by L.J. Shen
I knew that, I sculpted that, I made it look real.
But I finally got it. The obsession with tits. Len’s were spectacular. I squeezed, breathing through my nose to keep the pressure in my balls in check. I wanted to make her forget Pope had a dick. Or anyone else, for that matter.
“You didn’t get me anything for my birthday,” she murmured, letting me kiss her neck and up her jawline while my thumb found her hard nipple and flicked it.
Another thing she never would have said sober. I stilled, my mouth on her skin, my breath uneven.
“I wasn’t expecting anything, to be honest. Not even a card. But a happy birthday, yeah. I expected at least that.”
I said nothing. My hand was still shoved inside her bra, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure if I was angry at her or at myself, and that was another brand-new feeling.
Just tell her happy birthday, a small, tiny, fucking crazy part of me urged. Manners are not a weakness. And you’re about to plunge into her ass bareback.
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt like a power battle, and for some reason, she always had the upper hand, even if she didn’t know it.
She felt out of reach, and it made me want to throttle her.
I shook my head. She stepped away from my touch. My hand fell from under her shirt. The chill of the room wrapped against it immediately. Len turned around to face me, took her phone from my hand, and flicked her flashlight completely off.
“I know I’m drunk, and I know you said I’ll regret the things I said tonight, but I honestly don’t believe I will.” Her voice was steady. Flatlined. “I’m done being considerate of my dad. He certainly isn’t considerate of me. As for you…” she trailed off.
I waited. Since when did I wait for people to tell me what they thought about me?
Never.
Who cared?
She was just another mouth—not even a particularly good one. She sassed way too much and gave me trouble.
“Finish the fucking sentence.” I loathed myself for giving her yet more power by wanting to know what she had to say.
“Our arrangement is over. Don’t come to my room. Don’t talk to me if you see me in the hallway. Stay out of my business. We’re done. And you never asked me—I know, I know, not that you care.” I heard the whine of the ancient door opening, and Len took a step out. “—if I believe in ghosts, too. But here’s your answer: I do, for the exact same reason you do. I don’t believe in literal ghosts, but I believe our past unleashes dog-shaped demons upon us, and they chase us, and that’s what keeps us running. Moving. Living.”
I said nothing, not really in the mood to correct her and tell her I hadn’t asked whether she believed in ghosts or not because I knew the answer already. It was what made her presence bearable. When we were in a room together, all our ghosts were waiting on the other side of the door. I could hear them.
“My ghost is my mum. I lost her when I was very young, and I vowed to never love someone as much as I loved her, so I wouldn’t have to go through the pain of losing them, too. Losing her almost broke me. But because I don’t get attached to people, I wasn’t scared to get in bed with the devil himself. I finally realized I can’t fall in love with you, but that doesn’t mean I should give you the time of the day,” she paused.
I could make out the shape of her head as she shook it.
“As it happens, I really shouldn’t. Now, take me to my room and lock my door after you. I don’t want to see my father.”
I did as I was told.
I left her with a bottle of water, two Advils, and a scowl.
“Goodbye, Spencer,” she said, watching from her bed as I locked her door and slipped the key back into her room, protecting her from myself.
Yeah, good fucking riddance.
The boy snored softly when I entered his room.
He was in the upper bunk bed, in the boys’ dorms on the third floor. The lower one hadn’t been occupied, so I guessed his roommate was hooking up somewhere. It was embarrassingly easy to find him. Fairhurst kept his name on his phone’s contact list along with a picture of him, the sloppy fucker, and I had access to every single detail on Fairhurst’s phone now, thanks to The Fixer.
I was feeling a little unhinged and a lot trigger-happy from my encounter with Len earlier tonight, but I doubted it was the reason I nearly tore the boy’s head from his spine when I clawed at his throat and brought his face down to mine. I wore a hoodie, a black ball cap, and a black bandana on my lower face.
His eyes popped open in the dark, frightened, like he’d just seen a ghost.
“Out,” I hissed.
I wasn’t hot on using too many words. He wasn’t supposed to pick up on the American accent. I squeezed the back of his neck, bringing my point home. He nodded frantically, jumping to the floor with a thud and grabbing a hoodie from the back of his chair by his desk. He slipped into his slides, then waited for instructions. I poked my knife into his back from behind and opened the door for him, forever the fucking gentleman. Once we were out in the hallway, I followed closely behind him. Four in the morning or not, there was little room for error.
We took the stairway up to the fourth floor, to Fairhurst’s bedroom. I knew he was staying in London tonight because he’d said as much after I got back downstairs from Lenora’s room and made excuses for her. Edgar had looked wrecked, Arabella triumphant, and Poppy was bawling. Harry said he’d deposit Lenora’s present at her door and take her to dinner when she was feeling better.
Inwardly, I told him I’d die a thousand deaths before I let them spend one-on-one time together.
When the boy and I reached Harry’s room, I picked at the lock, broke in, and closed the door after us. I opened the double doors of Harry’s walk-in closet and motioned for the kid to get in.
“G-get into the closet?” he stammered, rubbing at his arms. It wasn’t even cold.
I nodded curtly.
“W-what will you do to me? I’m just…I’m not… We’re not together or anything like that. I didn’t know he had a boyfriend. He was just a pull.”
Sure. That’s why he was here. Because I wanted Fairhurst’s cock all to myself.
“In,” I snapped, poking the knife in the guy’s throat.
He scurried into the closet, turning around and looking at me expectantly. I knew he was a senior. I knew his name was Dominic Maples, that he was originally from Edinburgh, that he’d been fucking Fairhurst for a year now, since before he was legal. Of course, dangling it in my enemy’s face was futile at this point.
I didn’t want to cause harm.
I wanted full destruction.
And locking Harry’s ass in jail simply wasn’t enough.
Once Dominic was inside, I used my gloved hands to place his palms on the shelves of the walk-in closet, widening his stance by kicking his feet apart.
“Get naked,” I said gruffly.
“Why…how…”
Rather than answer his half-finished questions, I shoved his sweatpants down myself. He kicked them off obediently, along with the slides, getting the point and taking off his hoodie and shirt.
He turned around to look at me, and that’s when I noticed he was hard. His damn cock was pressed against a drawer, purple and engorged. Yeah. He really was Harry’s boyfriend. They were both sick.
Once Dominic was stark-ass naked, I took a graffiti chalk can and sprayed his back. He shivered as the cold liquid splashed over his skin, biting into one of Harry’s sweaters to keep quiet, but his damn cock was still pressed into the mirrored drawer, and it was still rod-straight.
When I was done with the black paint, I tossed the can aside, took the kid’s phone out, and shoved it in his face, standing behind his back.
“Unlock.”
He stared into it, using face recognition. I took a picture of the guy’s back, sent it to Fairhurst through Dominic’s phone, and tucked said phone into my pocket.
Showtime, motherfucker, and you got a front-row seat.
She hadn’t left room for interpretation—our hookups were over.
She couldn’t have been clearer if she’d tattooed her forehead with Property of Pope (whom I was still going to kill, because fuck him).
Just as well. If she was dumb enough to say I never gave her a birthday present, I really had no goddamn interest in tapping her ass, anyway.
And still.
And still.
I was going to send another motherfucking basket to her room this morning, as I had every single day since Arabella sucked me off on the last day of school. At first, I’d sent chocolate, because I didn’t want it to be too obvious, but I figured she’d know where they came from on her birthday when I sent brownies. They were handmade and in different shapes, for her entertainment. Clouds, unicorns, stars, animals, letters. Anything but a heart—that was my careful instruction to the chocolatier. Each was individually wrapped in fantasy-book wrappers: Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter, Northern Lights.
Cost a little extra to pull off, but half-assing shit wasn’t in my nature.
It wasn’t about wanting to fuck her, or trying to make her feel better, God forbid. I didn’t even leave a note. I just knew she liked sweet things since that day behind the fountain, and I pitied her ass because she was an orphan and friendless and fucked up.
That’s all it was. Pity.
I called the chocolaterie, and the lady there recognized me by my accent and the fact that I’d used them for a few weeks now. Also, I was probably the only bastard who called before their opening hours, when they’d just started their day baking.
“Another one? You’re persistent, lad.” She giggled.
I rolled my eyes, watching the English countryside zip by on the first train into Hertfordshire. It was a quarter to six. Even the birds were still asleep.
“Maybe you should personalize it this time? She obviously needs a bit of thawing. You’ve been sending them for quite a long time now.”
A note was a bad idea. She’d think I cared, and fuck, did I not give a damn about her. It was cruel to pretend otherwise. Especially now, when we were done.
“Blank note is fine,” I clipped.
“Righto,” she sing-songed. So fucking cheerful in the morning. “Would that be all?”
“Yes.”
“Loads of noise in the background. Are you traveling anywhere special?” She tried to lighten the mood.
Could I deduct the tip for the time she wasted trying to mingle with me? Because pretending to give a damn seemed way above her pay grade.
“Hertfordshire,” I said. “St. Albans.”
“You must visit London, if you haven’t. It’s quite close.”
“Great idea.”
I’ve been to London more times than you’ve taken shits, lady.
I killed the call, leaned back in my seat, and tapped my knee. Harry Fairhurst did exactly what I thought he’d do once I sent him a picture of his lover buck naked, with graffiti over his back and ass that read HARRY FAIRHURST IS A CHILD MOLESTER.
He grabbed his keys and dashed back to Carlisle Prep, where Dominic was still locked in his closet, because—c’mon, give me brownie points for the irony—his gay lover was locked in a closet.
In his bid to save his ass (and maybe Dominic’s, though I wasn’t holding my breath), he’d forgotten his laptop at his house. I knew because I’d planted a little tracer on that bitch when I sneaked into his office one day and could see its location at any given moment.
And whaddaya know? Someone just happened to block the highway he was driving on his way to Carlisle, in case he figured out I wasn’t there and decided to dash back home.
That someone was paid nice and well by yours truly—more than enough to replace the crappy Alfa Romeo 2001 he’d smashed right into a Sainsbury’s truck to stop traffic.
God bless hedge funds.
As for Harry’s house keys? What can I say? I was saddled with sticky fingers…and very slippery morals. Making copies the day I put a tracer on Fairhurst’s laptop was like taking candy from a baby.
The train stopped at St. Albans, and I got off, feeling fresh as a daisy, other than the dull headache Good Girl gave me yesterday. But that was probably nothing compared to the hell she was going through this morning after outdrinking every fish in the Atlantic Ocean.
I texted the chocolaterie woman and added two bottles of water to my order. Might as well. Len still thought the chocolate came from someone else.
I looked down, and there were three missed calls from my dad.
He can wait, I thought, proceeding without caution.
I didn’t have to hack into the laptop.
But once I sifted through the files he had on Mom—all the lies, all the pictures, all the testimonies, edited recordings of her, emails she’d never written, orders she had no idea were going to arrive with cocaine bags stashed inside the frames of the paintings—I considered it my little, final, burn-in-hell parting gift.
Once I’d deleted everything from Fairhurst’s cloud and destroyed all the evidence on his camera, I smashed my boot into the laptop and tucked it into Harry’s neatly made bed.
I finished off by pissing all over said bed and laptop, in case he was bad at taking hints.
That still left me a few hours to burn before my next train to Berkshire. Dad called a couple more times. Mom, too, but I didn’t feel like talking to them from Fairhurst’s house. I was too on edge whenever he was concerned.
I settled for giving myself a tour of Harry’s house. I’d never been there before. I took it upon myself to unplug his fridge and open the freezer, letting the meat thaw. Then I opened the back door in case any wild animals found themselves itching for a treat. I finished by helping myself to some of his pricey status watches, to make it look like common burglary.
Of course I made sure to deposit the Rolex and Cartier watches at the train station, in the hands of a homeless person sitting outside, begging for pennies, charitable piece of shit that I was.
By the time I got back to Carlisle Castle, I had two emails waiting.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Vaughn,
I checked the clouds of his other account. All clear. Your father said he’ll foot the bill for this job. Good luck and let me know if you need any further help concerning the matter.
T.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Son,
Either you pick up your damn phone and answer me or I’ll make my way over there. Spoiler alert: you won’t like it if I do.
Your father
Had Jaime told him about the trust-fund money? Or had Mom found out what I did with it through her arty-fartsy friends? I clenched both my teeth and my phone, knowing I wasn’t quite finished with my multi-million-dollar task.
Dad could wait.
He had to.
“Oh, God…Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”
I woke up in my bed, feeling like a fist the size of a wrecking ball had pressed against my eyelids. I was never going to drink again. Ever.
Unless drinking would make the headache go away, in which case I was fully prepared to binge-drink my way into a coma.
The room came into focus in pieces. First, I saw a pile of wrapped gifts lying in the corner. Someone had brought them in while I was asleep. I made a quick, albeit painful count. One from Poppy (probably the long one; she knew I was interested in a particular watercolor print for my room). One from Harry (possibly the fancy-looking bag, containing an equally fancy sensible sweater I’d never wear), a tiny bag from Papa (jewelry, no doubt), and a large box enfolded haphazardly in paper. That was one-hundred-percent Pope’s doing. He knew I needed new tools and had splashed out.
Nothing fro
m Vaughn. I didn’t let myself dwell on that fact.
It was truly over, as it should be. It had been a god-awful idea to begin with. Don’t roll in bed with a tiger and be surprised when you wake up with claw-shaped wounds. Lesson learned.
Speaking of rolling, I did just that, falling to the floor with a thud. It hardly surprised me when I couldn’t even feel the hit my body suffered. After spending a full minute staring at the ceiling and giving myself an internal pep talk about not drowning in self-pity, I turned on my stomach, crawling on all fours toward my door.
Then I realized I didn’t really have a plan. Who was I going to call? Officially, I was not talking to my father (was he even talking to me?), Poppy was probably long gone back to London, I’d put Pope in enough trouble by showing up plastered on his watch, and Vaughn—not that he had a shred of humanity in his entire ripped body—cared as much about my wellbeing as he did about the cobwebs under my bed now that we were over.
Whatever we had been.
Christ, I was good at making a mess of my personal life. I wish I could do that for a living.
Somehow, I scraped my door open. Another basket full of chocolate, brownies, and two cold bottles of water awaited me, along with a steaming cup of coffee that looked fresh.
I managed a smile, even through the headache. Poppy.
Dragging the basket inside and unscrewing a water bottle took immense effort, but after a few sips and the sugar rush of a brownie, I wobbled to my feet and hauled myself to the showers. Papa and the senior staff had plush bedrooms, with showers and built-in closets, and at times like this, I longed for Papa’s private bathroom, but of course, not at the price of accepting a truce.
I couldn’t look at his face without imagining Arabella lying beneath him, purring like a cat, and it scared me to think our relationship was irreparable. I still hadn’t spoken to Poppy about it, but I knew she deserved to know, and that she’d be just as broken as I was, if not more.
