Trigger

  TRIGGER

  Julia Derek

  Published by Adrenaline Books

  Copyright © 2014 by Julia Derek

  This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Published as an e-book March 2014 by Adrenaline Books.

  To find out more about the author, visit JuliaDerek.com

  Cover design by Skyla Dawn Cameron at Indigo Chick Designs

  “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and to discover that the prisoner was you.”

  — Lewis B. Smedes

  Nina

  I listened to the voicemail one more time to be sure I’d understood it right. When my mom was upset, her Russian accent got stronger, making it hard to understand her. And it was clear she’d been very upset while leaving this message:

  “Alex driving me crazy. I can’t take any more. I wish you live here still and help me take care of him. He not listen to me.”

  Sighing, I disconnected. I felt for my mom, I really did, but moving back to Downtown L.A. was not an option. Besides, I knew she hadn’t really meant those words. I would call her back later, let her vent to me directly instead of to a voicemail. She obviously needed it and I couldn’t blame her. Alex, my much younger half brother, was a handful and had a tendency to end up on the wrong side of the law. Right now, though, I had to get ready for my audition for a small part on Modern Family. I was already running late. The role was tailor made for me, so I was sure I’d at least get a callback.

  I rushed into my bedroom and opened my closet. I pulled out the top and the skirt and shoes I’d picked out the second I got the call from the casting director, asking if I wanted to do a reading. (Yeah, duh!) My outfit was perfect for the role as a sexy but sweet nanny from Russia. Having spent my first years in Moscow and speaking to my mom almost every day, I knew just how to speak English with an authentic Russian accent. In addition to looking like a nanny—a very sweet and sexy one—the transition from my own very American accent to a distinctly Russian one was sure to impress the casting director.

  Putting the clothes on my bed, I dashed back to the bathroom where I dried my hair and applied makeup as quickly as I could.

  An hour and a half later, I arrived at the studio in San Fernando Valley. My audition time was for six-thirty and it was now a quarter to seven, much later than when I had thought I’d arrive. There had been not one but two accidents on my way driving to the Valley, one on the 405 highway, then another on the 101. Sweaty and stressed-out, I strode into the studio office and put my name on the sign-in sheet there. Luckily for me, the auditions were running late. I sat on an empty chair, so frazzled I barely noticed my competition hanging around in the corridor, and tried to get centered.

  Thirty minutes later it was over and I was back behind the wheel in my beat-up Toyota, but this time around, I wasn’t feeling excited, or sure I’d get a callback. Instead my eyes were full of tears, my body heavy with a sense of failure.

  I stared out the front window of my car, at all the other vehicles in the parking lot, not really seeing them.

  I blew it.

  When I was about to say my lines, my brain had frozen, refusing to cooperate. Then, when I finally got the words out, I hadn’t managed to say a single sentence with a believable Russian accent. And there had been several, all of them sounding more like someone with a weird Spanish accent. There was no chance in hell the casting director would call me back based on that performance. The woman and her assistant had barely even thanked me when I was done, that’s how badly I’d read.

  I banged my head into the steering wheel over and over. How could I have screwed up like that?

  I never got this nervous. I’d auditioned for important parts before, so it wasn’t first-time jitters. Still, I’d been so shaky I had been unable to focus. Damn, why didn’t I leave earlier? Who knew when I’d get another chance like this? It might be several months, maybe years. I could only afford so many mass mailings to casting directors, which was how I’d gotten this opportunity. My next mailing would have to be to agents. I really needed a new one; the one I had right now sucked.

  If things didn’t start to happen for me soon, I’d have no choice but to move back in with my mother and kid brother.

  Dylan

  I finished the last page of the contract and stuck it in my desk drawer. I needed to stretch my legs a little, so I got to my feet and walked around my black desk that took up a fourth of my office. In doing so, I almost toppled the stack of documents on one of the desk corners. I sighed. It was never-ending. As soon as I’d finished one, it was onto the next, then the next and the next. It was not how I’d envisioned my life when I’d first enrolled in law school. I thought back to when I was a kid and Dad came home from the office, looking all dapper in his suit and shiny shoes, hair slicked back from his high forehead. My father had always seemed so happy when he talked about work, as if he’d sincerely enjoyed being a corporate lawyer. It was around that time I decided that I, too, was going to become one.

  Only problem was, I didn’t like being a lawyer nearly as much as he had. At least not at the moment. I had a feeling I’d like it better when I made partner. After all, I’d only seen my father when he was at that stage of his career, not when he was a lowly associate like I currently was at Greenberg and Glusker, doing mostly grunt work. The firm, small for the Los Angeles area, had seven partners, eighteen associates and fifteen staff attorneys. Most of those associates put in eighty, sometimes ninety-hour weeks in the hopes of eventually making partner.

  Too bad I hadn’t asked my dad if he’d hated the associate-years before he passed away.

  I returned to my leather chair and took a seat at my desk. Time to get back to work. But as I opened another contract, I found myself unable to focus. Emma had made her way into my mind like she so often did around this time, when I had worked all day and my eyes had tired from reading all those words.

  Irritated, I made myself push away her smiling, gorgeous face. Why was I still thinking of her? It had been five months since she’d dumped me, long enough for me to have moved on. Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t enough when you took into account whom she’d dumped me for. Hugo Reiss, one of the partners at the firm.

  The day she’d told me she’d met someone else—via text—still felt unreal.

  I had yet to figure out whether Reiss knew that I had been seriously dating Emma before they became an item. I really couldn’t tell. Reiss was a man of few words generally speaking and a complete enigma when it came to that regard. I hadn’t even realized they were dating until I spotted Emma walking into Reiss’s corner office about a week after she’d dumped me and Laura, Reiss’s executive assistant, had filled me in about it. Laura was in complete control of Reiss’s life and often in his office when he was on the phone or in closed-door meetings.

  But I had decided that none of it really mattered. The more I thought about it, the more my heart ached for Emma, so it was best to just forget about it all, pretend like I no longer cared about her whenever I saw Reiss. Which was way more often than I preferred, several times a week sometimes.

  My smartphone buzzed then, an incoming text. It was from Victor, my father’s much younger brother. I smiled; I was extremely fond of Victor. The man felt more like one of my buddies than your typical uncle, someone I could talk to about everything.

  How’s our bet going? Have you gone on your first date yet?

  In an effort for me to move on from Emma, Victor had dared me to go on five different online dates. I was a firm believer that girls who sought love online were either psycho and/or liars, so desperate for a date they were willing to say and do anything. Victor had been shocked to hear my thoughts on cyber dating; he, b
eing almost twenty years my senior, should be the one who thought so, not a twenty-seven-year old man who’d been fed a steady diet of all things internet since toddlerhood more or less.

  I quickly typed a response.

  Believe it or not, I’ve been on three already. And they all sucked!

  I don’t believe you, Victor responded. I need to hear more about this. Call me tomorrow.

  I typed Will do and then pressed Send. I wish I had been lying to Victor. I hadn’t. And I very much doubted I’d find a girl online to make me forget Emma.

  Nina

  My roommate Lorna was home when I got back from my failed audition. Damn. I was in no mood to talk to anyone at the moment, my Goth roommate with the waist-length, black hair included. Why did she have to be home tonight out of all nights? As much as Lorna worked at the bar, she was hardly ever home in the evenings and sometimes she was gone entire days. It was the main reason I had chosen her as my roommate, even though she was twice my age. Lorna brightened at the sight of me.

  “How did it go?” she said. I’d made the mistake of mentioning this audition as recently as this morning, so I couldn’t blame Lorna for asking about it now.

  I pressed out a smile and picked up my black cat, Sam, who’d come to greet me, his pleasure engine on full blast. I squeezed his warm, furry body and kissed him on the head, while blinking away tears in my eyes. The last thing I felt like doing was break apart in front of Lorna.

  “Not as good as I’d hoped,” I managed to get out. “Pretty much blew it actually.”

  Lorna made a sad face. “Oh no… what happened?”

  I shrugged. “I wish I knew. I just got nervous, I guess. Things didn’t come out right.”

  Lorna tsk’ed. “I’m so sorry, hun. Well, at least you look fabulous! Maybe it didn’t go as badly as you thought.”

  “Thanks, but I’m pretty sure it went even worse.” I walked over to my bedroom, sniffling. “I’m gonna go and feel sorry for myself for a while.”

  I closed the door after me as I stepped into my room. Only seconds after I’d turned on music and curled up in my bed with Sam and the big bag of M&Ms I’d bought on my way home, I remembered that I needed to call my mom to see how she was doing. I turned down the music, pulled myself together and called her.

  “Hello,” Mom answered. “Nina?”

  “Yes, Mom. How are you doing? What did he do this time?”

  Mom let out a loud sigh. “He was giving the teacher attitude in class because he didn’t get to go to bathroom. The principal call me.”

  “Why wouldn’t the teacher let him go to the bathroom?”

  “Because he already went ten minutes before. He was just making trouble. But I spoke to him and he promise he would go up to teacher and apologize tomorrow. It’ll be okay. I was just so mad when I got the call. Again. But it’ll be okay now. How are you, daragaya?”

  I didn’t feel like mentioning the failed audition; it would only serve to upset my mother and her life already had enough things to upset her.

  “I’m great. Just working on some material for my show. Well, I’m glad things got worked out with Alex. He’s a good boy, just a little crazy right now. Puberty makes boys do dumb things.”

  “Yes, I know. Fourteen is bad age for a boy without father.” She sighed again.

  Any age is bad for a boy without a father, I thought but refrained from saying. No need to remind my mom of such things.

  “Right,” I said instead. “Well, if you and Alex are okay, then I’m going to go.”

  “Yes, yes. We’re fine. Sorry if I upset you before.”

  “No worries, Mom. I understand.”

  We exchanged a few more words and then disconnected. Thinking about my mom and how sad her life had been made me feel guilty about lying in bed, eating chocolate and feeling sorry for myself. It was only an audition after all, not the end of the world. Surely there would be more.

  Momentarily recharged, I opened my laptop to post a status update on my Facebook page. A message from eCupid popped up. I’d signed up with this dating site when my friend Ricki had gushed about how many hot guys it had. I clicked on the message:

  Hi L.A. Delicious,

  Wanna go for a drink some night?

  Mike

  After taking a quick look at Mike’s profile, I sent a quick reply saying thanks, but no thanks, then deleted his message. Nothing about either his personality or his photos appealed to me. I figured I might as well check out the new meat on the site while on it, though, see if there was anyone I found hot enough to go out with. All I wanted was some fun times. Unlike Ricki, I was not looking for love, only cute boys to hook up with. I didn’t believe in relationships. As far I could tell, all of them ended in disaster—just look at my triple-divorced mom—so why put myself through the misery? I couldn’t think of anyone who was in a good relationship. They might pretend like they were, but as soon as I dug a little deeper, it turned out there were all kinds of problems. Problems that would eventually result in the relationship falling apart. Out of everyone I knew—and I knew a lot of people—there was only one couple that had passed my rigorous prodding and that I sincerely believed may work out for the long run. Very bad odds. Better to keep things on a superficial level.

  Dylan

  I called it a night when it was slightly after nine and I was unable to take any more of the stale air in my office. By nine-thirty I was home and on eCupid, checking out girls I could contact for my last two dates.

  I hadn’t exaggerated when I told Victor my previous dates had sucked. The first girl, Nicole, had stood me up. I had remained at the bar for a whole fifty minutes. At first, I wondered if we’d misunderstood each other regarding time and place, but when I checked our site communication I saw that this was unlikely the reason. I kept scanning the venue for a five-foot-six brunette, while also obsessively logging into the site on my smartphone to see if Nicole had contacted me to say she was running late or something. She hadn’t. When I got home and went back on the eCupid site, I discovered that her profile was gone. She’d pulled a fast one on me. Oh, well. I should have figured something was not right with her when she’d declined to give me even her phone number.

  I’d been more diligent with the next girl, a beautiful law student who loved politics, traveling and good food, making sure I got both her personal email address and cell phone number on which we exchanged texts before committing to a date. She was on time and looked like her profile photos, but her personality, not to mention her voice, had been so awful I’d longed for the date to be over minutes after we laid eyes on each other. Two hours later, after having been forced to listen to the girl’s screechy monologue about herself, I managed to get a word in, saying I had an early morning meeting and had to call it a night.

  The third girl I made sure I spoke to on the phone before asking her out for a drink. Unfortunately, this one, while sweet and attentive, looked nothing like her photos. I doubted I’d even have spotted her had she not been the only girl at the bar and had approached me.

  There had been a desperate, puppy-like quality to her, which had made it impossible for me to blow her off when she asked if I had time for dinner after our drink. So I’d stayed, silently cursing myself for giving this girl hope I’d call her again. I had promised myself my dog days were over, and what I was doing was dangerously close to dog behavior.

  As I walked to my car three hours later, tipsy from beer, I’d almost convinced myself that maybe I would call her after all. So what that I wasn’t sexually attracted? She had been sweet and funny and intelligent, the kind of girl any normal guy should count himself lucky to have as his girlfriend. Looks fade, but personality lasts forever, right? But when I woke up the next morning, I knew I wouldn’t call her. I needed to feel some kind of chemistry, and with this girl, there had been absolutely none.

  My eyes stopped on the photo of a dark-haired girl with a great smile who used L.A. Delicious as her screen name. If that’s the way she really looks, she sure
is delicious, I thought. Very cute with those glittering hazel eyes and that big smile in a heart-shaped face, surrounded by flowing chocolate locks. And, apparently, she was logged in right now.

  Without even opening her profile, I sent her an instant message.

  Nina

  “Hello?” I said into my cell. Someone I didn’t know with a 213-area code was calling me.

  “Good afternoon! May I speak to Nina?” Upbeat male voice.

  “This is she.”

  “Hello Nina, how’s your day going so far?”

  “Can’t complain.” Who the heck is this fake-sounding dude? I thought and took another look at the number on my smartphone screen. Nope, still didn’t recognize it. Must be a telemarketer. I sighed inwardly. Why hadn’t I let it go to voicemail?

  “Great! This is Dylan Whitman.” Before I got a chance to ask how or if I knew him, he added, “from eCupid. I was supposed to call you today to settle the details for our date tonight, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah, right…” It was the attractive lawyer I’d connected with on eCupid last night. He had in fact told me he’d call this afternoon. I quickly searched my mind for a memory of what he looked like. Tall, athletic, honey-blond hair cropped short, nice eyes and smile. Yes, too corporate-looking for my taste, but when he’d contacted me I thought that I might as well respond. I could use the attention after having failed my audition so miserably. No matter what I tried to convince myself, bungling it was a big deal. We got into a conversation and he’d asked if I felt like going for a drink the following night. Sure, I’d replied, having no other plans.

  “Great! What are you in the mood for tonight?” Dylan said in that annoyingly upbeat voice of his. “A lounge or a bar?”

  “Uh, why don’t we just meet at a bar?” I said. Why was he talking like he was some kind of salesman and I a prospective customer? Or was that how lawyers sounded these days? If that was the case, no wonder I’d stayed away from them. I wasn’t a fan of cheerful, corporate guys. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d had his profile photos photo-shopped to make him look better and was really kind of average. God, how I regretted having agreed to go out with him! Sadly, I wasn’t able to come up with a good enough excuse to back out this late in the game.