Halfway Perfect

by Julie Cross

  Alex’s mouth starts moving against mine, his fingertips gliding up my sides again. The more of my bare skin he comes in contact with, the more he seems to wake up until he finally pulls his mouth from mine, staring up at me wide-eyed.

  “You would make a great alarm clock, Eve.”

  Two entire seconds pass, both of us frozen, him feeling the tension radiating off me. And then he flips me over onto my back, his mouth trailing kisses all along my neck before moving lower.

  By the time his lips reach my stomach I can hardly breathe, let alone speak, but I manage to stutter out a few words. “Do you have—”

  “Condoms,” he finishes for me. “Yeah, but if you want to wait…”

  I shake my head. “No…no waiting.”

  His fingers trail lightly over my inner thighs and my hands land in his hair, gripping fistfuls of it.

  It’s like I’m on some two-day staycation from my regular life. The Alex Evans resort in SoHo, complete with clean towels, laundry service, cold and flu supplies, and all the key ingredients for falling in love.

  Chapter 30: Alex

  “Do you think we’ll be able to come here again?” Eve asks.

  I’m still waiting for my heart to slow down and my breathing to return to normal, so I don’t answer her right away. My mind is lingering on the feel of her fingers pressed into the skin on my back, her hands tangled in my hair. I guess I’ve learned my lesson. Just accept that I’m not going to get what I want and then maybe it’ll happen anyway. But that’s not entirely true. I really did just want her to stay. Okay, so maybe the getting naked part was subconsciously on my list. We were all wet when we got here. Stripping was a necessity.

  Eve’s head is on my chest now and her body is halfway on top of mine and I can feel her relaxing into me, preparing to drift off. I rub the back of her neck with one hand and rest the other hand on her thigh.

  “We will. I’ll figure something out,” I say finally then I switch subjects. “So, what’s the verdict? Have you changed your mind about the whole not liking sex thing?”

  She laughs and I can feel her face heating up. I love that she’s completely naked with me and there’s still a way for me to make her blush.

  “In this case,” she says, “yes I’ve completely changed my mind.”

  Okay, so I’m not too arrogant to enjoy hearing that. “Maybe it’s that long absence you mentioned earlier. How long are we talking about?”

  She’s quiet for a while and I can practically hear her contemplating something. “Since I left New York the first time.”

  The question is hanging in the air. She knows I want to know why she left, but I’d never push the issue. I’ve kept the door open and somehow, I can tell she’s about to walk through.

  “If I told you that I left because of a guy,” she whispers finally, “would you think less of me?”

  “You ditched Gucci because of a guy?” She stiffens in my arms. I lift her chin and kiss her, long and slow, before saying, “Forget I said that. No, I don’t think less of you.”

  “Well, I am much wiser than I was two years ago, if that helps at all.” Her fingers glide over my chest, and she turns her head to kiss my shoulder. “When do you do the fragrance campaign?”

  “Next month.”

  “What happens after?” I can hear her carefully hiding the hope in her voice, trying to sound like it doesn’t matter.

  I tighten my arms around Eve as if my subconscious is telling me to hold on to her just in case. “I don’t know. Maybe by then people will be over Elana and I being a couple.”

  Mentally, I’m calculating what I’ll get for this fragrance campaign. They’re still negotiating, but it’ll be somewhere between a hundred thousand and five hundred thousand depending on how many years it runs for. It’s two thousand a month for this apartment, plus another two thousand for additional monthly expenses. On that, I can’t even make it to twenty-five, let alone to retirement, assuming I actually start a retirement fund, on that one job. I’ve got a decent amount saved up already, but it’s only savings if I have other income.

  Eve lifts her head to look at me, pulling me from my mental math. “It’s not just the couple thing that people are latching on to. You had jobs before Elana came along. You were on the rise. I had a couple of meetings with the CK designers, so I heard them talk about you. They love you. Trust me.”

  I don’t really know how to respond to that. Eve saying those things carries even more weight than Wes’s pep talks because she doesn’t bullshit about stuff like this.

  “Let me ask you this, then,” she says after my long silence. “What do you want to do after the fragrance campaign? If you could pick any job or anything?”

  Have my real girlfriend over whenever I want. Introduce her to my roommates. Take her somewhere that’s not a library, bookstore, coffee shop, or jogging route.

  “Honestly?” I say and Eve nods, waiting. I gently press her head until her cheek is resting against my chest again. “I wouldn’t mind being able to call my mom and maybe my sister and tell them I’m dating this really hot, really smart photography student from Columbia. They’d be pretty damn impressed.”

  She finds my hand and squeezes it. “Where were you three years ago? I really could have used a nice boyfriend then.”

  “As opposed to a not-nice boyfriend?” I can’t help asking. Seriously, what does she mean by that?

  “Something like that,” she mumbles and then drifts off to sleep before I can ask anything else.

  Chapter 31: Alex

  November 29, 8:30 a.m.

  “I can hear your stomach growling,” I say to Eve when I’m sure she’s awake. “Does that mean you’re feeling better?”

  “A little.” She stands up, giving me a full view of her naked body. She catches me looking and smiles before tossing on my boxers and T-shirt. “I’m going to get the clothes from the dryer.”

  My first instinct is to grab her and pull her back onto the bed and have a repeat performance of last night’s activities, but people do have to eat sometimes. I get up too and put on gym shorts. “I’ll see what I can scrounge up in the kitchen for breakfast. We might have eggs that haven’t expired yet.”

  “You know eggs take forever to expire. Those dates are totally bogus,” she says. “After a certain amount of time, they might not be good for baking, but they don’t actually spoil like in a food poisoning way.”

  I guide her out the door in front of me. “How do you know all this stuff? You don’t even cook.”

  She shrugs. “It’s science. I like science.”

  “Unlike calculus—” My voice is completely cut off after Eve’s loud gasp fills the apartment and we both see the man sitting at the kitchen table, drumming his fingers against the wood surface.

  My heart begins to sprint. “What the hell, Wes? How did you get in here?”

  His face is tight and composed. “It’s an agency apartment. I have a key.”

  I watch his gaze travel from me to Eve and it’s like everything is in slow motion, dozens of pieces clicking together all at once. The business face Wes always wears drops and his eyes widen. “Evie, what…?”

  My gaze goes back and forth between the two of them, Eve’s expression of both dread and shock and Wes’s expression of complete shock. Like someone has pulled the rug out from under him.

  As far as I know, Wes has only been in this apartment one other time since I’ve lived here. There’s only one explanation for why he’s here. He knew I brought someone up here; he just didn’t know who. And the who seems to have changed this whole event from a PR related issue to something personal.

  A knot forms in the pit of my stomach; panic and nausea are feeding it and making it grow in a matter of seconds. I know with such certainty that something happened with them. God, I can’t even form the words in my head because I don’t want the mental image
. Wes…Eve…and she was what? Fifteen? Sixteen?

  Fuck, I can’t even…please tell me they didn’t—

  Stop! Think about something else. Anything else.

  Wes pulls his shit together quickly and stands up, gripping the metal chair so hard his knuckles turn white. “It’s all over the Internet. Alex Evans cheats on his girlfriend with mystery girl. I’ve called, emailed, left you at least seven messages. Where the hell is your phone?!”

  Okay, work. I can focus on work.

  It’s on my dresser. I don’t know why it didn’t go off. I’ve been too distracted by Eve to even consider looking at it since yesterday. “I was in the rain. Maybe it got wet and I didn’t realize—”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head, drawing in a deep angry breath. “I didn’t come here to lecture you, Alex. I came to save your ass, and you’re going to do everything I tell you, understood?”

  I can’t take my eyes off Eve, but I sink into a chair and slowly begin to feel the weight of what I’ve done. If I’m cheating, CK isn’t going to want me and Elana for this fragrance campaign. They wanted a happy couple in love. CK could even pull my photos from the campaign we already shot and reshot. Depends on what side of the scandal they want to be on.

  And what the fuck is up with Eve and Wes?

  My chest tightens, and I’m getting a little dizzy. This is too much. Way too much.

  Wes is in front of me in no time. “Calm down. It’s gonna be fine, I promise. I want you to go get dressed, put on whatever you wear to the gym, get your gym bag, and walk out of here. Alone. And go work out like you normally do on Sunday.”

  “What about…?” I nod toward Eve, who is still wide-eyed and frozen.

  Wes glances at her, locks eyes with her. “I don’t think Eve wants to be responsible for ruining your career, do you, Evie?”

  She shakes her head and whispers, “No.”

  Wes nods and turns back to me. “She and I will wait a while and we’ll walk out of here together.”

  Oh no. No fucking way. “Uh-uh. I’m not throwing Eve under the bus just to save my ass.”

  “Alex—” Eve starts to say but Wes cuts her off.

  “This isn’t going to hurt her at all,” Wes says.

  But it’s going to kill me. I don’t want to see pictures of them together. I don’t want to think about the fact that she might have slept in his bed and he might have done with her what I just did with her.

  She basically said as much last night. The last time she’d been with anyone was before she left New York. She left because of a guy. Because of Wes.

  I feel sick. Really sick. In the dark last night, I told Eve I wouldn’t think less of her, but now I’m not so sure. And I think I only said that because it kept me from seeing everything I didn’t want to see. I don’t want to see it now, and I don’t ever want to hear Wes calling her Evie again, like it’s a nickname with a long history. A very personal history.

  Eve folds her arms across her chest, hugging herself. Why does she look so guilty? I’m the one who brought her up here. It’s my fault we’re in this mess. Unless there’s something going on between them right now? God, I can’t even begin to process that.

  “Just go, Alex,” she says so firmly it pulls me to my feet.

  Wes grips both my arms, looking me over. “Gym clothes, gym bag, don’t show any sign of apprehension when you leave the building, okay?”

  I nod and then I do exactly that. I’m too hurt and shocked and disgusted to do anything else.

  Chapter 32: Eve

  The second the apartment door closes behind Alex, Wes places his hands gently on my shoulders, guiding me over to the couch and forcing me to sit down. He takes a seat on the coffee table across from me.

  “Are you okay?” he asks. “I’m sorry you had to be dragged into this. I had a feeling Alex was doing some on-the-side fooling around, but he should have known better than to bring you here.”

  I close my eyes and try to rewind the past twenty-four hours and fix this whole mess.

  “I can’t blame him completely,” Wes says like I’ve jumped into this conversation or something. “He’s just a kid and I’ve put a lot of pressure on him.”

  It’s a little funny that Alex is eighteen and Wes is forgiving his screwups like he’s a Labrador puppy who can’t help humping the houseguests and peeing on their shoes, but he expected me to act like a professional, mature adult at fifteen years old.

  “He’s not like you, Evie. He’s got both eyes focused on the prize, and I know him well enough to know that his priorities are always going to be work first.”

  So that’s where I screwed up. I fell in love with you. And you were the professional one because you threw me under the bus to save your ass and then sent me to fictional drug rehab and let your boss declare me mentally unstable to the New York Times. Thanks for clearing that up, Wes.

  I can’t fight the tears that roll down my cheeks as I keep all these thoughts locked inside my head. Wes leans back, taking in my expression and recent show of emotion.

  “How long has this been going on? You and Alex?”

  I wipe my eyes with the sleeve of Alex’s shirt. It smells like him. And the way he looked at me before he left, a mixture of hurt and disgust. He knows. I know he knows. “That’s not really any of your business. You already said Alex is focused on work, so why does it even matter when it started? Obviously he’s just fooling around. Nothing serious.”

  He rests his hands on my knees. “Okay, maybe I was wrong. Maybe this is more than I thought he was capable of.”

  Even though he tries to hide it, I can see the hurt flicker in his eyes. Something gives inside me and I find myself answering his question. “Since the CK shoot.”

  He exhales and then focuses on my face. “Okay then. If you really care about him, Eve, you’ll stop this, whatever it is. Alex isn’t like you. He’s not going to be able to go to an Ivy League college. He doesn’t have a plan B. He’s a good kid, don’t get me wrong. He’s very smart when it comes to this industry, but I don’t know what else he’d do with his life. If he loses this campaign, it’s going to be a hard, fast, downward spiral. Is that what you want?”

  He makes it sound like Alex is an invalid or something. He’s not, but there’s enough truth in Wes’s words to keep me from arguing. And I doubt a six-week relationship is going to be enough for Alex to ditch his career for love. That’s the last thing I’d ever want.

  I swallow the lump in my throat. “No, I don’t want that.”

  “Good.” Wes pulls me up to a stand and sighs. “You have no idea how hard it is for me to see you here, wearing his underwear.”

  He leans in closer, his nose inching toward mine. Instincts kick in, and I immediately lean away from him. He drops his hands from mine and lets out a frustrated groan. “God, Eve! You act like I’m a stranger or something. I know you a hell of a lot better than Alex Evans does.”

  “You knew me, Wes,” I correct. “Past tense.”

  I step around him and go looking for the dryer so I can put my own clothes on. When we finally get to exit the building, Wes grabs my hand and before I can stop him, he tugs me closer and kisses me right in front of the building. I’m stung by old feelings that emerge because they’re so different than with Alex. They’re a betrayal of my much more aware, emotionally stronger mind. I don’t want to be that girl again.

  I can’t be that girl again.

  I have to work hard not to push him away, but luckily he breaks it off quickly, and I swear I see him give a tiny nod to some random dude across the street. I’m squinting to see if the guy is holding a camera, but before I can get my answer, Wes drags me into a black town car with him.

  I sit as far away from him as possible and press my cheek against the cool window.

  The only positive today is the fact that I never got a chance to tell Wes tha
t I have a cold.

  Chapter 33: Alex

  November 29, 11:00 a.m.

  I can’t work out. I can’t do anything except pace the men’s locker room for an hour until it’s been long enough for me to go back home. I don’t want to appear out of my usual routine so I have to take the subway instead of a cab.

  The thoughts going through my head are failing to form anything coherent. All I know is that I have to talk to her. Like now. Without Wes. I send her a quick text once I’m back in my apartment.

  ME: I’m coming over.

  HARVARD: No! Too risky.

  ME: Okay, I’m calling you now. If you don’t answer, I’m coming over.

  She answers on the first ring. I can hear the congestion in her voice and the cold that still lingers.

  “I really don’t want to do this on the phone, but whatever,” I say right after she says hello. “First, I have to know. Is the Wes thing past tense?”

  There’s a long pause. Maybe I’ve surprised her by figuring out her secret. Their secret.

  “Yes, it’s past tense,” she says finally. “Until the Seventeen shoot back in October, I hadn’t spoken to Wes since the day I left New York.”

  “Eve, how did that happen? It’s illegal, really illegal. Did he…did he, like, force you or something?”

  She coughs for several seconds before responding. “I should have told you. I almost did a few times. Maybe if I had explained…”

  “What exactly should you have explained?” I make sure to sit myself on the couch just in case I get nauseous or dizzy again.

  I hear her take a deep breath and I do the same, anticipating the worst. “We were together for a long time before I quit modeling. He didn’t force me. It wasn’t like that. I wanted to be with him. He tried to say no to me like so many times and I just kept making sure I was in the same places as him and making sure he knew how I felt.”