To See You (13 page)

Pushing through the revolving door of our building at Twenty-Seventh and Fifth, I noticed a pretty big crowd by the elevators.

“Hey, Sully, what’s going on?” I stopped by the security desk, setting my latte on the counter while looking for my ID badge.

“Celebrity in the building.”

“Oh?” I snapped my ID card on the front of my jacket.

“Yep, blond, skinny . . . aren’t they all? She’s got a movie out right now.” He snapped his fingers, the corners of his eyes crinkling while he was deep in thought. “Seven sins of something or other. That’s it!”

“Of course,” I mumbled and all the pep evaporated from my step.

I sipped my latte on the elevator and made my way to my office, avoiding the cubicles of the entertainment department. They were all aflutter, and I wasn’t in the mood to break my current mood.

I shut my door and after settling in at my desk, I pulled Lucy out of my bag. While I was scanning my e-mails, my phone rang.

Larissa
. Of course.

“Hello,” I said into the phone, knowing full well who it was.

“Charli, how are you?”

“All good down here. Getting ready to request some photography for September already.”

“I’m going to pop down, one sec.”

That’s the thing with Larissa, she flitted around here, inserting her touch on everything. Her fun-filled, live-every-moment-to-its-fullest philosophy breathed life into
BubblePOP
, and she loved what she did.

I didn’t always.

“Hey.” Larissa peeked in and smiled broadly, looking like she just stole the last K-cup from the kitchen. “Katie is here today!” She actually fist-pumped the air. “You went to the
Seven Sins
premiere, and we need someone to sit down and ask her some questions and write it up. Can you? Sounds like you’re working ahead anyway.”

“Um, sure. I don’t really do Hollywood interviews, though.”

“It will be good for you. Show your breadth. Showcase all your pizzazz. You can handle it. Let’s say, thirty minutes in the conference room?”

“I’ll be there.”

What was I going to say to my boss?
I don’t have any pizzazz . . . because I’m not sure I like this job?

I didn’t think so.

Or
I don’t feel like it because I had a connection with this guy, and I don’t know how to handle that in relationship to my career and my past. I’m such a loser.

Nope. I was going to down my coffee, interview Katie with a confident smile, and go home and curl up alone in my bed.

I
cocked an earphone to the side and answered my phone when the caller ID read
UNKNOWN
. In la-la land, that wasn’t very unusual.

“Griffin here.”

“Hey, is this Layton Griffin?”

“Yep.” I leaned back in my chair, knocking my headphones around my neck.

I was actually dressed for work today—it was Monday, after all—and propped my Chucks up on the metal table to the side of my desk.

“Great! My name’s Ricky and I’m the music editor at
BubblePOP
. . .”

At the mention of
BubblePOP
, my mind traveled about a hundred miles an hour, quickly rendering images of the one person I knew who worked there.

“I’m sorry, you were saying? My phone broke up,” I lied.

“Ricky from
BubblePOP
here. I know this is a bit out of left field, but the star of
Seven Sins of Serial Dating
was here this morning—”

“Katie?”

“Yeah—”

“Not sure what I can do for you, buddy,” I interrupted again. Was this a prank? Did they know about my insane obsession with Charli?

“Well, it’s a long story, but bottom line is this. The head lady here had Charleston interview Katie because she was at the premiere and all that lucky bullshit . . . pardon my French, but I really wanted to go.”

When Ricky sighed loudly into the phone, I wondered if he was gay. What kind of guy wants to go to a romantic comedy?

“Anyway, Katie actually
said this was her most favorite sound track of any film she’s ever done, and well, I jumped at the opportunity to talk to her more about it. Yeah, I snuck down into the interview, but don’t say anything. So, Katie turned to me and gave me those baby blues, all focused on me, and mentioned the Ed Sheeran song being her favorite. She said the music guy, who was so funny and nice . . .”

Nice? Yep, that’s me. Nice. Not hot, or cool, or amazing. Nice.

“She gave me some awesome quotes, and now I get to run my own story on the music page, and yay!”

The sound of his clapping came through the phone.

“Sounds cool. What can I do for you?”

I couldn’t believe Katie knew the name of my company and was able to tell this douche nozzle where to find me.

“So, Charleston interrupts the whole Katie-giving-me-ga-ga-eyes thing and pipes up that she knows you, and she thought it would be awesome for us to chat. Maybe I could ask you some questions?”

Charli gave him my number?

“Really?” I sat up in my chair, suddenly interested in what he was saying.

“Yeah, for real.”

“Sure, dude. When do you want to do it? I assume you want to collect your thoughts.”

“Um, yeah . . . that’d be great. Maybe FaceTime or something?”

“Whatever you want, buddy,” I assured him.

“Cool. Charli said you’d be nice.”

Of course she did.

Nice
.

Ricky and I set something up for later in the week, and I hung up as despondent as I was when the conversation began. There was a moment in the middle when I thought I’d beat it again, and then I learned I was
nice
.

What did nice boys do? They took their dog for a walk, and this one walked and walked and got lost for hours.

I spent the better part of the week catching up for the hours I lost on Monday.

I
shrugged off my cardigan as soon as I hit my office; it was an unusually warm May day and the building had yet to turn on the AC. Seated at my desk, I rolled my neck and blew out a long sigh. I’d been up late writing. Actually, I was quite the writing maniac lately, my creativity coming in long bursts, usually at one o’clock in the morning. This week alone, I’d finished the line edits on all six of my short stories.

A knock sounded on my slightly ajar door.

“Hey, Charleston.”

“Hey, Ricky, what’s up?” I leaned back in my chair and eyed my openly gay coworker who recently became my BFF because, as he said, he thought I had the “hook-ups.”

“I’m meeting in a bit with Layton over FaceTime and wanted to see if you had any last-minute pointers.”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “He’s seriously a really nice guy. Probably too nice.”

Ricky eyed me curiously, raising a brow as he leaned on the door frame. “You know, toast is
nice
.”

“What?” I laughed for the first time in a week. My mood was good and Ricky was kind of hysterical, and I was blissfully happy for a fleeting moment.

“Seriously, Charli, you’re such a Brianna. You get all googly when you talk about Layton, and then you go and say, ‘he’s so nice’ in some weird drawn-out breath like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

I had to roll my eyes when he flipped his hands up with exaggerated air quotes as he imitated me to perfection.

“Ricky, I don’t even know what a
Brianna
is!”

“A babe. It’s a babe, babe. If I were into female babes, I’d be all over you . . . babe.”

“Ricky, not one more babe. We’re at work.” I waved a hand, shooing him away. “Go do your interview and shut my door.”

He blew several air kisses my way and left me to my own devices.

God, he’s the female equivalent of Janie.

I scrolled through my in-box. I had e-mails from Mom, Garrett (my mom gave him my e-mail address), the photographer wanting to set something up, but nothing from Layton since last week.

I slammed Lucy closed and stood up on my stilettos, threw on my cardigan, and made my way down the hall on the pretense of using the ladies’ room.

Again, who was I kidding? I popped over to the media room, making my way past the celebrity-stalking writers, and like a bee to honey, I went straight to the music people.

Ricky’s office door was closed so I paced in front of it, practically wearing a path in the carpet. One pass, two, three, four passes, five, six, and on the seventh pass, I knocked.

“Who is it?” came from behind the door.

I creaked it open an inch. “Hey, Ricky, it’s me. How was your interview?”

As if I was that dense. He knew that I knew the interview was just getting started. For heaven’s sake, it was only seven o’clock in the morning on the West Coast.

“Ooh, lookee who’s here.” Ricky swiveled in his chair, winking at me before swinging back around. “Charleston, please do come in.”

Directing his next words to his computer screen, he said, “Looks like we have a visitor. Layton and I were just chatting ’bout how he picked the music for
Seven Sins
, and believe it or not, he said the last choice came to him when he was seated next to you on a plane.”

I slipped inside the office and peeked at Ricky’s oversized monitor. Onscreen was Layton, wearing a Taylor Swift tee (
really?
) as he leaned against a graphite-colored desk. Behind him was a huge mess of sound equipment, stacks of discs, and wiring.

Layton frowned. “Well, that’s not exactly what I meant to say. I don’t want my words to get mixed up.”

“Yep, you said . . .” Ricky sifted through his notes and flipped to the second page, where he began to read. “I finalized the song selection for
Seven Sins
on a flight from Chicago to New York . . . not to be included, that’s where I met Charleston. The last song was killing me. It was for a hot, sultry, aggressive LA club scene in which Katie goes berserk on her man-to-be and another ex of his. I went with a newer on-the-scene rapper, Sumptuous, and took a risk with his first single, ‘Bitches Cut Up.’”

Ouch.
I dropped my gaze toward the floor, counting fibers in the burlap rug.
And I said he’s too nice?

Layton cleared his throat. “But let it stand for the record that I didn’t mean Charli specifically.”

“Oh, good,” Ricky said as he made a note. “Thanks for clearing that up.”