Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

She walks into the Rosebery wearing a coat and one of the dresses from Gucci that I bought her. Full Box Set tonight plus Bridge. It’s me and the boys at the table—Pails isn’t here yet, and I haven’t said anything. I stand as Parks skips over towards the table—don’t know why—gives us away before we have a chance to tell them ourselves. She throws her arms around my neck and jumps to kiss my mouth. Like a fucking Disney kiss. Feet off the ground, her hands in my hair, one hell of an entrance. Few flashes from cameras, a murmur through the crowd, but that’s what she wanted. If it wasn’t, she wouldn’t be kissing me like this in here.

She pulls away from my mouth and smiles at me as I put her back down on the ground. She turns to the lads, and gestures to me. “Have you met my boyfriend?”

Bridge cheers. Jo lets out a triumphant crow. Henry wraps his arms around Parks and they say words to each other that I can’t hear, but her cheeks are pink, and he pokes her nose.

Christian stands up and we stare at each other for a few seconds and I briefly feel like shit—and then he hugs me.

Parks kisses Perry (with his slack jaw and wide eyes) on the cheek as she passes him, perching on my lap, and the world is as it should be.

Forgot what it’s like to be like this with her, and what strikes me the most about it is it feels like a weight off my back—getting to be with her like this, like not touching her, not holding her, not being with her, has had my whole body holding its breath ’til now and now everything’s good.

No more touching around touching, just touching. Touching for touching’s sake. Touching her because I can—because she’s mine, because we figured it the fuck out—finally.

She does a button up on my shirt.

“Who are you trying to seduce with all these buttons undone?” She gives me a playful frown.

“You,” I say into her ear and she swallows heavy, her little body goes all rigid, her grip on my arm tightens and—fuck!—I wish no one else was here so we could go upstairs right now—why the fuck did we bring other people here?

Because it’s worth celebrating, she said. That’s why.

And that we’ve put all our friends through so much shit the last three years, we owe them several drinks at least.

And then Paili walks in.

Clocks me quickly how she often does—glances at Parks on the rebound.

Parks on my lap, my hands tossed around her waist. Her eyes go wide and then her jaw drops into a surprised smile.

She points between us. “Are you—”

I nod, smiling at her coolly. And everything is fine. Magnolia jumps up off my lap and bounces over to her best friend, making excited girl sounds, throws her arms around her neck,

Paili puts her hands on Magnolia’s cheeks, holding her face and smiling at her.

“I’m so happy for you,” she tells her and she means it.

Parks puts her hands on top of her best friend’s affectionately, and turns her face a little, kisses the palm of her hand. “You smell nice—” Parks says, smiling at Paili absentmindedly as she turns away.

“Oh, thanks.” Pails puts her bag down on the seat. “I haven’t worn it in a while, it’s from—”

Magnolia freezes.

“Orange blossom,” Parks says, voice far away.

And the room falls into slow motion.

Magnolia takes Paili’s wrist, lifts it to her nose to smell it.

Breathes it in. “Musk.”

She breathes in again. Magnolia looks up at Paili, not blinking. “Tuberose.”

“Magnolia—” Paili starts.

Parks drops her wrist, takes a step away from her.

“Magnolia, listen—”

“It was you?” Parks says in a tiny voice and I’m already on my feet.

Shit. Paili and my eyes catch. She’s panicked.

“Parks.” I grab Magnolia by the arm, pulling her back towards me.

She moves when I move her, looks up at me, eyes like a hummingbird with no place to land.

She stares up at me, mouth open, frozen in an old grief that has a weight that hasn’t even hit her yet.

“Was it her?” she asks in almost a whisper.

“Parks.” I shake my head.

“Was it?”

“Magnolia,” I whisper.

She jerks her arm out of my grip. “Did you fuck my best friend?” she yells and the room halts to a silence.

The talking stops, the volume sucks away. Cutlery clangs on plates. Everyone stares.

“Yes,” Paili says from behind us.

I always want to think I was drunk; I was a bit but not enough—not how I should have been to take the edge off of what we did. I felt dizzy and weird, walked downstairs and she followed me. I guess she saw I looked off.

We’d been friends for years by then too, obviously—wherever Parks goes, Paili goes. We were always close.

She followed me into my room.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I ignored her, walked into my bathroom. Water. I needed water. Ran the tap, splashed some on my face. Gripped the sides of the sink hard.

I turned and looked at her, she frowned when she saw me.

“You’re not,” she told me. “What’s wrong?”

I smelt her. “New perfume?”

She nodded, pleased I noticed. “Yeah, I just got it last week, it’s Frédéric Malle, Carn—”

And then I grabbed her face and kissed her.

Don’t know why? Never thought about kissing her before, just did it. I wasn’t dead surprised when she kissed me back. I always thought she had a bit of a thing for me, most girls do—but she was so loyal to Parks, she’d never—

So that… kissing there in my bathroom. Weird.

I pulled back, looked at her.

We had this moment of like, what the fuck are we doing?

I was breathing fast, panting almost. I don’t think she was breathing at all. Her gaze went hungry girl. Seen her look at Jo like this before, but not me and then she just threw herself on me.

And you want to know the god honest truth? I wasn’t thinking of Parks. All I was thinking about was that was what I wanted. It was what I wanted. I was choosing it. That was what I wanted to be doing and I was doing it, and I had a girl in my hands that I wanted there, and we were touching and kissing and that was what I wanted.

I was sitting on the side of the bath; Pails was sitting on my lap—she was a better kisser than I would have thought—good with her hands.

I remember I fell backwards. Tumbled back into the bathtub.

She fell on top of me. We laughed.

She looked down at me, a half-smile, half-frown on her face, and reckon it’s important to say because it’s true, we could have stopped. Throughout. In every sexual encounter there are multiple organic check points—breathing breaks, taking clothes off, kissing breaks, shifting positions—we could have stopped several times.

We didn’t.

Then I pulled her down on top of me and we had sex in my bathtub. And it was—I feel sick to say it—good. Great, even.

I know that’s not what anyone wants to hear at this point. You want it to have fucking sucked, been the worst experience I’ve ever had. You want me to have felt nothing, hated it, not come, been thinking of Parks the whole time—none of that’s true.

I wanted it.

And the only times I thought of Magnolia was when my brain was like, you should be thinking about Magnolia.

But after…

Holy fuck.

It was like a spell wore off.

She jumped off me, holding her clothes against her body. “What did we do?” she asked—white as a ghost.

“Fuck.” I hung my head in my hands. “Fuck!”

“What do we do?” she asked, urgently.

I shook my head. “We have to tell her—”

“What?” She pulled back. “No!”

“We have to!” I shook my head. “I have to—I can’t keep this from her—”

“You have to!” Paili yelled.

“I can’t!” I yelled back. “I’m telling her—”

And then Paili started to hyperventilate. I mean—couldn’t breathe—gasping for air. I rushed over to her, held onto her arm. “Look at me—breathe—you’ve gotta breathe—”

And I was standing there coaxing her breathing and she still wasn’t dressed, just in her underwear. My shirt was off, and then the door opened.

“What’s going on in—” Jonah started, then froze in his tracks. “Shit.”

Jo looked over at me, clamped his hand over his mouth. My eyes dropped to the ground. Embarrassed and guilty. Jonah looked at Paili who was having a panic attack, and he walked over to her in two strides. Grabbed a cup of water on my sink. Threw it in her face.

She froze. Looked up at him, wide-eyed. Petrified.

“You two are fucking?” Jonah asked through gritted teeth.

“I-It just happened,” she said, eyes teary.

I was sitting on the toilet lid. Hands shaking.

“What the fuck, Beej?” he yelled.

“I have to tell her.” I looked up at them both. “We have to tell her,” I told Paili. “It’s the right thing to do—”

“No!” She shook her head. “She’ll never forgive us.”

“I can’t lie to her—”

“But you can cheat on her?” Jonah spat.

I ignored him.

“Paili.” I shook my head at her. “It was a mistake, she might… maybe she won’t—”

Paili started crying.

“Listen, listen,” Jonah said, tossing me my shirt. “Put that on. We can figure this out.”

He took Paili’s dress out of her hands, pulled it over her body. Dressed her like she was a rag doll. She watched Jonah with scared, grateful eyes.

“Did you use protection?” he asked, looking between us.

Hadn’t even thought of protection—I was only sleeping with Parks and she’d been on the pill she since she was sixteen. I shook my head.

Paili barely shook hers. Started crying more.

Fuck.

Jonah clapped his hands to get her to focus, then held her by the shoulders.

“I’ve got emergency contraception in my bathroom,” he told her. “You’ll be fine. It’s fine—we’ll go take it now.” He started leading her away. “And you—take a shower—”

I shook my head.

“I’m going to tell her—”

Paili started crying again.

Jonah put his head in his hands. “Paili, shut the fuck up—I’m trying to think.” Her mouth snapped shut the way you’d expect it to when a gang lord tells you to be quiet.

“She’s going to end it, Beej,” he warned me.

I shook my head at him. “I can’t pretend I didn’t do it, I won’t lie to her—”

Paili’s shoulders were convulsing, she was crying so much—

“Fine, but just don’t tell her who—”

“She should know,” I yelled.

“She shouldn’t have to know,” Jonah barked back. “You shouldn’t have fucking done it—but now you have and here we are. Paili’s about to have a fucking meltdown. It’s her story as much as yours now. You want to tell Parks you cheated, fine.” He looked at Paili. “And you want to lie to your best friend, fine.” He pointed at me. “You were at the party, you got drunk.” He grabbed an open beer that was in my room, splashed it on my clothes. “You fucked up.” I nodded at him. “And you,” he said, looking at Paili, “you and me hooked up tonight, if anyone asks, okay?”

She nodded obediently, eyes red.

“Okay.” Jonah nodded.

You know what happened after that.

I went to Parks. Told her. Left out the most significant detail. Lost her anyway. Lost her then how I’m losing her now in a Gucci dress at The Rosebery.

“Parks—” I reach for her again.

“My best friend?” she whispers.

We’re all frozen—fucking suspended in time in my worst fucking nightmare—

Christian can’t believe it. Perry’s eyes are on the floor—confirmation for me, finally, that he knew all along. Henry’s going to fucking kill me, I can see it—Jo’s just watching Parks. He looks a bit afraid, actually.

“Did you know?” Magnolia asks Jonah in a quiet voice.

Jo nods.

She turns to Perry. “And you?” she asks, throaty.

He nods too.

These bonus revelations crush her extra, I don’t know why.

“Magnolia.” I reach for her but she’s walking backwards away from me, afraid. Like she doesn’t know me. Like I’m a danger to her.

“Don’t touch me.” She shoves my hands off her and I fall back a bit, crashing into a waiter with a tray of food.

“Parks, please,” I call for her, but she’s already running.