Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

I only said no because I wanted to think. I needed to… I didn’t want to be in a club and have to be around all these other girls who want BJ while I was trying to work out how I could be with him again, if I could be with him again, because the other night felt rather consequential to me.

It was the closest we’d come to being together since we were together, and it was the happiest I’d been in years, and when I realised that, then I felt afraid. Afraid that he’d do it again, afraid that he’d fuck up—and so when he called about going to Raffles tonight, I said no, because I didn’t know how to be around him after the other night, with the holding hands and the cuddling me to sleep, and the brushing the hair from his face—and I didn’t know how to figure out what any of that meant moving forward in front of him.

But then as I sat in my bedroom missing him, wishing I was with him, feeling frustrated that he wasn’t there with me, I decided that the responsible thing to do—the grown-up thing—would be to go and find him and tell him all of it. That I like holding his hands, I want to keep holding his hands. That I like him cuddling me to sleep, that it was the best sleep I’ve had in three years that wasn’t medicated. That sweeping his hair from his face, was the closest I’ve felt to someone since we ended.

So, I put on my candy pink, square-neck knitted, mini dress from Balmain and the over-the-knee, suede stiletto boots from Casadei and took a car to Raffles, and then I get here and the first thing I see is that awful girl, grinding on top of him.

Him reclined back in the chair, loving every second, eyes closed, lost to it… Holding her by the waist, gripping her stupid thighs. Is this what he’s like when I’m not around? Is this what he was like the night he broke us?

He sees me and he rushes to me, and I’m blind. I can’t see anything, I think I’m having an anxiety attack, the edges of my vision are fading. The music goes softer but it can’t be going softer, we’re in a club. Maybe the pounding in my ears is getting louder? Am I going to be sick? Are my eyes wet?

Then the world goes to black. We lock eyes. And this sheet of impenetrable glass slides up from the ground between us. We can’t touch and we can’t talk and there’s nothing to say anyway besides him screaming through the glass that he misses me and me screaming back that I miss him too and him screaming that he’s sorry and me screaming that it’s not enough. Our faces are frozen in what feels like hopeless love but couldn’t be, because I don’t love him anymore. I cannot.

The moment passes. The glass slides down.

“You disgust me,” I spit at him and rush towards the bar, hoping it offers me some sense of safety and it does more than leaving. If I leave, he’ll just follow me home. If I stay here, at least there are bodies between us.

There are always bodies between us.

He stares at me from the other side of the room, but I won’t meet his eyes. They look droopy sad. He’s completely shitfaced. He watches me, picks up a bottle of Patron, bites out the cork, spits it on the floor then drinks straight from the bottle—holds his arms open wide like, “what are you going to do”, and then falls back on the sofa behind him and the girl keeps dancing on him, her hands slipping into his short-sleeved, yellow and brown, floral print Marni shirt. There are too many buttons undone. I want to go over and fix it. I don’t want anyone seeing that much of him but me.

I breathe out through my mouth, tiny small breaths, they’re too shallow to be helpful but the feeling of the air passing over my lips distracts me enough to keep bad breathing at bay.

And then I feel someone saddle up beside me. “Magnolia Parks.” It’s a voice I vaguely recognise but can’t completely place blindly on the spot. I look over and I’m delighted to see Tatler’s most eligible bachelor since Harry was nabbed from the list—practically 7ft a million inches, glacier blue eyes, dirty blonde hair swept to the side, muscles and shoulders for days and a smile that’s only rivalled by my ex-boyfriend’s.

“Tom England.” I grin up at him, surprised.

Besides being a full-time, professional dreamboat, Tom is also a pilot. I mean—of course he is. He doesn’t have to be, by the way. He’s worth about a bajillion dollars. He just likes flying. He likes having a thing he has to show up for. That’s what Gus told me anyway.

“What are you doing here?” I glance around, a bit in awe.

“I’m sticking closer to home for a little while.” He gives me a strained smile. The upper crust of British society is built upon such smiles.

“How are you?” He gestures to me warmly.

“Good,” I nod. “Yeah, I’m good—”

He pauses, “Really? I saw—” Then glances past me and nods his chin in BJ’s direction.

“Oh.” I sniff a laugh. “Then no.”

I should be embarrassed. It’s embarrassing Tom England saw that, but I’m not. He smiles. “Can I buy you a drink?”

I nod once. “Do you know what, Tom England? You can buy me several.”

He smacks the bar twice to get the bartender’s attention. “You’re on.”

Tom England didn’t go to Varley. I think he went to the Hargrave-Westman. He’s a bit older than me too. Twenty-nine, maybe? Could be thirty.

We all had crushes on him growing up, even the boys, I think. He’s so dashing and so dreamy and he’s like London Society’s very own prince-elect. He’s charming, and clever and you kind of lose time with him a bit? There’s nothing boyish about him, which is so lovely. So far from what I’m used to with my little brigade of lost boys who make terrible, slutty, stupid, regrettable decisions, all the time. Apparently. Tom just makes good ones, I’ll bet.

He’s not in the media much. Tends to be more private, tends to steer clear of the parties that might get him photographed and for some reason it makes him a bit sexier.

We’re at a table now, Tom and I. BJ’s gone. God knows where. To a loo stall, probably. But I can still see Henry and Jonah, they’re watching me closely. I can feel their eyes on me.

More so than normal—

Normal is: BJ’s not around, they’re just keeping an eye on it all.

Abnormal is: this. It’s like they’re one step away from night vision goggles and a remote control drone. I stare at my old friends, try to tell them with my eyeballs to fuck off and leave me alone, but they don’t speak the same silent language BJ and I do.

Tom watches me for a few seconds, eyes pinching at the edges. “Are you feeling any better?” he asks as he swills his Scotch around his glass.

“Ah,” I say, thinking out loud. “It’s going to take a few days for me to oust that one from my memory.”

He sniffs a laugh. “He’s always been a bit of an idiot, Ballentine”—he pauses—“love him, good kid.” I can barely contain my glee that Tom just referred to BJ as a kid. Beej has always said—in his words not mine—that Tom England is “the shit.” Beej would just die that Tom England referred to him as a kid. “But he’s just…. sort of… stupid. Especially with you.” He sounds annoyed about that part.

“With me?” I smile, feeling awfully high and mighty.

“Yep.” He nods. The eight-year-old who followed him around at a party at Windsor Castle can hardly keep it together. I give him a small, grateful smile.

“Hey.” He nods at the door. “Do you want to get out of here? Grab a drink somewhere else?” I nod quickly, confused. I try to look confident and self-assured, but I think I just look dazed. Is Tom England asking me on a date? He picks up my coat, opens it for me to slip into—so dreamy—and then grabs me by the waist, spinning me around to face him.

“Wait—I just need to do one thing.” Then he knocks my chin up with his hand and kisses me softly. I don’t even kiss him back, I’m just starstruck. He leans in closely and whispers, “The boys will tell him I did that.”

Then he takes my hand and leads me away. I look over at Jonah and Henry through the crowd, and as predicted, both their eyes are wide, Henry can’t believe it. I hold my hand up to wave bye.

They both wave back with a sort of paralysed uncertainty and then Tom pulls me out up onto the street.

I look up at him, awaiting further instructions.

“Any suggestions?” He smiles down at me merrily, his hands in his jacket pockets. I shake my head. I like him telling me what to do. He smiles and nods. “There’s a place about a ten-minute walk from here—”

And then he does that incredibly sexy, incredibly grown-up guy thing where he puts his hand on the small of my back but definitely not my arse to guide me someplace. It’s just for a few seconds but I’m positively living for it, because Paili cut out a picture of Tom from Tatler and we had it in a hot-boy collage on our dormitory wall when we were at school, and now here I am on my way to have a drink with him after watching the love of my life get a lap dance from this Plug-Ugly girl whom I can only assume is from Surrey with the aggressive eyebrows she was sporting.

“Wait.” I pause, confused. “Did you say walk?”

“Do you ever get bored of it?” he asks me, sitting back in his chair at Barts, combing his hand through his hair.

“Of what?” I frown.

“This… shit?” He shrugs. “Society. Money?”

I shake my head playfully. “I find material possessions incredibly fulfilling.”

“Good to know.” He smirks over at me.

“Love fades, things are forever.” I merrily pat my £3000 Devotion knitted shoulder bag from Dolce & Gabbana. He starts laughing. “I don’t like the eyes,” I concede. “The Sun, LMC, Loose Lips, the Daily Mail—” I point to someone in the corner. “He’s been trailing me for a few weeks trying to get a bad photo.”

“Impossible. Couldn’t take one of you if his life depended on it.” He smiles, then considers all this. “Honestly, I don’t get a lot of this.” He nods his head towards the idiot in the corner with the telephoto lens.

“They sort of just disappear into the crowd after a while,” I shrug.

He taps me on the arm. “How are you feeling?”

“Actually, I’m having a really nice time.”

He pulls back in faux-offence. “Actually?”

“Well, considering how my night began with BJ being straddled by the next member of Little Mix… my expectations for the evening were somewhat tempered. But this has been fun.”

“So I’ve redeemed it then?”

“Redeemed it?” I let out a shy laugh. “I’m sitting in a bar with Tom England and just before, he kissed me in a club to make my—I don’t know, whatever the fuck he is—jealous.”

His eyes pinch in amusement. “Why do you keep saying my full name?”

I purse my lips. “When we were kids, we all had crushes on you. You and Sam. I was a Tom England girl through and through but Paili flip flopped between you and your brother—” I smile at the memory. “You felt so much bigger than us then.”

He gives me a look. “I’m still so much bigger than you.” And I don’t know why that was a sexy thing to say, but it was.

“There was this one summer,” I say and start to blush at the memory, “where we were all on the Amalfi Coast at the same time as you and your brother and the girls. And me and Paili took the little Aquariva out to Tordigliano Beach, and—” I start laughing. My cheeks on fire.

“Oh god—”

“You and Erin were on the beach”—I pause to choose my words delicately—“skinny-dipping.”

He eyes me, amused. “That’s a polite way of putting it.”

“And I guess you didn’t hear the boat or see the boat, or you just didn’t care, I don’t know, and we were so embarrassed that we saw you but also—” I look away to the side with over-exaggerated wide eyes and a pursed mouth.

He starts chuckling. “Fuck! That’s embarrassing.”

“No!” I shake my head. “It was very—”

“Illegal? Smutty? Something my mother would cry over?”

“Yes, all of the above, but still not the word I’m looking for.”

He smirks.

“Inspiring!” I land on, and he laughs loudly, banging his fist once on the table.

“And what exactly did it inspire?”

“Oh.” I bat my eyes at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Yes, I would. Very much.” He smirks. Then his face changes a bit. “You seem in a better mood now.”

He bites into a padrón pepper.

“I am,” I nod.

“So then.” He wipes his hands. “Tell me—what’s it like being in love with someone who hurts you all the time?”

I’m completely thrown for a moment. I blink a lot of times. I let out a bewildered laugh. “Horrible.”

He nods, coolly. “Thought about as much.”

“You’d hurt him too though,” he tells me.

I frown at him. “How do you know?”

“Face like yours?” He nods at it. “Fuck, it’s hurting me now. I’m just sitting here, across from you, without a history, not in love with you, and you look sad that I said that, and I want to slit my wrists.” He sniffs a laugh and looks a bit sad himself.

I think for a few moments. “I don’t trust him.”

He nods. “Seems fair.”

“I had a boyfriend before,” I start. “He was sort of a prop for me to hide behind? Like a barrier, that BJ couldn’t cross because someone else was there.” I don’t know why I’m telling him all this. I’ve never said that out loud before. “And then, we broke up. Because he was shit. And actually, I was shit.” He gives me a sad smile, like he gets it. “But now, I’m in the middle of no-man’s land, under attack, without a foxhole.”

He gives me a long look. I mean, long. Ten seconds at least and I can see the cogs ticking in his mind. “I could be your foxhole,” he says eventually. I sit back, a little surprised, and give him a funny look. He shrugs. “I could.”

I give him a look. “You could have any girl you wanted in London.”

“Yeah,” he considers. “But actually, I’ve always had a bit of a thing for you.” I die. He continues. “And I can’t date anyone right now. After Sam—” He shakes his head. “I’ve a lot of shit I’ve got to deal with and… happening at the minute.”

“Oh.” I’m sad for him. He looks sad.

“I’d be a garbage boyfriend,” he tells me, quite seriously but then his eyes go bright. “But I’d make a knockout foxhole.”

I rest my chin on my hand, frowning curiously. “Are you being serious?”

He nods.

“So—what?” I fiddle with my Sydney Evan diamond hoop earring mindlessly. “We’d just pretend like we’re together? That we like each other?”

“Yeah, like your last boyfriend except I’m in on it,” he quips, grinning at me.

I give him a suspicious look, as though the thought isn’t the biggest thrill.

“Are you trying to have sex with me?” I ask, half joking.

“Oh,” he says. “I’m definitely trying to have sex with you. Whether we do or not”—he shrugs—“up to you.”

I give him a look. “I’m not really a random sex… kind of girl.”

He shrugs. “I figured as much. Worth a try.” He folds his arms across his big, burly chest. “So, what do you say? Are you down for a sexless foxhole?”

“Are you?” I laugh, bemused. He nods, effortlessly. “You’ll come to places with me?” I ask. He nods. “Hold my hand? Take me shopping?”

“Yes and yes.”

I bat my eyes at him. “You’ll kiss me?”

He snorts. “Yeah, I’ve been trying to all night.”

“Oh,” I lean across the table. “I’ll make it easy for you then.”

He smiles a little as he leans in, brushes his mouth against mine and kisses me softly. There’s the distant flash of a camera phone from somewhere in the restaurant. He smiles, our mouths still pressed against one another.

I pull back a little. “I think this is going to work out just fine.”

23:46

Henry

You good?

Grand!

Hah

You get home okay?

…You know I did.

Haha

Why don’t you just ask me what you’re really asking, Nosy Parker.

Did you go home with him?

Who’s asking?

Me.

Your oldest friend in the world.

Just you?

Yep.

No.

And if Beej asks…?

I definitely shagged Tom England.

Twice.

On it.