“Knock, knock,” says a voice and I look up from my desk.
Josette Balaska pokes her head around the door of my office and then closes it behind her.
“Jose!” I grin, standing to my feet and walking over to her.
“Hi!” She beams, throwing her long arms around my neck and pressing herself up against me how she usually does.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, confused.
She usually tells me when she’s coming into town.
“Wanted to surprise you.” She shrugs. “I haven’t heard from you in a little while which I know means you’ve got a lot on your plate — thought I might be able to help distract you…” she tells me as she pushes me backwards towards the chaise. I fall back onto it and stare up at her, eyebrows up. Takes me by surprise, even though it shouldn’t. She lowers herself down onto my lap, straddling me like she’s done innumerable times before this.
Any time Josette’s in town, we do this. Make a point of doing it. She’s insanely good in bed. The best way to blow off steam. We’ve done this for years, and as she bends down to kiss me, I feel myself frowning at her even though I’m trying to smile.
“Are you okay?” She laughs, a bit confused.
“Yeah—” I shake my head. “I’m good, no, yeah—”
I’ve probably never been more attracted to a person than I am to Josette. A lot of freckles, short, choppy, bleached blonde hair — these almost purple eyes. She’s insanely fit. Sexy, funny, down to try anything. Really cool, chill, doesn’t overthink shit. She’s just a good time. So why then, when Josette is kissing me how she’s kissing me, grinding up against my body as I’m leaned back on this couch, am I thinking about Magnolia Parks?
She’s all I’m thinking about. How her mouth looks in the morning. How she looks in the shower. How her hands feel when she slips them into mine without asking.
I don’t know why I’m thinking about that — or her, even. I’m not doing anything wrong. We’re not exclusive. We’re not even a fucking we. She said she doesn’t care what I do when she’s not here — she’s just usually here. Maybe that’s the weird part. I haven’t had time to hook up with anyone else for a few weeks now and I’m just feeling off about it, but it’s Magnolia’s fucking fault because she’s always about, organising wardrobes no one’s asked her to, working from my desk on my lap because Jonah’s right, she doesn’t know how to be alone. But none of those things answer the question of why the fuck I’m thinking about how Magnolia fucking Parks can’t be alone when Josette has her hands down my pants. Because this is fine. Good, even. It’s what I want — because me and Parks, we’re not together and and for the fucking one hundredth time, there is no we.
Josette reaches behind her neck and undoes the tie of her dress. It falls down her body, nothing on underneath it, just this body I’ve touched too many times to count before, so I touch it again. Almost out of habit, I think — because I’m still thinking about Magnolia. Thinking about why I’m thinking about Magnolia, actually.
And it’s a lot — Josette all over my body, Magnolia all over my mind, me trying to convince myself all of it means nothing and it’s just Jonah’s fucking fault, getting in my head, saying I’ll fall in love with her and shit. I don’t fall in love. Fuck love. I don’t need that chink in my armour and maybe if all that shit wasn’t weighing me down I would have paid attention to what I’m actually hearing going on around me: a faint “Don’t be silly, I go into his office all the time—”
That might have been a sound I’d react to instead of background noise I’m ignoring as I try to fuck my friend so I can prove to myself that I don’t give a shit about a girl that I think I might really actually give a bit of a shit about.
“Oh,” says the voice of that girl, standing in my doorway.
“Magnolia—” I sit up a bit. She stares over at me eyes a bit wide, a bit glassy, Decks behind her, holding her arm in a residual way of him trying to stop her coming in here.
Her eyes move from my face to the naked torso in front of it, down to where my hands are on Josette’s body and then up to her face — Josette doesn’t cover up, doesn’t reposition herself, just stares over at Magnolia like she’s an inconvenience.
“Oh — uh—” Her eyes flick to the ceiling. “I’ve walked into the wrong room — I was — I’m sorry — I was looking for the exit—” she says like an idiot. Magnolia turns on her heel and scurries out.
I throw Declan a look, and he cringes.
“Sorry, man — she’s hard to control.”
I roll my eyes at him, but don’t I fucking know it.
I shift Josette off me and to the couch as I stand up.
She glares at me. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Magnolia,” I offer, not really sure what else to say.
“Who the fuck is Magnolia?” She crosses her arms over her bare chest.
“I—” I trail. What the fuck is happening? I never don’t know what to say. “We’re — I mean, we’ve been—” I shake my head. “Just give me a minute, yeah?”
“For what?” She frowns but I’m already walking away. I look back over my shoulder. Hold up a finger.
“One minute—” I tell her and then I go after Magnolia.
Run after her, if I’m honest. Never ran after a girl a day in my fucking life and I’m running after this one — I hear my front door slam a couple of seconds before I reach it. I swing it back open and stand at the top of the stairs that lead into our courtyard.
“Magnolia—” I call.
She’s speed-walking towards her car. It’s the white Aston Martin DBS Superleggera, not a town car. She must have been planning to stay.
“Magnolia—” I call louder, jogging down the stairs. “Parks!”
She keeps ignoring me and I catch up to her right when she gets to her car. I’m annoyed now. I don’t chase after people — that was fucking embarrassing — running after her, calling her name, her ignoring me in my own house, in front of the men who work for me. Makes me look stupid.
“Oi—” I grab her arm and spin her around so she’s facing me. “I’m talking to you.”
“Oh!” Her eyes go wide and she tries to look all bright-eyed and fine and shit. She shakes her head. “Sorry — I didn’t hear you.”
“You didn’t hear me?” I repeat. “In this trafficless cul-de-sac? I just heard a bird lay a fucking egg—”
“Really?” She gives me a a tight smile. “However did you manage to hear that over the sound of that girl taking her clothes off on top of you?”
I breathe out of my nose. “You’re upset—”
“I’m not upset.” She shakes her head.
I give her a look. “Okay…”
“I’m not—” She shrugs lightly.
“Okay.” I nod, not buying it. “You seem upset…”
“What would I be upset for, Julian?” she asks loudly, like it proves that she’s not except all it does is show that she is. A bit, at least. Don’t know what it says about me that her being upset makes me sort of happy — whatever it’s saying, I know it’s shit.
She waves her little hand between us.
“I know we aren’t… a we, and that— you know… that you’re like… that.”
My eyes pinch.
“I’m like that?” I repeat.
She nods. “With other girls.”
“Right.” My mouth pulls tight. Nod once.
“So it’s fine—” She shrugs like she doesn’t care, but I reckon she might.
“Is it?” I ask, head tilted, looking for her eyes.
“Yes.” She avoids my eyes.
“Is it really?”
“Yes!” She stomps her foot and I stare down at it amused.
She’s wearing this little white dress and a white coat, her legs poking out at the bottom — fancy her in white, kind of.
I frown at her because she’s fucking annoying, knock her headband a bit, just to annoy her.
“I’m not sleeping with her.”
Magnolia’s face softens from full-blown hurt to some kind of confusion.
“Oh,” she says as she straightens it.
“I was before but—” I shrug.
She crosses her arms over herself, impatient and annoyed. “Before like — five minutes ago or—?”
“No—” I toss her a look. “Before like November.”
The last few Novembers, if I was going to be completely forthcoming but I won’t be. Probably not the time to mention it now. And why the fuck would I mention it anyway?
“I might have if you hadn’t walked in—” I shrug. Just being honest.
Her face swaps back to hurt.
“But you did walk in…” I give her a look. “So now…”
“Now what?” She frowns.
“Now…” I shrug, voice trailing. “Not anymore.”
She sucks on her bottom lip and I look for her eyes again because I get the hype. “Why not anymore?”
I ignore the question and hold her face in my hand like I like to do, duck a little so she’s forced to look at me.
“You’ve gone pale,” I tell her and that loses me her eyes again.
She shakes her head. “I’m fine.”
I angle her chin, put her face where I want it. “You don’t look fine.”
She straightens up and gets this proud look in her eye that’s one of my favourite things about her. I don’t know when I started to have favourite things about her?
“Well,” she says, nose in the air, “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do—”
I sniff, indignant. “Is that right?”
“Mmhm—” She shrugs, eyebrows so high they’re basically flying off her face.
And then we just stare at each other, both defiant, both waiting for the other to buckle. I don’t want to buckle, I don’t understand what the fuck is going on because I don’t run after people, I don’t care if people aren’t fine, if they’re going pale, I don’t care if a girl I’ve hooked up with sees me with someone else, but I’m already swimming through my brain trying to work out how to get it out of my head — how she looked when she saw me with my hands on Josette. And why the fuck is she looking at me like that anyway, all hurt and betrayed and shit? She’s in love with someone else. So what the fuck is going on?
That’s what I want to know as I’m staring at her and she’s staring back, and I guess I leave it a few seconds too long because she swallows and her eyes go how they do right before the waterworks start.
She shakes her head. “I’m going to go.”
She opens her car door and I close it straight away.
“I don’t want you to go,” I tell her.
She doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even look at me, just opens it again. Infuriating! She’s fucking infuriating! I reach past her, slam it shut, then grab her face with both my hands, bang her backwards against her car and kiss the shit out of her.
Her body relaxes against me and she does that thing girls do when they melt into a kiss, and I kiss her until she takes a staggered little breath and looks at me with the only eyes I’m interested in seeing.
“I want you to stay—” I tell her, slipping my hand around her waist. “Come back inside.”
She says nothing. Blinks a few times.
“Please?” I say, like the idiot I am. Begging this girl. Fuck, who have I become?
She nods, finally, eyes all shy.
I take her hand and lead her back into the house, hands on her waist, walking behind her and up the stairs.
About halfway up, I pause and turn her around so we’re eye to eye, nod my chin towards my room.
“Will you go wait upstairs for me?”
She frowns. “Why?”
“Because I have to talk to Josette.”
Magnolia breathes out of her nose impatiently, arms crossed now. “What about?”
I uncross her arms, put them back at their sides where they belong. Try to show her I’m still the one in control even though I suspect at this point we both know that’s not entirely true.
I push my hands through my hair. “Because I’m going to ask her to leave.”
“Right.” She nods once, not tracking. “But why do I need to go upstairs?”
“Because.”
“Because why?” She asks, she stomps her foot when I say nothing back. “Are you hiding me?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Are you going to try to have sex with her quickly and then come back upstairs to me?”
I press the tips of my fingers into my eyes. “What the fuck did BJ do to you to make you ask that?”
Her shoulders slump a little. I shouldn’t have said his name. She closes up when I do.
I sigh as I tilt my head, looking for her eyes. “I don’t think she’s going to take it well, and I don’t want her to be embarrassed—”
“Oh.” Magnolia’s face softens. “Why wouldn’t she take it well?”
I press my tongue into my bottom lip. “We’ve been sleeping together a very long time.”
“Oh.” Her eyes drop and she goes back to pouting and this time I do smile a bit. Push that hair of hers that needs no pushing behind her ears.
“And I’m about to tell her that we’re stopping.”
“Oh.” Her eyes crawl back up to meet mine, face opening back up. “Why?”
Why am I telling Josette Balaska that we’re not having sex anymore? Because when you walked in on it you made a face at me that I never want to see you make again, you fucking pain in the arse.
That’s why. Not what I say though.
Instead I roll my eyes.
“Just go the fuck upstairs, alright?” Shake my head at her like I’m annoyed. Maybe I am, I can’t tell anymore. “Why the fuck is everything difficult with you?”
And then she’s back to sulking like she always does when she’s scolded; indignant and confused about the world not going exactly how she wants it to, bottom lip sucked in, nose pinched, brows down, and I grab her face again and kiss her as big as I can because I don’t think I can help it.
“That’s why,” I tell her and she sort of nods — barely — she’s all flustered. I like her flustered.
She turns and walks up the stairs, closing my bedroom door behind her.
I cover my face with my hands, blow some air out of my mouth, and then walk back into my office.
Josette looks up at me, now completely naked on that chaise of mine.
I press my hand into my mouth. Close the door behind me.
“Got rid of her?” She smiles.
Shake my head, cringing. “Not exactly.”
She looks confused, and I nod my head back in the direction I came from.
“She’s upstairs.”
Josette sits up a little, chin lowering. “She doesn’t strike me as the kind of girl who’s into a threesome…”
I sniff a laugh. A solid read.
“She’s not… Listen—” I walk towards her, pick up her dress and offer it to her. “I can’t do this with you—”
“What?” Her face freezes for a minute — embarrassment, I think, and then instantly anger. She jumps to her feet and points up. “Who the fuck is that?”
“I don’t know—” I shake my head. “I don’t know how to explain what she is—”
“Is she your girlfriend?” she asks.
I give her a look. “You know I don’t do girlfriends.”
And we both know Josette would have liked to be mine if I’d let her.
Her jaw goes tight. “You also don’t do girls who don’t let you do me, so what is this?” She throws her arm towards the door again.
I shrug. “I’m figuring it out.”
“Do you like her?” she demands, eyebrows up.
“I don’t know—” I shake my head.
I don’t know why I said I don’t know. I didn’t know I didn’t know til now.
Josette shrugs with her mouth. “It’s a yes or no question, Jules—”
“No, it’s not—”
“Just answer it.” She shrugs like she doesn’t care. Snatching her dress from me.
“No—”
“No, you don’t like her?” she clarifies, eyebrows up as she tugs her dress back down her body.
“No—”
“So you do like her?” she asks me, eyes pinched.
“Fuck. I don—” I’m shaking my head a lot. “Yeah — maybe—?”
She stares at me a few seconds, eyes all glassy. It’s the worst when girls cry. I can’t handle it, and here she is, my old friend, tearing up in front of me, and all I can think about is how Magnolia fucking Parks looked when I kissed her against her car.
“We’ve been having sex for four years, five seconds ago I was standing here in front of you completely naked and you’re telling me you can’t do anything about it because you like some slaggy toff?”
My jaw pulls tight.
“Don’t call her th—” I say before I’m interrupted by being smacked across the face.
Not a slap, not quite a punch.
I lick my bottom lip. Taste blood.
She stares over at me, staggered breathing, a bit afraid. As she should be.
Nod my chin towards the door. “You might want to leave now…”
“Or what?” she asks, squaring her shoulders up, trying to sound brave.
I lean in close towards her. “You don’t want to know.”
And then I leave her, walk back upstairs to the fucking twist I’ve told myself til now is just a post-have infatuation. Might just be a regular infatuation at this point.
Bit embarrassing, me getting a bloody lip from the naked girl downstairs.
I walk into my bedroom, close the door behind me and look over at Magnolia.
It takes her a couple of seconds to register my lip and then she flies over, hands on my face.
“Oh my God!” She goes on her tiptoes. “Did she hit you?”
I nod, watch her move around me a bit, fascinated by how she does it.
You know, in all the fights I’ve been in, I’ve never had a girl there on the other side of one. I mean — I’ve had the scathing bedside-manner and un-tender hand of my sister, but no one in that sexy Florence Nightingale way…Where they’re worried about you, and they want to fix you and tend to you, and you know what? It’s not half bad. Her looking at my split lip like it’s a knife wound.
“It’s quite bad.” She peers at it, less scared of blood than you’d think she’d be.
“Is it?” I brush my finger over it. Cringe for a second. More blood than I was expecting. Worse than I thought but probably not quite a stitch.
“Did she punch you because of me?” She frowns, eyes not on me so I duck down for a hit.
“I mean, usually when she’s here — yeah, it ends with a different kind of banging.”
Magnolia pinches me in the ribs and I squirm, let out a muffled grunt and then she darts to my bathroom and grabs a few tissues.
“Come on—” She passes them to me and then walks out of my bedroom. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I follow her in silence down the stairs and sit down at the table, watching her dart around my sister’s kitchen and then I cut the legs out from under the daydreams that are cropping up in my mind about how she fits in here. She doesn’t. It’s not like that.
Can’t be.
She finds a tea towel, wets it, then fills it with crushed ice. She walks over to me, stands over me in my chair, tilts my head back and starts dabbing my lip gently.
“Ow!” I smack her away.
She smacks me back without a second thought. “Don’t be stupid.”
Don’t like being hit or hit back — these fucking girls, man — I grab her by the waist, pull her down on to my lap.
She’s tense at first, relaxes after a second, adjusts herself and the ice on my mouth. Pushes her free hand through my hair like it’s something she needs to do and not just what she wants to do.
Tilt my head as I watch her. “How’s a girl like you know how to fix a busted lip anyway?”
She pulls back the cloth and inspects it, flicks her eyes from my mouth to my eyes, back to my mouth. “BJ gets into l—”
“Oh fuck —I take it back — I don’t—” I shake my head, pulling a face. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
She swallows.
“Okay.” She nods.
I touch her face. Don’t know why. Lean in to kiss her and realise there’s blood on her dress.
“Oh, shit—” I stare at it, pointing at it.
She looks down and then back up at me, gives me a tiny shrug and a shy smile.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s ruined.”
She eyes me. “Yes, perhaps.”
I stare at the mark. “Sorry.”
She shrugs again, shifts so she’s closer to me than she was already just being on my lap, hooks her elbow around my neck and looks down at me with a face that might be the end of me. She brushes her mouth over mine, her hand in my hair, then she gives me half a smile.
“I always knew you’d be an expensive fuck.”
