You Before Anyone Else (4 page)

Finley

“What are they shooting over there?” Eddie's leaning a little too close to me while we both sneak a peek at the studio beside ours.

I spot a familiar face standing near the stylist.

“Prada,” I say, working hard to keep the jealousy out of my voice. “It's for the fall-winter line.”

“Isn't that—”

“My roommate, Summer,” I finish for Eddie.

Unlike my giant birthday cake set, Summer's spotlight is under an elegant, makeshift dance studio with a white grand piano in the center. The dress she's wearing is absolutely gorgeous. It's short, light purple, and it flares out like a tutu. Her hair is piled in a bun on top of her head. At five eleven, Summer easily has a couple inches on me. My five eight status is something all my agents have tried to hide or divert attention from. And now I see why. Those three inches look like a foot under the lights with the dress and the set.

My stomach sinks. A wild, edgy side might not be enough to get me here.

Summer looks up and spots me. I give her a little wave. But then, after wrapping up my last shots and saying good-bye to the crew, I take a stab at being a good sport and walk over there to say hi. Behind me, Eddie gets called back to set, and some of the day's anxiety lifts off me, knowing he'll go his way after this and I can go mine. Not that he isn't nice to look at. Not that I didn't love his hands on me last night. But the beauty of all of that lies in the moment. Not the future. At least, I think it does.

“This is kind of amazing,” I say when I reach Summer.

She's standing behind a chair, leaning into it, her face filled with anxiety. “Yeah, how about I go stand on top of your birthday cake and you can try balancing in these?”

Summer's height drops a few inches, and she sticks out a foot, revealing a pointe shoe dyed purple to match her dress. Okay, so I'm not going crazy. She really did look taller all of a sudden. “You shouldn't stand in those if you don't know how.”

“Try telling him that,” she snaps, nodding toward the photographer less than twenty feet away.

I squat down to examine the shoes more closely. The ribbons are incorrectly sewn, as are the elastics. And they aren't broken in at all. I tap her right foot. “Drop your heels.”

She lowers to the floor, but when I push her feet out into wide second position, her toes curl over. “Those shoes are too small for you.”

Summer shifts to one foot and shakes out the other, like her circulation is cut off. “Figures. My feet are too big for Prada. All the dieting in the world won't fix that.”

My mom had a saying, one I'd heard too many times to count:
your shoes are your instrument
. I watched her stand in front of countless ecstatic eleven-year-old girls and recite that piece of wisdom before their first pointe class. She would have had a heart attack watching anyone's feet being shoved into a shoe that's so obviously the wrong size.

“Why do you need to stand in these? Can't they just drape you across the piano and show off your matching feet or something?”

“The ballet shoe heels,” Summer explains and then gestures at four girls in wardrobe right now. They're all wearing identical dresses to Summer's except different colors—one orange, one pink, a nude, and another in light blue. The heels they're wearing are a boot style that travel almost to the knee, and the front mimics a pointe shoe, giving the leg a longer, slimmer look. And emphasizing that “beauty is pain” message high fashion folks love to spread.

I look back down at Summer's feet. Now it makes sense. She's going to stand up and show the comparison between pointe shoes and the ballet heels. Even without turning my head, I hear the distinct sound of one of the girls stumbling in those heels.

There's a lot of commotion on set with all the assistants testing lights and shifting props, trying to get everything perfect.

“Sit,” I order.

She bites her lip like she's nervous, which is not very Summer-like behavior, but eventually, she plops down, her knees shaking. I peel the shoes off and start the process of warming them up, first flexing the shank, allowing for easier bending. I bring both shoes closer to my face and inhale the familiar scent. I'm immediately transported to an empty, dust-covered studio in Connecticut. One that's waiting to be brought back to life.

I shake those thoughts from my head and quickly kick off my flip-flops and slide my feet into the purple pointe shoes. They're a little big, but I shut down my mother's voice, lecturing me about the importance of a proper fit. I stand and then rise up to half relevé, pushing my arches forward with the hope of giving the shoes a wider range of motion.

Summer stays on the floor, rubbing her toes. “How do you get your feet to go sideways like that?”

I rest a hand on the chair Summer had been holding with a death grip moments ago and push all the way onto my toes. And just like that, I'm inches taller. The rush of adrenaline makes it easy to ignore the pain in my feet from lack of practice and zero padding in the toes.

Summer's mouth falls open. “Forget the sideways feet. How do you do that?”

“Practice.” Hours and hours of practice. A wardrobe of leotards and tights and very little else. Bloody toes and sore muscles. The inability to walk across wood floors in socks without doing at least one pirouette. I'm not sure if my body can move that way anymore, but it's all still in my head. And my heart.

“Okay, but how do I fake it in a matter of minutes?” Summer asks, bringing me back to the reason I put on the shoes in the first place.

I release the chair and drop my heels, then press back up on pointe a few times in a row. “I'm hoping to make these bend a little easier for you. Let me see your toe point?”

She stares blankly at me.

“Point your feet.”

Summer's toes curl over. She's slightly flat-footed but supporting herself decently. Probably helps that she wears heels all the time. Prada is lucky her ankles aren't weak, because she could have broken a bone just by attempting to stand in pointe shoes. Obviously, the creative talent behind this concept knows nothing about ballet.

“Summer, we're ready for you!” the photographer's assistant calls.

I do one quick pirouette and then lower to my normal height and quickly remove a shoe. By now, the photographer has taken notice of me and is striding this way.

He points to the remaining purple shoe on my right foot, then the one in my left hand. “What is this?”

For a second, the anxiety returns to Summer's face, and then she pulls it together, arms folded over her chest, diva expression plastered on.
Now
she looks like the daughter of
Vogue
's top creative director.

“What is this?” Summer repeats, giving me a nod. “A professional. That's what. Did you think I'd be able to master an art form that takes years of practice in an hour? You want me in this shoot, and you want this concept, then I'm gonna get it fucking right. And hopefully without a broken bone.”

His face changes from suspicious to sympathetic, maybe even a little nervous. “Of course, sweetheart, whatever you need.”

My jaw drops open. Wow. So this is what it's like to make it big. Maybe if I tell off a few photographers, I can get the diva label and start booking some big jobs? That definitely wasn't sweet and innocent, that's for sure.

“Finley?” Summer says, lifting her eyebrows, passing on a silent message to me. “What's your professional opinion regarding these shoes and my ability to stand in them for the shoot?”

“Um…well…” I look at the shoe in my hand and then quickly remove the other one. “They're a bit small for her. If she had the correct size, it might make it easier to—”

“We have plenty more.” The photographer lifts a cloth from a nearby table, revealing more than a dozen boxes of pointe shoes.

I hesitate, my gaze drifting between the shoes and the two of them. What am I doing?

“The right size, Finley…” Summer prompts.

“Oh, yeah.” I kneel on the floor and sift through the boxes, pulling out a size that I know will at least be better. I spot a package of toe pads as well and grab one of those. “Try these.”

The photographer stands there watching. His hovering makes me nervous, so I busy myself searching for a pair close to my size. I locate a box on the very bottom of the stack and remove them. These shoes are nude colored instead of purple.

“These feel better,” Summer says after getting both shoes on. “Especially with the padding in the toe.”

I tell her to take them off again and go through the same process of bending them with my hands. Then I put on the nude-colored pair and show her how to break them in by doing pliés and half relevés. When I push up all the way onto my toes, the photographer claps and says, “Brilliant!”

For a moment, I'm five years old again, looking into the studio mirror, attempting to mimic the brown-haired woman beside me, dancing on top of her toes. Back then, it had looked like magic to me.

Relax your shoulders, Fin. Real ballerinas have loooong necks, like
a giraffe.

Goose bumps pop up all over my arms, the voice in my head surrounding me like a cool breeze.

“Do you need her legs to be straight?” I ask, forcing myself back to the present.

“Yes, straight long legs,” he says.

Summer's flat feet will make standing straight very difficult. “What if she's facing backward, leaning against the piano?”

His face wrinkles, and he scratches the back of his head. With a sigh, I walk over to the set and place my hands on the slick surface of the piano, going up on my toes. Both he and Summer follow. He doesn't say anything, but I can hear him thinking, trying to rearrange the concept. I grab Summer and put her in my place. Leaning against the piano, she manages to get all the way on her toes, but her face wrinkles in pain.

“Is it supposed to hurt this much?” she whispers to me.

“Another reason to have the back of your head to the camera. You can glance over your shoulder and get some face in the shot,” I say.

“Maybe,” the photographer finally says, then grabs one girl at a time and arranges them in different poses around Summer, all of their calves long and flexing in response to the heels and pointe shoes.

The assistant is beside him now, both of them speaking in a mix of French and English. I catch a few words from the assistant when he says, “I still like her standing on top of the piano better, but this works too.”

Standing on pointe on the piano? Jesus. She would have broken more than an ankle. But then again, what's more edgy than a broken neck from a modeling shoot, right?

I back away from the set, allowing the lighting people to make the proper changes, but I don't get all the way out before I bump into someone. I spin around, and I'm pressed up against Eddie.

Like last night. Except with clothes on this time.

He drops a hand onto my shoulder to steady me. “So, Finley Belton…you're harboring a secret talent?”

My face heats, and I can't look him in the eye. That whole “we had sex” thing really makes small talk difficult. I bend down and remove the nude-colored pointe shoes. “Yeah, apparently, I'm a professional consultant for Summer. Looking forward to sending her the bill for my expert services.”

He's back in his normal clothes again, the curly hair returned to its semi-unruly state, and by the looks of it, he's gone through great effort to wipe his face clean of all makeup. In fact, his skin looks red from scrubbing so hard.

“You're all done for the day?” Lame. Like I said, small talk is weird. Maybe any talking after last night is weird? I'm in brand-new territory, so I have no idea what this is supposed to be like.

“Yep, thank God,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “That was torturous. I don't know how you do this all the time.”

“Well, it pays the bills.” I hold up the shoes, looking for an excuse to end this conversation. “I better return these.”

“I'll go with you. We can walk out together.”

Great.

I have to walk past the Prada set to get my flip-flops and bag. Summer catches my eye and mouths, “thank you.”

Coming from a spoiled diva model, that's quite the kind gesture. And even though today sucked, it was nice to be good at something. To feel like I belonged, even if my consultant position was made up on the spot.

I try to return the nude-colored pointe shoes to the stylist, but she waves a hand and says, “Keep them. We were told they can't be reused.”

It's hard to tell if she's unhappy that I “ruined” an extra pair of shoes or not, but whatever. I tuck the shoes into my bag and head for the elevator, feeling the heat of Eddie beside me.

He reaches for the down button and then leans against the wall, facing me. “Tell me about ballerina Finley. I'm only familiar with model Finley.”

I sigh again and contemplate banging my head against the wall. This is so not how you do a one-night stand. Besides, how familiar could he even be with model Finley? We just met last night.

Eddie

“What's there to tell? I used to do ballet.” Finley taps her toe and stares down the elevator doors, willing them to open.

Normally, evasive answers would be a cue for me to back off, but for some reason, the more walls she drops between us, the more I want to figure out how to knock them down again. They were down last night almost from the moment we were introduced.

And the ballet thing? The girl has obviously worn many pairs of pointe shoes in her past, and yeah, I'm surprised to find this out. And people don't surprise me very often.

Except Caroline. She gets the queen of surprise title after the last several months.

My stomach twists into knots, remembering her text from this morning.
You're doing the right thing, E.

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. I just know that I'm not doing what Caroline thinks I'm doing. Lying to my parents is one thing, but lying to her…

The elevator doors open with a loud squeal, and I realize Finley's staring at me, waiting for me to move. “After you.”

Her forehead wrinkles as she steps inside the elevator. The doors close, but I block her from pushing a button and lean closer, resting a hand on either side of her, my fingers curling around the railing. I'm instantly taken back to last night, the heat filling the small space between us. Yes. This is what I need. My happy place.

“Look,” I say, enjoying her instant reaction to me invading her personal space—wide eyes, mouth falling open, and her pulse… I can feel it speed up when my chest brushes hers. “I know you're all, ‘I failed at the impersonal one-night stand,' but really, there's only one rule, and I don't think either of us broke it.”

Her eyebrows lift. “What's that?”

I inhale, and even with the large quantity of hair gel on both of us, I still get a trace of her familiar scent, one that involves fruit and sex. My own heart picks up. “The only rule is to have fun. And I definitely enjoyed myself. What about you?”
Have fun and avoid a
scandal.

Her eyes lock with mine, cheeks reddening. Her fingers crawl up my T-shirt, wrapping around the material covering my heart and pulling me so close our noses touch. “I had fun, Eddie.”

My lips brush against hers, both of our eyes fluttering shut.
God, yes.

A jolt and loud squeak followed by a stream of sunlight breaks the spell, and we jump apart just as the doors open, revealing the stylist from the Prada shoot.

“Okaaay…” she says, embarrassed. “I'll wait for the other elevator.”

The doors shut again, but Finley keeps her distance, except for the weight of her gaze as she studies me, deciding something. Her hand freezes over the L button. “My mom was a dancer. She taught me.”

Okay, let's pretend like we weren't just about to get it on in an elevator.

My eyebrows shoot up. “A dancer? Like a professional?”

“Yes.” She presses her index finger into the button, slowly lifting it up, causing the elevator to jolt into motion. “With the New York City Ballet. And my parents used to own a dance studio.”

“Used to?” I ask. “Your dad is a dancer too?”

“It didn't work out.” She shrugs and then adds, “My dad is a high school music and drama teacher. Definitely not a dancer.”

Finley exits the elevator when we reach the lobby but doesn't hurry out the door as quickly as I anticipated she might.

An awkward silence falls between us, and I realize this is probably the part where I'm supposed to reveal something personal. But that could lead to a tangled mess of lies. Well, a new tangled mess, because I'm already in one—being Eddie Wells from Chicago and all that. And yet, I don't want to walk away right now. The second I'm alone, I'll retreat back inside my head again. Worrying. Thinking months ahead instead of right now.

“So…which way are you headed?” I point toward the door and then remove my phone from my pocket, flipping through emails as an excuse to avoid eye contact with Finley. I feel like I might be wearing my secrets for her to see.

She points north. “Back to my apartment.”

The first email in my inbox is from someone at Shay Silver's office with the subject
Found you an
apartment!

I scan the email and see nothing about cost or location, just mentions of bunk beds and roommate numbers totaling in the double digits. Surely it can't be that pricey if we're packed in like sardines.

I tuck my phone away and follow her, my shoulder brushing up against hers. “My agent found me a place to stay.”

“That's good.” She glances at me then back at the sidewalk. “I'm sure it's hard being so far from home and not having a definite place to stay.”

Far from home? Oh right. I'm from Chicago. “Yeah, I haven't showered since yesterday.”

Finley's cheeks flame up again. “Sorry about that. I was a total spaz this morning. But you're right. Impulsive fun is still impulsive fun, even if I screw up by giving my autobiography the day after.”

“Your autobiography is very interesting.”

She rolls her eyes again. “Right.”

“Correction—I'm very interested. How's that?” What the hell am I saying? I'm very interested…it sounds like I'm agreeing to a courtship or something. This whole being Eddie Wells game is causing a serious identity crisis. I'm reverting to the eighteen hundreds. Pretty soon, our fathers will be trading horses.

Finley stops in the middle of the sidewalk, turning to face me, her arms folded over her chest. “What game are we playing right now? I'm pretty disjointed by all of it.”

You and me both.

I let out a breath and try to be as real as possible. “I just wanted to pick your brain about some stuff. Since you're the experienced professional and all. How much do you think this apartment is gonna cost me?”

She stares for several seconds and then continues walking and nods for me to follow. “How many people? Where is it located? And how many rooms?”

I show her the email I'd just read.

“Hard to estimate exactly without a location. But it's probably around twelve hundred a month,” she says.

My stomach sinks. That cuts into my potential savings in a big way. “Wow, that's heavy. What do you think we'll get from Marc Jacobs?”

“Around two grand. But then the agency gets their twenty percent cut. ” She takes in my concerned look and adds, “It takes some time to build up a steady income. Don't worry about being ahead for these first few months. You'll get there. They obviously love you if you've booked Marc Jacobs on the first casting. Though you might want to reconsider being a royal pain in the ass to the makeup people.”

I've only booked two other jobs thus far. I mean, I've just been at it a day, and I do have another casting this afternoon, but still…there are no guarantees. My plan for the summer is to pile as much money as possible into my bank account and then get the hell out of New York City. I'm not here to slowly build a modeling career.

“How long have you been at this?” I ask.

“Since I was sixteen,” she says. “I was only supposed to be working for a year after graduation, until I saved up enough for college, but I barely have a year of tuition, so that plan is on the back burner.”

There's something hiding between those words, and for a moment, the intrigue of figuring it out distracts me from my current housing and money issues. But I think she's already revealed more than she's comfortable with, so I'm not going to push.

I quickly type a reply to the agency:

Sounds good. What's the address?

I stare at the screen for several seconds after hitting Send, even though it's not likely I can go there now.

“Hey,” I say, touching Finley's shoulder. “Any chance you know a place I could take a shower, shave, use a bathroom that doesn't require latex gloves?”

She gives me a sheepish grin. “Wish I could help you out, but my roommate's mom already flipped out this morning. She needs at least twenty-four hours to calm down.”

The crazy, swearing French woman. “Yeah, I don't want to face that again.”

“Wait!” Finley digs through her purse, coming up with a bright-pink card. “Got this last time I was at the agency. They've got a pile of them on the receptionist's desk. It's a punch card for the gym I belong to. Great showers. Free shampoo and hair products.”

I take the card from her. It's good for ten free visits. “Thanks, this will help me out until—”

“You move into your new place,” Finley finishes.

“Yeah, right. My new place.” I attempt to look interested in the card. “So why is a rock-climbing and fitness center giving away punch cards at a modeling agency?”

She laughs and pats my stomach. “Can't have the models getting beer bellies, right? We gotta stay in shape. Also doesn't hurt to have a few models at your establishment, so they say.”

Yeah, I could see that. I mean, if I were a coach potato, I'd probably change my ways for the chance to look at Finley every day.

I flip over the card and look at the address. “You know what? I might head over there now. Want to join me? I'll loan you a punch.”

“I don't have workout clothes with me.” She smiles. “Also, I have a yearly membership. I just grabbed one of those in case my brothers wanted to come with me sometime.”

My stomach twists, my brain conjuring an image of two beefy guys cornering me in an alley, asking me exactly what I did with their sister. “Right. That's smart. Bring reinforcement to the gym. All those hormonal guys on steroids eyeing you in spandex…”

Finley laughs. “Uh…they're five. Almost six.”

Huh. Definitely not in-line with my mental picture of them. “So more the wall-climbing age than the picking-up-girls-in-spandex age?”

“Yep, wall-climbing, furniture-climbing, parachuting off very tall objects, shooting liquid out of their noses—the usual little boy stuff.” Finley pauses at a street corner and points to the subway station across the street. “You'll want to take…”

I tune out her lengthy detailed directions and instead enjoy the view that comes with her arm-raising and her shirt creeping up, exposing her lower back. She catches me staring and drops her arm, giving my shoulder a shove. “You're gonna get lost if you don't pay attention.”

See, that's what I love about her, none of that
don't look at me, I'm slightly imperfect
shit.

“That was worth the misdirection.” I hold up my phone. “Google Maps will get me there. Don't worry.”

Another awkward silence falls between us, like neither of us knows if this is the last time we'll see each other, and I can't decide if I want it to be. I don't. I think. But considering the fact that I'm one big ball of lies and have no plans to stick around this state, let alone the city, beyond the end of the summer, it's better if it is our last time together.

“Sure you can't come with me?” I ask again. “Show the out-of-towner around town?”

Finley shakes her head.

“You just want to rush home and put those pointe shoes on again, don't you?” I reach for her hand and tug her closer. “Thanks for letting me stay over last night. Even if you didn't actually invite me to stay.”

“You're welcome.” She lifts her free hand and touches it to my mouth. “Don't do anything to ruin this.”

“Like what?”

“Like giving me your number.” She releases me and steps back, a look of satisfaction on her face. “Think about it. You're going your way, and I'm going mine, and we don't have each other's numbers, might never see each other again. I'm getting some of the one-night stand stuff right.”

Her excitement is too cute for me to want to ruin it by reminding her that I know where she lives. And we're with the same agency. “You're a complete mystery. Fifty years from now, you'll still be the hot blond that I spent the most amazing night of my life with.”

“You are so full of it.” She looks pleased though as she turns around to head in the opposite direction. “Bye, Eddie Wells,” she calls over her shoulder.

I watch her walk until she's too small to identify, and then I cross the street and head for the subway station. It would have been nice to get her number. Lying to Caroline makes it difficult to talk to her anymore—too much guilt and anxiety. Besides, I'm not legally allowed to contact her. And my friends from school? Let's just say we've drifted apart the past few months. Maybe everyone but RJ. Except RJ plays for Team Caroline.

So yeah, Finley could help fill a hole in my life, but I can't be selfish anymore. I need to stick to my plan and let her stick to her plan.

My phone buzzes in my hand. I glance at the reply from the agency, and I'm glad I didn't get this sooner. It would have ruined Finley's plans, knowing my summer apartment is in the same building as her place. Maybe we won't run into each other?