Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe, #1)

by Jessa Hastings

And in retrospect, when I’ll look back at this moment some time from now, this is when I’ll mark it—write it down, dog-ear the moment in my mind that this—right here, is when the molecular structure of who Tom England is to me will begin to change.

eeeeep

but here, now, with his eyes on me like that, spotting the cracks in my finish before I do, preempting them with his hands on my face, trying to hold me together but he can’t.

The lyricism

The smile goes across his whole face and crinkles up, but it’s why he gives me the smile he does that gets me, it’s how happy he is to have made me okay for a second. I can see in him this expanding need to make things better for me, to pluck me out of all the bad in my life. I saw a fleck of it in him that day with my father but here it is now, flowering into some kind of fullness, growing past a preference into a necessity.

Do I have feelings for this man? Or has he just been elevated to #1 safest place? Can those two things be mutually exclusive? I don’t know. I don’t know whether I do; I don’t know if they can. I do know, though, that I feel safer in his arms than I do out of them. And I know that he smells like a Sunday morning. Slow, easy, uncomplicated. Like fresh coffee. New towels and a light-flooded room. Oak moss, patchouli, bergamot, lavender. And if Tom smells like a Sunday morning, then BJ smells like a Saturday night spent in the emergency room—don’t think of BJ—and I just would love not to be in the emergency room anymore.

Best quote ever

“Bit of a Pringles situation?” he asks. I look over at him quizzically. “Once you pop, you can’t stop?” Tom offers and I laugh. And once again, he’s pleased that I do.

Tom is my favorite

Marsaili used to say something about how love can go sour like milk and then it turns to hate. Maybe we left our love out.

He hates all this, and I get it because I hate that shit too. Hate that it happened, hate that he went there, hate that I fought him in an alley for her and no one that night left a winner. I hate all of it.

even with Tom’s perfect face and golden hair flopped over his eyes that are so blue, even the sapphires stare—even with Tom right here, my mind goes running back to BJ. The task at hand fails to keep my mind off him and I hate what that says about me and him and us, because maybe I’ll never be free. And do you know what, it’s not even sexy stuff, it’s him brushing his teeth in my bathroom—toothbrush hanging out of his mouth as he tries to peek in the shower wall at me. Him yelling at me every time I knock my water bottle over in the middle of the night. How he hugs Bushka from behind like they’re a couple at the prom. His Vans at the foot of my bed.

She's down bad

We stopped kissing after that though, and he sat in his chair and I sat in mine, but every now and then, he’d look at me out of the corner of his eye and his nostrils would flare a bit as he tried not to smile, and then I’d start laughing, and then he’d start laughing and I think he’s become one of my best friends.

i need to touch some grass

she can only hate me how she hates me because she loves me how she loves me.

Can you say toxic???

“You came here to teach my sister and my best friend how to make a Martini?” “No.” He swipes his hand through his hair. “I came here to ask you on a date.”

Fold immediately

“Can you wear a dress that makes the whole world stare at you?” “Do they not already?” I blink playfully.

Love. Them.

“How many girls has BJ slept with?” I swallow. “He won’t tell me.” Tom’s face falters a bit. “But I think we’re safely in the vicinity of the hundreds.” His face pulls back, blinking. “Multiple?” I shrug like it’s nothing, even though I could be drowning in all the women I’ve lost him too.

“I know you, Parks,” I tell her as I walk over towards her, my eyes softer than they are for anyone else ever.

I move my hand down to her face, pull her in close to me and our mouths brush. Then I kiss her, slowly at first . . . slowly like how you drink a top-shelf whiskey—feel it in your mouth, let it roll around for a couple of seconds before you go back for more. Bask in the flavour of my old, always love. Slowly, slowly, and then more. I kiss her deeper and her breath gets caught in her chest, and I remember how much I used to love it when that would happen, so I do it more.

We’re good at this. Years of practice, I guess. And even though we haven’t practised in years, we haven’t seemed to have lost any ground—just time.

“Just clarify for me,” I say, pushing my hand through my hair. “What exactly is the company policy? Is it one person per changing room? Or is it no sex in the changing room? Because there’s a lot of wriggle room in between those two, if you know what I mean . . . Like, can I feel her up in the changing room? Can we go to third in the changing room? What are we working with here?” I don’t even need to look at Parks to know she’s blushing— she is—but so is the shop girl, who eventually manages to wring out of herself an apologetic smile.

Speechless

“I like you,” I tell him with a small nod, whose decisiveness feels like an assault to BJ. He smiles down at me. “I like you too.” I cover my face with my hands. “Goddamn it.” He peels my hands off me, and ducks down so we’re eye to eye. “This is me tossing my hat in the ring,” he tells me. “Just so you know.”

SCREAMINGGGG

“No, I—it’s Tom England.” I shrug. “I get it. You’ve always had a thing for him—” “Not a real thing,” she clarifies unhelpfully. “Look, if he wasn’t poaching you from me, I’d probably try to shag him too,” I say, forcing myself to laugh because I don’t know what else to do. “So you’re picking him?” I say that like it’s not the end of the world.

Bjjj

She could have lopped off my entire arm and if she looked a bit sad about it, I’d offer her my other one if it’d cheer her up.

The problem with me and Parks is, I think we love each other more than ourselves. Again, that sounds romantic but it’s not— Because if she loved herself more than she loves me, she’d have fucked off years ago. I don’t deserve all the chances she half-tries to give me. And if I loved myself more than I love her, I would have cut the ties between us as soon as she started to strangle me with them. If I loved me more I would have let me drift away, into the dark, out of her light, but I didn’t, and I couldn’t and I won’t because when it comes to her, I have zero instinct for self-preservation. I’ll die in her arms or at her doorstep trying to get back into them, I don’t give a fuck.

“Kiss me,” I tell her. She frowns a little, but I can tell already her resolve is paper thin. “What?” “Kiss me,” I shrug. “You’ll feel better.” A hint of a smile appears on her mouth. “Will I just?” I nod. “You will.” “Come on,” I say and poke her in the ribs. “It’s what we used to do if we were fighting and about to go out—” She shakes her head. “No, it’s not. We stared at each other.” “Staring, kissing—” I wobble my head side to side. “Stare at me and see if it doesn’t end in a kiss anyway.” She stands on her tip-toes and presses her lips into my cheek. I turn my head so our mouths meet and she smiles. I kiss down her cheek, down her neck, I pick her up off the ground and she wriggles and jerks around in my arms as I bury my face in there because she’s ticklish—

They're kinda....cute

“He promised it wasn’t her—” Paili presses her lips together. “Do you think maybe he’s lying, though?” And then I turn around. “What the fuck was that now, Paili?” “Uh,” she stutters. “What did you say?” I lean in towards her, scowling. “Say it again—what did you say?” She swallows, nervous. “Nothing—” I shake my head. “I’ve never lied to her.” “Okay.” She nods. “Fuck you.” I point at Pails, angry.

Aw hell

If I look at them properly any time it’s like someone pushing me into a river. I go under real quick, gotta kick my way back up to the surface, body chokes up, I’m just treading water.

“Shit-stirrer, truth-teller—they’re the same things to liars.”

😮

“That’s pretty fucked up,” he tells me. His mouth pulls like he’s sorry for me, but I don’t fucking want him to be sorry for me. I’ve had her for all my life, she’s mine, I fucked it up and now I have her like she’ll let me. I don’t need his pity. I don’t even need his understanding. Just need her. I watch her, the girl of my dreams, love of my life, alpha, omega, beginning and end, till death do us part and even then I’m still hanging on—and all I say is, “Yeah.”

He’s watching her, eyes pinched. “You think she does it to everyone?” “Does what?” He shrugs. “Makes them feel like they’re—I don’t know? The sun.” I feel bad for him. He’s still new to her. New to watching other men around her and Parks not even knowing she’s the focus of everyone in the room. This little ray of sunshine even when she’s acting like a solid git.

“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.”

KING

“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.”

DROP THE DIGITS

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?

Girllll be so for real right now

“I’m in love with her, Beej—”

“Because she’s yours.” He glares over at me a bit. “And even when she isn’t, she is.”

“Dad never paid much attention to us, not enough. Not the amount little girls need from their father, anyway. But BJ—” She gives me a knowing look. “He was your saving grace. He . . . looks at you and sees the sun. So, you were covered. You didn’t need a dad, you had a BJ.

that’s sweet

“The other two, they’re too loyal to Beej. They’ll lie to me for him. And I know you’d—” “Do anything for you,” he says. “Yeah, I would. But fuck you for letting me—” His anger peeks through again. “Do you need the whole fucking world to be in love with you?”

🫠🫠

“And I need you to let me be, Parks.” He shakes his head, eyes stern. “Let me be over you.”

😭😭

watch him for a few seconds. “I love you,” I tell him. “Do you know that?” He stares straight ahead, nodding two, three, four times. “Yep.” He looks over at me. “Not how I love you, unfortunately.” “I did once,” I remind him, I don’t know why. He nods again, thinking about it. “Not how you love him though.” He puts his hand on my knee, squeezes it once. There’s a finality to it. Like we’re closing the chapter, finally, on what we used to be. How many loves, I wonder again?

Some loves, like ours was, are like wrecking balls in glass houses. And wrecking balls have no business being in glass houses like I had no business loving Christian how I did once upon a time, except that sometimes, some loves keep your head above the water when you’re drowning. Some loves might fog up a phone booth on a rainy London afternoon and make you feel less alone than you did before your lips touched. He’s leaving what we had behind, like he should. Like I should have let him so long ago. But I’ll miss him on my rainy days.

Crying real tears

Of course we’re going to work, even if I’m a round peg and he’s a square hole—I don’t care, I’ll shave down the edges of myself to keep him. I’d do anything for him.

RED FLAGGG

My heart’s got a limp—it’s had a limp for a while now—but it’s found a crutch in Tom. Not just a crutch, but a goddamn hospital wing. If he were a surgeon, I’d be in trusty hands. But he’s not and I still am anyway. I wish I had the words to wrap around Tom, a pedestal tall enough, a spotlight bright enough to show you actually how perfect a man he is—

#JUSTICEFORTOM

All I know is that he’s a safe harbour. If BJ is the storm that’s sinking me, Tom is the place where my heart’s ship is getting patched up.

“Are we still in the foxhole?” He frowns a tiny bit while he thinks, pushing some hair behind my ears. “I’m going to let you use my body for as long as you want it.” He shrugs. “Foxhole, shield, jungle gym—I don’t care.”

and even though I’m about as fucked up as I’ve been in years, high as a fucking satellite—I start to wonder how many people in your lifetime do you get to love how I love her? Can’t be that many. How many loves do you get? Tell me it’s two. Fuck. Please, tell me it’s two.

It ain't

“What am I to you?” I lean back into him, pursing my mouth at the question. “The oxygen mask”—I glance back at him—“that falls down from the ceiling of the planes.” He hugs me tighter. “That’s good enough for me.”

Us being, by the way,Tom and I and Paili and Perry. Insisted upon it, actually. He said he didn’t know them that well and that he feels he should know them better.

Tommm

How would my life be if I actually cut BJ out? Because the life I think I could have with Tom would be a good one . . . and it’s not a money thing—money I have. It’s the calmness of him, the way he moves in a room, the way he holds my knee when I’m sitting next to him, his watchful eyes, how I can just barely fold my whole hand around only two of his fingers. The thoughtfulness of him.

Maybe BJ is the great love of my life not because he’s great but because he’s been defining, and maybe Tom will be the redeeming love of my life, and maybe that’s better?

“He’s probably never cheated on her,” Mum says, rueful. “No, probably not.” I give her an exasperated look and throw back my drink in one go.

Love mum!!!

I wonder who’s here that I can kiss in front of her to make her angry?

???

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 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.

Beauty of a quote