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.