Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

It’s Julian Haites’ 30th tonight. Me and the boys are going. BJ thinks he’s bringing me as his date. He doesn’t realise Julian sent me an invitation himself.

I spot Daisy Haites before I spot her brother. She’s perched on Christian’s lap. I wave at them both. Christian doesn’t really do anything; his face pulls funny and I don’t understand—Daisy raises one hand and offers me an unenthusiastic quasi-wave.

I do my best not to over-analyse this lukewarm reception and look for validation in other ways, like slipping my hand into BJ’s. He lifts it to his mouth, kissing it without thinking.

“Ballentine,” Julian jeers, a drink in each hand as he walks over. He downs one quickly and offers the other to me before he picks BJ up, jostling him around affectionately.

“Happy birthday!” Jonah grabs him by the shoulders, and Jules claps his face.

Julian would probably be Jonah’s other best friend, which might make the scene extra tense when his eyes catch mine the way they do over Jonah’s shoulder.

He stands tall in his logo-appliqué, wool-blend varsity jacket from Amiri and smirks down at me. “Magnolia.”

“Jules,” I nod up, matching his face.

And the tone of familiarity between us strikes a bizarre chord in the boys. BJ looks over at me, frowning with concern.

Jonah and BJ have always been very clear with me about Julian:

Avoid him at all costs. Unless someone is trying to kill me, and then I’m to run straight to him.

I did once. Run to him. No one was trying to kill me, but I was dying. A few weeks after BJ and I had broken up. You know after the adrenaline stops and the numbing agent hasn’t kicked in and you’re not medicated and your heart’s just dying of thirst, completely on fire and suffocating at once—and I don’t know why I thought to do it—I hadn’t left the house in two weeks—but I made Paili come out with me.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” she said about 90,000 times on our way in. “You just need to grieve…”

I shook my head. “I’m done grieving him.”

Paili gave me a look. I wasn’t. How could I be? Even a layman could have told you:

I’d never stop grieving that boy.

At his birthday, Julian and I standing next to each other, too familiar for Beej to be comfortable with, he does this laugh that’s meant to sound airy, and it would to everyone in the room but me and Jonah… to our fine-tuned ears, it’s strained.

“Didn’t realise you two knew each other?” BJ glances back and forth between us.

Julian lets out a “hah”, and shrugs his burly shoulders, all indifferent. “Everyone knows this one.”

“Right—” BJ’s eyes pinch looking from him to me. “How?”

Julian sticks his tongue into the cheek of his mouth and peeks over at me, cheeky. Eyebrows high, waiting for me to handle this.

We went to a club. McQueen, I think it was, and in a horrible twist of events (for me), a boy from our old school—Ed Bancroft—whom Paili always had a crush on but nothing every really happened with, was there. And he was very interested in Paili.

And I don’t know what happened, or why it was happening—it was oddly out of character for her, like she had something to prove, even though she had nothing to prove. She’s never been a real hook-up-in-a-club kind of girl, neither have I—but that night, she was just going for it.

Next to me. On a couch. And she’d been such a good friend the last few weeks, hadn’t left my side. Lain in my bed with me, cried with me, sometimes for me.

She was so present, so heartbroken for me—I could hardly be cross that on a night I’d dragged her out to a place she thought neither of us should be in that she finally decided to enjoy herself.

So, I was sitting there dressed to the nines and vaguely suicidal as Ed Bancroft practically dry humped her on the spot. I sighed, threw back a few drinks in quick succession to make my mind quieten down and to dampen my blaring discomfort, when a guy ducked into my line of sight.

Messy brown hair, big blue eyes, five o’clock shadow. Drop dead gorgeous.

He smirked at me. “I know you.”

I offered him a small smile and singular nod. “You do.”

“Do you know me?” he asked, eyebrows up.

I gave him an amused look. “Everyone knows you—”

“Well, I really only care if you know me,” Julian Haites said and grinned. “Do you remember me from school?”

And from his Vanity Fair spread, his VICE interviews, his GQ shoots, he really was (is) the world’s most famous, handsome “arms dealer.”

“I mean, I was eleven—” I gave him a tiny smile. “But you were quite fast on that field,”

He smiled appreciatively. “But not as fast as—”

“Don’t!” I interrupted, shaking my head. “Don’t say his name.”

Firstly, I can’t quite believe that BJ doesn’t seem to know about any of this? If BJ doesn’t know it means Jonah doesn’t know, and if Jonah doesn’t know it’s because Julian strategically never told him. I wonder why? BJ’s staring at me, waiting for me to tell him how his friend knows me but in all honesty I’m quite sure he actually doesn’t want to know how Julian knows me and in which specific ways.

Two and a bit years ago, Julian’s eyebrows shot up in that nightclub with intrigue. “Wow, okay—they around?”

I shook my head.

He was unbearably hot. Is still, actually.

Jawline, razor sharp. Eyes, like the dark parts of glaciers. Six feet, three inches. Tattoos up and down his body. Also, the head of the most notorious family in London. I don’t know what exactly it is that they do but I do know it’s not legal.

“They not around for a reason?” he asked. I nodded. “You need a drink then,” he told me, pulling me up off the couch, taking my hand and leading me over to the bar. The crowd parted for him like the Red Sea, no one wanting to be in his way, but he didn’t even seem to notice. I knew people’s eyes were on me—not how they are these days, back then it was less. The real public fascination with Beej and I began when we stopped being something that made sense to them.

There were rumours at this point that BJ and I were on the rocks but nothing definitive, and were I with anyone but Julian, I think people might have taken photos, might have leaked them out to the press, but I remember I had a distinct feeling that no one was going to tell anyone about this. You don’t mess with the Haites family.

My hand in his made me feel a surge of relief and also somewhat free.

“Do you like whiskey?” he asked me.

“No,” I pursed my lips, leaning across the bar.

“Give me two of the Johnnie Walker Baccarats,” he told the bartender. “Put it on my tab.”

He slid me over a shot glass. “You might like this one. It’s £500 apiece.” He smiled.

We clinked glasses and threw them back.

He looked down at me, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Like it?”

“Nope.” I smiled apologetically.

“Fuck!” he cried, his head fell back, laughing. “Lie to me?”

“Loved it,” I said with a grimace.

He gave me a despondent look.

We took a bottle of vodka to a table in the corner of the room, and we laughed a lot, and we drank even more and I wasn’t thinking about BJ or what he did to us barely at all, and all I was doing was staring at Julian Haites’ mouth. His lips were so pink. Bottom heavy and almost like he’s angry even when he’s happy.

He pushed some hair behind my ear.

“Can I take you home?” he asked me, tilting his head so we were eye to eye. His eyes were steady, and I liked them.

I nodded quickly, not giving myself a chance to think about it and say no.

He took my hand again, leading me out the back door and to a town car that was waiting for him. Black, tinted windows—bullet-proof, just like the Hemmes cars—he opened the car door for me, and I climbed in, him after me.

We sat perfectly still next to each other for a few seconds, staring straight ahead, then he turned towards me and I climbed onto his lap, kissing him quickly with lips on fire, pulling his shirt off over his head.

He chuckled, holding my face in his hand and—can I just say—he is a phenomenal kisser. Phenomenal enough that it didn’t immediately kill me that I was kissing someone other than BJ—that feeling would come later, like I was cheating on him, like I was breaking us—that’d come eventually too but Julian was so good and so smooth and so handsome that it delayed the inevitable.

I never thought I’d say that about anyone besides BJ in my whole life, but I can guarantee you, Julian Haites is the boss of every room he’s in. He lay down across the back seat, pulling me down with him. He’s good with his hands, I’ll tell you that much. I didn’t even notice when the car stopped moving.

We slipped inside his house. Huge and excessive. Everything white or black marble, with gold trimming on everything. He guided me up the stairs, silently, still shirtless, to a room. I followed him in and he closed the door behind me, then walked over to a desk and emptied his pockets, then looked back at me, quizzically. I leant against the door, pursing my lips together, holding my clutch in front of me like some sort of chastity belt.

He laughed to himself, then sat on his bed, scratching his head.

“So.” He smiled.

“So.” I nodded. I wasn’t awkward before. I don’t know why I was suddenly. Maybe the lights?

He tilted his head, looking at me softly. “You good?”

“Me?”

“Yeah,” he answered, leaning back a bit.

“I’m fine.” I nodded, emphatically. “I’m totally fine.”

“Okay.” He nodded, then paused. “Girls don’t say ‘fine’ when they’re fine, usually—”

“Well, I am,” I told him, my nose in the air. “Fine.”

“Okay.” He nodded again, squinting. “Great…”

“It is great.” I nodded again. “I am great, and you’re great. And we’re going to have great sex. And it’ll be great.”

“Okay.” He smiled and rubbed his hand across his mouth.

“And I can’t wait,” I told him, blinking a lot, sounding really enthused and not thinking about BJ at all. “—Didn’t mean for that to rhyme.”

I swallowed nervously.

He smiled a tiny bit, then pressed his lips together, watching me closely.

“Okay!” I said, clapping my hands together and taking a deep breath as I walked over to him. “Let’s do this. Can you just help me with this zip?” I sat down on the bed next to him, offering him my back.

He reached for it, then his hand hesitated.

“I have a sister, you know?” he said, looking for my eyes.

“Weird time to bring her up—”

“Shut up.” He rolled his eyes. “I just know girls.”

“—I’m sure you do,” I butted in.

He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

He scratched his neck, smiling wryly. “You’re beautiful, Parks. Really, really beautiful,” he added with a hint of a frown. I looked at him with dark eyes, sensing a “but” on its way. “You sure you want to do this?”

“Yep,” I over-accentuated with a nod.

He leaned in, cupping my face with his hands, and kissed me softly and then I burst into tears.

He laughed and pulled away, shaking his head. “Magnolia.” He pulled me up into his lap, held me into his chest, and then he just let me cry. That’s probably not on-brand behaviour for a gang lord, maybe that’s why he never told Jonah. Ours is hardly a story regaling his sexual prowess: I just cried on him for about two hours. Big, shoulder heaving, snotty sobs. His bodyguard made me pancakes, and then I cried more. He played with my hair. I spent the night in his bed, and I told him everything that happened, and he offered to kill BJ and I was afraid he meant it. We talked all night until I fell asleep on him, and then that was it. He drove me home the next morning, gave me his number, and said if I ever needed anything…

“Would you believe me if I said we’re in a book club together?” I offer BJ.

He shakes his perfect head.

“Julian loves… historical women’s fiction and also, is quite partial to a biography.”

Julian starts laughing, unhelpfully.

BJ squints. “Mmhm.”

“I offered to help her out with something.” Julian catches my eye. “She never took me up on the offer.” He elbows BJ playfully. “She’s still slumming it.”

“Behave,” I say and give him a stern look. Julian grins back. All the while BJ looks terribly uncomfortable at the air between us.

“But for real, Parks—if you’re ever looking for a good time, with an actual bad boy, not one of these silly Vogue bad boys—call me.”

I roll my eyes at him and try to curb my enthusiasm over all the attention being paid to me in the moment. “Perhaps just let’s get me through this present love triangle I’m in and once I sort that out, you’ll be next in line?”

“Yep, fair.” Julian nods and then smacks BJ on the arm, winks at him playfully.

BJ watches him walk away, incredulous.

“Are you kidding me?” He blinks.

I try not to laugh at the face he’s wearing and pull him aside, holding his hands. “We kissed once.”

“Once?”

“We nearly had sex once,” I concede.

“When?”

“Um”—I grimace—“immediately after you and I broke up.”

He pulls his head back. “What?”

“Like, a fortnight after or something—”

“Parks! He’s a dangerous guy—”

“Right,” I say and give him a look. “You know we’re at his birthday party? Like, right now.”

“We’re here with Jonah, and you’re my guest.”

“Actually”—I pull a face—“he invited me himself.”

BJ sighs. “Of course he did.”

He rubs his face with both his hands.

“You nearly had sex with him?”

“Well—you have sex to completion frequently with people who aren’t me,” I remind him. “All the time.”

He tries his best not to laugh at that, but he sniffs anyway.

He gives me a long look. “Why was it just almost?”

“Uh.” I purse my mouth. “Because when he kissed me on his bed, I burst into tears. Over you—” He squashes away a smile. “And I cried in his arms, his head of security then made me pancakes and then Julian drove me home.”

BJ nods, pleased with the answer, and pulls me in towards him, wrapping his arms around me.

“And who’s going to make you pancakes tomorrow morning?”

“I don’t know?” I smile brightly. “Shall I see if his security guy’s available?”

The night goes on from there, everything seems good and fine and normal—Christian’s drinking a bit though—but BJ and I are wonderful.

He doesn’t let go of me, hovers like a shadow in the noontime sun. I don’t know if it’s because of what he just learnt about me and Julian or it’s just because he can, but I don’t care either way.

We feel good.

The kisses on my neck when I’m not looking, the hands around my waist at all and any given moment, and everything feels kind of how I always thought it would before we fucked it all up—us together, our hands in each other’s, him talking to Jo, me talking to Henry—and without looking at me, no words, he tosses his arm around my shoulder, pulls me in towards him, kisses my ear, keeps talking to Jo, and it’s so minor in the scheme of affection, such an absolute non-event, but it makes my heart feel like it’s carrying around a diamond in its pocket and that nothing, no time or heartache or infidelities have passed between us, and maybe this is how we’ll always be—stuck together, drifting back to each other if we somehow pull apart. I hope that’s what we’ll be like. I hope we’ll always find our way back.

And then there’s yelling. Loud and aggressive.

Jonah cranes his neck looking over—then jumps to his feet because it’s Christian.

He nods his head over towards his brother and the boys and I follow.

“—the fuck do you mean, why do I care? We’re together,” Christian says to Daisy, staring at her wide-eyed.

She’s with a boy. I’ve never seen him before.

“Are we? Don’t bullshit me” She glares over at him, angrily. “I’ve never been under any illusion of what I am to you—I’m the girl you’re fucking while you’re thinking of your best friend’s girlfriend.”

And then we all go tense. Not just me and the boys, but the entire room. My eyes are wide. BJ’s whole body goes stiff.

“I—” Christian stutters, jaw agape and my heart pangs because I hate to see him like this.

He looks hurt and sad, maybe a bit betrayed? I don’t know if Daisy’s talking about me, but probably she’s talking about me?

And what the absolute fuck is she doing saying that out loud in front of everyone?

“Oh.” Daisy Haites blinks, all big and innocent. “Did you think I didn’t know? You’re confusing me for someone who has a little bit of self-respect, because I know what I am to you and I still stayed, hoping that one day you’d want me more than you wanted her. But you never wanted me. You never liked me—”

And Christian’s watching her how I’ve never seen him watch anyone else before: eyes round, shaking his head a little bit. He looks scared.

“And we might be a fucking mess—” She gestures back to Romeo Brambilla. “But you know what? One thing I know for certain is when I take Rome home tonight, he’s not going to be thinking about Magnolia fucking Parks.”

All our jaws hit the floor, and Daisy’s out of there like a light. Legs it, hand in hand with the boy who isn’t Christian.

And Christian’s frozen still, eyes on the ground. He doesn’t meet my eyes; he won’t dare look at Beej or his brother.

He shakes his head and walks through the crowd, pushing past them.

And then Jonah charges after him, so BJ goes after Jonah, so I go after Beej, and I have this peculiar floaty feeling that perhaps I have loved too many boys and maybe I’ve made too many boys love me.

There are all sorts of loves in this world, I know that now. I don’t know it completely—it’s not a full moon of knowing just yet, maybe at best I’m at the waxing crescent of understanding what I can about love. They say it conquers all, but does it? Can it even? All is so vast.

I’ve lost BJ hundreds of times to hundreds of different women and he’s nearly lost me twice now to two men I loved more than I meant to. Do I love Tom? I suppose I do if he’s on my mind right now. What does that mean? What could it mean? Because it’s not the same as it is with BJ, which is the only love that matters to me, I think. And even then, me and Beej, we keep losing each other, and it doesn’t seem to matter that we love each other how we do, which is with a fullness—kind of like those animals that will eat themselves to death if they’re left to their own devices. I’ll love him ’til I die, love him ’til it consumes me whole and kills me dead—so maybe love doesn’t conquer all but just some. Because all is vast and love is so varied, like light in a prism; if you move it around a room, depending on how it catches, it changes. It means different things and there are so many different things love can be to people.

I know that some love is beautiful, and some is freeing, some unravels you, some love poisons you, some blinds you, some betters you, and some loves break you in invisible ways that no one else knows about until you have to stand up and the weight of your love crushes your bones. And as I watch him scream “fuck” again and again in a back alley while he punches a wall, I wonder if maybe I accidentally made Christian love me like that?

“Tell me Daisy Haites has lost her fucking mind.” Jonah shakes his head at his brother.

Christian spins on his heel to face him, eyes ragged.

Jo shakes his head at Christian, placing a threatening finger on his chest and I get a nervous feeling. I hate it when they gang up on him. It’s only ever about me.

“What the fuck is she talking about?” BJ asks, brows low. Christian says nothing, but his eyes catch mine finally—just for a second before Jonah gives him a push. “Don’t look at Parks—look at me.”

And then something surprising happens: Christian shoves Jonah off of him. Harder and more aggressively than I’ve ever seen him be with his brother. “Don’t fuck with me tonight.”

“Boys,” Henry says, standing next to Christian and I’m glad he’s there. Henry levels the playing field a bit.

Jonah’s not backing down—he’s got Christian backed up against the wall, the collar of his shirt in his hand.

“Jonah.” I shake my head at him, yanking his arm. “Let go of him—what are you doing?”

“—What are you doing?” Jonah barks back.

BJ looks from me to Christian and then cries to the sky. “Are you fucking kidding?” He looks down at me with wild eyes, wide and sore. “Is two of us not enough?”

I reach for him, my heart breaking in my eyes. “Beej—”

“Did you know?” BJ asks me with eyes as tattered as his heart.

My face falters. “Of course I didn’t know.”

And I wonder whether I’m lying to him—

Is that lying to him?

I didn’t know with any absolute certainty.

I didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to have to change how I am with Christian, didn’t want to not be able to rest my head on his shoulder at a movie if I wanted to, didn’t want to have to lose the one boy I knew I had in my corner, the one who’d tell me the truth about BJ, no matter what.

Did I know he loved me? No.

Did I know for certain that he didn’t love me? Somehow, also no.

BJ hooks his arm around my neck, pulling me away from them, pressing his mouth into my cheek.

He doesn’t do it because he’s okay, he does it because he’s not. He’s trying to level himself. Breathing me in like an essential oil.

“I’ll take you home,” BJ tells me and I nod.

I look back at Jonah. “Don’t hurt him, okay?”

All Jonah does is grunt.

My eyes lock with Christian’s and I wish I could make sure that they won’t hurt him. I want to tell him I’m sorry and I hope he’s okay and he can call me later if he needs to, but I don’t think any of those things are okay things anymore.

So instead, I tell him I’m sorry with my eyes, but he doesn’t speak the language of my eyes, just BJ does, so Christian thinks I say nothing at all.

BJ doesn’t stay the night. He doesn’t speak to me in the car ride home—but he doesn’t let go of my hand either. He walks me up the front steps, kisses my head and turns to leave.

“BJ—” I call after him.

He presses his hands into his eyes.

“I can’t right now, Magnolia.” He shakes his head. “I need to think.”

09:56

Beej

How’s the weather, Beej?

I don’t know.

You’re cross.

I don’t know what I am.

I’m sorry.

For what?

I don’t know.

Everything?

I’ll call you tomorrow, okay

Okay

I’m sorry.

X