Noelle August - Boomerang

Sex—good sex, anyway—makes my hair go insane. Like giant mushroom cloud insane. Right now, it’s at about Defcon Three, which suggests some vigorous making out but not much more.

Looks like the dry spell continues.

I find a brush and tug it through my hair then dab a line of toothpaste onto my finger and apply it to my teeth. After that, I gargle about a half-gallon of his mouthwash and gulp down a few handfuls of water from the tap.

“Dumb question, but do you have any idea where my underwear went?”

He turns the water off and reaches an arm out for his towel, which I hand around the curtain to him. He pushes aside the striped fabric, the towel draped around his waist to accentuate an impressive contoured abdomen.

“Not sure,” he says, grinning. “Let me just put on some clothes, and I’ll help you find them.”

Back in his bedroom after a quick shower of my own, I slip on my bra and dress, feeling weirdly asymmetrical without my underwear.

“Where’s work for you?” he asks as he buttons a crisp white dress shirt.

I have a flash of him wearing a suit the night before and of snaking my arms beneath the jacket to run my hands over his strong back. He looks used to good clothes, so probably something professional. But he has a ton of sporting equipment. Maybe he’s a basketball coach. They wear suits, right?

“Where did you say you need to be?” he asks again, and I realize I’ve totally zoned.

Flushing, I say, “Century City, and I’m going to be so late.”

His hands still on the buttons. “Me too,” he mutters, more to himself than to me. “But it’s twenty minutes in good traffic. You can make it.”

That means I have to leave now .

He helps me search around the apartment, turning over chair cushions, checking behind curtains. “Are you sure you had them on when we got here?”

“You think I came here without my panties?”

Did I come here without my panties?

He yanks a tie from the ceiling fan over a small kitchen table, smiling as he holds it up for me. “Seems possible. I’m a little fuzzy on the details myself, but the evidence suggests we had a hell of a time.”

Maybe not quite as good as you think, I want to say, but why get into it? I find a rubber band on the kitchen counter and fashion my hair into a low bun.

I give my dress another inspection and realize there’s just no way I can show up looking like this.

“Hey, would you mind loaning me a shirt?” I say. “Like a dress shirt. I’ll . . . um, get it back to you.” While I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a weird stalker girl, my need to not look like I just pulled my clothes off a tavern floor overrules my concern with first—or second—impressions.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, and heads off to his room. He returns with a blue button-down shirt and hands it to me. “Might be a little big.”

“I’m sure it will be,” I say, but I put it on and cinch it tight around my waist, covering the worst of the problem. Now I just look like a rumpled weirdo. Though if my new boss spends any time with film people, I definitely won’t be the only rumpled weirdo in his life.

The guy picks up a pair of black-checked boxer briefs from a kitchen chair. “I was wearing these last night, so we’re getting warm.”

I grow more and more anxious as he locates items of his own clothing.

“Sorry, Mia,” he says after he’s opened every cabinet and looked in every nook and cranny of the modest apartment.

I feel a little flush of pleasure that he knows my name, quickly supplanted by embarrassment at the fact that I’m the jerk who doesn’t remember his.

In the kitchen, he pours himself a glass of juice from the fridge, sliding one across the pass-through for me too. “I don’t see them anywhere.”

Where the hell can they be? And is it better to be late for work on my very first day or to flash all my new co-workers? Decisions, decisions.

I fish out my cell phone—8:29—and sigh. “All right,” I decide. “I guess I’ll do without.”

“Commando.” He grins. “I like that in a girl.”

“Why, thanks. If you find them, feel free to keep them as a souvenir.”

“I’ll treasure them. Unless they’re granny panties. But then those might have been easier to find.”

“They are most certainly not granny panties. They’re—”

He laughs, his back to me. “Hot pink? With white butterflies?”

“Yes! How did you—”

He steps to the side and pulls open the door of his glossy Breville toaster oven. There, draped across the toasting rack, lie my panties.

Ethan

Q: On dates, do you prefer to go Dutch, or pick up the bill?

For a few seconds, I can’t shake the picture of Mia’s pink thong sitting in my toaster oven. It’s like time stops, and then I’m picturing her wearing them, and then not wearing them, until Coach Williams’s voice filters through the pounding in my head.

If you’re on time, then you’re late.

That gets me moving, as it has for the past four years. I can only imagine what Coach Williams would think of me now: late to the internship that’s supposed to change everything for me, and so hungover I’m still buzzed.

I leave the kitchen and head into the living room. The girl I woke up with—Mia—leans on a hip as she sifts through her purse, so I take a second to appreciate the view.

Damn, she’s hot. I give myself a mental slap on the back.

“Can I get your address?” she asks, pulling out a cell phone. “I need to call a cab.”

An image of last night flashes through my mind. She and I jumped into a cab as soon as it pulled up outside the bar. We were in too much of a hurry to be alone together to wait for a ride with Jason and Isis. But why the hell did we come here instead of her place? My apartment’s a biohazard.

“Forty-four Creston Drive,” I say. Pushing aside socks and shin guards, I sit on the battered couch and pull on my oxfords. “In Westwood.”

Mia makes the call, speaking in a rush to the dispatcher, but I get the feeling it’s not just because she’s late. The tone of her voice is smoky and colorful, like she talks often and laughs a lot. She’s petite. No more than 5'3", but the heels she slips on give her a four-inch boost. My shirt pools forward as she bends down, giving me an excellent angle of her perfect rack.

“Five minutes?” Mia says. “Thanks.” She hangs up and turns her attention back to me. Her eyes are green, but not the weak hazel color people try to pass off. Mia’s are clear and bright.

“All set?” I stand.

“Yep, all set.” Mia drops her phone back into her purse and pushes a coil of black hair behind her ear. Her eyes make a quick trip up and down my body, and then she glances at the front door. “So . . . thanks for the juice?”

I sidestep, blocking her path. One-night-stand protocol is to get in and get out, so to speak, but I can’t let her go yet. She’s not the only one who needs to get to Century City, and it’s too late for me to bike there. “Can you hold on a sec? I have to talk to my roommate.”

She looks around the apartment, her jaw dropping. Five seconds ago, our clothes were everywhere. “You have a roommate ?”

“Yeah. Jason. And Isis. She’s Jason’s girlfriend, but she pretty much lives here. I think you met them last night at Duke’s.”

Mia gives me a shaky smile. “Okay, I feel awful admitting this, but I’m trying to remember whether your name is Evan or Ethan. So it’s safe to say I’m sketchy on some details from last night.”

Shit.

I wasn’t after anything serious, obviously. After two years with Alison, non-serious is a requirement. But this girl doesn’t even remember my name? That sucks, but I shrug and play it off.