Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

It’s just under a four-hour flight from London to Monemvasia, this little island town on the east coast of the Peloponnese region of Greece. It’s only linked to the main island by a little causeway so there’s obviously not an airport there, and it’s usually a six-hour drive from Athens but in a dreadfully convenient turn of events, Tom is an England and a pilot, so I don’t know why I didn’t start dating him sooner. Oh wait, yes I do. Two letters, phenomenal mouth, stayed in his bed last night, cried in the crook of his neck all morning—

I could tell Tom dropping me to him threw Beej a bit. It threw me a bit too actually, if I’m honest. Tom was so calm, so quick to my defence, so brave against my father, and so casual about dropping me to BJ when he thought it’d be better for me—

I mean—who does that?

I’d have to be high as a fucking kite to drive him to Clara for any reason and he’s just my foxhole. And that’s it, I suppose. We’re just each other’s hideout ’til the storm rolls over and it’s safe to come out. Probably my time with Tom is drawing to a close, I think—but even thinking that makes my skin prickle a tad. I don’t love the thought of not being in each other’s lives anymore. I guess we’ve become a bit close through all the pretending.

I think for me, it’s passing—the BJ storm. If it even ever was a storm. It was maybe more like, a drunk person who stumbled onto a news set who then proceeded to give a convincing, yet factually inaccurate, weather forecast for a completely terrible monsoon of death and so you hid, and you hid and hid and hid, waiting for the storm to pass but there was no storm.

Maybe there was no storm with BJ.

Maybe all the ways he’s hurt me ’til now are because I hurt him, and maybe now it’ll be different because I can trust him?

We’re all standing in the lobby of Kinsterna. It’s one of my favourite hotels, actually. It’s a restored Byzantine mansion that cascades down a hill towards the sea. I’ve been here before with my sister. It’s why BJ picked it, because he wanted to come with me last time, but I think he’d slept with Taura or something, so I brought Bridget instead. It’s a fun little crew. Me, Beej, Tom, Paili, Henry, Gus, Perry and Christian. No Jonah on account of a work thing—hopefully of the legal variety, but one can’t be too sure.

“We’re after eight rooms,” Beej tells the woman at the front desk, shoving his hands into the pockets of his Bassike Karamatsu tie-dye track pants.

“Actually, just seven, mate,” Tom calls to him.

“Oh,” BJ says, and turns to face us, then looks at me. “Are you sharing with Pails?”

“Um.” I glance at Tom, then shake my head.

“Oh.” BJ blinks. “You’re going to share a room? You two?” I press my lips tight together. Christian’s watching on, probably a bit too amused.

“Okay,” he says and nods. He nods a lot. “Of course you are, you’re boyfriend and”—BJ’s eyes snag on mine—“girlfriend.” He keeps nodding. “Two doubles?”

Tom looks a bit pleased. “One king’s fine.”

BJ’s jaw goes tight. “One king’s fine.” Nods. “Yep. Of course, it is. Big beds—very much—space with the—”

“Oh, fuck.” Henry pushes him out of the way, and takes over talking to the lady. “Seven rooms, please. And maybe put some Xanax in his?”

Tom goes off to organise our luggage and BJ hovers close by, watching me carefully.

“Have you slept with him?” he asks, eyes pinched. I frown, shaking my head. “Do you mean asleep or sex?” he clarifies, which probably no one else on the planet would need clarification over, but we would.

I offer him a weak shrug. “Neither.”

He nods, thinking it through. “But it’s going to be you and him. In a bed. In a room. Alone. Together.”

“BJ,” I interrupt.

He ignores me. “And I’ll be in a… different room. In a bed, as well. But you’ll be in… his bed?”

His eyes hold mine, and they look wired and stressed.

I nod once, carefully. “I guess so?”

“Okay.” He nods. “Yep, that’s—” He nods again. “Okay.”

I purse my mouth. “Okay.”

“Room’s ready,” Tom calls to me.

I look over at him and nod. “Coming.” I look back at BJ and his whole heart is raw all over his face, and I want to make him feel better, fix it, blow it all away—but I don’t know how. I could just tell him, I guess, that it was all a ruse, but today when BJ and I arrived at Farnborough Airport and Tom waltzed over, hand on my face and kissed the shit out of me, I began to wonder… How much of the ruse was left?

I walk away, a few metres before I stop and turn around. Beej is watching me, his eyes rounder and heavier than he’d want anyone but me to see them. Tom’s watching me too, but I don’t mind so much.

“Do you want to do something tomorrow?” I call over to BJ.

Beej blinks a few times. “What?” I walk back over to him. A foot between us, maybe.

“Do you want to do something tomorrow? With me.” Pause. “Just me.”

BJ looks past me to Tom, then back to me. “What about England?”

I shake my head. “Don’t you worry about England.”

“Okay.” He nods once. Smiling a bit. “What are we going to do?”

“Oh, piss off.” I roll my eyes, a teensy bit outraged that I just practically asked him out on a date and he had the audacity to assume I’d also arrange it. “Do I have to do everything? Plan it yourself.” He laughs as I walk away.

Tom’s waiting for me.

“You good?” he asks with a warm smile. I nod. “He good?”

My mouth twitches as I look up at him. “He’s probably been better.”

Tom sniffs a laugh. “The poor bastard.”

“I’m going to spend the day with him tomorrow—is that okay?” And I wonder if I see it there for a second, it’s tiny, almost imperceptible—but maybe a tumbleweed of jealousy breezes over his face. There one second, gone the next.

Then Tom shrugs indifferently. “Course it’s okay. You don’t have to check.” I nod, flash him a smile that feels both disingenuous and forced. “I know what I am to you,” he adds as an after-thought.

I pause and look over at him. “And what I am to you.”

He nods once. “Right.”

I nod back. “Right.”

“We’re wrapping up, aren’t we?” Tom asks after watching me for a few seconds.

“Maybe.” It’s non-committal because for some reason I don’t feel fully ready to commit to that. Probably I’m just afraid of being alone again. “I don’t know.”

Tom’s face is hard to pick, the emotion on him is a bit unreadable and I find this frustrating about him. I never cared for reading the emotions of the men I was seeing before except for BJ and Christian and I knew how to read them because I’d known them forever, but Tom who I desperately want to read, who I would die to understand and to hear his mind and his secret thoughts about me, Tom, to me, is speaking like he’s from County Kerry with Spanish subtitles.

I think he’s annoyed. That’s my best guess judging from the way his eyebrows are right now.

“What don’t you know about it? You’re going to get back together with him.”

“I am?” I blink.

The frown depends. “Aren’t you?”

“I—” I just shrug.

“That’s what you want,” he tells me.

I nod. “I suppose.”

He nods again. “Right.”

I nod back. “Right.”

Although I’m not really sure all is.