You Before Anyone Else (9 page)

Finley

“You okay?”

I drop the wet towel I'd been folding, startled by my dad's appearance behind me. “Yeah, why?”

Dad's gaze follows mine as he looks through the sliding glass doors out at the back patio and pool.

My face flushes, and I make a bad attempt at covering the fact that I was just staring at Eddie. More specifically, Eddie pulling himself out of the pool, preparing to take another turn in the cannonball contest he's entered with my brothers, despite it being dark out now and the last guest having left an hour ago. I opted out of leaving with some of my friends, going out with them. They looked a little too eager to rehash the Jason-has-a-new-love thing and way too curious about Eddie for me to survive lying through that type of inquisition. And it would be lying. Because we're not really a thing.

“Do it again!” Braden shouts while treading water in the deep end.

“Jason,” Dad prompts. “And his plus one. How are you taking it?”

The hurt and confusion from earlier today returns. “Right. That.”

“Let me ask you this.” Dad's wearing one of his rare serious expressions. “What did you expect to happen today when you saw Jason again?”

I sink down into the family room chair and sigh. “I don't know. I just thought maybe…”

“Maybe he'd be here for you?” he finishes when I can't.

I shake my head, still not sure. “Not exactly. Just that it would be okay if he was here for me. But he wasn't. He's not.”

“Because it's over?”

I nod and force myself to say those words out loud. “Because it's over.”

Dad pats my knee, his familiar silly grin returning. “Well done, honey. Tomorrow, we'll move on to phase two.”

“Phase two?” I wait for him to answer, but Connor and Braden open the sliding door, both dripping wet.

“Fin, we have to do our thing.” Braden tugs at my hand.

Connor has a big blanket in his arms. I can barely see his face behind it. “Yeah, our thing…remember?”

It takes me a few seconds to recall last summer when the boys turned five. We'd laid in the grass after their party, staring at the stars while I made up stories about moms who went to live as princesses in the sky while they watched over their family. It wasn't easy for me to talk about my mom like that—she is very real to me and very fantastical to my brothers—but I could tell it was important to them. So I told them it could be a birthday tradition, as in once a year. I never thought they'd remember.

Eddie appears by the door, dripping wet, a towel around his waist. “Is it time for the thing? I heard it's time.”

I crack a smile. Guess it's time for the thing.

• • •

Connor is passed out, curled up against my side, and Braden is snoring with his head down by my feet and his feet kicking my stomach lightly.

Beside Braden, Eddie tucks an arm behind his head and yawns. “No offense, but I think the ‘princess turned accountant keeping count of all the unauthorized stars' story was a bit of a snooze. For them, of course. I was enthralled by it.”

I reach across my brother's feet and smack Eddie lightly in the chest. “Yeah, it was the story that put them to sleep. Not the fact that it's three hours past bedtime and they swam for most of the day.”

“Okay, maybe that contributed.”

I return to lying back and staring up at the sky, enjoying the calm rhythm of four different breaths mingling together, the warmth of Connor and Braden's bodies serving as a blanket, and the softness of the actual blanket beneath us. I follow a path of stars, connecting one bright-white dot to another until I'm practically in a trance.

“Your necklace,” Eddie says, and my fingers immediately land on the cross against my chest. “Is that—I mean, do you—are you like…”

“Religious?” I suggested. “A little. My family is Catholic. I believe in God. Heaven and hell. I believe things happen for a reason often involving a higher power. But it's not something I think about often.” Mostly just when I think about my mom and where she is now.

Eddie nods like this makes sense to him. “I have a friend who's Catholic. It's like that for her too.”

I want to ask more, ask about this mysterious female friend of Eddie's and exactly what he means by it “being like that for her too,” but then I decide the comfortable silence we've been in is more appealing right now. And for a few minutes, that's exactly where we end up.

“Jason asked me how we met,” Eddie says.

The cool night air along with the scent of grass and sound of tree frogs returns. I turn my head away from the sky and look at Eddie. “What did you tell him?”

His way-too-intense blue eyes meet mine. “I told him we met at a party.”

“The truth.” I turn back to the sky, surprised at how simple that answer became. “I'm not usually this pathetic—”

“I don't think you're pathetic,” Eddie says, his voice low and filled with depth that I'm certain now is keeping me coming back for more.

“It's just been confusing for me. Last summer, things were okay with us, but then he got more and more distant and…” I clear my throat, determined to be cool about this. “Anyway, I haven't seen him since we broke up.”

Eddie starts humming an unfamiliar tune and then eventually adds lyrics that are ridiculous and all about “The Boy Next Door.” I laugh so hard, my entire body is shaking. “Of course. You're hot, you play the piano,
and
you can sing. No wonder my dad has such a crush on you.”

“Just your dad?” Eddie wiggles his eyebrows. “Who was that girl staring at me while I climbed out of the pool?”

“My insane twin who often makes poor dating choices.” The grin falls from his face, and he closes his eyes. Guilt washes over me. “Not that you're a bad choice—”

“I'm definitely a bad choice.” Eddie rolls over and looks up at the sky. I stay silent, waiting for him to explain, but instead, he changes the subject. “Earlier, when you said that thing about me being a model and basically nothing else—”

“I didn't mean it like that,” I argue.

“No, you were right. I spent so much time trying to fix—trying to not be something, that now, I don't know what I want to do. Is that weird?” He looks at me again, like my answer is super important to him. “Typical rich kid whining about Dad's plans for him, right?”

“I don't think that at all.” I shake my head. “I was supposed to spend the year figuring out my life plan, but now it's summer again, and I haven't applied to any colleges. I'm getting some jobs but not a ton. And what I really want to do is—”

I stop myself before admitting the truth. But Eddie hangs on this, propping up on one elbow. “What?”

For a second, I want to tell him the truth, but I hold it in and instead say, “Find a nice boring boyfriend with stability who won't need me to save him from himself.”

Eddie lifts an eyebrow. “Boring, huh? That's your type?”

The dozen or so times he found an excuse to touch me this afternoon come rolling back. Even with little boy feet and two tiny bodies between us, I feel like his hands are everywhere all at once. “Yep, that's my type. Boring and predictable and every synonym for those two words.”

“That's understandable.” Eddie slides closer and leans over me.

My heart picks up speed, my body betraying our just-friends clause. “Good, because I would hate for you to get the wrong idea. I mean, your show tune knowledge and cannonball skills alone are enough to…”

Eddie picks up a lock of my hair. Slowly, he slides it between his fingers. “You're not my type either. Too pretty. Too nice. Too smart. Too perfect. I'd hate to go after someone I could actually fall for…”

I'm sure he can hear my heart; it's so loud. Each beat feels like a million seconds happen between it, and the world around us moves in slow motion. My gaze shifts from Eddie's hand in my hair to his face as it moves closer and closer—

Dad clears his throat, and Eddie jumps, scooting so far from me, he's hanging off the blanket now. “Just came out here to see if my kids were ready for bed.”

Eddie hops up to his feet to help but can't seem to make eye contact with Dad. “I got this.”

Dad and I both watch him scoop Connor up off the blanket so carefully he barely stirs. There's a moment where Eddie looks down at my dad, and I can sense what he's thinking, that he can't carry his own kid to bed and how bad that must suck, but luckily, he keeps the sympathetic looks to himself and asks, “You want one?”

Dad reaches out to take Connor. “Sure.”

Eddie repeats the careful picking up with Braden, then he strides across the yard and is inside before Dad has had a chance to figure out how to wheel himself and keep Connor, who is slumped against him, asleep. He nods in Eddie's direction and then glances at me. “So what's his story?”

I sit up. “What do you mean?”

“He's neither here nor there.” Dad shifts Connor so he's securely on his lap and then rolls forward a few feet. “He lied about being away at college to someone. He ignores calls and stresses every time he gets one.”

“How do you know that?” I eye him suspiciously. It's not like my dad to judge or make assumptions about people.

Dad shrugs. “I've kept an eye on him.”

Before I can chastise him for spying on Eddie, he rolls toward the house and up the ramp leading inside. I lay back again, staring at the sky, but this time, I'm shifting around pieces of a puzzle called Eddie Wells, trying to find a shape or picture to them.

A couple minutes later, a warm body stretches out beside me. “Braden woke up when I put him in his bed. Apparently, it was Connor's bed.”

“He likes to sleep near the window,” I say, still distracted by Dad's questions.

We return to lying on the blanket, but the absence of two six-year-olds makes this a very different activity. After a few minutes, Eddie speaks again. “Your dad is worried about me, isn't he? He heard me lie about Princeton?”

I shrug and fake disinterest. “It's none of his business. Or mine.”

“Yeah, okay.” Eddie releases a breath and turns to face me but instead rolls onto his back again. “It's just that…I'm trying to—I need to do something, and it's something I told people I wouldn't do—”

“What people?”

“My family,” Eddie admits. “And some really good friends. One really good friend who needs me right now, and I'm not there.”

I don't know why he's telling me all this now. It doesn't help answer any of my questions about him. Plus, it's too vague to offer advice.

“You don't have to say anything,” Eddie adds after I'm silent for way too long. “I just want you to know that I'm not running away from shit. I'm kind of doing the opposite. Only, I don't know…” He sinks back again, deep in thought.

I scoot closer and lean over him. “None of that sounds either boring or predictable. Which means my instincts about you were right.”

I reach out a hand to smooth his hair again, but he catches it in his and brings it to his lips. Heat spreads from my wrist up my arm. His eyes lock with mine. “Finley?”

“Yeah.” I breathe out the word, too afraid of hearing excitement in my voice.

“It's okay if you like me.” Eddie slides a hand up my arm, over my shoulder, until it rests on the back of my neck. “It doesn't have to change everything. It doesn't make you weak. Or whatever else Summer called you.”

“It doesn't?” I whisper.

Slowly, Eddie shakes his head. “No, it doesn't. Even if I'm a mess and completely wrong for you. And even if you're super sweet and not up for what I'm dealing with…I still might like you anyway.”

“Yeah?” I lean in closer just as Eddie releases my hand and touches my cheek instead. Instead of answering, both of his hands shift to my face, and he brings me closer until my lips touch his.

For a second, I try to recall our first kiss, the night we met, after I'd dragged him up to my room, but I come up empty. Other moments from that night are vivid, but this one is fuzzy. But right now is so crystal clear and moving in slow motion that I know I won't forget anything.

And the world becomes this kiss, and this kiss becomes two kisses and then three. Soon, I'm lying beneath Eddie, his hand in my hair, his mouth against my neck. He shifts from being over me to beside me, and then the same fingers I watched flying over the piano keys this morning move slowly, torturously, beneath my dress. I close my eyes and do nothing but feel. Everything. All of it.

“I'm not…we can't…” Eddie mumbles, his breath as quick and jagged as mine. “Not with your dad right there.”

As if in answer to that, the outside lights flicker off. Eddie jolts up, glancing around. I close my eyes again and laugh before hooking my fingers around his neck and bringing him closer. “Relax. He's not going to come out here.”

“Yeah, but he knows we're here.” Nerves leak into Eddie's voice.

I smooth a hand over the back of his hair and open my eyes. “And normally that would keep him from turning the lights out. He's giving us privacy.” The stiffness that's taken over his body doesn't let up, so I pull myself up enough for our lips to touch. “Just kiss me, okay?”

So he does. Long and slow and perfect.

But eventually, Eddie pulls away, his forehead resting against mine, both of us breathing hard. “This is the last thing I need right now.”

I slide my hand up his back. “Me too.”

“But if I didn't have to—” Eddie stops and shuts his eyes. “If things were different…you would be exactly right. For me.”

I try to shove away the questions that rise from that statement, the longing I'm feeling, wanting it to be true.

Oh God, I do like him.