by Sara Cate
Way more than I should have been.
I stop us before we leave the art gallery and turn to her. “Take off those ridiculous shoes before you lose blood circulation.”
She shifts on her feet, the skinny heels clicking against the marble tile. With them, she’s a solid three or four inches taller than normal. I can see the wince she fails miserably at hiding as she glances up at me. “I don’t have anything else to change into.”
I roll my eyes and tug my pantlegs up before squatting down. The ache in my knee has me flinching a little, but I brush it off as I lift one foot up at a time, carefully peeling each of her heels off and studying the red marks left on her creamy skin that she got from her Russian roots.
Peering up through my lashes at her, I ask, “Why do you do this to yourself?”
Her painted white toenails, with little snowmen painted on her big toes, wiggle on the cool tile. “I didn’t have much of a choice. The outfit was picked out for me. It was supposed to match Noah’s.”
There’s no hiding the disgruntlement of her tone as she spits my brother’s name out. I stand, her heels dangling from my fingers, and turn my back to her. “Hop on.”
“What?”
“The sidewalks are cold and covered in slush and who the fuck knows what else. I’m going to carry you. So, get on.”
“Dairen—”
I glance over her shoulder, locking my eyes on her pretty blue-green ones. They remind me of solar images I was shown of earth in elementary school. A mixture that’s almost otherworldly. “Don’t think I won’t haul that sweet ass over my shoulder and carry you out that way. It’s one way or the other, sweetheart. You choose before I do. Something tells me my option will wind up on every tabloid cover by tomorrow morning.”
Her eyes narrow in challenge. “I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
The beef I have with Noah isn’t lost on her or anybody who knows my family personally. It’s his fault I lost my position playing center for the Chicago Blackhawks. The National Hockey League was something I worked for my whole fucking life—training on the ice day in and day out. Getting screamed at my coaches. Booed by the opposing teams we creamed in the rink. Cheered on by the puck bunnies who wanted to attach themselves to the potential moneymakers.
One season. That’s all I got before my knee was blown out by the accident. An accident that could’ve been prevented if Noah had just gotten his head out of his ass like I’d been telling him to for years. That’s what I get, though. I tried to be there for him, and he fucked me over.
“Would I like to see my brother’s face once he sees an image of me with my hands all over you?” I grin, picturing the pissed off expression he’d have once he saw those images floating around. He’d throw money at anybody to get them taken down. “Sure. But considering I’m doing this as a favor to him—”
She crosses her arms over her chest, pushing her boobs up and casting my very interested gaze toward them. “Which makes no sense. Why are you helping him in the first place? You can’t stand Noah.”
“And it’s mutual,” I point out, not willing to be the only bad guy here. “But just because I can’t stand him doesn’t mean I’m going to leave you stranded.”
Addy blinks. “It’s New York City, Daire. There are taxis. Ubers. Or I could walk—”
I snort. “In those shoes? Doubtful. I remember watching you when you first started wearing shit like that. You looked like a drunk giraffe trying to find her footing for the first time.”
Her cheeks turn pink. “Gee, thanks.”
Truth is, I remember a lot about Adelaide. Shit that shouldn’t have latched on the way it did or sunk its claws so deep into my memories.
Like the night she’d come over to the room my parents hooked me up with during the recovery process following the multitude of surgeries done on my leg after the accident. Noah showed up once or twice to check in on me, but Adelaide? She was a frequent visitor. Always asking if I needed something, bringing me my favorite food and drinks, and offering me conversation to distract me from the impending news of my doomed career.
“Why do you want to help me?” she asks, lowering her arms from the defensive stature they’re in. “We barely know each other.”
What a fucking laugh that is. I know everything there is to know about the timid girl standing barefoot in front of me. Not just the basic shit that the world does—that she just turned nineteen, got her big break as my brother’s co-star and love interest on Elemental High, and landed a huge role in a biopic as late model Elisa Carpenter.
I know her mother, who was an international supermodel in her youth, raised Addy as a single mom after she was assaulted by an infamous modeling agent who walked free after the attack was reported. The attack that led to Adelaide’s conception. Her father never laid claim to her despite the paternity test showing proof of his crime, and the justice system fucked Addy’s mom over when it came to repercussions that would help her cope and regain her footing once her career ended after the news broke worldwide.
I know that Adelaide’s grandmother, Rosemary, helped raise her as her mother went through medical school and became a traveling nurse, which put distance between the Peters women during her studies and time spent in the field, but still kept them strong despite it.
When Rosemary died a few years ago, the girl staring doubtfully at me was beside herself from grief—captured in media with spotlight stories spun as to why she looked on the verge of breakdown. Some speculation went back to the man she shared DNA with even though rarely anybody talks about him these days. Why would they? He’s living his best life in Mulan and Paris acting like he isn’t a predator while Addy and her mother do their best here in the city it all started in.
I know Addy keeps in contact with her mother because they’re still close despite how Adelaide came to be, and that her grandmother was more of a best friend to her than Noah ever could be. She wouldn’t fight me on that certain statement, and I doubt my brother is dumb enough to either.
I know that she only accepts acting roles that mean something to her, which is why she started so late in the game despite her agent’s requests for her to accept filler gigs to build her resume.
When she told my family about auditioning to portray Elisa Carpenter, we knew what getting it would mean for her—playing another one of the modeling industry’s victims. A victim like her mother. A victim of one of her biological father’s friends.
I could tell Noah wasn’t sure how to feel about the news, especially when her agent called congratulating her for getting the part, but I think her insistence on being part of the biopic is nothing short of badassery. She’s proving a point, making her existence come full circle by representing a woman whose life was cut short by the very people who keep getting away with sexual assault simply because they have money and fame to toss back at the people trying to bring them down.
Then there’s the little things about my brother’s friend that not many people know. Her favorite candy is that nasty black licorice shit, and her favorite drink is plain hot chocolate. No extra flavor shots in it. No whipped cream because it takes up too much space in the cup. She likes the kind of cocoa made with warm milk, not water.
I also know what she’s made sure not to bring up since the night it happened in my room a few months after my last surgery when I was hopped up on painkillers.
Our kiss.
A kiss that I know for a fact was her first.
“If you honestly think that I don’t know you then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.” Her eyes narrow at my brass statement. “Now climb on my back. I’m hungry and know a place we’ll both enjoy.”
She stares silently between me and the area I’m egging her to climb onto.
“Do you need to go home and change, or do you think that the material painted on your skin will expand if you fill your stomach with more than a few leaves of lettuce?”
She scoffs. “My dress isn’t that tight. And I eat more than let
tuce.”
I grin, patting my back again. “Good. I recall your love for loaded nachos at Perkin’s Place over on 5th. We can have the same competition we did when we were younger.”
“Daire—”
Sighing, I decide not to let this drag out any longer. Without a second thought, I haul her over my shoulder like I threatened to do and start walking into the crisp air, ignoring the people chuckling as they pass us on the half-empty sidewalk.
Her hands whack into my back but compared to the men I’m used to taking hits from, it’s nothing more than a love tap. “Put. Me. Down!”
I tighten my hold, the muscles in my arms flexing as I haul her up, making her grunt from the sudden movement. “You had a chance to do this the easy way,” I remind her. “So, I don’t want to hear it.”
She grumbles something unladylike that has me grinning.
I squeeze her thighs. “Don’t forget to smile, babe. There’s going to be more than one camera pointed at us during the two-block walk to the diner.”
I hear her groan.
Which makes me grin wider.
Chapter 3
Adelaide
* * *
I was eleven when I first met Daire. Six years separate he and Noah, and the age difference is obvious in their looks now more than ever.
Whereas Noah still has a babyface, Daire is all man. Matured features, sharp jawline, piercing eyes, and a slightly crooked nose from the time it got broke during a hockey game in his early college hockey days.
The first time I ever went over to the condo Noah’s parents still live in over on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I’d been enamored by the 6’3” man who seemed larger than life. Confidence encased his brawny frame everywhere he went and no matter who he talked to. I’d looked up to Noah for the same kind of confidence but quickly learned it was a family trait.
Dairen never treated me like the annoying little girl I was, even with seven years between us. Not even when he caught me blatantly staring a time or two. Or five or ten. He would always smile at me and strike up conversation whenever he was around visiting his family during his breaks from Union College. He’d ask how school was, what roles I was trying out for in school plays, and if I was auditioning for anything like Noah had been.
I think it was the first time he made me feel better after being discouraged during a failed audition where I was told I didn’t have the right “look” that made me realize how big my crush on him was. Even though his mother swatted him for it, he’d said, “Fuck them and their opinions, little Peters.”
It wasn’t the only time he encouraged me to brush off their comments either. That’s definitely when I knew how screwed I was.
Because he didn’t see me as the ugly duckling everybody else did. I wasn’t the semi-pretty girl that ‘90s makeover movies were based on. I was just me, and he liked me just fine for it.
“Let me guess,” he says, shoving another nacho into his mouth and tipping his chin toward the phone screen I’m staring at. “Lover Boy hasn’t texted back.”
My grip tightens on the cell. Lover Boy. It’s been a while since I’d heard that from him. He started calling Noah that after I became his co-star, and it was scripted that we’d be dating in the third season of the show. Then it became…more than that. Complicated. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
Snorting in amusement, he sits back in the black upholstered bench seat. “That’s where you’re wrong. I picked you up and have been driving you around like a chauffeur.”
My eyes catch his. “Well considering I tried telling you that I’d hail a taxi instead of you driving me around, I don’t really see why you’re complaining.”
Something passes over those brown eyes making him reach below the table and clear his throat. “You’re even hotter when you’re angry, princess. Have I ever told you that?”
What the what?
“Uh…” No. He’s definitely never told me that before. I would have locked it away in the back of my memory for…well, forever.
The crush is still strong.
“You know I hate it when you call me that,” is what I decide to come back with, picking up one of the nachos covered in meat, cheese, sour cream, and chives.
I also hate when he calls Noah ‘Lover Boy’ because it draws a very distinctive line between us where I wish it didn’t. If Jill knew where I was—who I was with—she’d tell me to get my butt into a cab and go home. She’d lecture me on public perception and remind me what I could lose by a scandal forming during a pivotal point in my career.
You see, the world sort of thinks I’m actually dating Noah Scott. Apparently, our long-time friendship and chemistry on the show resonated with the millions of viewers that watched it every week. So much so that we were being shipped internationally as the ‘it’ couple. It started with trending posts on social media, which turned into photos of us together both on and off the set being shared hundreds of thousands of times, to speculation in every tabloid magazine about how close we really are in everyday life.
When old school photos surfaced of the two of us, it became a fairytale love story of friends-to-lovers that involved a Cinderella type—aka me—and Prince Charming, which was none other than Noah himself.
We were basically forced to play out the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing off screen, too, which wasn’t hard. We already spent a lot of time together. Sometimes, I even wondered if dating him would be that different than what we already did. Just with more kissing…and stuff.
And we have done couple-like things beyond the basic dinners and movies. We’ve kissed. Touched. Light petting when we were both lonely and bored. Sometimes it’d go a little farther, but never too far because I always stopped it.
The man watching me stare at the food we decided to split also thinks we’re an item because neither Noah nor I have made a point to deny it. His parents have always assumed we’d wind up together anyway, but I know my best friend.
He likes girls who aren’t, well, me.
Prettier.
Taller.
Blonder.
Considering I dyed my natural blonde locks the fiery red and orange it is now, which gave my agent and manager a coronary, I’m even less of his type.
But did I want to be?
I sigh internally.
Before I can say anything, a little girl comes over to our booth holding another woman’s hand who I assume is her mom.
“Excuse me, Adelaide?” the older of the two asks softly. Her light eyes go from me to Daire, something familiar flashing in them as her cheeks flush.
Lust.
I know the look well because it’s how I look at him, and that does something stupid to the pit of my stomach.
“Hi!” My gaze goes from the mom to the little girl who’s partially hidden behind the pantleg of her mother. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
The little girl’s head tilts up to her mother for permission to answer before they turn back to me. “Cassie.”
The mom rubs her daughter’s hair. “She’s been a huge fan of you since Elemental High. I swear when she saw you walk in with your boyfriend—” Her cheeks grow darker as they give the ink displayed on Daire’s arms a quick look. It’s totally unfair for him to look the way he does. As soon as we were seated, he slipped off his suit jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his button down to his elbows to reveal the black ink that I know go all the way to his shoulders. “—she nearly lost it. She drew you something.”
Cassie hands me a folded piece of paper with crayon scribbles and nearly illegible words across the front. She goes back to being shy, hiding behind her mom’s legs.
“This is so pretty, Cassie,” I tell her softly. Based on Daire’s appraisal of the drawing, he doesn’t agree.
I lightly kick his shin under the table, so he doesn’t end up hurting the poor girl’s feelings. She’s young—younger than the usual audience for my former TV show. I’m sure the things I drew at her age were way worse.
/> Cassie’s mom gives me a sheepish smile, then steals another glance in Daire’s direction, who has one of those thick arms thrown over the back of his seat. She quickly turns back to me. “Would you mind if she got a picture with you? It’d mean the world to her.”
My money is on it meaning a lot more to the group of soccer moms that she’s going to be sharing that picture with online as soon as she puts her daughter to bed tonight. I keep that to myself, though, as I carefully slide out of the booth and get to Cassie’s level as her mother takes a few photos.
After they leave, I sit back down and let my eyes trail over to my discarded cell. The screen lights up with notifications from various social media accounts of mine, but none from any messages left by Noah.
“Trust me,” Dairen says, tipping his chin toward the device I’m scowling at. “He’s not worth it.”
I shake my head, digging back into the nachos to console my hurt feelings. “It’s been years, Daire. Why do you still hate him so much?”
“Hate is a strong word…”
“But is it an unfitting one?”
He levels me with a narrowed glare. “If the roles were reversed, how would you feel if you were in my shoes? I had everything taken away from me, Adelaide. I worked my ass off for it all to be stripped from me before it ever really started.”
I imagine that doesn’t feel good. “But you still play. You coach. You—”
“I do those things because it’s all I can do. Showing off a few moves to high school hopefuls is hardly anything compared to what I used to be able to do out there. Don’t think I don’t remember how many times you’d be there watching my games. You remember how good I was.”
I sink into my seat a little. “Yeah, I remember.” My cheeks prickle with heat. “I’m sure you still are.”
“But you wouldn’t know that, would you?” he questions, settling guilt into my gut. “I never see you at any of the games I coach. Never seen you check out my new place ever since I got it. Strange, isn’t it?”