Call the Shots (28 page)

“You sure?” Matt asks.

“Yeah. It’s fine.”

“Okay.” Coop nods. “But we’ll be in the family room watching TV if you need us. Just give a shout.” He narrows his eyes at Nick as if warning him, then motions to Matt with his head. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Once they’ve gone, Nick shoots me a smile from the doorway. “May I come in?”

“Sure,” I say, moving back to let him enter. I rest my shillelagh against the wall.

Nick steps inside. “Cute dogs.” He squats as the pups jostle one another to get a cuddle, all of them in total suck-up mode. Not even Klaus is acting like the watchdog he’s supposed to be. Once Nick has given each of the animals some attention, he stands and faces me. “So. Let’s cut right to the chase. Yes?”

“All right.” I gulp.

Nick jams his hands into his coat pockets. “You fucked up. You know that, right?”

I shake my head. “It wasn’t my fault. I don’t know what Evelyn told you but —”

“She told me you ditched her to meet up with a girl in your drama class.”

“I didn’t meet up with Leyna. I swear.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“You do?”

“Sure,” Nick says. “Because I happened to have been tailing her.”

My mouth goes dry. My heart starts pounding in my head. “I’m sorry,
what
?
Tailing?
As in . . . following her?”

He shrugs. “Evelyn asked if I would do a little investigating. Find out what I could about this drama-class girl. So, I got her name. Her address. And her cell-phone number.” He laughs, shaking his head. “GPS makes it so easy to follow people these days. Anyway, when I saw she was headed to the mall, I debated with myself whether or not to tell Evelyn. But I decided it was best to wait and see how things played out. I mean, I didn’t really think you’d be stupid enough to cheat on my sister right under her nose.”

“Ha. Yeah. That would have been really stupid. Can you imagine? I mean, who would even think to . . . Ha.” I take the most massive of massive palm whiffs. That flock of shitting gulls may have saved my life. Lucky boxers, indeed!

“Anyways,” Nick says, “I laid it all out for Evelyn last night — how this girl had some coffee by herself at DeLuca’s and then did a little shopping before heading off. And while Evelyn was extremely relieved to hear this, she’s still very hurt that you abandoned her. It was shades of our father all over again.”

“Right. No. I understand that.” I’m chewing the hell out of my tongue. “And I was trying to apologize when I called last night.”

Nick jabs me in the shoulder with his Navy SEAL finger, punctuating each sentence with a fresh poke. “Apologies don’t mean dick, Sean. You need to
do
something. To make it up to her. Something romantic. Something that says you value her.”

I resist the urge to rub the spot. “Okay, sure. Romantic. I can do that. Do you, uh . . . ? Do you have any suggestions?”

Nick smiles. “Funny you should ask.” He pulls a hand from one of his pockets and holds out a little red jewelry box.

I stare at it suspiciously. “What’s that?”

Nick thrusts his hand out to me. “Go on. Open it.”

I take the box and slowly lift the hinged cover, like whatever’s inside might spring out and bite me. Lying on a tiny cushion is a pair of sparkling blue sapphire earrings. “Wow. Those look . . . expensive.”

“Not too bad,” Nick says. “I know a guy who knows a guy. They only set you back a hundred and fifty bucks. But Evelyn’s worth it. She’s had her eyes on those babies for a while now. Of course, you wouldn’t know that, so I thought I’d help you out. Plus I’ve made a reservation at Le Chat Noir for the two of you for Valentine’s Day.”

“Valentine’s Day?” I squeak, my brain whirring. “Le Chat Noir? That sounds . . . fancy.”

“
Super
fancy. It’s a little overpriced, but Evelyn will love it. You bring her to that restaurant and then surprise her with those earrings, and I guarantee you all will be forgiven.”

I stare down at the earrings, feeling sweaty all over. “That’s . . . really nice of you, Nick. Seriously. But I don’t know how I could ever —”

“Thank me?” He holds up his hand like a traffic cop. “No thanks necessary, buddy. All I want is for my baby sis to be happy.” Before I can breathe a sigh of relief, he adds, “Just give me the hundred and fifty and we’ll call it even.” He holds out his hand.

The floor tilts under my feet. Where am I going to get a hundred and fifty —?

But then I remember: the movie money. There’s not a ton of it left; if I give a hundred and fifty to Nick, it’ll mean we probably can’t afford some of the special effects we’ve been planning on. But I don’t see that I have much of a choice here.

“Sure. Just a sec.” I slog up to my room, grab three fifty-dollar bills from the budget envelope, and hand them over to Nick.

He tucks the bills in his wallet. “Pleasure doing business with you, Sean.” He salutes me, then turns to the door. But just as he’s stepping over the threshold, he stops and turns back. “Oh, I almost forgot. What an idiot.” He laughs, shaking his head. He reaches into his jacket pocket and holds out his hand again. “I believe this is yours.”

It’s my cell phone.

My eyes nearly flop from their sockets. “Wha . . . ? How . . . ? Where’d you find that?”

He shrugs. “Dump truck. You must have accidentally thrown your phone away, huh?”

I reach out with a shaky hand and grab my cell phone. Oh, shit, did he see me? Stripped down to nothing but my sneakers and lucky boxers? He must have been trailing me too. “I guess so.”

“I will say, I was a little worried when I finally tracked it down. I thought I might find it on your dead body. I was very relieved to find just the phone. And no calls, e-mails, or texts to the drama-class girl either. How about that?”

“Yeah,” I say, feeling like I can’t breathe. “How about that?”

“Y
OU DID
WHAT
?”
Coop shouts at me from the sofa. “We’re supposed to be using that money on our film. Not to pay your sister rent and to buy fancy Valentine’s Day presents for your girlfriend! That only leaves us with a hundred and fifty bucks!”

“What the hell was I supposed to do, Coop?”

“Tell him thanks but no thanks.” He grabs the remote and shuts off the TV.

“That
wasn’t
an option.”

“Okay, then, fine.” Coop settles himself. “We’ll just return the earrings to the store. Recoup some of our losses.”

“Yeah, right. You think Nick’s not going to wonder why the hell Evelyn isn’t wearing them after Valentine’s Day? Forget it. The guy’s a freakin’ psychopath.” I toss my cell phone on the floor at our feet. “He’s tracking me, for fuck’s sake. Leyna too. And God knows who else. This is a total nightmare.”

“He got your phone back for you,” Matt says. “That’s kind of cool.”

“No. It’s not cool. At all. I’d rather not
have
a phone than know he can find me wherever I am. I can’t believe this. All my hopes of breaking up with Evelyn when we’re finished with this movie are trashed. I’m never getting out of this relationship. Ever.” I flop down into the armchair, feeling sick to my stomach.

“All right, don’t have a zonkey,” Coop says. “Let’s just take things one step at a time. We’ll get this movie in the can as fast as possible, then we’ll deal with the Evelyn situation.”

“Yeah, well, I hate to tell you this,” I say, chewing the heck out of my tongue, “but getting this movie done isn’t going to be as easy as you think.”

Matt looks at me sideways. “What do you mean?”

“Uncle Doug watched the audition tapes. He wants Leyna and Hunter to play the leads.”

Coop laughs. “That’s your big problem? I have to say, I’m surprised at you, Sean. And a little disappointed. Hunter and Leyna were obviously the best out of the bunch. I’m with Uncle Doug: I say we cast them.”

I let my head fall forward, too exhausted to explain it all again. But Matt mans up. “We can’t do that,” he tells Coop. “I mean, sure, Hunter, fine. But Sean already promised Evelyn she could be the female lead. And if we don’t cast Evelyn, we don’t have a camera.”

I lift my head. “But if we don’t cast Leyna, then my uncle’s pulling the rest of the financing. See? Screwed.”

“Fuuuck me.” Coop stands and starts to pace. “Okay. Okay. Let me think about this for a second.” He runs his hand through his hair and mumbles to himself. “What if we . . . ? Or maybe . . . No . . . That wouldn’t work . . . I mean . . . if we were dealing with sane people, but . . .” He continues pacing around the family room, shaking his head, scrunching up his face, and looking skyward until . . . “Holy crap, I think I’ve got it.” Coop whips back around, a strange look on his face. “All right, this is going to sound totally insane. But sometimes you have to fight crazy with crazy.”

Me and Matt share a look. Because if
Coop
thinks it’s crazy, then it’s bound to be Green Goblin crazy.

“What if — and I know it’s going to be a pain in the ass, but bear with me — what if we shoot
two
movies? A real one, with Leyna and Hunter as Nashira and Rogart. And a pretend one with Evelyn and Nick playing
all
the parts.”

Somehow my hand has worked its way over my nose and mouth and I am sniffing like a madman. “Oh. Oh, my God,” I say into my palm, the wheels spinning into overdrive. “That . . . That could actually work.”

Matt laughs, obviously relieved. “Evelyn
did
say she wasn’t a fan of any of the other actresses.”

“That’s right.” Coop nods. “She wants to play all the female parts. Let’s let her do that.”

“And Nick can be all the guys,” Matt adds.

“Yes, he can.” Coop’s got an excited gleam in his eyes. “It solves all our problems. We’re shooting on video, so it’s not like it’s going to cost us anything but a little extra time.”

“We’ll have to be sneaky about it,” I say. “We’d have to leave all our cell phones at home whenever we’re filming with Leyna and Hunter, in case Nick is tracking us.” A collective shudder runs through our bodies. “And I’ll have to rewrite the script a bit. Make Rogart and Nashira brother and sister.”

“Only for the Nick and Evelyn version,” Coop corrects.

“No,” I say. “Because I don’t want Hunter making out with Leyna. That’s a deal breaker for me. In fact, I think I should be the love-interest sidekick character. The one with the antidote in his saliva.”

“OK, sure,” Coop agrees. But before I can get too excited, he continues. “But you’ll have to make out with Hunter as well. We can’t have you giving antidote to Nashira and not to Rogart.”

I wince. “All right, fine. Forget it. We won’t have a love interest. They’ll just be brother and sister. We’ll leave it at that.”

Matt’s complexion suddenly goes pale. “You do realize, though: if Nick and Evelyn find out what we’re doing . . .”

We all stare at my cell phone, resting innocuously on the carpet.

“We’re dead meat,” I say.

E
VELYN’S AT HER LOCKER
, her back to me as I approach. My mouth is bone-dry and I am dizzy with fear. If this were a scene in a movie, there’d be a loud thumping heartbeat on the soundtrack, underscored by creepy tension-building music.

I have two pieces of news I need to impart here. The first is about our dinner date. I have no idea how she’s going to react to the Valentine’s Day plan. Presumably, she should be happy and accept it as an olive branch. But you can’t presume anything where Evelyn is concerned. Maybe she’ll be over the moon, or maybe she knows Nick arranged it all and will come at me like a honey badger after a cobra.

The second thing I need to talk to her about is the movie. And I need to tell her about it without seeming nervous. Otherwise she might suspect that something is up. And I don’t even want to consider what might happen after that.

“Hey, there,” I croak. I clear my throat. “How’s it going?”

Evelyn slowly turns around but says nothing.

“I wanted to —” I start, then shake my head. “I’m sorry. About Saturday. I know you probably don’t want to hear my excuses but . . . it was just a series of unfortunate things. One right after the other.”

“Go on,” Evelyn says coldly.

I tell her everything. Well, everything except why Coop and I were running along the perimeter of the mall in the first place. But I tell her all about the birds, the crap, my clothes, my cell phone, even my sister’s friend coming to my rescue with a Wal-Mart uniform. Though I do lie a tiny bit there and turn Nessa into a dude named Omar. Anyway, it all sounds totally true because it
is
all true, and with Nick corroborating the cell-phone part, I’ve even got Evelyn laughing by the time I’m all through.