More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
June 20 - July 4, 2024
She peers up at me. “Well, did you get me anything for Christmas?” “No.” I smirk at her, lying. It’s in my pocket and I’m not ready yet.
“How different do you think our lives might be if we weren’t how we are with each other?” She blinks up at me. I clear my throat once. “How are we with each other?” “Caught,” she says without thinking.
“You didn’t come in?” she asks in a quiet voice. “No, I didn’t.” “Any reason?” she fishes. “Yep.” “Any that you’re willing to disclose?” I sigh, shake my head at myself. “I’m tired.” “I’m tired too,” she tells me, but I reckon she means the other kind of tired.
“No,” I scoff. “It doesn’t, Parks. What the fuck were you doing during your Physics classes?” Pause. “You.”
I could drown in the what ifs if I let myself — might as well. I’ll be drowning in her anyway for the rest of my life. Happily, too. What a way to go. What a life.
“You guys are cute.” I turn to Christian who’s sitting next to me on the couch and we trade looks. “It’s fucking disgusting,” he tells them and I smirk.
Occasionally I say, “Fuck the police,” so he feels better about Daisy Haites being with that sexy policeman she’s dating.
Henry nods at my necklace. “I thought you lost that.” “Oh—” I press it into my chest. “Um—” Christian eyes it. “Didn’t we tear apart a club in Athens looking for that?” “Well…” “I swear to god if you had it all this time, I’ll go back to 2014 and smack you in the head.”
“Because you and me are sitting on this fucking couch and the people we love are with people who aren’t us.” I give Christian a disparaging look. “I wouldn’t say I love him… out loud.”
“But just because you have a history with someone doesn’t mean you’re actively in love with them.” “—Which you are, by the way.” Christian gives me a pointed look. I glance at him. “Yes, okay. Thank you.”
“He’s always fought for you. What have you done? Nothing! Ran away, dated a sexy pilot, fucked his best friend—” “For the billionth time—” I wave a finger between Christian and me. “—Zero penetration.” “Lot of hand work though,” Christian winks at Henry. (We do a no-look high-five and Henry rolls his eyes.)
Each of them are like bricks laid in the house I built to love him, but the point is really that house I built isn’t a monument to a love I used to have. It’s a house I want to live inside of still.
It’ll be what they put on my tombstone, I think. He Loved Her.
Can’t believe he doesn’t know. In this friendship group? A fucking miracle.
“Oi, Parks—” Jonah nods his chin back at her after we’ve just gotten on the M40. “You can take those sunglasses off now. No one’s going to pap you in my car.”
They look like fucking emeralds, goddamn it. Must have cried all night. Jo catches them in his rear view — a decade of friendship, you know your friend’s crying face. “What happened?” He snaps around to look at her. “Nothing.” I shake my head. He stares over at me, annoyed. “What the fuck did you do?”
“Remember how you asked me what Jack-Jack is like in bed and I said I’d tell you another time?” She looks uneasy. “Mmhm.” “I’m going to tell you now.” Parks nods.
I move in closer, whisper, “How’s the weather, Parks?”
“I told you I love you and you’re asking me about the weather?” she whispers to me. Then she looks me dead in the eye. “Fuck you.”
his pocket and slashes his tyre. “This car’s a week and a half old,” he says with a glare. I shake my head at him. “What the fuck do you have a switchblade in your pocket for?” “Because my best friend’s a fucking idiot,”
“They make me think of you,” she tells me, looking up at them. “The stars?” She nods. I glance at her. “Why?” I know why. “Fated.” She gives me a shy look. “That we’re written in them. Something stupid like that.”
“I’m not in business of loving people anymore.” I give her a long look. Wow. Fuck. Nod once. “Because of me?” She nods back. “Because of you.”
“Magnolia Parks…” She smiles over at me, eyes going soft. “I love it when you say my name.” “Yeah?” She nods. “I love how it sits in your mouth, like you were supposed to say it all the time.” I was, Parks.
I reach over, hold her face in my hand, hold her eyes how I’m going to hold her body in a second. “I love you, Parks.”
“Pretty into rocks now, hey?” He looks down at me with a grin. I sniff, amused, and I bury my face in him. “Love an educated man?” he asks playfully. “Fuck, I’m going to have to go to uni—”
On his index is a tiny storm cloud with a bolt of lightning coming out of it; on his middle finger, above the old lilac that was already there, is now a cloud with a small sun poking out behind it, and then on his ring finger is a little sun. I press my lips together and smile. ”How is the weather, Beej?” He drops his index and middle fingers down and grins at me
“Holy fucking shit!” He claps BJ’s face between his hands, gives him a hug. Our biggest champion, Jonah.
“Am I ever going to be good enough for you?” He says that and he means it. The hurt is old, I can see that.
“Where are you going?” he calls after me. I’m going to Central Park at midnight.
“You fucked Jordan,” he tells me like I didn’t already know. “For Parks, that was Pearl Harbor.” I frown, confused. “Okay.” Christian pats me on the arm, his mouth pulling in this funny smile like he’s sorry for me. “Hiroshima is coming.” I roll my eyes at them and grab him by the shoulder. “As long as you didn’t fuck her, I’m good.” Jonah grimaces. “We’ll see.” He hands me a tumbler of whiskey. “You’re gonna need it.” He smacks me on the arm before he walks away.
“Guys like Julian don’t date.” I nod my chin at her. “So then what are you doing?” She takes a long sip. “Fucking, Beej.” Back over me with a fucking truck, why don’t you, Parks?
“I just want to say, and I really do mean this with every fibre of my being—” She stares up at me before she delivers flawlessly: “Fuck. Your. Self.”
Julian’s got my girl pinned in the corner of the lift — I should clarify — not my actual girlfriend. Just the girl I love.
“Um, probably broaching on 74 hours now?” Parks offers. Julian bites down on her bare shoulder. “Non-stop.” Daisy rolls her eyes.
Clock Christian off to the side also miserable as fuck, but it’s because he’s watching Daisy and her boyfriend and he wouldn’t bring Vanna here to her house. Good man. Decent.
Jokes on me though, because BJ’s as not mine as ever and I wake up every morning to check the status of my tether to him. It’s iron clad, even now.
“Daisy likes art.” But do you know what Daisy doesn’t like? Me.
Magnolia smacks him and frowns. “Say you’re sorry.” He rolls his eyes and then something happens that fucks with my head: Julian Haites presses his lips together and says it. “I’m joking, Taurs. I’m sorry.” Taura and Jonah sit back in their chairs, can’t believe it. “Holy shit—” Taura stares at Parks. “How good in bed are you?”
“No offence. Dirty money is better that new money,” I concede. “Imagine being from new money…” I shake my head and laugh. “Yuck.”
“I mean—” Taura catches my eye then rolls hers. “It was a long time ago now. But yeah, I was. Until I realised he’s hideously in love with Magn—” She catches herself. Face freezes.
When you know, you know. We’re meant to be, me and Parks.
We’re fated. Woven into the tapestry of the universe, my name right next to hers. We’re in the stars.
“What do you want from her?” I shake my head, give him a shrug like it’s simple. “I just want her.” “Beej,” he gives me a look. “You had her.”
“I’m not bad at it.” I blink. “I’m not bad at anything. Julian—” I pout. “Tell him I’m not bad at anything.” He doesn’t even glance up. “She’s not bad at anything.” Then his big blue eyes pop up over the top of the paper. “You’re pretty shit at that, though.”
And, when he thinks no one’s looking, he whispers things to me. Sometimes they’re sweet nothings, sometimes it’s about what he’d like to do to me later, other times he whispers funny things about other people in the room, but either way, every time, the way his mouth feels against my ear makes my toes curl and forces me to swallow heavy.
“Well, I’m very subtle.” He squints at me. “Who’s been lying to you?”
“But Tiges—” He pinches my chin between his thumb and his index finger. “About as subtle as a brick in the face, you are.”
Daisy makes a disgusted sound. “I don’t want to watch you have sex.” “So leave then,” Julian tells her without looking away from me.
“Can you even imagine what a little kid version of Magnolia would have been like?” “I can, yeah.” I nod. “I mean, we survived the original.”
“Normal people don’t look at each other how you’re looking at each other right now,” Henry says, gesturing to us. Fucking arsehole. “I’ll just say, that — that was an abnormal exchange.”
