Chapter 22 Gianna
TWENTY-TWO
GIANNA
It seemed like the more Gianna pushed, the more Finn latched onto her and refused to let go. He was driving her insane, but she couldn’t stop thinking about him either. When she said she was confused, she wasn’t lying.
Whenever she got into these moods, there was only one place to go: the studio. Tonight, she chose the home studio instead of the one at school. The more she danced and tried to force herself to nail down the stupid leap she kept messing up, the more she began uncovering that confusion.
One part of it came from the possibility of losing Luna if she ever found out about the stupid relationship. She didn’t exactly know Luna’s opinions on the matter, not that she could ask her outright. God, she didn’t even want to think about how that conversation would go if it ever did happen.
Gianna knew that Luna loved her and only wanted to see her happy.
She also knew that Finn’s happiness meant the world to Luna.
Now, whether she would want to see them happy together was a whole different question.
The point was, she wasn’t ready to risk it.
There was a possibility of everything going right and working out, but just the same was the possibility of everything going wrong.
Luna could find the relationship uncomfortable and never support it, which would put Cecilia and Blair in an awkward place.
Gianna would never make them choose a side; she didn’t even want sides to exist. However, that would be the natural consequence.
Who would they pick? God, making them pick would be awful.
Valerio would definitely choose Luna, Dante would choose his brother, and Allister would be stuck between his loyalty towards his best friend or his little sister, unless he hated her for breaking everyone up like she did to their family.
Now she was spiraling.
This was why she hated thinking about these things and why she couldn’t risk it for Finn. She couldn’t lose everyone and everything on the small chance of it working out with him.
Which brought her to the second part. She didn’t think Finn was fully into the whole concept of monogamy.
Hell, he only just started thinking about girlfriends.
He didn’t know anything about relationships and had never been in one.
Not to mention, he had just been kidnapped home.
He hadn’t come willingly. There was a big chance he could leave at a moment’s notice and an almost sure chance that he would break her heart in one way or another.
No matter what, she would be losing someone.
Was it worth it to lose Finn though, or to lose her entire group of friends and the only family she had left?
She would have thought that the choice was obvious enough, but when she thought about it, there was a horrible ache in her chest. It had already happened, it seemed. He had managed to break his way in.
“Do you always dance this aggressively?” Allister asked from behind her.
She screamed, turning around in a panic. Thank God it wasn’t Finn, but still the sudden intrusion was enough to freak her out.
“What are you doing here?”
She walked over to the music, pausing it so she would be able to hear him clearly.
He took a seat on one of the wooden stools against the back wall. His glasses were perched on his nose and his hair was messy, meaning that he was either studying or was getting work done for Valerio.
“I heard the music and thought I would come check on you. I haven’t seen you a lot lately,” Allister said.
She shrugged, sitting on the floor across from him to remove her pointe shoes. “I’ve been busy trying to prepare for the recital coming up. There’s one move that’s been impossible to nail.”
“I’m sure you’ll end up getting it,” he said. “You always do.”
She gave him a genuine smile. “I really hope so.”
“I wanted to see if any of this aggression has to do with the text I sent you. About Mom’s visit?”
The smile slipped off her face in an instant. She swallowed harshly, trying to avoid the way his blue eyes stared back into hers.
To be fair, with everything going on with Finn, it provided the perfect distraction, so she didn’t have to think about everything going on with her mother. Maybe subconsciously, part of her frustration was because of it, but not all. Not like it would usually be.
At least not until he reminded her.
“Do you know why she’s coming back so soon?”
He shook his head. “No idea. Dad told me about it the other day. Imagine his surprise when he got the call early this time.”
Gianna exhaled. When her mother decided to visit for the first time after she abandoned them, she came unannounced.
Gianna had been too young to really know what happened during that visit, but from what her father had told her, he never let her show up again without calling.
She couldn’t blame him. One year wasn’t nearly enough time to pick up his life after his wife had just left.
The fact that she even got yearly visits was something Gianna still didn’t fully understand to this day. There were plenty of times throughout the years that she fought the idea of them—she hid in her room, spent the night at Cecilia’s, and once even ran away from home just to avoid the visit.
But her dad always made her come home. He knew it was painful for her and for Allister, but every year he told them the same thing: “It hurts, but you get to sleep knowing you did everything in your power.”
The first time she’d heard it, she had no idea what he was talking about.
She had been a child. Over the years, she knew he didn’t want them to live with any regrets or wonder what could have happened had they never seen their mother.
The lack of relationship wasn’t on them if they showed up to the visits; it was on her.
Now, as a grown woman, Gianna knew she didn’t want any relationship with her mother. Not the yearly visits, not a healthy steady relationship—though that was impossible now—nothing. She wanted nothing to do with the woman who gave birth to her.
And yet, she still showed up to the yearly visits.
“I’m assuming we’ll be riding back home together?” Gianna asked.
Allister gave her a grin. “Only if I get to choose the music this time.”
“Hell no. I’m not listening to your classical bullshit the entire way,” she said immediately.
He rolled his eyes. “I don’t listen to classical music. Who do you think I am?”
“You complain that my music sucks. What am I supposed to think?”
“Yeah, because you play the same things over and over again.”
“Blah blah blah.” She waved him off.
He rolled his shoulders, sitting up on the stool. “Oh, you’re never going to believe who I went out with the other night.”
Gianna froze. She tried to play it off, extending her left leg and bending over it to stretch. “Who?” she asked, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible.
“Finn. To be honest, I never thought much about him, but he doesn’t seem that bad.”
She snorted. “Are we talking about the same Finn?”
“You sound just like Valerio.”
“Maybe we see something you don’t.”
Allister shook his head. “No, I think it’s the other way around. Seriously, I think he’s misunderstood. Just really messed up after everything that happened with his parents.”
Huh, that sounded a little too familiar.
“You guys got that deep at the club? Are you going to be his best friend now?” she asked, moving onto her other leg.
“Now you sound like Dante,” he said. “We just chatted about things. I asked him about that one rumor Luna came up with.”
Gianna lifted her head. “Which one?”
“The one about him seeing someone. He didn’t confirm or deny, just said something about it being ‘complicated.’”
“What do you think?”
“I think it’s true.”
She swallowed harshly. “What makes you say that?”
“He didn’t move from the couch once. Didn’t look at anyone, didn’t touch anyone, didn’t talk to anyone.
A whole club of women and he didn’t do anything.
” Allister shook his head, almost as if he was analyzing something deeper, and if Gianna was paying more attention she would have tried to get to the bottom of it.
All she could think about though were his words.
Or more specifically, Finn’s actions.
“I guess we’ll never know for sure,” Gianna said.
He shrugged, standing. “I guess not. Don’t go blabbering to Luna about it. The last thing I need is her questioning me a million times over to find out if he’s actually seeing someone.”
She swiped her finger over her lips as if zipping them shut. “No point in feeding a stupid rumor.”
“I have more work to do. Try not to stay up too late dancing.”
Gianna could only nod her head, watching as Allister left the studio to head back up the steps.
She fell against the floor, her heart pounding against her chest. People were starting to notice, which was extremely dangerous for both her and Finn.
Whatever they had going on needed to get nipped in the butt because curious minds never just stayed curious.
So then why did she have a big smile on her face thinking about Finn staying loyal to her at the club, texting her nonstop, and then begging her to spend the night?
He needed a big fat warning sign stapled to his head. One that read: Danger!