You Before Anyone Else (15 page)

“Yeah, you know? Where I ‘live.'” He uses air quotes on
live
and then turns around, heading out of sight.

That made no sense, but whatever. I know nothing about movie stars.

I take Finley's hand and steer her out of there before we get caught up in any more conversations. It's warm and clear outside, the sky lit up by all that is New York City. “If we weren't wearing the wrong shoes, I think I'd opt for walking back.”

Beside me, Finley tilts her head to look up at the sky. “Me too.”

Instead, we get a cab, and the ride back to our building goes way too fast. I'm not sure why I wanted to leave so urgently, considering there isn't really anywhere to be alone. But when we approach Finley's apartment door, she looks at me and says, “You're coming in, right?”

Finley

Is it a bad sign that Eddie is hesitating? Isn't that what he meant when he said he wanted to leave?

“I didn't mean—I just…” he starts and then stops. “Do you want me to come in?”

Some of the worry falls away. “I wouldn't have asked if I didn't.”

Once I've got the door unlocked, he touches his fingers to my wrist, stopping me again. “What about Elana? And her mom.”

I touch a finger to my lips. “Walk quietly.”

This time, I don't wait for his response. And he follows me, his feet not giving even the smallest creak against the floors. Once we're in my room, I turn on music, not loud, just enough to keep our voices from projecting outside of the room.

Eddie glances at my dresser top then picks up a little plaster creature Connor made me in school a couple months ago. “It's weird being here now. Not strangers.”

“Sober,” I add. I watch Eddie move around the room, studying objects, keeping far too much space between us. It's surprising, considering how cool and confident he'd been during the party. Not to mention all the touching. Which I quite enjoyed. “We can just hang out. I don't want you to think I'm taking advantage of you.”

“Now that's a thought…” Eddie turns around to face me. He's wearing an amused expression—exactly what I'd hoped for—and he takes a couple steps in my direction. “You've gone all wild rebel, haven't you?”

My foot catches on the basket where I keep all my knitting supplies. “Yep. Totally.”

Eddie reaches a hand to steady me and then slides his fingers in mine. He looks so far away inside his head, I have to ask him what's on his mind.

“I was just thinking…” He pulls our hands to his chest.

“Yeah?”

The smallest brush of his mouth against my knuckles sends my heart racing again. But still, Eddie doesn't make a move. “About the first time we did this and how much I remember and how little you remember…”

“And?” We both step closer, and the little bit of space between us vanishes. My heart beats fast against my chest.

Eddie dips his head, his lips touching my hair. “That seems important, you know? And then I was thinking about something Toby said to me right before we left.” He releases one of my hands, freeing it to slide down my back. “He said there's a hundred different ways to do everything, and I was thinking about how true that is.”

I'm starting to wonder if Eddie ever had a single shallow bone in his entire body. I wanted him to be that way. It might be the only reason I saw him like that in the beginning. I don't think he actually did anything to prove this theory.

I rest a hand on his cheek, moving my thumb over his jawline. “And how do you want it to be different this time?”

I'm half expecting some humorous if not dirty comment with specifically what should be added to the big event. But instead, Eddie says, “I want you to tell me something I don't know about you.”

“Like what?” I ask, but when I see how serious he is, how intensely his gaze locks with mine, I know he doesn't want a fluffy story; he wants to know me. Even the ugly stuff I keep on lockdown. “After my mom died, when my dad was still in the hospital…”

Eddie takes my hand from his face and holds onto it. “Yeah?”

“My grandma had to run to the store, and I promised her I'd watch the boys really closely. She'd been at my house, taking care of us twenty-four seven, and she just needed to get a prescription filled.” I pull in a breath, surprised by how shaky it is. “The boys were in their pack 'n' play on the back porch sleeping, and I must have dozed off while laying out in the sun. I woke up when I heard the splash. Braden had climbed out of the playpen and walked right into the pool.

“For a second, I froze up. I couldn't move. My mom was the one who anticipated these things—she was the one who kept everyone alive. I mean, I knew how to feed the boys and change diapers, but I was too busy with my friends and with dance classes. I think that's why I froze. If she had been alive, I would have yelled for her. She would have gotten to the pool before me. Hell, she would have gotten there before Braden even fell in. But she wasn't there.”

Even though Eddie looks about as haunted by that memory as I am, he still says, “It was an accident.”

“Yeah, it was,” I agree. “And it wasn't the first time either of the boys had gotten close to the pool like that. But this time,
I
was the one jumping in to get Braden. It was so real. She was gone. And I had to be her now. I haven't been able to stop worrying about them since. My dad teases me all the time about being paranoid and overprotective, but he doesn't get it. That I have to be. He wasn't there. I don't think he'd believe me if I told him it was a sign. From my mom. Or God. Or the universe. I don't know.”

I stop talking and look Eddie over carefully. I'm already regretting the sharing session. That's not a story I tell people. Like ever. “Not what you were hoping to hear, was it?”

He hesitates long enough to make me nervous and for me to notice how blue his eyes are, even in the dim light of my room. Then his hands are touching my face, and his mouth is on mine. I fall into him, in every sense of the words. And every movement that follows, every touch, is fueled with depth that is so much more than…than before. How much different would it be if I told him something else? Another secret I keep close to me? And something else after that?

I'm breathless, my hands working the buttons on Eddie's shirt, his fingers toying with the zipper on my dress, when I think to say, “What about you? Aren't you going to tell me something I don't know about you?”

He stops messing with my zipper and nods. “That night at the party? When we came up here… I've never done that before. Not like that anyway. Not with someone I didn't know.”

“Never?” I was right about Eddie lacking the shallow player guy persona I pinned him with in the beginning. When he shakes his head in response, I ask, “Why did you do it?”

I mean, I know why I did it. But him? I don't know. And hearing that it's a singular event for him, the why seems important.

“At first I wasn't going to,” he admits. “It seemed like a bad idea for me because of—since all that shit happened last winter. But then you just seemed so…different. More. I just really liked you.” He smiles. “Like you. I really like you. Present tense.”

My fingers slide back to the untouched buttons on his shirt, and I try to imagine being inside Eddie's head several weeks ago, meeting me, being led into my room…but it's hard not to add what I know now about him to that memory. It really does change everything.

“Plus, there was your beer pong skills,” he adds. “That was hot. Big selling point.”

I laugh. “Told you I only did it to seduce you.”

“It worked.”

After I've gotten his shirt off, Eddie is still working the zipper of my borrowed dress. “I think…I think it's stuck.”

“Huh.” I'm too distracted by forthcoming activities to grasp what he's saying at first, and then my face is hot for completely different reasons. “I had to squeeze into it.”

Eddie tugs me toward the bed and sits on the edge. “Turn around.”

The only light is a dim lamp over my dresser. I'm hoping Eddie doesn't get a glimpse of any marks on my skin from the constricting clothing. “I can't believe she's a size double zero. Then again, she eats, like, nothing and is super tall. I should have worn something else. But shoving everything in
did
give me cleavage.”

“I noticed.” I can feel Eddie smiling behind me. His fingertips brush my skin. “Hang on. I'm gonna try to do this carefully.”

I'd been fine all night in this dress, but now that I want it off and that's not happening, the material feels even more tight and restricting. I shift from one foot to the other. “Any luck?”

“Got some tweezers handy?”

“Tweezers?” I tug at the top and then attempt to lift the bottom and allow some air to flow underneath. “Is it hot in here?”

“Or I can just use scissors.”

“What? No!”

“Kidding.” Eddie plants a kiss on the back of my neck and then rifles through items strewn across my dresser top until he locates a pair of tweezers.

I continue to wiggle around uncontrollably. Beads of sweat form on my forehead, chest, and back.

“I think I've”—Eddie hands the tweezers forward for me to hold, and then finally, the material gives, and my lungs expand with fresh oxygen—“got it.”

I sigh with relief while the zipper glides all the way to my lower back. I step out of the dress and rub my sore ribs while Eddie drapes the dress over a chair in the corner of my room. “You're my savior.”

He laughs and ditches his shirt, which I left hanging open. He takes a seat on the edge of the bed and turns me to face him. “Completely selfless act.”

My heart is thudding again, watching him examine the crease lines along my sides. He traces a finger over my skin and says, “Jesus, that really was tight.”

I give his shoulder a shove. “Thanks!”

Eddie laughs again, his hands firmly grasping my hips. “I didn't mean it like that.”

When I don't instantly forgive him, he hooks an arm around my waist, stands, and lifts me up in the process. “Look how light you are. I can lift you with one arm.”

Before I can protest, he tosses me gently onto the bed, then slides in beside me. “Nice move.”

Eddie leans in and kisses me. He pulls back and grins. “You're beautiful. And perfect. Obviously, that dress is fucked up.”

“Obviously,” I agree. It's more fun to get on this train than the one where I stuff myself into my thinner roommate's designer dress. Yeah, let's not do that again.

“I probably haven't told you that enough,” Eddie says, and then he disappears from view, his head dipped low enough for him to kiss me right below the tiny bow on my bra. “I haven't really been descriptive either.”

“Descrip—” My breath catches the second Eddie's mouth is on the outside of my bra, and I can't complete the word.

“Yeah,” he says. “Like telling you how much I love this little patch of skin…” He pulls back a couple inches and strokes a finger over the top of my bra. “It's at least ten or twenty percent softer than the rest of your skin. Have you noticed?”

“Ten or twenty percent, huh? I haven't noticed.”

“Not touching yourself enough, apparently.”

I laugh, probably a little too loud.

“Shh.” Eddie slides upward and covers my mouth with his. “Don't wake the crazy French lady.”

“Sorry.” I swallow back more laughter and force a straight face. “Continue.”

He takes his time, covering nearly every inch of me, voicing observations about various parts of my body until I can't think or breathe or hold still any longer.

I nudge Eddie onto his back and lean over him. “Let me look at you…”

A grin spreads across his face, and he lays still, watching my hands roam over his chest.

Maybe this is the definition of summer fling? Finding someone you can be with like this, uninhibited. Not bogged down with thoughts of the future. Not bogged down with thoughts of much else outside of this moment and us.

A bit later, I've inspected Eddie as thoroughly as he'd done with me, tossing his pants beside the discarded shirt. I place my lips over his heart, feeling the rapid beat increase in speed.

“Come here,” he says, reaching for me.

I move quicker than he expected, causing our noses to bump together. I start to laugh, but it's cut off by Eddie's mouth crashing into mine. An involuntary sigh escapes—he really is a great kisser. I'm so caught up in it, I don't notice being turned over until I open my eyes and see my ceiling fan over his shoulder. A thumb hooks into the waistband of my panties, and I immediately shift around, trying to help him remove them faster.

“Okay?” Eddie asks, a question in his eyes.

He waits for me to nod, even though I pretty much flung the panties off myself. My bra is unfastened shortly after, but he takes an agonizingly long time sliding the straps down my shoulders and pulling the whole thing off. The kiss that follows, with almost no clothing between us now, is so intense, I can hardly stand it.

I walk my fingers sideways, feeling for the small drawer in my nightstand. I nearly tip the whole thing over, and Eddie has to reach over and open it for me.

He glances inside and removes something, holding it out in front of me. “Nice. SweeTARTS. Is this what you wanted?”

He pops one in my mouth—a purple one—and then takes the pink one that follows. I'm about to protest, but he quickly ditches the candy and reaches in again, holding up a condom. I pat him on the head. “Well done.”

“Need anything else?” he asks, giving the drawer another glance. “Nail polish, lotion, takeout Chinese menu?”

“Stalling?” My fingers tap gently against the waistband of his boxer briefs.

In response, Eddie removes his final article of clothing and is ready in seconds. He pauses for a moment to ask again if I'm okay. I reach up and tangle my hands in his hair, bringing our mouths together and kissing him until he's sure that I'm sure.

• • •

“Let me get this straight,” I say to Eddie, who looks about as good as he ever will, stretched out at the end of my bed in his underwear. “You had friends in high school who've been in boarding school since they were eight?”

One of my SweeTARTS is poised between his fingertips, preparing to land in the cup I'm holding. I invented this twenty questions, beer pong game with candy instead, but Eddie's gotten super into it. I'm almost out of candy.

“You're from Connecticut, Fin. Boarding school is a huge thing there. How come you don't know all this already?”