Ellie is Cool Now

Chapter 7

This is why I didn't want to be reunited with my past. Mark's smile. Roxy's dismissal. Everything that shouldn't matter but somehow still does. For a split second I consider shooting up from the table, telling the waitress to pack mine up to-go, and ubering my ass all the way home.

"Okay, is this one of those situations where you make me promise before showing me the terms?" he asks.

Only one side of his lips curves up and when it does I notice a different dimple in his cheek — deep, right near his cheekbone — and I momentarily forget everything else.

"This is one of those situations where you do it because the benefit outweighs the risk." I fish around in my purse for my phone and quickly unlock it.

Did you know I liked you when you kissed Roxy at Brock Crawley's party?

"Show me." He leans forward.

I take a deep breath and unlock my phone. I turn it so he can see the screenshot of the list I took earlier on the plane. I don't want him to see the email from Vic, and I feel oddly self-conscious about handing over my phone. His thumb brushes mine as he slides the phone toward himself, zooming in to read the text.

The waitress comes by with the coffee pot and refills our mugs. I take two more single serve half-and-half cups from the overflowing bowl and doctor my coffee until it's the optimal color of sand. The spoon comes to a standstill, and I lift the cup to my lips, blowing. I notice Mark's eyes flick from the phone to my face and I get the funny feeling his interest in what I'm doing is not exactly appropriate. The thought makes my skin tingle and my lips automatically press together into a smirk.

"This is ambitious," he says finally. He takes a long sip of his coffee. "You know Kyle Temple definitely has herpes."

"I just have to kiss him."

"Is this even legal? For them to make you complete this list?"

"Wow, you actually think Hollywood cares about what's legal," I say, tilting my head to one side. "That's cute."

"And what's the purpose of all of this?" Mark grips my phone until his knuckles turn white. Is he mad?

I take a hefty drink of my coffee before answering. "It's proof that I can find a way to relate to people. Otherwise my boss can't promote me to executive producer. Or so he says." And I know, because Mark is someone who wants to be a part of the industry, that he gets what this means.

"He's dangling a promotion," he says, eyes flying back to the phone.

"It's bait. And I'm fodder. But I want this," I say, and for the first time I feel like my two worlds are actually colliding. "It's like when you taste French wine for the first time after only ever having the five-dollar bottle at Trader Joe's. You loved what you had, but now you know there's more."

I lift my Waffle House coffee – weirdly delicious but maybe that's all the cream and sugar – in the air and raise my brows.

"I want more than Cooler Than You." I point to the phone. The LIST. "And this is my ticket to more."

His eyes are back on the phone. He clicks it off but doesn't give it back. He wars with himself for a few seconds, but when he looks at me again, there's a spark of gold in his eyes. Excitement. Ambition. It suddenly doesn't matter what happened years ago at a stupid party or that he left film school to become an almost-lawyer. This guy here: This is Mark. This is the guy I daydreamed about.

"I'm in," he says as the waitress delivers our check face-down on the table.

For a second there's absolute silence. Carb-induced silence.