“What?” Finn asks.
I look up, grinning. “There’s a message here from a lingerie company. They want us—me—to model and post their stuff. They’d pay us.”
Finn snorts. “Scam.”
“No, it isn’t.” I click on the profile photo. There are photos of women in Butter Boudoir’s pieces, but nothing nearly as stunning as the work Finn does. I should know, I’m an expert at analyzing art for its market. The description has a website, so I browse their shop. “It’s totally legit.”
“Well, if it is, doesn’t matter. I’m not posting photos of you in lingerie.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What about the stockings?”
“That was a one-time thing, and you were completely covered.”
“But—”
“Halston.” He gives me a look. “I don’t want my fucking girlfriend naked on the Internet.”
I sit back, surprised by his obstinacy. “First of all, nobody would know it was me. Second, what do you think we’ve been doing? It’s the same thing.”
“No it isn’t. Every photo we’ve taken has been painstakingly presented to be suggestive, not explicit. They’re erotic, not pornographic. That’s a line I don’t want to cross.”
“You were literally inside me during one of the photos,” I shoot back. “Like, we were having sex when you took it.”
He thins his lips into an angry line, and I feel immediately scolded. “You don’t see that in the photo.”
“But it’s implied.”
“That’s why it’s sexy. If I posted a picture of us fucking, that’d be porn.”
I look back at the screen. That sucks. The garments are beautiful and tasteful. Black and white lace. Little pink bows. I’d love to own some, see how they’d look in a photo, and I think Finn could use the money. I haven’t told him, but I eavesdropped on some of his conversation with Marissa the morning she was here. I couldn’t resist poking my head out. When I’d heard how cute he was with her, I hadn’t wanted to stop. Then, she’d called him broke, and my heart had dropped. It shouldn’t have surprised me. Finn never acts as though money’s an issue, but he hasn’t had much work in the last year.
I clear my throat. “They’ll pay us,” I say. “A grand.”
He looks at his plate. “Just to post some pictures?”
I nod. “We can make money at this, Finn. I know you’d hoped to get some commissions out of what we’re doing, but that’s only one way to do it. People will pay us to post, and the more followers we get, the more money they’ll offer.”
Finn reaches out and takes my hand, lacing our fingers together. “Then another offer will come along. Something that works for us. This . . . you, out there, I’m not comfortable with it. Maybe I’m a greedy bastard, but I want you all to myself, Hals.”
I should be swooning. Grateful to have someone who cares enough to keep me safe. But I can’t ignore the tug of disappointment. I’d look good in that lingerie, and based on previous, sexier posts, I know it’d get us a lot of attention. “Okay,” I say. “We’ll just ignore it.”
“Yeah.” He nods at the phone. “Anything else good in there?”
“I’ll look while I’m at work. If something else comes up, you’ll consider it?”
“If it makes sense for us. Would I like to get more work, or maybe even sell some of the stuff on my website? Yes. But not at the cost of our art. Or our relationship.”
The sincerity in his green eyes is overwhelming. I almost can’t believe I’m not dreaming. Maybe I am. I don’t know what I did to deserve Finn. I get up and go sit in his lap. “I don’t want to go to work.” I kiss him lightly on the lips but pull back when he goes in for more. “Let me stay here. We’ll take photos all day and figure out how to make lots of money so I never have to go back to that stupid office.”
“Mmm.” He squeezes my hip, chasing me down for a kiss. “I wish you could.”
“I can. I will. Screw my job. This can work, Finn. We just need a business plan. We can do this.”
He smiles and runs his hands up under my tank top, exploring, like it’s his first time touching me, but also navigating my body like a map he’s memorized. “You’re so smart,” he says. “I’ve got lots of business experience, but you’re a natural. I just want to take pictures and for people to pay me to do it.”
“You can get there,” I say. “But you have to start somewhere. Working artists have to make sacrifices. Just little ones.” I peck my way around his mouth. He has the most intoxicating lips—inviting, soft, full, wet.
Agreeable, even. Maybe I can kiss my way to getting a yes.
Because this is my venture too, and I don’t see why we both shouldn’t get what we want.
21
At the sound of a car engine, I walk to the dining room window and pull the drapes aside. Rich waves. He and his parents are bundled head to toe. “They’re here,” I say, turning away.
Dad sets his prized honey-baked ham on the table. Candles on the banquet warm the room with a glow. In a pullover and gray slacks, after a couple spiked eggnogs, Dad looks relaxed. He comes over and takes my shoulders, kissing me on the forehead. “Thank you for today. If they hadn’t come all the way from Chicago, I might’ve canceled on the Halperns just to spend more time alone.”
All day, he’s been easygoing. We’ve come a long way. Ten years ago, around this time, in this room, we had our worst fight to date. I decided last minute not to attend my mom’s funeral, but he wouldn’t hear of it. I smile. “Really?”
He shrugs. “Despite the mess, and a few bad batches, baking with you was fun. The sugar cookies were . . . they tasted just like your mom’s.”
A lump forms in my throat. Dean Martin Christmas music plays in the background. For the second time today, I’m tempted to tell him about Finn. I’m afraid of turning the warmth cold, though. “It was a nice day,” I say as the Halperns knock.
He leaves to get the door. I chose the black tulip dress I’m wearing for its pockets. I pull my phone out of one and text Finn.
They’re here.
He writes back immediately.
Good luck. Just arrived in Greenwich. Call if you need anything.
I take a deep breath. The light bourbon buzz I had going fades when I hear Rich in the foyer. It’s my fault he’s here, but I’m not in the mood to play future daughter-in-law tonight. Rich’s parents prefer denial to reality. If they sense anything off tonight, they won’t mention it. I don’t know whether to feel sad or happy that I’d probably be standing in this same spot living that same life if it weren’t for Finn.
Finn. Naked and tangled in his buttery sheets. Eating ice cream out of a shared cup as we walk home from a show in forty-degree weather. Reading softly to him from my journal in the twenty-four-hour diner, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up because the people in the booth behind us can surely hear. I’m not the sweet, quiet girl our families want me to be. I like sex and black coffee and knowing I’ve made someone feel something. Even if they’re feeling it in a plastic-covered booth.
Glasses clink from the family room. Pre-dinner cocktails. I should join them, but to put it off a little longer, I resume my project of sorting Finn’s direct messages. Between yesterday being the last business day of the year for our office, and the time I spent with Dad today, I’ve been too busy to get through them all. I open them one by one.
Your work is amazing. We’ve featured you on our account today.
Who do we contact to license your photography?
We’re writing an article about boudoir photography. Can we mention you?
I move down to the next message, but the preview makes me stop.
Do us all a favor and
I shouldn’t open it. I’m about to have a potentially stressful dinner of make-believe stories about how great Rich and I are doing. I don’t need anything to upset me, especially without Finn here to comfort me.
It’s a troll trying to get a reaction, Finn would say, and he’d be right. It’s st
upid. I lock my phone.
Laughter comes from the next room. My dad will come get me any minute.
Whether I read the message or not, I’ll think about it all during dinner. Wondering if it’s bad. Or legitimate. Or justified. I can’t expect everyone to like what I write. Even the greats have critics.
I type in my passcode and pull up Finn’s inbox again.
Do us all a favor and stop posting this CRAP, you slut.
My throat closes. Crap. Slut. I don’t recognize the sender. But why would I? I read it again. I shouldn’t have opened it. The backs of my eyes begin to ache. Obviously, she doesn’t get what we’re doing. She doesn’t understand my poetry, not like the thousands of other people who follow our account. Why would I care what she thinks?
I hit reply to tell her that in so many words, to suggest she find someone a little less complex to follow. She’s too simple for us. My fingers shake so much that I type gibberish. I backspace to start over, but I just stare at the screen.
I hear Finn’s voice. Leave it. She’s not worth it. You’re the expert.
Some people will think my work is crap. It’s inevitable. And why shouldn’t they? I have no real experience. No degree in literature or journalism. I’m not a model. I can’t really take offense to somebody pointing out the truth: in many ways, I’m a fraud.
But what happens if Finn figures that out? If he realizes my journals are nothing more than the desperate words of a teenage girl in a woman’s body?
“Halston?” Rich asks from the doorway.
I swallow down the urge to cry and turn. “What?”
“George sent me to get you.” He puts his hands in his trouser pockets. His chocolate-colored hair is a little longer than normal, curling around his ears. “Are you okay?” he asks.
I put my phone in my pocket. “I’m fine.”
“Look . . .” Rich walks farther into the room, out of hearing distance of our parents. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t really want to do this, either.”
“Really? It seems to me like you’d enjoy the fact that I’m obligated to play along for a whole weekend.”
“Not really. It actually feels pretty shitty pretending everything’s great when I know we might be over soon.”
I blink away. I don’t want to make him feel that way, but I also can’t have any ambiguity between us. Finn’s made it clear he wouldn’t appreciate that. “It is over, Rich. I won’t change my mind.”
“It’s hard to believe you’re so certain when we were fine just a month ago.”
“We weren’t fine. I mean, we were, but we’ve never been a good match. My dad just needed someone to pawn me off on. With your upstanding family and career track, you were the guy for the job.”
“I still am. Why is it bad that I’m a good boyfriend to you?”
Rich looks handsome in the yellow light. Dean Martin croons about a marshmallow world. Rich is attractive and won’t have trouble finding a girl who’s gaga for him. “I’m not looking for a handler. I want a partner.”
“I can be that. Give me another chance. If not for me, then for yourself.”
“What does that even mean?”
He toes nothing on the ground. Just when I think he won’t respond, he says, “Look at you. I can see right now, and sometimes at work, that you’re sad. You were late yesterday for the third time this month.”
Finn and I had post-breakfast sex in the shower. “So?”
“So I’m worried.”
“Why?”
“Obviously, because I still love you. I’m not the one who ended this.” He sighs. “He’s not good for you.”
My dad? Well, that’s a plot twist I didn’t see coming. Rich has always been my dad’s champion, taking his side over mine nine times out of ten. Maybe some distance has made him see if he wants me, he has to support me. “We have our issues, but I wouldn’t say he’s bad for me.”
“No? If you ask me, that guy’s trouble.”
That guy?
“It concerns me whether or not you’re my girlfriend. I think I have that right since we were together two years.”
Rich sounds almost jealous—of my dad? There are a lot of words to describe George Fox, but trouble isn’t one of them. If he’s not referring to my dad, then who?
“How long have you been seeing him?” Rich asks.
Finn. Our private little world cracks open. It’s too soon for Rich to know about Finn, for my dad to come in and make changes. I curl my hands into fists and take a few steps toward Rich, my pumps solid on the wood floor. “You’ve been spying on me?”
His eyebrows meet in the middle of his forehead. “No. If anything, it’s the other way around.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s the one who hunted me down. He brought me into this.”
“Finn?” I ask. “How? When?”
“At the office Wednesday.” Rich’s expression eases. “He didn’t tell you?”
What the . . .? Finn was at my office on Wednesday. But so was I. We were together the entire twenty minutes he was there . . . except when Finn went to the bathroom. “What’d he say to you?”
“He nearly threatened me, Halston.”
“Over what?”
“To stay away. He said he was your boyfriend.”
I told Finn I’d handle Rich. That was my way of saying butt out. This is the kind of thing my dad would do, talking on my behalf, trying to protect me from things that could or might happen instead of letting me handle it on my own. Finn abused my trust, at my office of all places, when he’s the one who’s encouraged me to take back control over my life. I try to muster the anger I should feel, but I’m just as annoyed with Rich, and he’s here. “He is my boyfriend,” I say.
“How can that be?” Rich asks. “We just barely split up.”
This explains the roses and Finn’s surprise visit to my office. He has a possessive streak. I don’t know what to think about the fact that I’m not angry with him. I’ve proven the last few weeks—I’m not all that unhappy about being possessed by him. “When you know, you know.”
“How can you know anything? You’re not yourself right now.”
“Maybe I am.” I touch my chest. “I need to figure out who I am without my meds. You obviously can’t respect that, but you don’t have to.”
“It’s not about respect. I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret, to make a . . .”
“Mistake?” I finish.
Rich closes his mouth. He looks surprised by what he just said, but I’m not.
“You don’t have to bite your tongue around me anymore,” I say. “You can blame me. My dad does.”
His face falls. “Jesus, Halston. You act like you and I are on different sides. What you can’t seem to understand is that I care about you. That’s why I want you to be well.”
“You want me to be easy. Calm. That’s what you care about.”
“Is that so bad? Being stable? Not drinking too much wine or beating yourself up over what happened ten years ago or making bad decisions.”
Bad decisions. Rich would think this life I’m building with Finn is bad. Posing half-nude for a man I met less than a month ago and putting the pictures online—it sounds bad, but it doesn’t feel that way. “You have no idea what I’m like without them. I don’t know what I’m like without them. I’ve never had the chance to find out.”
“Yes you did, and to be blunt, Halston, it was a shit-show. Do I have to remind you how we nearly lost a big account because of that dinner?”
I cross my arms. I’m ready to be done with this conversation. “No.”
“You can be reckless, which is why someone has to look out for you. Someone who knows your past.” He runs a hand over his face. “Why do you think your dad has done all this? It’s for your mom.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Maybe it bothers you that we didn’t meet some other way. Or that I’m not some bad boy who wants to help you over the edge. But I’m go
od for you, and I can give you a good life. That’s what your dad wants, if not for himself or you, then for her . . .”
I stop listening. My dad orchestrated all this for her. Setting me up with Rich, letting me create my own position at work, handing us the reins. Maybe it was a conscious choice, maybe it wasn’t, but he’s trying to give me a life that would’ve made my mom happy. And I’m rejecting it.
On some level, I suppose I knew. I played along, because it meant we could keep sweeping things under the rug. It meant neither of us had to say what we truly believed.
If it weren’t for me, she’d still be alive.
And if she were, what would she think of the choices I’ve been making?
Would she be proud that I’m taking back the reins? Or, like Rich, would she think I’m in the midst of another giant mistake?
22
I dash down the hall to Finn’s room, squealing as champagne erupts from the bottle in my hands. “It’s spilling everywhere,” I cry over my shoulder.
“That’s because you’re running,” he calls after me.
I get to his bathroom sink, holding it over the drain. “Bring the glasses.”
“Got ’em.” He comes in behind me and takes the bottle. Once he pours two glasses, he kisses me on the mouth. “Drink up. It’s almost midnight.”
“Should we have stayed at the bar?” I ask, pouting. “Are we old farts for coming home before the ball dropped?”
“I don’t know about you, but I had my fill of twenty-dollar cocktails and sweaty bodies. You are, without a doubt, the only person I’d brave New Year’s Eve in the city for.”
“Aww.” I rise to the tips of my toes for another kiss, but I sway and spill champagne down the front of my multi-colored sequined dress.
“Perfect. I’ve been looking for an excuse to get you out of that,” Finn says, laughing. “Did you I tell you how jaw-droppingly beautiful you looked tonight?”
Tempt Me: A First Class Romance Collection Page 22
