I’m a little afraid that she’d kill me if she thought she could get away with it.
I walk into her monochromatic living room, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view to die for, and drop onto her white leather sofa, letting my head fall back and staring at the ceiling. So far, so not dead. She sits across from me in a black club chair, crossing her perfectly toned legs but not speaking. If she thinks I’m dragging whatever this is out of her, she can think again.
Finally, she sighs. “I assume that if you thought you could have another shot at Emma, you’d take it?”
What the hell? “Not really your business, Brooke.” I’m still staring straight up, counting the tiny lights in the track lighting while wondering what scheme has lodged itself in her head.
“Come on, Reid, it’s not like it’s a state secret.”
I chance looking at her. Her expression is serious, almost fierce. There’s definitely something she wants from me—and me only—because if she could get this from anyone else, there’s no way I’d be sitting here now. Playing along is the only way I’ll find out what this is about. “Okay, I’ll bite. Sure, I’d take another shot if I had it. Your turn.”
The only thing that betrays her is one finger, repeatedly scratching at the seam of her chair. She sits up. “I want Graham.”
I laugh. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Fixing me with a mocking smile, she says, “Well apparently, they want each other.”
“What?” I knew it. I knew it.
She laughs, not humored. “He’s… reserved. It’s hard to tell what—or who—he wants. But they ran into each other in New York a few days ago—where she’s looking to go to school next fall and where he lives. Just the fact that he mentioned their little meet-up is enough to ring my alarm bells.”
I sit up, too, leaning my forearms on my knees. I still don’t fully comprehend what she has in mind, but I’m starting to get an idea of it. “If they decide to hook up, what are we supposed to do about it? Maybe you’re forgetting that thanks to you, Emma dumped me. She didn’t choose some other guy over me. She chose to be alone rather than be with me. You set that whole shit up, Brooke. I don’t know what you told her—”
“I didn’t tell her anything. She was in the bathroom stall.”
The silence is profound after she says this. She’s actually managed to shock me. Emma didn’t just get a second-hand account of what went down between Brooke and me, she heard the entire sordid conversation, along with all of the hostility I obviously still felt over Brooke’s betrayal years ago. I’d thought, before that night, that I was solidly recovered. Wrong.
Little wonder Emma disappeared that night. I slump back into the sofa. “Holy shit, Brooke. How could you do that? You, and you alone, are responsible for both of them knowing about that pregnancy. And that I bailed on you. But do they both know you were cheating on me? Do they know that fucking part of the story?”
She sits back, staring out the window for several minutes with her chin in her hand. “I didn’t.”
I stand up. This is bullshit. “I don’t know what kind of fantasy land you live in, where you can get two people to just forget the extremely dysfunctional shit they know about both of us—again, thanks to you—and fall into our arms. I don’t see it happening. If I’d known Emma overheard us that night—” I run a hand through my hair. I’m so pissed I want to smash my foot through her chrome and glass table or throw something across the room. “If I’d known she heard that conversation, I’d have given her the chance to calm down instead of being a complete dickwad and literally screwing the first girl who bumped into me.”
Brooke is silent, frowning and still staring out the window. “I can change her mind.” Her words are soft, spoken into her hand.
“How? Why would she listen to you—because she trusts you so much? She’s not that stupid,” I sneer, still standing.
Her eyes flash to me. “Wanna bet?”
I’ve thought about Emma several times in the past month, ever since my spontaneous apology that night in my hotel room. The one she rejected, soundly. The thing is—I don’t know if I’d have been willing, or able, to actually change for her. The only change I had in mind was attempting a monogamous hookup, for however long it lasted. I’m standing across from the only other girl who’s ever gotten that out of me. But Brooke and Emma are night and day, so it seemed likely that the outcome would be different with Emma. Not that she gave me the chance to find out.
I sit back down. “Let me get this straight—you’re proposing that we work together to either break up, or stop from forming, a relationship between Graham and Emma. And moreover, that we manage to seduce them for ourselves.”
Her chin comes up. “Yes. Are you in or not?”
We’re staring at each other across the expanse of glass table, the room impossibly bright. I can see every sliver of ice blue in her eyes, every perfect highlight altering her natural honey blonde hair to a streaked blonde not found in nature. Her nose, too, is a little more perfect than it was when we were younger, her brows flawlessly shaped and raised in silent question, waiting for my answer.
I nod once. “I’m in.”
Chapter 5
Emma
In the taxi between my hotel and the Hollywood studio where On the Air is recorded, I try to psyche myself up to see Reid. I have no idea what to expect. The last time I saw him, only a month ago, he’d apologized for what he put me through last fall. Forgive me, please.
I did forgive him, but not in the way he wanted.
He said he thought he could be different with me. That I could help him be something better. And I replied that I wanted someone who was already that, on his own, with or without me. Visions of Graham swam through my head as I said those words. I was so sure Graham belonged to Brooke. I was so sure he was impossible and unobtainable and not for me.
And now he is possible, obtainable, mine.
I expect Reid to be aloof. Resentful, possibly. But Reid Alexander doesn’t focus on one girl for long. He could have anyone he wants. Well, almost anyone. It would be ridiculous for him to have any residual feelings for me, but that might not stop him from being vindictive over my rejection, because one thing Reid Alexander doesn’t get is rejected.
I’ve exceeded my comfort level on confrontation lately. My initial conversation with Marcus went less well than I’d hoped. When he arrived Saturday night, he was in his usual upbeat mood. When he kissed me, a quick peck on the mouth, I knew we had to have the awkward conversation first thing. I don’t want to kiss anyone but Graham, even superficially.
“So what are we doing tonight? Hanging out with Em and Derek, or do I get you all to myself?”
For some inexplicable reason, it really bugs me when Marcus calls Emily Em. There’s no good reason for this. It doesn’t bother me when Dad does it. Or Derek, though he only calls her Em when he’s parodying some Jersey Shore guy, like he did last week: “Aaay, Em, babe, whaddaya mean we ain’t got time to make out? Badda-bing, five minutes—I’m happy, you’re happy, every-freakin-body’s copacetic.” Emily punched him in the arm, earning, “Ow, woman, whaddaya gotta do that for? I’m a sensitive guy.” And then she rolled her eyes and he dipped her backwards and kissed her so thoroughly that I felt it.
I ignored Marcus’s “Em,” as I had every other time he’d said it.
“It’s just us tonight. And, um, we need to talk.”
“Uh-oh, that sounds a little serious,” he said, still smiling. When I pressed my lips together and didn’t deny that it was, his smile wilted, and I turned and led the way to my room.
I’d never actually seen Marcus in a bad mood, except for a few times during rehearsals for It’s a Wonderful Life, when I thought he was somewhat overly-critical of our cast mates’ performances. We were doing community theatre, not Broadway. But I took him to be a typical serious, perfectionist theatre geek and let it pass. We started going out after the show wrapped, and he’d never showed any sign of irritation with anything.
We sat on my bed and he waited for me to explain. I cleared my throat and arranged the words in my head. There was no reason Marcus and I couldn’t remain friends. We’d had the rare kissing marathon, but hadn’t gone any further than that. Frankly, I’d had a hard time picturing myself with Marcus in any serious physical way. I’d assumed that the botched relationship attempts with Reid and Graham had stomped those desires right out of me.
The thought of Graham flooded my imagination with thoughts of him, and it took concerted effort to push those contemplations from my mind and direct my attention to the task at hand: letting Marcus down gently. “You know the, uh, movie I just filmed?”
He arched a brow and then laughed lightly. “Yeah, School Pride—I think everyone who knows you is familiar.”
I chewed my lip. “Well, I was close friends with a guy in the cast—”
“That would be… Graham Douglas?”
“Uh, yeah. How did you—? Nevermind. Not important.” I shook my head. Those tabloid stories I’d ignored hadn’t been ignored by everyone else. And everyone else apparently included Marcus. “I ran into him in New York. And… it appears that we have feelings for each other.” I watched the effect these words had on him—the confused frown, the tilt of his head as what I was saying started to become clear, the incredulous look when he got it.
“So wait. You go to New York and ‘run into’ a guy you haven’t seen for a month, and didn’t see for several months before that—or is there more to this that I need to know?” His anger took me by surprise, not because it was undeserved, but because it was so uncharacteristic.
“Uh, no...”
“You run into him, and the two of you just decide to embark on—what—a full-fledged relationship? Are you breaking up with me?”
I was stunned at his vehemence. And his assumption. “Marcus, we never agreed we were a couple—”
“Emma, we’ve been going out for almost four months, and neither of us—that I know of—has seen anyone else for the past couple of months. I’m not crazy to make assumptions.” His tone was spiteful. This wasn’t the Marcus I’d known for months. Not at all.
“I’m sorry.” It was lame, but it was the best I could do.
He stared at the bedspread, and I almost held my breath. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I gathered that his feelings had grown stronger than I’d comprehended. Wondering if I’d been blind to this, I thought back over the past few months and couldn’t pinpoint a thing he’d said or done that would have let me know he was growing possessive. But then, I hadn’t given him any reason to express it before. He’d felt safe in the knowledge that there was no one else.
“I guess I’m going to my prom alone.” His voice was sullen, hostile.