Call the Shots (Swim the Fly #3)(68)

“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?”





“YOU 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 f*ck’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.”