on tap.”
The waiter is unamused. “Stone or Lagunitas?”
“Lagunitas.” Carter’s tongue peeks out, touching his lower lip.