Boomerang Read Free Page A

look. “Yeah, real close.”
    I barely know that part of town, but at least that makes things easy.
    Ethan’s shirt swims on me, and the jersey fabric climbs my thighs. This is not good. Maybe there’s still time to gather my forces so I don’t stroll in looking like “Little Ms. Hot Pants,” as Nana would say.
    I call Skyler, who seems to answer before the phone even rings.
    “Oh, my God. Tell me everything. Right. Now.”
    I guess I must have given my roomies a heads-up that I wouldn’t be home last night. Sighing, I say, “Good morning to you, too.”
    “Screw that. What happened? Where are you? Was it delicious? Did he—”
    “Hey, Sky,” I interject, certain Ethan can hear her every word. “I need a favor.”
    She picks up on my tone immediately. “Is he there?” she asks. “Like right there, now? Aren’t you supposed to be at your new job?”
    “I’m on my way,” I take a deep breath to tamp down my exasperation. “I—um— overslept—”
    “I’m disappointed you slept at all.”
    “Sky, come on!”
    “Okay, okay. So, he’s there now?”
    “Yeah, we—uh—” I feel Ethan’s gaze on me and turn to meet it. He smiles in a way that seems both impossibly sweet and impossibly sexy at the same time. I smile back, wishing I had a portable cone of silence I could activate for privacy.
    But the privacy ship sailed sometime in the middle of the night. “We’re sharing a cab now. Anyway, listen, I—”
    “Facetime me,” Sky says.
    “What? No way. Can you please just focus? I need you to do something for me.”
    “Facetime me, and I will.”
    “You’ll do it anyway because you’re my best friend, remember?”
    “Do it.”
    “I will kill you.”
    “Facetiiiiiiime.”
    “Fine!” I swipe the icon on my screen, and Skyler’s face appears before me: all blond hair and smudged Cleopatra eyeliner. As usual, she’s got her hand wrapped around the neck of her cello and fingers the strings as we talk.
    “Show me!” she demands.
    My entire body goes cold, then hot, then cold again. “Why do you hate me?”
    “I love you with the fire of a thousand suns,” Sky says. “Now show me.”
    Oh, what the hell. I’m wearing last night’s clothes while sharing a cab with my one-night stand. Was I really going to use that last bit of self-respect?
    I turn the phone toward Ethan, who grins easily at the screen. The tips of his ears glow pink, though, and I’m oddly reassured to know he’s as embarrassed as I am.
    “ Whoa, ” says Skyler. “Hello to you .”
    I roll my eyes. “Ethan, this is my former roommate, Skyler Canby,” I say. “Skyler, Ethan.”
    “Hey, Skyler.” He tips a two-fingered salute, and another memory unfurls. Ethan giving that same salute to the bartender at Duke’s, pushing the hem of his navy jacket out of the way as he sat in a high-backed stool next to me.
    “Celebrating?” he’d asked, and his eyes held a lively interest that made me straighten and turn to fully face him.
    “A little work and a little play,” I said.
    “Same here,” Ethan said, and we clinked glasses. “To work and to play, in almost equal measure.”
    Now, though, I have to put the play behind me and get to work.
    “Okay, listen,” I tell Skyler, as we turn onto Santa Monica Boulevard. “Can either you or Beth get to Century City in the next . . .” I check the phone for time. “Shoot. Like eighteen minutes? Is that even possible?”
    “Your lucky day. Beth’s got an audition at Fox. She’s probably been there since six, stalking the director.”
    “Call her for me, see if she’s got anything with her that I can change into. Even just a jacket.”
    “Okay, but no jacket. You can’t cover those boobs.”
    “Skyler!”
    “I second that,” Ethan murmurs.
    I turn to him, surprised. That smile again—sexy, a little shy. And those blue, blue eyes, so deep they’re almost black.
    “They’re, uh . . . a great asset,” he says. I get caught in his expression, direct and