Halfway Perfect

by Julie Cross

  Alex looks up at me. “I had no idea she was here.”

  Every defense I’ve been holding on to crumbles right at my feet. I can’t convince the logical part of my brain that he shouldn’t be near me or the other way around. Truth is, I know he’s not Wes. He’s in an entirely different universe than Wes.

  I watch as he scrambles to his feet, his mouth opening and the words falling out quickly as if they’d been waiting to be used. “I just…I have some things I need to say in person, okay?”

  “Not out here.” I nod down the hall and Alex follows me and then closes the apartment door behind us.

  “Is anyone else here?” he asks.

  I shake my head and give him a full thirty seconds to grow more nervous, but he doesn’t. He looks really determined, but for what, I don’t know. And I don’t let him tell me because I’m thinking about that night in his apartment. I’m thinking about the shower and waking up with him the next morning. I close the space between us and press my mouth to his just as he opens it to speak.

  He stiffens for a brief second, like I’ve startled him, and then he’s pulling me into his arms, his fingers in my hair. And oh my God, kissing Alex is even better than I remember. There're weeks of intensity built into this kiss, and there’s a resolve on Alex’s end, one I can feel right away, and it scares me. He’s come to some conclusion that’s going to shift the world all over again and I don’t know if I want to hear it. So I push those thoughts away and let myself escape.

  After his coat falls to the floor, I reach for the bottom of his shirt, backing away from him briefly so I can tug it over his head and toss it toward the couch. His hands slide gently under the back of my shirt and I’m so caught up in the feel of it, I don’t notice right away that he’s stopped kissing me.

  “Eve." His voice is somewhat strained as he tries to catch his breath. “We should…we should talk.”

  I pull away and open my eyes, then rest my hands on his face. “I miss you too. I’m sorry I didn’t call you back to tell you that. I listened to your message so many times.”

  He stares at me for a long time, and I see it again something’s changed since I ran into him at that casting. He doesn’t look scared anymore. But I am.

  I’m petrified of losing what little grip I have on my life at the moment. That doesn’t change the fact that I really do miss him and he’s right here in front of me. I drop my hands from his face and press my cheek against his chest, squeezing him around the middle.

  Alex’s arms are tight around me and he whispers into my hair, “If I had known you were by yourself, I would have stayed here.”

  A few tears gather in the corners of my eyes, so I keep my face pressed against his skin and hidden. Maybe I’m not as unlucky as I thought. Alex misses me. Some people don’t have anyone to miss them.

  He lifts my chin so I’m forced to look at him and, oh my God, the second I see his face, I know he’s going to say it. I’m starting to panic because this internal battle has taken shape inside my head. I desperately want to hear it, but I know I can’t handle it. My hand is shaking when I lift it to cover his mouth.

  “Don’t. Please don’t say it,” I whisper.

  I expect him to look hurt. A guy like Alex Evans probably doesn’t throw around the “L” word too often, but instead, his eyes get wide for a second, then he peels my hand from his mouth. And just like that, we’re kissing again.

  Kissing and moving closer to the couch and removing more clothes.

  • • •

  An hour later, we’re sprawled out on the living room floor and I’m close to dozing off. The couch pillows are under our heads and the comforter from the bed I’m sleeping in is wrapped around us. Clothes are scattered all over the living room. It’s a complete disaster, but I’m too comfortable and too exhausted to clean up right now.

  Alex rolls on his side, leaning over me and brushing the hair off my face. “Eve?”

  I fight to keep my eyes open but manage to focus on the swirling blur around his black pupils. “Yeah?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  The question jolts me awake. “Uh-oh.”

  His forehead wrinkles and he leans in to kiss me quickly on the mouth. “You’re already panicking. You don’t trust me, do you?”

  “It’s not that—”

  He gives me another kiss and shakes his head. “I understand if you don’t. It’s okay. I mean why would you? It’s my fault we got caught together and that you can’t work for Janessa.”

  Elana must have spilled that piece of information. “But you didn’t do it on purpose. It’s not like you were trying to mess things up for me.”

  “I know.” He closes his eyes briefly and then opens them again. “But that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to tread cautiously around me.”

  “I tread cautiously around everyone, Alex.”

  “I know that too. And I also know that there’s nothing going on between you and Wes. I can’t believe I even let my mind go there for a second. Even with the photos, I of all people should know better.”

  My stomach twists into knots again. Just the mention of Wes makes me think of him and Elana and I should tell Alex. I really should tell him. But that means I’d have to own it. The whole responsibility of knowing something I don’t want to know.

  And then it occurs to me that I’ve done the same thing to Alex. I’ve told him about my scholarship, and now he knows that I’ve lost that opportunity and that I’m modeling again even though I don’t really want to. I’ve dumped all my shit on him, and he’s stuck with the responsibility of helping me, or at least feeling guilty about it.

  I never wanted to make Alex feel stuck with me.

  I sit up and pull the blanket up under my arms. “Listen, I’ve just gotten everything in my life to a manageable level, and I really can’t rock the boat or be caught in another tabloid scandal—”

  “I’m breaking up with Elana,” he blurts out, sitting up beside me.

  Chapter 43: Alex

  Eve is looking at me like I’m crazy. Like she’s wondering if really good sex does strange things to my head. And I’m not gonna lie, it does, especially with her. But I’ve had two days to think about this, and I know it has to be done. I don’t have to expose every detail, but I just have to be me again.

  “I’m calling Wes tomorrow to tell him, and he’s gonna be pissed as hell, but he’ll get over it and figure out a solution both of us can live with,” I say.

  “You’ll lose the fragrance campaign,” Eve whispers. “They’ll reshoot it with someone else.”

  I nod. “I realize that. I’m willing to take that risk. I’ll still get enough jobs and income on my own, and you know Elana won’t have any problem absorbing this setback. She’s way hotter than me right now.”

  Eve’s just sitting there frozen and panicked.

  “And now, if you want,” I say, because she’s not responding, “you can get away from the rumors about you and Wes. I know plenty of people in the industry if you need to work. I’ll help you get hooked up with another agency and another agent, and it would be like a fresh start for you. Bury all those demons.”

  I know for a fact she hasn’t officially signed with Wes or the agency yet. The intern I strategically conned for information told me that, along with unintentionally revealing Eve’s location by telling me that Wes requested an extra key for an apartment in this building. I put two and two together after talking to Stephanie and hearing that Eve wasn’t at her aunt’s place in Jersey. Plus, Eve’s only booked two jobs and hasn’t even done them yet. No reason to sign anything.

  Eve shakes her head, looking royally pissed off. “Don’t you get it, Alex? No one else is going to sign me. Wes is doing this out of guilt. He feels sorry for me. I bet he’s bribed these people into giving me the two jobs I’ve managed to get. They probably owe him a favor or he promised them a bigger c
lient in return.”

  I drop my hand from her face and try to process why she looks so panicked and angry. And then I remember Jared’s words from the other day,

  If I were you, Alex, I’d look into what made her walk away. There’s a piece missing from this story. Think about it? A fifteen-year-old in a relationship with someone my age. She needed him. She needed an adult figure in her life.

  Then I think about all the things Wes has said about Eve…Eve is really messed up…she needed someone to look out for her…she was so insecure it started bleeding into her work…Evie’s always had an issue with thinking realistically.

  “Why are you letting him set these limits for you? I don’t get it,” I say. “It doesn’t seem like something you’d do.”

  Eve scoots away from me. “What are you talking about?”

  I reach for her again, but she moves back farther. “Wes. I’m talking about Wes. He’s making you think no one can help you except him. That without him, you’re a hopeless cause.”

  She jumps up from the floor and starts rifling around for her clothes. Not a good sign.

  “Unfortunately, right now, that’s probably true,” she snaps as she tosses her sweatshirt over her head.

  Since I don’t want to sit on the floor naked while she’s pissed off and fully dressed, I reach for my boxers and slide them on before standing up to retrieve my jeans.

  I’m fastening my belt while she’s pulling on her sweatpants, her back to me. “If he can’t have you, he doesn’t want anyone else to have you. He wants you to need him.”

  She spins around, her face twisted with anger. “Don’t fucking psychoanalyze me! You make my life sound like the plot of a Lifetime movie. Yes, a messed-up fifteen-year-old version of me needed someone like Wes, but I’m not that person anymore. I need him for completely different reasons now. He can tell me whatever bullshit he wants to as long he keeps booking jobs for me.”

  I move closer to her, carefully noting the way she’s squeezing her hands into fists. “What are you not telling me, Eve? Why would you give up all of that money and fame to go back to struggling? Did you catch him cheating? Did you love someone else and you couldn’t tell him?”

  She closes her eyes, letting out a frustrated breath. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  I try to rest my hands on her arms, but she jerks away from me. How did we go from rolling around naked to this distant, don’t-touch-me situation? “I do want to know. I really do.”

  Her eyes fly open, and she looks right at me, resolve filling her expression. “Fine. Just remember that you asked for it.”

  I hold my breath and wait for her to fill in this big blank that’s been hanging over my head ever since Jared brought things to light for me.

  “He scared me. He’d get really pissed off and then…and then throw things or sometimes hit me.” Her voice is shaking, but she looks sure and confident with the idea of telling me now. “When words weren’t enough to bring me down, Wes got physical. I wasn’t the compliant, obedient client that you are. I pissed him off, a lot. I screwed up a lot. The more I loved him, the more desperate we got to cling to each other. And I never expected that leaving, my threat to try and get him to go back to being nice again, would ruin my career. I thought he’d fix it like he’d fixed everything before that. But he didn’t. And it was too late.” She takes a breath and then goes in for one last hit. “And just so you know, Elana is into Wes, really into him. But I don’t know if it’s been reciprocated or not. I don’t know if it’s just a crush.”

  I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me, and instinctively, I back up a couple of steps as if the space will help me think or react or something.

  Eve nods expectantly. “That’s what I thought. You don’t want to deal with this any more than I do. You just want me to get a new agent and for you to break up with Elana and then everything with you and me will be just fine. But the truth is, right now, everything is just fine for you, Alex, and you’re an idiot for even thinking about screwing that up.”

  I open my mouth to protest while Eve sinks into the couch, putting her head in her hands. “I told you the truth, so can you leave now?”

  It’s not really a question, and her voice is so cold I can’t bring myself to move closer again. I pick up my shirt from the floor and throw it over my head and then put on my shoes.

  “Eve,” I start.

  “Just go, Alex!” she snaps.

  And then she gets up and locks herself in one of the bedrooms, giving me no choice but to head back to my place. It’s probably best that I leave now anyway. It’s hard to think about talking to Eve right when I’m filled with two very conflicting, yet completely dominating thoughts: (1) I’m in way over my head, and (2) I need to punch someone, and Wes Danes is at the top of my list.

  On the walk home, I call Brad even though it’s the middle of the night. I don’t know what else to do with this bomb that Eve has dropped on me.

  It takes a few tries to get him to answer, and I’m already rounding the final block, almost at my place, by the time his groggy voice interrupts the rings.

  “Okay, shithead, you better be in jail and needing bail or on your deathbed to call me at this hour,” Brad says.

  “I’m contemplating murder and need you to talk me out of it or into it. I’m not sure which.”

  “I’m listening.”

  I enter my building and head for the stairs up to my apartment, checking Jason and Landon’s empty rooms before locking myself into mine. I take my time giving Brad all the details I’ve recently acquired, and he surprises me by taking the logical route, which seems to be more of Jared’s approach lately. I think subconsciously, I chose to call Brad over Jared because I didn’t feel like being rational.

  “So what are you planning on doing?” Brad says. “Showing up at Wes’s place and beating the shit out of him for hitting Eve two years ago?”

  “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  “Sounds like a good way to go to jail, ruin your life, and in the process leave Wes alone with Eve and Elana,” Brad says. “And let me help cancel out some of your other predictable options in advance. Like telling someone what Eve told you with the hope of getting Wes arrested?”

  “That’s reasonable, right?” I’m not able to think even a little bit clearly at the moment so I’m relying 100 percent on my brother, who has been known to read summaries of SparkNotes instead of reading the entire SparkNotes or actually reading a required book.

  “This is how it will go down, Alex. You'll tell Wes’s boss or someone above him and then they’ll ask Eve if it’s true. She’ll say no, because she’s trying to make money and she’s trying to get the drama out of her life. In reality, there was no risk in her telling you the truth.” He pauses, giving me a second to catch up. “The only reason she didn’t tell you everything already is probably for her own pride. Girls who have been through what Eve has tend to blame themselves and they tend to be ashamed of it and think it makes them look weak or stupid or not worthy of someone who wouldn’t hurt them.”

  I can’t get past the fact that he hit her. He hit her and he needs to pay for that, but I get what Brad is saying about Eve finally telling me the truth. She had a clear objective. “She’s trying to push me away. That’s why she told me.”

  “Yeah, she was banking on the truth being way too much for you to handle,” he says. “Even if Wes isn’t going to hit her ever again, he’s got her wrapped around this manipulative cycle of verbal and mental abuse, giving her just enough of what she needs to keep her around.”

  “So what now? I can’t pretend she didn’t tell me what she told me.”

  He lets out a long sigh. “I hate to say it, but there’s not much you can do at the moment. Eve is an adult. It’s up to her to decide if she wants to speak up. Elana, on the other hand, is not an adult, but she’s in France right now, and Wes is in New
York, correct?”

  “Yeah.” I rub my temple with my free hand and close my eyes, trying to calm myself. I hate doing nothing. I think it’s the hardest plan for me to follow.

  “Do what you had planned already,” Brad says. “Tell Wes you want to break up with Elana and ditch that fake relationship. Wes isn’t her agent, so maybe he won’t have any reason to be around her anymore. And as far as Eve goes, she just needs to know that you’re there for her. What exactly happened tonight, by the way? You guys didn’t…”

  My very long moment of silence answers Brad’s question.

  “Oh man, Alex. Bad idea. Very bad.”

  “I know,” I groan. “That’s not why I went over there. I tried to talk first…”

  “Believe me, I get it. It’s just that her and Wes, it sounds like it was all drama and sex and fighting, right?” he says.

  “Right.” I blow out a frustrated breath. “And I just gave her a very similar memory with me. Sex, drama, and fighting. God, I suck at this.”

  “I don’t blame you, little bro. She's hot,” Brad says, and I let out a short laugh. “But don’t sell Eve short. She left him once when she was in a much worse place. She’s stronger than you think. And if I were you, I’d have that conversation with Wes about the breakup over the phone. If you show up at his office in a few hours, I doubt you’ll be able to exhibit any amount of self-control.”

  “Right. Good call.” I flop back onto my back, staring up at the ceiling. “How do you know all this stuff?”

  “Psych 302,” he says right away. “And the two criminal justice courses I took this fall. Look, common sense is something you don’t have right now, because you’re way too emotionally invested, which is why you need to take it slow. Don’t do anything crazy.”

  “Were Mom and Dad upset that I left early?” I need a change of topics before my head explodes, and Eve’s radio silence is what drove me to come back to New York before New Year’s, when I had originally planned to return.

  “Nah, they’re cool with it.”