Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

I’m laying out by the pool—Tom’s gone for a run. BJ’s not awake yet. Gus is by me, but his headphones are in and he’s not paying attention to me, which means my new Sole embroidered, seersucker, triangle, halter-neck bikini top from Marysia that I’ve paired with her Broadway reversible, scalloped bikini briefs is being completely wasted on the inattentive gay man next to me.

A shadow falls over me, and with one eye open I peer up.

Christian Hemmes is staring down at me in the black and white Palm Angels, logo-print, short-sleeve bowling shirt, all undone with the logo-print, drawstring swim shorts from Balmain. Face as serious as ever. Brows kind of knitted into a frown. Jaw set—but his jaw is always set.

“What’s your face so serious all the time for?” I asked him once when we were together, and he held my chin between his fingers, and for a second his whole face lightened up.

“It’s a serious business, loving you.”

But that wasn’t why—I knew that even then. It’s whatever he does. All the things those boys keep from me, all the whispers about the Hemmes they think I don’t know about, all the whispers that are true, those are why he’s serious.

Christian kicks me gently with his big toe, nodding at the bed next to me.

“Can I sit here?”

“Oh, of course.” I wave my hand dismissively. “However, you must be careful as I have been known to orgasm spontaneously in public—oh wait, no—you know what that looks like. You’ll be fine.”

His head rolls back to the sky and sighs. “Don’t be a bitch.”

I look over at him, eyebrows arched. “I beg your pardon?”

He turns to me. “I’m sorry.”

I give him a sharp look, folding my arms over my chest. “I should think so.” He groans, leaning back onto the sun bed. I watch him for a few seconds, then shake my head. “Why would you do that?”

He shoves his hands through his hair as he grinds his jaw. “I don’t know.”

Yes, he does, and so do I. These little flare-ups of his aren’t anything new. He never really forgave me. He might have been the one who ended it, but it was my fault and he’s held it against me ever since.

“It’s fun”—he shrugs—“to fuck with you.”

“Oh.” I nod, wide-eyed. “Excellent.”

He gives me a look. “You know what I mean.”

I glare over at him. “No, Christian—I actually don’t. I don’t like fucking with people.”

“Really?” He blinks. I tilt my head and he stares at me, a bit incredulous. “You don’t like fucking with people?” His brows are up, eyes dark, and I can tell before he starts he’s about to come in swinging all over again. “You’ve dated, like, five guys in the past two and a half years, present company excluded, and you weren’t fucking around with them?” I open my mouth to say something, but he cuts me off. “You were fucking around with me.”

“No, I wasn’t—”

“Then what were you doing?” he asks, sitting up, swinging his legs to face me.

My eyes pinch. “You know what I was doing.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I know what I was doing.” He gives me a look that makes me want to cry. “You… I don’t have a fucking clue.”

I glance away, tired. I can’t win this fight. “Are you done?”

“Nope.” He shakes his head defiantly. “What about Tom?”

I roll my eyes, crossing my arms. “What about Tom?”

“Are you with him or aren’t you?”

I let out a mirthless laugh, shaking my head. I should just lie. I don’t know what the answer is anymore though. “How is that any of your business?”

Christian’s head pulls back. “How’s that any of my business?” His brows shoot up. “Really?”

My eyes are slits by now. “Yes, really.”

His jaw juts out. “You’re a piece of work, Parks. You know that?”

“What is the matter with you?” I stare at him. “I haven’t done anything.”

He snorts this hollow laugh and looks away from me and it makes me feel a weird kind of guilty and exposed, but I think that’s his fault, not mine.

He stands, shaking his head. “It’s funny—I think the only person you think you’re not really fucking over is Beej, but you are. You’re fucking him over, he’s fucking you over. He’s also just fucking. Everyone, all the t—”

“—You should walk away, man,” Gus says, standing up.

“Should I?” Christian smirks.

“Yeah.” Gus nods again. “You run your mouth about her like a real big man when your brother’s not here to keep you in line.”

Christian sniffs a dry laugh, looking away because what Gus said stings with the truth.

“Go on.” Gus nods his chin in the opposite direction of us. “Fuck off and cool down.”

Christian doesn’t meet my eyes as he walks away. I turn and look at Gus towering over me.

He sits back down, watching me closely for a few seconds. “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah.” I sniff and shake my head because I’m not really, even though my mouth will say otherwise. “He’s been angry at me for about two years now, so—that’s nothing new.”

He nods a few times, looking out over the pool.

It’s so dramatic here, olive groves that spill down onto a beach that runs right into the Aegean. It’s a much nicer kind of dramatic than my love life, which is also dramatic and also is probably all overgrown with things I should have done differently, with seas of fears and regrets so deep it’d rival the Challenger.

“So,” Gus says, “how many men here are infatuated with you?” He looks over. “By my count it’s three.”

I squash a smile. “Is this your way of telling me you’re not infatuated by me, Gus?”

He runs his tongue over his teeth, amused. “Me and the other gay one are immune and so is the brother. Ballentine Brother, not Gang Lord Brother. Gang Lord Brother—”

“—I don’t think they love that term,” I interrupt.

He shrugs, indifferent. “Probably shouldn’t have become gang lords then.” Pause. “He has feelings for you, yes?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug, demurely.

He eyes me. “Yes, you do.”

I scratch my chin as my eyes pinch at him before answering carefully. “I’ve wondered.”

Gus considers this. “Does he know?”

I purse my lips. “Does who?”

He gives me a look. “Either of the ones you like back.”

I take a measured breath, then breath it out. “Tom asked about it… I palmed it off. And I suspect that BJ has to ignore it at all costs in order for our group to function… somewhat.”

“And you?” He nods his head at me. “How do you feel about him?”

“About Christian?” I pause. The question sits heavy in my chest for a moment, the truth fizzing up in me like a shaken can of Fanta. “I loved him once.” I’ve never told anyone that besides Christian, actually. I don’t know why I’m here telling August Waterhouse. I shrug. “I just never loved him as much as BJ.”

“Have you ever loved anything as much as BJ?”

I shift uncomfortably, carefully avoiding his eyes by taking in the wondrous sights around me. How blue the Aegean is today!

“I know about Tom, by the way,” Gus tells me as he watches me. “What you’re doing—”

I look over, frowning. “We said we wouldn’t tell anyone!”

He sniffs a laugh. “He didn’t tell me.”

Oh shit.

I think Gus sees that sentiment on my face. He swats his hand to dismiss it.

“—Please. Tom kisses Clossy—which I assume you know about, yes?” He doesn’t wait for my answer. “And then a week later, out of the blue, he’s dating London’s It Girl, who just happens to be a recently single chronic dater who’s never severed ties with her ex? Are we supposed to think that’s a coincidence?”

I frown over at him. “How do you know about Clara and Tom?”

He shrugs. “Walked in on them.”

Something about that makes me feel funny.

Something about someone seeing Tom touch Clara makes it more real than before when it was a thing that happened once in a theoretical way that Tom’d told me about and I’d never tell anyone else. Someone catching them animates it to life in a way that I very much dislike. I want it abstract, 2D, on paper. Like Picasso’s Dora. True but estranged, real but not really.

Tom touching someone else—it shouldn’t make me feel funny, I know that. My mouth shouldn’t feel dry, my hands shouldn’t feel clammy and my heart rate should be regular.

This is the gig. We’re doing this because we each respectively like touching other people and we shouldn’t, so here we are, this is why we are what we are but what I am right now in this moment, is jealous.

My breathing feels heavier than I want it to. I hope Gus doesn’t notice.

“The plan is excellent,” he tells me, nodding. I’m chuffed and relieved to have pulled the wool over his eyes. “There’s only one major flaw.” He looks at me.

“Oh?”

“He’s falling for you and you’re falling for him.”

Fuck. Am I? Are we? I don’t know. But I certainly don’t want him to know I don’t know so I make a pfffft sound.

Gus ignores me. “You’re falling for him, he’s definitely into you, and simultaneously you’re still in love with BJ, and Tommy’s still in love with Closs. So this is shaping up to be…” He claps his hands together once. “Horrible! Really, really bad. An iconoclastic disaster—titanic, even.”

I glare over at him. “You are… a huge know-it-all.”

“I know.” He shrugs as he puts his sunglasses on. “Awful, isn’t it?”

“You’re wrong, by the way,” I tell him.

“Am I?” he says, unbothered to even glance at me. “Because I feel like I’m not.”

“Well, you are.”

He gives me a big smile with his eyebrows up. “We shall see when you return from your date with your ex-boyfriend to your romantic suite at the romantic hotel you share with your current boyfriend, who is allegedly fake, but decreasingly so by the second I dare say—”

I roll my eyes.

“—who says he is fine that you’re going out for the day with your ex-boyfriend, but he is currently running a half-marathon ‘just for fun.’ ”

I shrug dismissively. “So he likes to run—”

“Tom hates to run.” He doesn’t look up from his book, Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt.

I breathe out loudly. “That doesn’t mean it’s because of me.”

“Oh, sod off.” Gus rolls his eyes. “All these boys are loopy because of you.”

I frown. “That’s not a compliment.”

He raises his eyebrows and glances up at me. “I didn’t mean it as one.”