Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

I make it home for London just in time for the 3rd. Not that it matters. It doesn’t matter anymore—well, it does, but I’m with Tom now, I think. In a proper way.

Or at least I’m going to be.

That’s what I decided as I drove away from him earlier.

“Where are you going anyway?” he asked.

“Devon,” I shrug. “For work.”

He looks confused. “Why Devon?”

I think on my feet. “Research for a ‘in our own backyard’ kind of piece.”

“Oh.” He nods, then brushes his mouth over mine. “I’d come with you if I didn’t have to fly out—”

I shake my head. “Don’t be silly. It’s just Devon.”

I hug him tight.

He’s who I should be with. I’m sure of it. That’s what I think the whole way there, and it doesn’t matter now anyway because when I told BJ that we were done, he said finally, like he’d been waiting for me to do it. How long had he been waiting for me to cut him loose?

I probably should have done it all those years ago, but I’ll worry forever that I’ll never love another person the way I love him.

Fated: that’s what I thought we were. That no matter what happened—how far we went, how much we hurt each other, that we’d always sort of find our way back to each other.

Now that I’m twenty-three and we’re here and all we’ve done since losing each other is lose each other in different ways over and over, being together again sort feels like a childish daydream. A bedtime story I clung to that eased the growing pains of having to leave him behind.

Leaving him behind was never going to happen passively, I could have told you that from the start. Leaving him would always involve pain, an act of violence, like ripping my heart from my own chest, leaving it on a bench somewhere, hoping for the best until I could make it to a hospital and be patched up, but I don’t think you can live too long with your heart outside of your chest.

I pull up to our family home up here in Dartmouth.

It’s a big old manor house on twenty-nine hectares of land. Indoor pool, outdoor pool, a lake, path to the beach, some horses and sheep.

I used to love it up here. Not so much anymore.

I look around for the groundskeeper. Mr. Gibbs. He’s worked for my family for years—my whole life, actually. He’s a good man. Quiet.

A widower, I believe.

I often wonder if he’s lonely up here.

He and his two Saint Bernards that live with him on the property.

I pull together the Embellished, suede-trimmed, ribbed, camel hair cardigan that I’m wearing, hug myself because no one else is and I walk around back to the garden and follow the path that isn’t there down to the lake where the tree lives.

I always loved this willow tree, even before. There’s something poetic about it, even before there were poems to write. It weeps into the water, leaves swinging low like a chariot, bending like it’s broken, but none of that makes the tree less beautiful.

And now… I still love this willow tree—even before I spot BJ Ballentine standing underneath it.

I stare at him for a few seconds.

Black, cashmere hoodie from the Fear of God x Ermenegildo Zegna collaboration, Paccbet tartan trousers, trashed black Vans.

His hair is messy, his eyes are heavy. His mouth hangs open a bit as he stares over at me.

I blink that I miss him and the turned down edges of his mouth tell me he misses me too and I have a feeling running right through like being tucked tightly into your bed at night, like a safe certainty that I will major in the minor details of him forever. I will never unlearn the shape of his mouth.

“You’re here,” I say softly.

“Course I’m here.” He looks a bit annoyed. “I promised.”

“You’ve broken promises before.”

He looks over at me. “Not this one.”

I walk over and stand next to him, further away than I want to be.

There’s a noticeable distance between us—when is there not these days? Minutes go by without us saying anything with our mouths.

At the altar of the tree, I make a thousand soundless prayers and offerings, beg whoever’s listening to align our stars and let him be who I thought he was. If he can’t be that, I pray, may I be free of him and not have it kill me. But he is worth dying over and that’s the part that gets me, I guess.

He’s watching me with the eyes of someone who’s known me for too long, reading things on my face he doesn’t have permission to.

“You okay?” He looks down at me.

I nod, even though it’s a bit of a lie. “Are you?”

He shrugs. “This day always kind of fucks me up.”

I nod again. “Yeah.”

He stares at the tree, smiling a little. “I think about that night all the time.”

My cheeks go pink. “Do you?”

He presses his index finger into his nose, amused. “Yep. Don’t you?”

I try not to is the honest-to-god answer.

“Who was it that walked in on us?” I squint up at him.

“Thatcher,” BJ laughs. “Hendry.”

He shoves his hands through his hair.

“Yes.” I grin up at him. “You were very cross.”

“Well,” he says, wiping away his smile with his hand, “you were practically naked.”

I frown as my cheeks flame. “So were you.”

“Yeah but I don’t give a shit if someone sees my arse—”

Our eyes lock. I swallow, then shake my head trying to keep my composure.

“You just never could make the lock on that door work.”

“It’s a fucking dud lock, Parks.” He laughs once and a million memories are swimming on the surface of his face. “I’ll never not be happy that door didn’t lock though—”

If there was a fire in my mind and I could only save three things, one of them would be that night—the feather down quilt we muddied up at the foot of the tree and seventeen-year-old BJ’s impatient eyes and wandering hands.

“Do you remember afterwards how a family of ducks walked out from the pond shrubbery?” I ask and he starts laughing.

“You were so upset. Like the ducks knew what we were doing.”

“They did!” I shake my head. “I bet those ducklings have been in therapy for years after what they watched you do to me.”

He gives me a playful look. “I don’t recall you having a problem with it at the time…”

I stare over at him, lifting my chin. “I don’t have a problem with it now.”

His mouth twitches and his eyes fall from mine, he drops his head into his hands, shaking it.

“Parks, how the fuck am I ever going to get over you with all this shit between us?”

I purse my mouth. “Trauma bonds, you mean?” And he sniffs a laugh, annoyed at my sister all the way from here.

“I’m quite glad for them, actually,” I tell him.

He looks down at me tenderly. “I’ve had the best life being fucked up by you.”

We look at each other with eyes that are saying more than our mouths ever could.

The air between us begins to thicken—like how a tropical island feels before a storm breaks. Heavy and charged. Tangible.

And maybe this tree is a wormhole through space and time or maybe the coat finally falls off, or maybe I just love him in an undoable way.

His eyes flicker over my face, landing on my mouth, and then it’s happening before I know it’s happening. Like waves crashing into a cliff face, that’s how we kiss.

I don’t know whether I’m the water or he’s the rock, but his hands are everywhere, all over me, up my white, cotton midi dress from Bottega Veneta and I’m moving backwards—I pull off his shirt, run my hand over my old stomping grounds—and then I’m pressed up against the tree—his mouth is on my neck—his breath has jagged edges that snag on my skin—and I’m up on his waist—our eyes lock. They’re always greener than you’d think they are—almost the colour of the leaves of the tree we’re about to do this under once again.

He stares at me, blinking, his face all serious.

“I love you,” he tells me, his voice low and throaty.

I swallow, nervous. “I love you too,” I whisper. And then he pushes into me. A tiny gasp gets caught in my throat and I rest my forehead on his. I hold his face in my hands, kissing his stupid mouth that I love, I push my hands though his hair ’til they’re tangled in it.

And the world falls to black. It’s just me and him in all the universe. The stars have exploded, the sun’s burnt out. And it’s rushy, and I love him and it’s urgent. I love him, and it’s like someone’s put a fire under us or maybe in our bones and we need to put it out, but maybe we don’t want to—and I love him.

I’ll burn the coat, I don’t care.

His mouth on my skin is like snow falling onto water. And it’s unforgivable of me, really—that I dragged other hearts into this. But I did, and I’m sorry and my mind is swimming as he holds me against him and maybe I’m tired or maybe it’s just that I’m here in his arms again as my eyes fill with tears and the whole world trembles in time with our bodies, all the flowers in this world and any others that might exist bloom all at once and the leaves of that tree we love rustles a whisper that I’m home.