Nothing Like the Movies

Liz

“Any questions?”

I shoved my laptop into my backpack as Elaine Lowell, my Forensic Musicology instructor, waited for questions—questions that would not be coming. I’d taken one of her classes before, and she was absolutely brilliant yet utterly terrifying.

The building could be on fire and no one would dare ask that woman where the extinguishers were.

She’d just assigned a huge amount of reading—reading that was sure to put me to sleep. It was important information that I’d definitely be using in the real world, but there was only so much a person could read about music copyrights before their eyelids got droopy.

I’d probably go to the music library later to read the text, because my roommates were far too noisy to make the comprehension of boring material possible.

“Okay, then, you’re free to go.”

I followed the rush to exit and was almost to the door when I heard her say, “Liz? Can you hang back for a sec?”

“Sure.” Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. I swallowed and walked over to the lecture podium, where she was packing up her things, wondering what this could possibly be about. “What’s up?”

She smiled—a warm smile—and I was taken aback, because I’d never seen her smile before. She was a high-powered entertainment attorney with that whole I-don’t-have-time-for-anything vibe, so I just assumed she didn’t know how.

That she’d never cared enough to learn.

“I just wanted to let you know that I’m always available for questions and extra discussion. Lilith Grossman is a good friend of mine, and she reached out to let me know her intern is in my class.”

Oh. I’d emailed my schedule to Lilith like she’d asked, but I hadn’t expected her to look at it and actually interact with it.

Or reach out to an industry professional to make a connection.

“Thank you,” I said, nodding and smiling—basically gushing. “I really appreciate that. I’m positive I’ll take you up on the offer.”

“You definitely should,” she said, still smiling. “I’m happy to help anytime.”

I left the classroom totally energized, and as I exited Schoenberg and put in my AirPods, a burst of gratitude popped through me. The fact that I was even there, in LA, taking music classes in such a gorgeous place—it was more than enough.

But now I was making connections in my dream career? Before I was even a senior?

It was huge.

I assigned “Unwritten” to this moment (I was always looking for a reason to steal it back from The Hills, anyway), cranking it as I headed down Bruin Walk toward Morgan for my meeting with Lilith. I was visualizing a movie scene in my head as I walked through the busy crowd of students going to class, the music playing as the protagonist crossed the picturesque campus with a cheesy smile on her face.

Reaching for something in the distance

So close you can almost taste it—

“On your left!”

“Gah!” I squeaked and jumped out of the way as a scooter buzzed past me, so close to running me down that I could literally feel the breeze when it passed.

Jackass.

I wasn’t surprised to see it was an athlete at the helm. I wasn’t sure why, but they were the ones I always saw using scooters. I watched the guy zip in and out of foot traffic like a NASCAR driver, fast and unfazed, and I gritted my teeth when I saw the height of the dude and his Bruins Baseball backpack.

Are you freaking kidding me?

I couldn’t be positive, but that idiot looked a lot like Wes Bennett from behind.

As if hearing me, the guy suddenly whipped the scooter around and came back in the opposite direction, riding toward me.

Whyyyyyy, Universe?

It was definitely Wes, and he was wearing his smart-ass grin as he scootered toward me.

“I cannot believe the slowpoke I almost flattened is Lizzie Buxbaum,” he said, turning yet again so now he was riding alongside me.

“Believe it,” I said, and I just kept walking, hoping he’d go away.

“I’m really sorry for the near-miss.”

I glanced over at him. He didn’t look sorry as he watched me, slow-riding on that scooter while wearing the bratty half smile that brought back a thousand memories I didn’t want to remember.

No, he looked amused as his mouth slid into an even bigger grin. “This is when you say, ‘That’s okay, Wes.’ ”

“No, this is when I say, ‘Can you go scooter somewhere else, Wes?’ ”

His eyes were dancing when he said, “I do have to get to class, so I’m going to let that slide.”

“Oh, joy,” I muttered, walking a little faster.

“But Lib?” he said, his voice scratching the part of my brain that used to listen to Bazzi on repeat.

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, nearly speed-walking even though I knew there was no escaping him.

He sighed dramatically and said, “It was really great seeing you.”

And then he zipped away.

It felt like my teeth were going to shatter because I was gritting them so hard as he disappeared from my line of sight.

Why is this happening to me?

I’d spent all of Saturday spiraling, freaking out about the fact that he was here. Every time I was able to calm down and convince myself it was no big deal—it’s been years and we’re both different people now—I’d picture his face when he smirkily said, Is that what we were? and the rage was immediately back.

Asshole.

Because it wasn’t fair that he was here. This was my place, dammit.

I had a life that I liked at school, a life that came after the ruins of us. A life built because my first attempt had crashed and burned. So somehow, the idea of Wes in close proximity to it felt precarious, like his smart-ass it was really great seeing you presence could ruin all the little wonderfuls that I’d carefully created.

And God—my job (and now my internship) was all about UCLA athletics. It was important to me, and I was terrified he was going to mess it up or make me love it less. And in addition to that, how was I supposed to avoid him when the primary task of my vocation was to capture athletes on film, and he was an athlete?!

Gaaaaaaaaah.

Somehow he’d just landed in the center of my million-miles-away-from-Omaha world and it wasn’t fair.

Clark brushed the whole thing off and thought I was totally overreacting.

“First of all, he thinks you have a boyfriend, so I’m sure he’ll stay away from you because I’m ridiculously intimidating. Second, it’s not even baseball season yet, so we won’t do jack with the team until spring. And if there are baseball assignments, I’ll just focus on the pitchers, and you can do the rest. Problem solved.”

I took a deep breath and told myself Clark was right.

This was a huge school, so the odds were in my favor that run-ins like the one we’d just had would be few and far between. And Clark’s plan for Wes-avoidance was totally doable.

It was going to be fine.

This was no big deal, a minor irritation at most, and it was totally feasible that I could absolutely avoid any further interactions with Wes Bennett.

“I’d like to imbed you with the baseball team.”

My coffee immediately went down the wrong tube, and I started coughing, hacking as Lilith patiently waited for me to recover. Imbed you with the baseball team. Dear God, this couldn’t be good. As soon as I was able to speak, I gasped, “What?”

She crossed her arms and said, “I’m sure you heard that Baseball America has determined UCLA has the number-one recruiting class in the nation, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, your tiny little social media post of the team’s preseason practice on Friday got more likes than the football content. And they had a game on Saturday.”

She looked pleased, which made me beyond pleased.

I was also surprised that Lilith was paying attention to the athletic department’s social media posts, to be honest.

The woman was on top of everything.

“People are excited about the baseball team,” she said. “Boosters are excited. Everyone wants to see more of this promising bunch of players.”

I rubbed the spot between my eyebrows that was getting a headache.

“What, um, what does ‘imbed’ mean in this instance, exactly?” I asked, trying my hardest to sound like I didn’t have stakes in her answer.

“Did you watch Hard Knocks yet?”

“Yes.” Yesterday I’d binge-watched the latest season, and it was a fantastic docuseries that covered the day-to-day of an NFL team during their season. “I loved it.”

“Well, good, because that’s what we want to do with the baseball team. We want to brand this team and this content. We haven’t finalized the verbiage, but I’m leaning toward Bruins Baseball: Building a Championship Team.”

“Oh,” I said, nodding and trying to focus while my mind ran wild.

“We want followers to be inundated with day-in-the-life-of-a-Bruins-baseball-player content, as well as short player interviews to introduce this year’s team. I’d like for you to think of yourself as an honorary Bruin teammate and basically go to class, then baseball, then sleep. Rinse and repeat. I’d love to see three or four Reels a week until fall ball ends.”

What?? Nooooooooo.

Was she seriously telling me she wanted me to dedicate my every waking hour to the baseball team? The baseball team that he was a member of?

And I would have to interview him?

I would absolutely open with the song “Disaster” in this scene if my life was a movie.

This could be a disaster

There’s so many factors…

“What do you think, Liz?” she asked, looking excited.

“It sounds amazing,” I lied, my stomach filling with dread. “Um, so is this for the production department, or is this—”

“No, this is all you.” She gave me an eyebrow raise and said, “This is your next internship assignment.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

“It’s a pretty big time commitment, though,” she said, standing and coming around to perch on the edge of her desk. “I’ve confirmed that the general schedule for the team is workouts at six thirty a.m. every day, followed by morning classes, then position coach practices for players after lunch—those are only three times a week, thank God. After that, there’s actual practice every day, conditioning three times a week, and then study hall to make sure the players aren’t falling behind. The life of a student athlete is not for the meek.”

My head was spinning. How in the world was I going to do all that by myself and keep up with my studies?

And my job?

It seemed impossible, but I also wasn’t about to say no.

Not to Lilith.

Because the thing of it was, she’d already become more than a professional mentor to me; she was my hero. I didn’t know exactly how old she was, but she was young for what a powerhouse she was at HEFT, as well as the work she did with the NFL. I’d seen hundreds of pictures of her getting sideline shots at important games like the Super Bowl, and she was such an inspiration that I’d rather do almost anything than disappoint her.

“Even though this is your internship ‘assignment,’ it’s work that the AD wants done so you’ll be able to loop it through your job and have access to your usual resources. He okayed pulling someone to be your dedicated counterpart, so if you have a coworker you prefer teaming up with and they’re interested, let me know who that is and I’ll pass on the word.”

So I can still work with Clark. That was a relief, even though I was still completely overwhelmed by what she was proposing.

“Let me ask him, but I’m pretty sure Clark Waters would totally be interested, and he’s great.”

“Wonderful,” she said, picking up her phone to type in Clark’s name. “The details are still being ironed out, Liz, but it’s very likely this little assignment could actually end up in the documentary.”

“What?” That made all other thoughts cease, because until now, the only thing I thought I’d be contributing to a legitimate film documentary was my assistance. “Really?”

She nodded and looked up from her phone. “Obviously my hands are the ones that will be all over the film—I’m terribly territorial and don’t like to share, to be honest. But if this preseason content hits the way I think it will, it’ll be great to have these clips in the first act. Especially the intros.”

“Yeah, um, about the intros,” I said, clearing my throat, unsure exactly what to say. “I feel like there’s something I need to make you aware of.”

“Oh?” Lilith narrowed her eyes and asked, “What is it?”

“Well, it seems that one of the players and I have, uh… a complicated history, I guess you could say.” My cheeks were warm as I explained. “I haven’t seen him in years, and until Friday, I had no idea he was even at UCLA, much less on the baseball team. But I just feel like I should put it out there, before we get started, that I used to have a relationship with Wes Bennett.”

She tilted her head. “The new ace?”

Was that how he was being referred to—the new ace?

“Yes.”

“I see.” She crossed her arms. “Should I be concerned by the word ‘complicated’? Are there issues I should be aware of?”

“No, no,” I corrected, shaking my head. “Nothing like that—it was totally a normal high school dating relationship. I just thought you should know, in case you thought it was a conflict of interest or something.”

“I don’t have any issues with it,” she said slowly, giving me serious eye contact. “As long as you can work with him professionally. Can you?”

“Of course I can,” I exclaimed, nodding wildly. “It’s ancient history, truly.”

“Good,” she said, straightening and walking back around the desk. “So do you think you can juggle your coursework and Hard Knocks? How do you feel about this assignment?”

I definitely can’t juggle it all.

Maybe I can, though…?

I have no idea!

My anxiety-riddled brain was running wild, but when I looked at Lilith, at this inspiring woman who was all over everything, I realized that I could be too.

I mean, of course I could.

Because I wasn’t Little Liz anymore.

I loved where I was in life. I loved my friends, loved my school, and I was obsessed with my internship. I could handle my studies, and I would handle this challenge.

Because if Wes Bennett hadn’t showed up a few days ago, I would be screaming over this opportunity and celebrating my unbelievable good luck.

So I couldn’t let someone from my past, someone I hadn’t seen in years, ruin it for me.

“I can absolutely handle it, and I can’t wait.” I smiled, meaning it, and said, “I think it’s time to get imbedded.”