Take on Me

by Sarah Mayberry

  Sadie harrumphed, clearly irritated by his smart-ass comments.

  “I’ll order a pizza. Anything you don’t want on it?”

  “Anchovies and olives,” he said.

  She made another harrumphing noise.

  “What? Have I offended the World Anchovy Convention now or something?” Dylan demanded, exasperated.

  “No. It’s just…I don’t like them, either.”

  There was a small silence, broken when she pushed herself up out of her chair.

  “I’ll go phone in the order.”

  He watched her butt all the way out the door. For the life of him he couldn’t work out why he found her so appealing. Okay, she had a hot body. Great breasts, great ass, amazing legs. And she was wild in the bedroom department. But there had been plenty of other women in his life who’d ticked all the same boxes, and none of them had ever had him on a knife’s edge the way Sadie did.

  It had to be the added fillip of their shared history. Something about not liking her, about wanting to dominate her and prove to himself and her that he was worth something.

  As motivations went, it was pretty immature. But, as he’d said to Sadie earlier, penises weren’t exactly known for their discrimination. Apparently the rest of him wasn’t, either.

  SADIE SLID THE TWO pizza boxes onto the freestanding counter that served as a communal table in the kitchen. Gesturing for Dylan to take a stool, she slid onto one herself and flipped the first box open.

  “God, I’m starving,” she said. The moment she caught sight of the super supreme pie, her mouth started watering like crazy.

  Dylan shot her an unfathomable look before reaching for a big slice. She pulled her own gigantic piece from the box and started eating, determined to get through the evening as quickly as possible. Food for ten minutes, then back into it. If they kept plowing through, they would be out of here in the early hours and she could have a small break before she had to deal with Dylan again on Monday morning.

  Dealing being the operative word. He was becoming an increasingly vexing issue. Or, more accurately, her reaction to him was becoming increasingly worrying. Take the staring incident for example. She’d felt his gaze on her like a physical thing. Hot and hard, and she’d been powerless to stop her body from responding. It was pathetic. She was a grown woman, not a teenager anymore. Dylan’s dark good looks shouldn’t have so much power over her.

  The silence stretched between them as they munched on pizza. Sadie’s nerves ratcheted even tighter. She was too aware of him, too self-conscious about herself, also. Something had to give.

  “So, what are you thinking in story terms for next week?” she asked suddenly, falling back on work as the perfect distraction.

  “More tension with Kirk and Loni over J.B. And I want to crank things up with Angel and Jack. I was thinking some kind of big class test that Jack’s really wound up about and Angel gets in the line of fire.”

  “I did a bit of research on this during the week,” Sadie said in between mouthfuls. “There are tons of programs in place to catch kids with learning difficulties and physical disabilities. We need to be realistic about whether a kid like Jack could go undiagnosed for so long.”

  To her surprise, Dylan swore under his breath and dropped his half-eaten slice of pizza back into the box.

  “Right now, across the country, there are hundreds of thousands of kids with learning disorders, and only a small portion of them have been diagnosed. It’s all very well to say the system will catch them, but there has to be a will to help. And there are too many overworked, under-resourced teachers out there shuffling problem students from one class to the next to win themselves a bit of peace and quiet. Trust me, this shit happens every day.”

  His eyes were blazing dark heat, and his face was tense with suppressed frustration. Sadie saw that she’d struck a chord and she held her hands up in a make-peace gesture.

  “Okay, clearly you’re more informed on this subject than I am,” she conceded.

  His gaze slid away from hers. “We did a story on it on The Boardroom,” he said.

  Sadie frowned as she mentally ran through the episodes she’d seen. She hated repeating another show’s dynamics. It was impossible to avoid using the same themes and starting points—there were only so many ideas in the world—but it was important to tell the story differently each time. Finally, the episodes he was talking about came to mind.

  “I remember. The head honcho’s kid had dyslexia, didn’t he?” she asked.

  Dylan froze in the act of biting into his pizza slice.

  “You watch the show?”

  Sadie shrugged a shoulder casually. She’d caught all the first season, and most of seasons two and three. She’d been hooked despite knowing he worked on it. His involvement aside, it was a compelling concept, with a great cast and strong, honest scripts.

  “I caught it here and there, when I was in,” she disclosed.

  He eyed her searchingly for a beat or two before resuming his attack on the pizza.

  “Anyway, I think the important thing with this Angel/ Jack/Calvin triangle is that we remember Angel is our core cast member. We need to keep the focus on her.”

  Dylan nodded his agreement, too busy with food to respond verbally.

  “You did a nice job with the small nuances between her and Jack this week,” Sadie said. “Have you had any thoughts about how you’re going to bring things to a head?”

  Dylan paused to take a swig of cola before answering.

  “Yeah. I was thinking about the school prom. We can dress Angel up, and make Calvin look pretty good, in a geeky kind of way. Plus, there’s nothing like a little public humiliation to bring things to a head.”

  Sadie’s pizza turned to cardboard in her mouth. She swallowed the tasteless lump and slid the largely uneaten slice back into the box.

  “I don’t think the prom’s a good idea,” she said stiffly.

  Was he doing this on purpose?

  She eyed him closely, but he looked completely guileless.

  “Why not? We can shoot it on location somewhere, deck out an old gym in crepe paper and crappy lighting. Give all those stay-at-home moms a good dose of nostalgia.”

  He doesn’t remember. The thought ripped through her like a peal of thunder. The thought that her humiliation meant so little to him made her push her stool back with a screech of metal legs on tiled floor.

  “I don’t think the prom’s a good idea. You’ll have to come up with something else,” she said.

  Shoving her hands into the pockets of her cutoffs, she hunched her shoulders and headed for the ladies’ room.

  Washing her hands under the warm water, she shook her head at her overreaction. The problem was, the past kept bleeding painfully into the present with Dylan dogging her every footstep. Her stupid physical reaction to him was just one manifestation of the phenomena, along with her irrational emotional reactions to the things that he said.

  Running more water onto her fingertips, she brushed coolness across her brow. She had to stay calm and in charge, and she had to protect herself. Most of all, she had to separate herself from Angel’s story. It may have started out as her story, but it was never going to stay that way—the collaborative nature of television meant that the end product never resembled the original idea. She needed to be professional.

  Unfortunately, the woman in the mirror didn’t look very professional right now. Her hair was wild, her cheeks lightly flushed, and she had trouble meeting her own reflected gaze.

  She needed to get away from Dylan. And the only way to do that was to get the work done, pronto.

  DYLAN CRUSHED the pizza boxes and squished them into the trash can. His gaze kept sliding to the door to the ladies’ room, where Sadie had disappeared more than ten minutes ago.

  She was upset about something. That much was obvious. It hadn’t escaped his attention that every time they discussed Angel she came on pretty strong about the way things had to be. It also hadn’t escaped
his attention that he had some pretty concrete notions where that story was concerned, too. He knew why he felt that way—he identified with Jack, Sadie’s two-dimensional bad boy. He’d imbued him with his own history, invested his own memories and emotions in the kid. He didn’t have a clue what was driving Sadie, however.

  As he washed his hands at the kitchen sink, he went over the last few minutes of their conversation before Sadie had disappeared.

  They’d been talking about Angel and what the crisis moment might be. He’d raised the idea of the prom…Dylan froze, water dripping from his hands as he at last got what he’d done.

  He wasn’t a saint, but he’d never set out to deliberately hurt anyone in his life—except for that one time at the school prom when Sadie had stood in front of him, all prim and proper and eager to play Lady Bountiful to his ignorant peasant. He’d taken one look at her ridiculous tissue-stuffed dress and stitched-up little smile, and all the rage and disappointment and fear inside him had come welling up.

  She’d deserved it. He’d told himself that ever since he’d woken the next day filled with regret. She’d had no qualms about humiliating him in front of his peers; he’d simply been returning the favor. But it still wasn’t a memory he was particularly proud of. Which was why it wasn’t exactly on high rotation in his mental hit parade. Which explained why he’d been stupid enough to bring it up with Sadie.

  He shook his head at his own thick-headedness. For a moment he toyed with the idea of apologizing, but everything in him balked at the idea. She wasn’t about to get down on bended knee and beg him to forgive her for what she’d done to him all those years ago. He’d be damned if he was the only one eating humble pie.

  The slap of her flip-flops on the tiled floor signaled her emergence from the washroom, and he swung around to face her. She looked cool and determined, very businesslike. Good. That was exactly the right attitude to get them through the night.

  “Let’s get this done,” she said.

  He followed her back to the story room, resolutely resisting the need to eye her butt the whole way.

  “I think we should split the workload down the middle,” she said as they resettled into their chairs. Without Claudia in the room, the distance between them seemed almost comical.

  “Sure, that makes sense,” he said. Even if he hadn’t agreed—which he did—he’d have done it her way. Anything to get this over and done with.

  Sadie shuffled through the stack of flagged scripts, sorting them into two piles: the first pile for her, made up of the four scripts she’d reviewed personally and one script that Dylan had reviewed, and the second pile for Dylan, made up of the remaining two scripts he’d reviewed, plus Claudia’s three.

  “There you go,” she said, sliding the pile across to him.

  “Thanks. I’m going to go work in my office,” he said, collecting his notes and the scripts.

  “Sure. I’ll probably be in my office, too,” Sadie said.

  He’d made it to the doorway when he heard her sharp intake of breath. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Sadie was staring at the open pages of the script he’d reviewed earlier in the afternoon. The familiar highlighted phrases and underlining of words that was second nature to him in combating his dyslexia seemed to jump off the page as she lifted stunned eyes to him.

  “You’re dyslexic.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

  Too late Dylan realized that he shouldn’t have brought The Boardroom into their discussion over dinner. When he’d been working on the show, it had seemed natural to use his particular form of dyslexia as a basis for the show’s character. As a result, all the therapies and strategies shown on-air had mirrored his own. Since he’d been stupid enough to put the reminder in her head, Sadie had only to look at his heavily marked up pages to put two and two together.

  “Yes,” he said. He told himself it didn’t matter. Lots of people knew he was dyslexic. He wasn’t ashamed of it. It was part of who he was. But he was old enough and cynical enough to understand that some people weren’t above using his difference as a weapon.

  “When did you—When were you diagnosed?” she asked faintly. She’d gone very pale, he saw.

  “In my early twenties.”

  “My God.” The eyes she lifted to him were tortured. “I’m so sorry.”

  Dylan frowned. This was the last thing he’d expected from her.

  “It’s no big deal. I work around it,” he said carefully.

  “No. I mean…I’m so sorry about what I did. I thought you didn’t care. I mean, I knew you cared because of that time in the locker room, but then I tried to help and you said those things…I didn’t understand, or I never would have…” She stood, and he saw that she was shaking and that tears had filled her eyes. “No wonder you were so angry with me at prom.”

  Dylan frowned, trying to piece together what she was saying.

  “What do you mean, you were only trying to help?” he asked fiercely, eyes boring into her. Suddenly he knew this was very, very important.

  She shook her head, tears spilling over her cheeks now. Dashing them away with her hands, she moved toward the door.

  “Just—just give me a minute,” she said, her voice thick with unshed tears.

  Dylan stood obediently to one side as she walked briskly toward the ladies’ room for the second time that evening. It wasn’t until the door had swung shut on her delectable ass that he got it. A collage of images and conversations and memories fell into place in his mind.

  Sadie’s voice, explaining about Angel. She thinks he’s a god. She adores him…She would never try to get him to look at her…It’s about small moments. She doodles his name in her book, then has to hide it when he looks across…She tries to shield him when the teacher has it in for him.

  Suddenly he could see it as plain as day in his mind—Sadie sliding her forearm across her notepad, her gaze darting nervously his way as he sat beside her. Sadie shooting her hand into the air every time Mr. McMasters prowled by Dylan’s desk to check on his work. Sadie leaning across when he was scrambling to fudge his book review, offering unsolicited advice despite his obvious resistance.

  All of it intended to help him. Because she’d loved him.

  “Shit.”

  He strode toward the bathroom, a million thoughts and feelings vying for top billing in his mind. Slamming the door open, he found Sadie in an open cubicle, seated on the closed lid of the toilet. She lifted her tear-streaked face, startled.

  “Angel is you, isn’t she?” he demanded harshly.

  He watched as she made an effort to pull herself together.

  “Listen—”

  “Did you have a crush on me or not?” he asked.

  Her shoulders dropped in defeat and she put her head back in her hands. “Yes.”

  “Goddamn!” Curling his hand into a fist, Dylan slammed it unthinkingly into the wall. She gave a startled yelp as the plaster crumbled, leaving a large, fist-size hole in the wall.

  Ignoring the stinging in his hand, Dylan rounded on her.

  “Do you have any idea how much I hated you? How much I blamed you for me getting kicked out of school?”

  “You got kicked out of school? Because of what I did in class that day? Oh, God.”

  Fresh tears welled up and slid down her face.

  “You should have said something. You should have written me a poem or ridden past my house or something like an ordinary person,” he said.

  That night at the prom…He’d wanted to destroy her. And she’d only been offering up her shy, teenager’s love.

  For almost half his life she’d been the focal point for all the rage he felt toward the people who’d let him down and found him lacking.

  And it was all a big, fat, stupid mistake.

  Spinning on his heel, Dylan slammed out of the bathroom before he could put another hole in the wall.

  WHEN SADIE EMERGED from the bathroom Dylan was running his hand under the cold water tap in the kitchen He fl
icked a glance her way before returning his attention to his reddened hand.

  “There’s ice in the freezer. I’ll make you a pack,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  Pulling a fresh dishcloth from the drawer, Sadie filled it with ice and tied it in a knot. She handed it to Dylan wordlessly.

  “I’m sorry about what I did at prom,” Dylan said after a long silence. “I was half-cut, but that’s no excuse. I wanted to tear you down.”

  “I know. I guess I wanted to do the same to you, too.”

  The anger had faded from Dylan’s face. For the first time, she saw him as a whole person, not simply the adult version of her teen crush, or the manifestation of all her insecurities. He was still a very attractive man. But she could see the humor in him, the cleverness. The kindness. He wasn’t even close to the arrogant egotist she’d painted him as.

  “I wish I’d known about your dyslexia,” she said hopelessly.

  “That makes two of us,” he said wryly.

  “I can’t believe they kicked you out of school because of what I did that day. I thought you went because you wanted to.”

  “Probably did me a favor in the long term. I was never going to graduate, not with my marks. And if I hadn’t left school, I wouldn’t have wound up at the Burger Barn, and I wouldn’t have met Harry.”

  Sadie frowned, and Dylan obviously read her confusion.

  “Harry’s kid had dyslexia. He was the one who worked out what was going on for me.”

  “Lucky.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s your hand?” she asked.

  Dylan flexed it experimentally. “I’ll live to fight another wall,” he said lightly.

  Sadie managed a half smile. Everything had shifted. Nothing was the same, even her memories.

  “After the prom—it must have been pretty bad,” he said.

  Sadie shrugged. “I survived.”

  “Still. I was an asshole.”

  Sadie shrugged again, but something nudged a confession from her. “It was the first time I’d done that, you know. Stuffed my top. I wanted to impress you so badly.” She shook her head at her own foolishness. “I must have been the only seventeen-year-old titless wonder in the state.”