Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

I wake up before BJ does most mornings, I have since we were little.

That’s how long I’ve known him. Since we were tiny kids. Henry and I were in the same reception class at Dwerryhouse Prep and were in all the same classes until we left to start at Varley in year seven.

I don’t remember a lot about BJ before high school, other than he was just there.

Once when we were little, I would have been seven, maybe—our families were in Capri sharing a super-yacht. We’d docked, and the parents were at this little beachside bar and we were playing on the shore and I fell off a jetty. I was all cut up from the oysters. Lots of blood. That’s one of my only real vivid memories of Beej before we got to high school—him diving in, pulling me up to the surface. His hair was blonder then. “I’ve got you,” he told me as he dragged me out of the water. He carried me back to the shore. I had to get like, twenty-two stitches.

He came with me to the hospital. I didn’t know why. He told me a hundred years later he already loved me by then, but I didn’t really pay much attention to him in those days because BJ was just Henry’s older brother and I was besotted with Christian. Probably a bit of a sore spot for all of us now, actually.

Anyway, Henry, Paili, Christian and I were all in the same class, it was kind of the four of us. We never hung out with their brothers; the age difference felt too big to cross. BJ and I did kiss once when I was thirteen. Spin the bottle. It was a little party at the Hemmes’ house and the kiss was good but still, he just felt like my best friend’s big brother.

However, the further I got into secondary school, the more difficult it became not to acknowledge Baxter-James Ballentine. He was a fifteen-year-old hot shot, not top of his academic classes but a pretty renowned First Fifteen Rugby player (good enough to be scouted for both the Harlequins and Ulster after he graduated, but he tore his hamstring beyond repair in pre-season training). He swam for the district, played hockey, he was centre midfielder too but that’s not why people knew who he was. People knew who he was because he had this shaggy mop of light brown hair that oozed teenage sex appeal, and this crooked smile that would have had the teachers throwing their knickers at him if they wouldn’t have lost their jobs for doing it.

You know how when you’re in high school, the hottest things in the world are sexy bed hair, shoulders and skating?

He hit the trifecta.

Plus, he had these bedroom eyes that look at you like he’s undressing you on the spot and I know that sounds so inappropriate, but that’s just because he’s never done it to you, because if he had, you’d know and you’d live your life waiting for him to look at you like that again.

You couldn’t not know who BJ Ballentine was at Varley.

You couldn’t not know who he was in London.

It was the first week back from school after summer holidays—the Ballentines took all of us to the Canary Islands for a few weeks, because Lily always said that after three kids, it’s a slip and slide, and what’s an extra six? I was fourteen, and that was the summer I stopped liking Christian and started liking BJ, and I’d wondered whether maybe he liked me back, but by then he was BJ Ballentine, and I was probably dreaming.

I was standing by my locker with Paili and he walked straight up to me, hand against the locker, cornering me, like the quintessential bad boy in every teenage movie. Except he wasn’t a bad boy. He maybe liked to think he was, but he wasn’t. He’s never once forgotten his mum’s birthday, and he’d always bring her flowers every weekend he was home from school. His all-time favourite movie is Mary Poppins, who was also his first crush. I was his second.

His shoulders, even back then, were so big and broad, just the sight of him whispered of badassery, except it was a ruse. When his grandfather died, he started taking his grandmother out on weekly dates. He still does, actually.

Besides Henry, there are three sisters, all are younger but one, and Beej was dreadfully overprotective of them, neither Allison nor Madeline had a boyfriend the entire time they were at school because no one wanted to be offside with the Ballentine boys.

He shoved a hand through his hair, glanced down at me—this strange, newfound confidence. Like he’d woken up that day and realised he was the hottest boy in the world.

“Hey Parks,” he said and gave me the cool boy nod.

“Hi,” I said back, locking eyes with him because that’s what the girl magazines told you to do.

“I want to take you on a date,” he told me.

“Oh.” That’s all I said. I blinked a few times. “Why?”

He laughed once, all cool and calm and I think if we all could have peeked behind heaven’s curtains at that moment we’d have seen those old Fates knotting our threads together, me and Beej, in this pure, sunny, inexorable, undoable way. I said knotted, not tied. Because I don’t know whether we’ll ever come undone. Not easily, anyway.

“Can I?” he asked again. “This weekend?”

I pursed my lips together. “No.”

Paili looked at me like I was insane, and his face fell.

I shook my head. “It’s actually my grandparents’ anniversary party at the Four Seasons. I can’t miss it. My nanny said she’ll take my phone away if I don’t go—”

“Oh shit.” He laughed. “I’m meant to be going to that too. With my parents.”

“Oh.” I went pink.

“So you’ll be my date then?”

I nodded a tiny bit, but it felt pertinent to clarify, “It’s going to be pretty boring?”

He gave me a smile with twinkly eyes that meant trouble. “I’ll make it pretty fun.”

He did, by the way. Make it fun. He makes everything fun.

We went to the party; our families were overjoyed that we were there together. A dream come true, the marriage of our perfect families. Written in the stars, fated, imagine the wedding, and all that jazz! It was a strange amount of pressure to apply to the first date of young teenagers who aren’t Saudi royals. I definitely heard my mother toss around the word betrothed several times, but I didn’t even mind because I was all in the second he looked up at me as I walked down my marble staircase.

He swallowed heavy. His eyes fell down my body the same way they do now but it’s worse now because he’s seen me naked.

“Woah,” he said. And then he just smiled shyly, dropped his eyes to the ground.

At the table that night in Trinity Square, while my Uncle Tim was making a drunken speech about my grandparents (“To Linus and Annora, my friends an flarents in paws, an inspiration to live by”) I thought BJ was being cute, fiddling with my hand, but midway through realised he was slowly piling my lap with bread, and I couldn’t stop laughing, and he felt like the best person. Like I found a secret that was all mine. I remember they played Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You” and my grandfather standing up and inviting my grandmother to dance, and after a minute, BJ offered me his hand, and I stood up, a million pieces of bread tumbling off me, and he started laughing, and took my hand, and pulled me into him—I love it when he pulls me in to him—dancing in the way that all boys from money know how to dance because they grow up going to galas and royal weddings, and that night he waltzed my heart right out of its chest.

Usually when I wake early I tell him I do it to meditate on the beautiful parts of life but really, I just watch him. He is a beautiful part of life, I suppose. Painful things can still be beautiful things, in case you didn’t know.

The way he’s asleep this morning, head tossed back, neck stretched out and exposed, his jawbone jutted out—I swallow away all the things I’d do to him if we were doing things but that’s not what we’re like anymore. His eyelids flutter awake, staring at me for a few seconds. “What are you thinking about?”

“Billie.”

He rubs his eye all tired and gives me a small smile. “I love her.”

It hangs there. What we’re really talking about. “Me too.”

Beej pulls on the navy tapered, grosgrain-trimmed, striped, cotton-jersey sweatpants from Thom Browne—different sweatpants than the ones he slept in but don’t read into that—it’s not like he has a million clothes here, just a drawer. Or two. Or three. They’re not even really his drawers, they’re my drawers in which—for convenience sake—I permit him to keep a few personal belongings within them. Sweatpants, T-shirts, undergarments and the like, also Ombre Leather by Tom Ford, which I definitely never spray on my pillow if he doesn’t stay over, and also I think it’s worth noting I store my label maker in those drawers too, so actually, they’re barely his at all, and anyway he throws on a T-shirt and I put on a nightgown and we trot downstairs to breakfast.

My family look up from the dining room table.

“BJ.” My father looks up from his açai bowl, nodding at him once.

“BJ,” my mother says and smiles, like it’s not the seventh day in a row she’s seen him at breakfast.

“BJ,” Marsaili says in a very different tone. Not overly big on second chances, our Mars.

I sit down, huffy. “Do you all not see me?”

My sister sneers. “Quite the contrary—we see too much of you. What are you wearing? Is that underwear?”

“No, Bridget. That would be terribly inappropriate.”

Bridget gestures to me. “And that is….”

“It’s pretty easy on the eyes, to be honest, Bridge—” Beej offers, and I feel chuffed with myself, but Mars looks cross.

My father glances over at BJ, pretending to look annoyed by the comment.

This used to be scary to BJ when we were kids but now he’s the cockiest son-a-of-bitch in every room, so he just grins at him. My father likes him. He acts like he doesn’t sometimes, I think in a way where he thinks, as a father, he’s supposed to act like he doesn’t like the man his daughter’s sleeping with—but we’re not sleeping together. Even though we’re technically sleeping together. And he’s barely a father, even though he’s my father.

“Harley.” I smile over at him curtly. “How was your trip?”

“Magnolia,” he says, and sighs. “I have asked you repeatedly to call me ‘Dad.’ ”

“And I have asked you repeatedly to act like one, and yet here we are.” I give him a dazzling smile at the same time that BJ kicks me under the table, making a “shut up” face.

“Magnolia.” Marsaili gives me a look.

My father shifts, annoyed. “It was good.”

“Who were you working with?”

Father reaches for half a passionfruit. “Chance.”

“Chance Who?” asks Bridget, completely hopeless.

“Chance the Postman.” I roll my eyes. “The rapper, you twat.”

“Language.” Mars rolls her eyes.

Marsaili is the only responsible adult I know.

She’s a small, little Scottish woman who once beat Jonah in an arm wrestle.

She’s fiercely protective and aggressively maternal which has proven useful over the years as we’ve otherwise—as a family—lacked a hands-on parenting approach across the entire board. Mothering and fathering. Bunch of F’s, if I were to grade them, which I oft try to do.

My mother could zip off for a girls’ weekend that would last a week with Fergie (the former Royal, not the Black Eyed Pea). As for my father, he probably missed several milestone moments throughout my life because he was with the Black Eyed Peas.

Bushka shuffles in and slops a plate of borscht down in front of me.

“Do you mind?” I look at her like she’s mad. “This is a £2000 feather-trimmed, satin dressing gown.”

My Russian immigrant grandmother. About 50,000 years old, running on diet of Beluga and pickled vegetables. My mother brought her over here for a visit when she married my father and she refused to leave—I don’t know why.

My Uncle Alexey is substantially more attentive to her than my mother has ever been. He and his family have a room waiting for her at his place in Ostozhenka. It’s nice… Part of the Noble Row complex, views of the Kremlin and Christ the Saviour Cathedral but she keeps on staying here with us. She won’t be put into a home (or rehab) and Marsaili has to schlep her around to a bunch of old people’s activities every day because she has to be out of the house during work hours, otherwise she tries to get in on my father’s writing sessions; She swears up and down that she had a hand in writing that big One Direction song.

“Is good for you.” She gestures to the plate as she sits down next to me.

“It’s disgusting for me and an absolute hazard.”

She scowls at me. “You embarrass to be Russia?”

“I’m not embarrassed to be from Russia.” I give her a placating pat on the hand. “I’m not from Russia. You’re from Russia. I’m from Kensington.”

I look over at my mother for help, but she’s distracted—ogling BJ. Can’t blame her. That silly mouth of his showing off extra this morning all puffy like it’s been kissed all night even though it hasn’t, that’s just how his mouth is, and I bite down hard on a strawberry.

He catches me, swallows a smile. “You right there, Parks?”

I ignore him.

“This is heritage.” Bushka pulls the plate dangerously closer to me.

“Cold beetroot and beef broth is our heritage?” Bridget chimes in.

My father doesn’t look up from his phone but pulls a face.

Bushka nods with conviction. “Plus special ingredient.” She winks.

“It’s vodka,” announces Marsaili. “In case there’s any mystery about it, let’s go ahead and clear that right up.”

“Oh cool.” Beej takes the plate, sniffing it. “Like a Russian Bloody Mary?”

He slurps some back, then gives Bushka an encouraging grin and a thumbs up. When she looks away, appeased, he gags silently. (“The beef,” he whispers hoarsely.)

“So.” Marsaili clears her throat. “You two were in the papers this morning.”

“Ooh,” I sing. “Do I look pretty?”

Bridget rolls her eyes. “Because that’s what counts—”

“Very trim, darling.” My mother nods. “Décolletage looks phenomenal. Only wear shoulderless clothes this week.”

I snap my fingers to communicate to her: noted.

“Too skinny. Eat Borscht,” Bushka demands.

“On-again-off-again couple Magnolia Parks and BJ Ballentine caused quite a scene last night at The Dorchester as the pair ran into one of Parks’ many ex-lovers—unnamed—”

“How many is many?” my father asks without looking up from his phone.

“Several,” Bridget tells him unhelpfully.

“Does it actually say ‘unnamed’?” I ask, snatching it over, positively gleeful. “Brooks would just die over that.”

Mars ignores me and keeps going. “Jealous Ballentine appeared ready for fisticuffs, but the situation was diffused before it went any further.”

Beej shrugs. “Not bad.”

“Fisticuffs,” I muse.

“And then there are several photos where it looks like the two of you are together—”

“They are,” Bridget interjects.

I roll my eyes and BJ pegs a bagel at her.

“Trauma bond!” Bridget announces as though she suffers from some sort of Tourette’s syndrome.

“I beg your pardon?” asks my father.

“That’s one we haven’t explored in the interminable search for a reason as to why these two are the way they are,” she prattles on and I roll my eyes at her. “Trauma bonds!”

My father pipes up. “Right, what do these two have to be traumatised about?”

Beej and I stare over at each other, just for a second and then it’s gone.

Bridget’s terribly vocal about how unhealthy she thinks this all is. Bridget thinks she knows everything because Bridget’s in her third year of studying Psychology at Cambridge. Jokes on her though—all I’ve got is a stupid BA and even I know that we are, at best, maladjusted.

“You two,” my mother starts, “Friday is the launch of my new fragrance at Harrods. You’ll be there, yes?”

“And by ‘you two’ you mean one”—I point to myself, then point to BJ—“two? Not the absolute obvious and forever number two in the room.”

Bridget ignores me.

“I’m calling you a Two, Fridge. Like a poo.”

Bridge glances up, bored. “If you have to explain it, Magnolia, it’s not a good joke.”

“We’ll be there,” Beej tells my mum.

“And I’ll have security keep her out.” I gesture to my sister, who pelts an apple at me.

“I’ll bruise from that!” I pout.

“That’s because you’re malnourished,” she tells me.

Bushka pushes the plate in front of me. “Borscht.”