Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

My dad’s going to flip a switch. A man’s reputation is everything, he says. He can say that because he’s got a good one. I don’t know what my reputation is these days but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be something my dad’s going to be yelling about from the rafters.

“Another fight, BJ?” he’d say.

I’d say nothing as I’d roll my eyes.

“How many fights do you need to get into before you understand that it’s too late. You lost Magnolia a long time ago.” That’s what he’ll say to me tomorrow morning.

Probably in a voice mail because I won’t go home tonight.

I don’t know how he knows I lost Magnolia, not that she lost me—but he’s right. He doesn’t know he’s right; he’s just assumed he’s right, which actually is annoying as fuck because he is right. Used to it though. Used to his rightness and also, the long voicemails filled with unsolicited wisdom that’s wasted on me but he shares anyway. I think he might wish I was different. Better, or some shit. Parks says that isn’t true, that my parents love me stupid—they do—but doesn’t mean my dad doesn’t wish I were a better man.

I mean, fuck—even I wish I was a better man.

That voicemail he’ll leave me, that’s just what he says to me after every fight I have over her. They’re all over her though. That’s the point—not just because I love her and she’s her but because she’s my family. They’re all my family. Boarding school does that to you—makes you make your own family—and whether I love her or not, she’s mine.

And honestly, you know what? Of all the shit reasons I’ve had fights about over the years, Parks’ knobby ex announcing publicly at The Dorchester that she loved his dick seemed like as good a reason as any.

Technically didn’t even fight him.

LMC and Loose Lips won’t care; they’ll run it like I did anyway.

Parks said she’d call Richard Dennen in the morning, curb anything Tatler might run.

The car pulls up at her place in Holland Park.

“A modest little detached ten-bedroom house on Holland Park,” I heard her explaining it to someone the other week. “It does have an indoor pool, but not an outdoor one, which is a shame but we make do,” she’d solemnly told the shop assistant who didn’t ask a thing about her home. We walk through those heavy black front doors I’ve kissed her up against a million times and I can’t help it—what this house does to me—I’ve loved her in every corner of it. Undressed her in every room. The house turns me to fucking mush. Nostalgia on steroids with a shit-ton of oxytocin whenever I stand in this foyer—a lifetime worth of memories watching her walk down this curving marble staircase, heart in my throat, her in my hands…

Loving someone like I love her fucks you up a bit. Fucking up how I fucked up also fucks you up a bit.

She closes the front door extra quiet and extra slow, her finger pressed to her mouth, shushing me silently.

“Why are you shushing me?” I whisper to her, my mouth closer to her ear than it needs to be but exactly where I want it.

“Because if we wake Marsaili she’ll yell at me for bringing you home—”

“Ah.” I nod like it’s not a punch in the gut that the most important adult in Parks’ life thinks I’m trash. Terrifying little thing, Marsaili MacCailin. Her childhood nanny, carer, guardian—you name it, she was it for Parks. Been around since day dot, could have literally yanked her out of her mother’s womb, for all I know. She’s in every family photo, the parent her parents weren’t. Red hair, about 5’1”, pretty face but it’s always scowling—at me, anyway. Mars used to be my biggest fan, but now she probably lights a fucking smudge stick every time I walk out of a room.

“And also because if my mother sees you she’ll probably try to mount you or something, I don’t know.” Magnolia rolls her eyes, and I smirk. Mostly because she’s joking, and a bit because she’s not.

Not a regular mother, that Arrie Parks. The bag designer.

Super fun, pretty loose, always found it endearing every time she caught me with my hand up her daughter’s skirt, not a pain in the arse when she’d find us with contraband as teenagers (and would occasionally join us). Her number one attribute as far as I’m concerned is that she’s still my biggest fan despite my transgressions.

“Where’s your dad?” I glance around. I like the feeling of being alone with her in this house.

Feels like we’re kids again, sneaking back in after sneaking out.

“Atlanta.” She shrugs. “Back in the morning.”

Her dad—I mean, you know who her dad is. Harley Parks? The producer? Thirteen Grammys in the last twenty years, and like thirty-five nominations. The man’s a fucking legend. Kind of terrifying.

Do you know what it’s like to date the daughter of a big, burly black guy who has 50 Cent on speed dial? High stress, man—that’s what it’s like.

I spent her seventeenth birthday party sweating fucking bullets because I’m pretty sure her dad told Kendrick Lamar and Travis Scott to stare me down and keep me in line. Parks was trying to feel me up every chance she got because she’s a handsy little thing when she has a drop in her and I was having to swat her away, so she was shitty at me and they thought it was funny—it was a clusterfuck of a night.

I’m glad her dad’s not here, to be honest—if Parks and I were doing it I’d do her on his bed as a fuck you, but we aren’t, so I’ll just fall asleep in her bed like I do most nights anyway.

Still a bit of a fuck you, I suppose.

When we get to her room I take my shirt off, head straight to the bathroom. She’s got a weird thing about showers and bedsheets. Can’t get into a bed without a shower.

Do you know how shit a rule that is when you’re drunk? Fucking unbearable. Probably had a million fights about it, and never won one of them.

She walks into the bathroom while I’m showering. Grabs her toothbrush, and spins on her bare little foot, watching me. Just my top half, the bottom half is behind this shit tiled wall that you can’t see through that I wish wasn’t there every day and I know what you’re thinking—what the fuck? It’s weird. I know we’re weird.

But I’m in love with her. And this is the only way she lets me have her, so fuck it, I’ll go down with the ship.

“You wanna join me?” I ask her, just to get a rise.

“BJ,” she growls but it’s hollow. Her eyes flick up in fake annoyance, but her cheeks go red. Turns around, looks at herself in the mirror, fusses with her face that needs no fussing.

“Do I get to watch you shower at least?”

She frowns. “You most certainly do not.”

Tilt my head at her. “Bit hypocritical.”

She’s a sucker for a head tilt. She swallows heavy and I hate this. Hate whatever we are. Hate that I can’t just rush her and kiss her and take her in the shower. Hate this box she’s put me in, hate the walls she’s built around her. Hate these bones of a relationship, but it’s all we have left. And it’s the best part of my day.

“Pass me a towel,” I tell her, as I get out of the shower.

Her hands fly to cover her eyes but she’s trying to fight a grin. “Oh my god.”

“I know, right.” I sigh, proudly just to rile her up.

“BJ!” she cries, cheeks the colour they’d used to go before we were about to… you know.

She blindly swats at me, both passing me a towel and also trying to hit me.

“Watch those hands, Parks.”

Eyes still closed, she shoves me out of the bathroom, her hands slipping down my body. We both know it’s on purpose, but she’d swear to her death it’s an accident. And in another lifetime, I’d drop the towel, grab her by the waist, kiss her stupid and carry her backwards to her bed but in this lifetime she slams the door in my face.

I pull on some sweatpants Parks bought me this week out of the drawer she’d tell you isn’t “my drawer” but it’s my fucking drawer and we both know it and I climb onto her bed. Sit on her side of it so she’ll pretend to be pissed when she gets out of the shower and then she’ll shove me over to my side and she’ll have to touch me again, because I’m like a junkie with her hands on my body.

She walks out ten minutes later in a light pink silk chemise from La Perla. I know it’s from there because I bought it for her. It’s not really sexy. No lace or anything. She’d crucify me if I bought her sexy lingerie. I did for Valentine’s Day this year, actually. Worth a shot because Valentine’s Day is my birthday too. Told Parks they were for me as much as they were her, and that she should just do me this solid favour. She threw them at my head. Wore them the next day, mind you. Not that she told me she was wearing them, but she wore a see-through top to brunch on the coldest February 15th London’s seen in a decade.

It happens how I thought it would.

She gets this cross look on her face… walks on over, shoves me as hard as she can muster which is barely at all and I laugh and she shoves harder still, and I pull her down on top of me and for a few seconds she lies there, pretending to push me to my side of the bed, but really we’re just trying to hold each other in the ways we have left, and it lasts three, four, five, six—six seconds before her eyes go big with remembering the way I hurt her two and a bit years ago and she rolls off of me, bottom lip heavy in a way that’s not fair when you can’t kiss it better.

“You good?” I look over at her.

She looks back at me and the Rolodex in my mind tries to find a way to make her feel better, but it doesn’t exist. I need a fucking time machine.

Her eyes flicker over me—presses her finger onto the tattoo on my thumb. A little string bow forget-me-knot. Got her a necklace from Tiffany’s for our one-month anniversary—which isn’t a fucking thing by the way, but I guess it is when you’re fifteen and you land the girl of your dreams. Anyway, she loved it. Lost it after a couple of years and they’d stopped selling them. First tattoo I got for her.

They’re all for her though—with the exception of…

“This is new.” She touches a little tattoo I got a couple of days ago on my chest. A whale. Because of Jonah? He thought it was clever. I don’t care—it’s barely bigger than a two-pence coin.

I grimace. “Lost a bet to Jo.”

She glares over at me a bit, makes a “humph” sound.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She sticks her nose in the air. “I just think you’re a bit reckless with your body is all.” She shrugs like she doesn’t care but I can tell she does.

“You didn’t think the other twenty-two were reckless.”

“That’s because they’re about m—” She catches herself before she says it, flashes me a tight, controlled smile.

It’s all deep, mythological relationship lore, symbols and shit that she knows and I know and no one else does, and I love having her marks on me. She used to leave them in other ways but not anymore. She presses her lips together, gathers herself, clears her throat.

“That’s because the other twenty-two are pertaining to someone who cares about your body.”

I roll my eyes. Not just at her but at me and us and whatever the fuck we’re doing with our lives. “That why I’ve had blue balls the last three years, then?”

“BJ—” She looks over at me, incredulous. “You literally have more sex than any person I know. If you still have blue balls, you need to see a doctor.”

And then I start laughing and she starts laughing, even though it’s not that funny because she hates it, so I hate it, but she dates and I fuck and this is what we do, so we laugh.

Her bedroom door swings open and her sister fills the frame. Barely.

“Well, well. If it isn’t London’s most dysfunctional couple.” Bridget Parks grins at us, folding her arms over her chest. She’s two years younger than Parks, brown eyes, curly hair, prettier than she thinks she is, but doesn’t care either way. Bridge is my youngest sister’s best friend.

“Fridget.” Parks nods at her, sitting up straighter. “How was yet another riveting evening hitting the books?”

“I love how you make education sound like a bad thing,” Bridge sneers back and Magnolia squints over at her.

“I’m educated,” Parks tells her, nose in the air.

“You’ve got a Bachelor of Arts,” Bridge scoffs, “which we all know is just higher-education speak for ‘not knowing what you’re doing with your life’ and you paid Imperial College a considerable amount of money to confirm that for you on a piece of paper.”

“Yeah but”—I give her a squint—“she did get into Imperial College—”

Her sister rolls her eyes. “As if Dad didn’t pay her way in…”

“Colleges need new wings.” Parks shrugs, unbothered by the accusation. “It’s the circle of life.”

Bridge gives her a look. “Is it?”

I snort.

“Tell me, Bridget, what’s it like to have nothing in your life but university and essays and assignments?” Parks turns to me. “Isn’t that sad? Don’t you think that’s sad?”

I blow air out of my mouth. “Don’t bring me into this.”

“Well,” starts Bridge. “I see you two are in this”—she points to Magnolia’s bed—“again? Do we need to have the talk?”

“You’re about as qualified as a potato to give that talk, Fridge—”

“I have sex,” Bridge growls.

“With who?”

“People.”

“People?” Magnolia blinks a lot, wide and antagonistically. “Plural? Really?” She clocks me. “Are you buying this?”

“What are you talking about, plural?” Bridget shoots back. “The only person you’ve ever had sex with is him.”

Parks’ cheeks go hot. “Penetratively speaking, perhaps, but—”

“Oh, fuck,” I groan.

This is what they’re like. They’ve been like this since they were kids.

And there’s no one on the planet Parks loves more than her sister except probably me.

“Beej.” Bridge nods at me. “No shirt, once again.” She winks badly. “Thanks for that.”

“Was that a wink?” asks Magnolia, knowing full well it was. “Or is there something wrong with your contacts?”

“Oy, Beej.” Bridget ignores her sister. “Would you do us all a favour and give this girl an orgasm so she’s less of a bitch?”

“Believe me, Bridge,” I say with a grin, “I am trying.”

Magnolia hits me with a long, gangly arm, and I can tell it hurt her more than me. Bridget rolls her eyes at us, leaves, closing the door. I look at Parks and she looks at me and the same thing that happens every night happens again. We stare at each other. My eyes nearly as round as hers, both of us frozen in what we used to be as everything we’ve done in this room floats off the walls and dances around us like ghosts from another time.

Have you ever had someone stare you dead in the eyes and wearing all the ways you hurt them? It’s fucking intense. But you know what, she hurt me too.

She claps her hands twice. The lights go off and she stares at me through the darkness a few seconds longer, and I love her in the dark. I mean, fuck it—I down and out love her in all spectrums of light, even the absence of it.

She lies down, burrows under the covers, then pokes her head out the top of them. Both of us staring at the ceiling. Her breathing’s quiet. She’s got a few different kinds of quiets, Parks does. A thinking quiet, a tired quiet, a safe quiet.

This one’s weighted, a bit angry. But she’s always a bit angry at me, I think.

Which is okay, actually. I get it. I hate myself for what I did 100 percent of the time, none of this “comes and goes in waves” shit, it’s constant. I just try my best to drown it out.

She drowns it out better than anything else. Even her quiet breathing.

Then I ask her our question.

“How’s the weather over there, Parks?”

She looks over at me, and I see her mouth twitch with a smile.

“Warm enough,” and she wriggles closer to me. “How’s the weather over there, Beej?”

I turn on my side to face her. “Clear skies.”