You Before Anyone Else (17 page)

Finley

I wish I could unsee Eddie's phone coming up with the name Caroline. I shouldn't have looked. But I can't help but be curious. Who's Caroline? An ex? A current fling? We hadn't talked about being exclusive, and we've barely decided to be any kind of “us.” Obviously, he's keeping secrets from me, but I should trust that he's not keeping a secret that would hurt me personally, that would make me regret ever meeting him. But I can't help worrying. Just a little bit.

“Ready?” Eve prompts.

Both of us must have forgotten she was standing there, because Eddie jolts to life. He hesitates before returning his hand to my stomach. For a moment, I want to make him nervous. About us. But it's not that easy. I really am pretty sure that he's not here to hurt me, and that makes it more difficult to ask questions about things like girls who call him and seem to instill the fear of God in him.

I put myself into the position Eve asked for, and Eddie leans in to whisper, “Hey…”

I shake my head, cutting him off. “It's fine—I mean, do you need to—”

“No, it's okay.” He sighs and closes his eyes.

It's not fine or okay. Obviously. But we're fine. Right now at least.

“That looks great,” Eve says. She pauses, getting that glassy-eyed, person-with-an-idea look. “Maybe something a little more tangled up now?”

Eve gives me a look that clearly asks,
Is this okay?
I check on Eddie, who seems to catch our exchange.

“What?” he asks.

“Eve wants you to take your pants off,” I tell him, completely straight-faced.

He goes all deer in headlights, and Eve ruins my fun. “Don't take your pants off.”

“She just wants to know if we can get a little more touchy-feely,” I explain.

“Not what I was asking at all,” Eve says. “I just didn't want it to be awkward if it's, like, your second date, okay?”

Eve showed me sketches she'd made while Eddie had run to the bathroom a little while ago, so I'm more informed on the shots she's hoping to get than Eddie. I suggest she show him the sketches, so she does. Eddie looks them over carefully and then seems to relax. Eve picks one to try next, a pose where Eddie is carrying me, his head dipped like we're about to kiss. He must get really into it, because he ends up actually kissing me, realizes this, and stops abruptly before giving a nervous laugh. He looks up at Eve, who still has her camera up, snapping away.

Eve looks at the photos and laughs. “That last one, your face, Eddie…
Cosmo
might want it for their ‘caught in the act' article.”

Eddie sets me down again, and his neck turns a little pink. “How about you do some more spinning, and I'll stand back and watch again?”

Luckily, between Eve and myself, we're able to coax him back into the set for several more shots.

“Whoa, what's going on in here?” a voice asks after a while longer.

I'd been lying on my back across Eddie's legs while he tied my shoes together. I lift my head and spot Alex walking across the room toward Eve. He's all sweaty, probably from the gym.

“Eddie is getting a lesson in couples photo shoots,” Eve explains.

We hang out while Eve shows Alex some of the shots she's gotten so far. I'm expecting to see some typical Alex—cracking jokes and pretending he's not very smart—but he makes comments on several of the photos and then flips back to stop on a previous one. “This. I like this.”

I roll off Eddie and move over to look at the camera. It's a picture of me doing a pirouette. My hair is flying loose all around me. And two feet behind me, Eddie is standing there watching, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his eyes full of…well…I'm not really sure what.

“Hey, I thought I wasn't in that shot.” Eddie slides right behind me, looking over my shoulder. His warm breath on my skin is enough to cause goose bumps.

Eve looks at Alex. “It's my favorite too.”

She hands me the camera. “Here, look all you want. Alex can help me pack up.”

Eddie reaches around me and takes over the controls. He brings me closer, curled against him, before he flips slowly through one picture after another, the tension between us melting more with each image.

“You look so pretty,” he says when we're back to the beginning again. “And…striking.”

“And you look…”
In love.
But I can't say it, because I'm afraid it'll show. That maybe I'm feeling it too. “…hot.”

He pretends to be offended and makes a big show out of retrieving his shirt and putting it back on. By the time we're heading down the elevator with Alex and Eve and the remaining equipment, things seem to be back to the light and fun we ended on last night.

“Lunch on me?” Eve offers.

“I'm in,” I say, and Eddie agrees.

Eve leans in to sniff Alex's shirt. “Outside somewhere is probably best. Did you actually run from the gym to Brooklyn? Because it smells like you did.”

Alex makes a big show of giving her a sweaty hug, and then Eddie and I try to con Eve out of details about where she's planning to use our photos while we walk toward the lobby of the building.

“You'll know before. I swear, I'd never use anything without your permission,” she assures us. “It's really nothing yet, and I don't want to jinx it.”

I look at Alex, my eyes narrowed. “You know, don't you?”

He avoids eye contact while holding the door open. I'm about to pester him more, but Eddie takes my hand and pulls me outside into the warm summer air.

“Which way do you want to—” Eve starts to ask.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” someone shouts, someone female.

Eddie clutches my fingers and comes to a dead stop. I do the same, and Alex and Eve both crash into me from behind.

A petite brunette stands in front of us, her glare fixed on Eddie, her hair and flowery sundress blowing in the wind. My gaze drifts downward, focusing on her big, swollen belly. Like a basketball's been shoved beneath her dress.

“What the hell are you doing?” she shouts again at Eddie.

I feel him stop breathing, his gaze, like mine, fixated on her stomach. He drops my hand and swallows hard. “Caroline…”

Caroline. The phone cal
l earlier.

Nobody moves a muscle. But the girl gets right in front of Eddie. “Look at me and tell me you didn't refuse to sign those papers? Tell me it's all a sick joke someone is playing on me!”

Alex sets a hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze like he's debating pulling me back, away from any potential threats. Eddie's mouth falls open, but he doesn't speak a single word. This seems to say enough for the girl. Her face twists with anger, and tears fall at too fast a rate for her to wipe them away.

“Fuck you, Eddie!” She turns her back to us and heads quickly across the street, barely noticing the cars drifting by.

My stomach is in all kinds of knots, my head a jumbled mess, but I notice Eddie still frozen in place. I tug his sleeve, and when he doesn't respond, I say, “Eddie!”

He turns to look at us, completely shell shocked. “I…I'm—” He shoots a glance at the retreating pregnant girl and then back at us. “I have to—”

“Yeah, go ahead, man,” Alex says when no one else speaks up.

Eddie's gaze lingers on me for a moment, and I spit out the one last possible bit of hope I have. “That's not your, um, sister, is it?”

I already knew that. His sister's name isn't Caroline.

“No.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “I'm sorry, I—” His eyes stay on me for a beat longer, and then he takes off after the crying pregnant girl.

I'm completely numb when I turn and look at Alex and Eve. Eve tries out a few words before settling on, “Do you—I mean, do you know what that's—”

“No.” I start walking. Somewhere. I don't know where. And they both follow. “I don't know anything.”

Except maybe I do. If I rewind my life and play back everything Eddie has said to me since we first met, I think I know.

“Are you okay?” Alex asks me.

“I don't know.” I shake my head. “Probably not.”

They don't say anything for a little while. Not until we're getting off the subway near my apartment. Eve clears her throat a few times before she says, “You don't think they're, like…together?”

“I don't know,” I say yet again. “But I don't think so.”

“So maybe it's just the…” Alex starts to mime a pregnant belly, and Eve grabs his hand, stopping him.

She turns around in front of me. “I'm gonna come inside with you. Hang out for a while.”

“Yeah, okay.” I don't know what else to do except wait for Eddie to fill in the many missing pieces.

Eddie

I dart across the street, not bothering with the crosswalk. “Caroline!”

She attempts to speed up her walk but isn't able to. My head is pounding from emotional overload. From seeing her. I haven't seen her in nearly two months. And God, her stomach—I mean, I knew what was in there, but…

“Caroline!” I finally reach her and jump in front of her, blocking the way. “Please just listen to me.”

Tears streak down her face. She shakes her head. “You lied to me! How could you?”

An ache spreads across my chest. “I just—I can't do it. I can't sign my kid away.”

The words come out so fast and easy but carry an unbearable weight. It's the first time I've said it out loud.
My
kid.

“What the hell are you going to do, Eddie?” she snaps. “Raise a kid by yourself?”

She tries to step around me, but I rest my hands on her shoulders, stopping her. My gaze drifts down again—I can't get over that stomach—and I quickly avert my eyes. “Listen…I've got a plan. I've been working—”

She groans. “You are such a fucking idiot.”

A couple walks by, pushing a stroller. The woman glares at us.

“You're not even at Princeton, are you?” Caroline asks but doesn't wait for an answer. “Where are you going to live? Who's going to take care of a baby while you work? Your parents will never speak to you again.”

“I know.” I close my eyes briefly and exhale, all my built-up anxieties hitting me at once. “I get it. It'll be hard, but I'm—”

“And what about me?” she shouts, a fresh batch of tears rolling down her face. “I signed those papers. I had a plan—”

“They're just preliminary agreements.” My heart pounds, my mind racing. “You could—”

“No, I can't!” Some of the venom drops from her voice, and she's that vulnerable girl again. The one who sat outside the clinic and cried until I finally convinced her to leave. “I don't want to be a parent. Not yet. I'm—I'm going to London. With RJ.”

RJ. Jesus. He must know already. He's going to fucking kill me.

Caroline starts to say something, and then she winces and wraps an arm over her stomach. “Jesus Christ.”

“What? What's wrong?” I'm already looking around in case I need to shout for help. She exhales and shakes her head as if to say
it's fine
. But I steer her to a bench anyway, and luckily, she sits. For a minute, I can't think of anything to say. I'm too distracted, watching this girl who I've known my whole life, lower herself to the bench, sitting with her shoulders pressed back, belly popping out. She tilts her head back and rubs a hand over her stomach, making big circles.

She catches me staring. “What?”

“Nothing.” I plop down beside her and try to focus on her face. That lasts a good two seconds. “It's just…you're so different.”

“You mean fat.” She rolls her eyes. “I've been told it's normal to expand a little when a human is growing inside you, but I'm thinking of getting a second opinion.”

“Not fat,” I argue. “Well, a little bit. But just the way you sit, the way you move around. It's different.”

“How did this happen?” she asks, despite the fact that we've long ago exhausted this argument. “What's wrong with us? Why are we so fucked up that we can't see how wrong it is to get high and sleep with your friend?”

Well, I can definitely see the wrong in it now. But I keep that to myself. It won't help.

Tentatively, I place an arm around her shoulders. She leans against me, her body slumped over from exhaustion.

“And why can't I stop saying fuck?” she asks. “This kid's going to come out swearing like a truck driver.”

Now that she's a tad bit calmed, I can ask, “How did you find me here?”

“Find My Friends.”

Damn. I should have known better. I need to do something about that. Although I already blocked that from my old phone, the one I only use to contact my family now.

“I called first,” she says when I don't respond. “And I was in the neighborhood.”

I lift an eyebrow. “You were in the neighborhood?”

“My parents went to the Hamptons, and the maid had a family emergency, so I snuck out to see RJ.”

RJ and Caroline got together right after our…night together. He's the type of guy her family would never want her to date—poor, immigrant parents from India, on a full scholarship to Groton, her school. He's also a decent guy. More decent than me. More than most people.

“How is RJ?” I ask.

She laughs, but there's no humor in it. “Pissed as hell at you.”

I swallow hard. Shit. “How are you? I mean, like…” I wave a hand in front of her stomach.

“Good. Considering I'm ginormous. Everything is normal.” She chokes back tears. “But it sucks. Not seeing RJ. Not seeing you. It's just me and this…baby. And it's—”

“He,” I correct.

Her jaw tenses. “He's not supposed to be anything to me. You can't do this, Eddie. Please just—” She sighs and squeezes her eyes shut, tilting her face toward the sun. “You don't know what this is like for me. You don't have to carry this kid around. You don't have to wonder what he's thinking, if he knows my voice by heart. You think you can just decide to be a parent and do it. It's not that fucking easy! And what about me? How do you think I feel, being the one who gave him up? I have to live with that forever, and knowing you aren't—”

She stops, too close to full-on sobbing to talk.

Guilt eats through me, but it's nothing new. I've thought about this long and hard already. Since that day at the clinic six months ago, when she couldn't go through with it. I hadn't felt guilty then, but I knew I would be in the same position when it came time to sign those papers.

I pull my arm from around her shoulders and scoot back a couple inches so I can see her face. “I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”

She covers her face with both hands, crying now. “Just go, Eddie.”

“Let me help you get back home,” I say. “We can—”

“No!” She drops her hands and looks at me in a way that says
do not mess with me now
. “I can get myself home. Please go away.”

I do as I'm told, but instead of going home, I text RJ, telling him I'm coming over. He might throw a punch or say something smart and logical that will completely change my mind, but despite those risks, I have to talk to him face-to-face. I owe him that much. He's never looked down on me. Never treated me like the guy who got his girlfriend pregnant. And he's been there for Caroline when I couldn't be. When I should have. Ignoring him this summer hasn't been easy.

He doesn't live far from here. I walk the seven or eight blocks to his neighborhood, and he's waiting outside, sitting on the steps in front of his family's apartment. He stands when he sees me, and I slow my walk. RJ isn't exactly bigger than me, only an inch or two taller, but he's fierce when he needs to be. Considering the distress I've put his girlfriend in, I'd say this might be one of those need-to-be situations.

“I'm not gonna side with you,” he says right away, the tension clear in his tone.

“I know that.” I lift my hands up, hoping the surrender will save me a black eye. “But I still had to come here. Say it to your face.”

RJ's hands clutch into fists but he keeps them down at his sides. “You didn't see her when she found out, man. She's wrecked. What if she can't snap out of this? What if she changes her mind just because of you? Is that what you want?”

I shake my head. “Of course not. But if I sign those papers, the real ones next month, that's what I would be doing…changing my mind because of Caroline. Because it will make her feel worse if I don't choose the same as she does.”

Several different emotions seem to cross his face. And then he looks down at the ground, strings half a dozen swearwords together, making the last one, “Fuuuck,” nice and clear.

I hold perfectly still, not sure what's about to happen. Finally, RJ looks up at the sky in that
God help me
way and then says, “You want a drink or something?”

I force out a short laugh. “Yeah, sure.”

RJ charges up the steps, but I hesitate before following him inside. “Anybody home?”

He's got three younger siblings plus his grandmother and parents crammed in a three-bedroom apartment. Before today, they knew me as the rich kid who got into Princeton, friend of RJ's girlfriend, not the guy who got her pregnant, but I'm not sure if that's changed, and if it has changed…

“Nah,” he says, and I follow him. “They went to my aunt and uncle's anniversary party. If they come back early and ask, I've been studying organic chemistry all day.”

The scent of curry and clean laundry wafts through the hall and continues into RJ's apartment. He opens the fridge and lists off the beverage options.

“Water,” I say before taking a stroll around the kitchen, glancing at the awards and photos of science projects pinned to the walls. I catch the bottle of water he tosses me.

He lifts the lid on a slow cooker sitting on the counter. I move closer and take a peek. Some kind of chicken in yellow curry sauce that smells amazing. “Want some?” RJ asks.

“Definitely.” I glance over at the eight pairs of shoes lined up near the front door. “Unless that's supposed to be dinner? I don't want to get you in trouble.”

RJ rolls his eyes. “My mom made it all for me. Study fuel.”

“And you were here with your girlfriend instead,” I joke. “You asshole.”

He gives me a look that's half guilty, half pissed off. They must have had some fun before she got the bad news.

He dishes out food for both of us, and when we're sitting at the table, he dives in with all the logic I was worried about. “So where are you going to live?”

I shrug. “Not sure yet. Somewhere outside of New York.” I think of Finley's warm comfortable home. “Maybe Connecticut.”

“Expensive as hell. Have you even started looking for a place?” he asks with his mouth full. When I don't react, he sets his fork down and looks right at me. “What are you hiding, Eddie? It's like you're not worried about money at all. Your parents aren't gonna do shit. They must have paid a fortune to keep all this quiet, plus the private agency? When they find out—”

“Swear you won't tell anyone?” I ask, my stomach knotting at the thought of letting this secret out. “Probably not even Caroline.”

He thinks on this for a minute and then nods.

“My grandmother set up a trust for me. One I never in a million years thought I'd get access to. But I will. Because of…you know, the kid.”

RJ raises an eyebrow. “She left money for your kid, and you're using it to take care of him?”

“It's for me. If I ever become a father. I used to tell her all the time that I'd never have kids, mostly because I hated my parents so much.”

“Your dad's financial people will find a way to get access to that money or at least keep you from it,” RJ says. He actually looks a little disappointed, like I should have thought of these things myself. And I have.

“My parents don't even know about the trust, let alone the terms. They don't have any access to it and haven't ever, even before I turned eighteen. She made sure of that. And her lawyer confirmed it last month. The only person who could receive that money besides me is any potential child of mine, like if I died or went to prison.”

Now I've impressed him.

“How much are we talking about?” RJ asks, shoveling chicken and rice into his mouth.

I take a huge bite before I answer him—the food is delicious, and I'm starving. “A couple million, I think.”

He tries to look cool, but the shock is there on his face. “This isn't why you're not signing—”

“No!” I say right away. “Are you kidding me? If I wanted money, all I have to do is show up for my Princeton classes. Sometimes. Keep my dad happy and let him give me a company title. Plus my trust fund from my parents is way more than a couple million.”

“God,” RJ says, shaking his head. “You rich kids and your complicated as fuck lives. Jesus. Should I go this way and get two million, or this way and get twenty million? Oh no, I can't decide. It's so complicated.”

I launch my water bottle at him, but he catches it easily, but both of us are laughing now. “Let me put things into perspective for you.” I scarf down another bite, trying not to burn my tongue. “Neither of my parents have ever cooked a meal for me. I have no memory of being hugged by them. Ever. They've never taken me to the zoo or the park or came to ‘eat lunch with your kid at school' day. Once every few months, I'll get a call or a text actually from them. But almost always, they talk to me through their assistants or the—”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” he concedes. “But it's hard to sympathize. I mean, the problems we could solve in my family with a little more money. But you will have that. Money.”

I nod. He's right. “Not for a few months. And I don't want to use it, not all of it. Just enough to live on modestly. Decent neighborhood, two-bedroom apartment, cheap car, public school…” I look up to make sure he's still with me. “And I haven't touched a penny from my parents all summer. Haven't swiped the family credit card in weeks. I've been living on practically nothing, out of my backpack. I've got some money saved now from working—”

“Really? What are you doing for work?”

“Um…” I glance at the microwave behind him and scratch the back of my head. “Modeling.”

RJ chokes on the sip of water he just took, spraying it everywhere. “No shit? Like what?”

“Mark Jacobs, American Eagle, Levis, Hollister, Alexander Wang,” I rattle off.