Anna Martin's First Love Box Set: Signs - Bright Young Things - Five Times My Best Friend Kissed Me

by Anna Martin

  “Are you kidding me?” Luc said.

  Ilse pushed her dark hair behind her shoulder. “No, I’m not kidding you. I already wrote it off for tax purposes. Worked out well for me and for the company too. Nice charity donation. Bleeding heart liberals that we are.”

  “I thought….”

  “What?”

  “I thought that when the company said they’d cover the costs, that you’d….”

  “Take it back?” she finished for him. “No, Luc. That money was to help with Caleb’s recovery. It’s still there, unless he’s gone in and taken it out.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Luc breathed. “We could practically buy a place with that!”

  “Not quite,” Ilse said, rolling her eyes. “But it would probably go a long way toward renting a place for three years. Or four.”

  “I love you,” he said, jumping out of the armchair and depositing himself in her lap. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

  She laughed and ruffled his hair. “It’s been there for ages, honey. I’m surprised you didn’t think of it before.”

  Luc pouted.

  This changed everything.

  With close to seventy thousand dollars in the trust account, he renewed his search, doing the mental calculations as to what they could now afford. They would both have student loans to take care of most of their living expenses, and they’d discussed getting part-time jobs in order to supplement their income and prevent them having to borrow too much in the next few years. Caleb had discussed being a sign language interpreter or teaching ASL, which Luc thought was an amazing idea.

  Luc’s school fees would be covered by the money his dad had left. It had been protected, so when the lawyers were dividing up his father’s estate to pay off bills and debts, the money hadn’t been touched. Nor had the funds that had been set aside for Ilse and Jo.

  It was funny. In the past few weeks Luc hadn’t thought about his father once. The nightmares were waning too. He still woke up sweating sometimes, but the horrors seemed further away than they used to be.

  Luc attributed this completely to the fact that Caleb was sleeping beside him every night. It was a comforting thing, the weight of another person’s body next to his, especially when that other person was someone he loved. Luc decided not to tell Caleb about the trust and the apartment right away. Being able to surprise him with a new place where they would live for the next few years would make it even better.

  Luc pushed open the bathroom door, hugely pleased with the clean white bathroom suite and fresh new shower curtain that hung over the tub. It was a modest apartment, nothing flashy, but the exact sort of place he could imagine starting out college life with Caleb. The bathroom was about the same size as the kitchen but on the other side of the apartment, with the bedroom tucked out of the way at the back and an alcove space he thought could work well as an office next to the living room.

  The building was a few blocks away from NYU, a reasonable walking distance since this was New York, and everyone walked here. It was a building just for student apartments, although they weren’t dorms in the traditional sense. Each unit was self-contained, designed for one or two people to share.

  Luc wandered back through, thinking about changing the color of the paint, if the landlord would let them, and what sort of furniture they’d need to get. A decent-sized double bed was high on his list of priorities.

  The realtor was a grouchy woman in her early thirties who looked like she’d rather be anywhere else than showing this kid around an empty apartment. Luc had liked her from the moment they’d met.

  “We’ll take it,” he said with a grin.

  In the weeks after Caleb’s operation they went back and forth to the hospital every few days so the doctors could check on Caleb’s progress. He found it incredibly uncomfortable to sleep with the thick bandages around his head, and those came off pretty quickly, at his insistence, in favor of a smaller bandage that covered his left ear.

  With that change in place he felt more comfortable going outside, and they had a chance to explore some of the area around the hospital: little parks that Luc hadn’t been to before, a few cafés, a book shop, and an art gallery.

  It felt, in a strange way, like a trial run for the rest of their lives.

  Caleb never wanted to venture far, instead preferring to stick to the few blocks between the hotel and the hospital that they covered extensively going back and forth. Ilse came by to see them a few times a week, visiting with cakes and cookies, staying for a while before heading back to her job. Luc’s mom never came.

  Caleb called his parents every day to video chat, updating them on his progress and how he was feeling, what they’d been up to during the day. He didn’t mind, but it felt like they were checking up on him.

  The CI was already giving him a freedom he’d never been afforded before, even before it was turned on.

  When the day came, Caleb woke up so nervous he threw up before breakfast. He brushed his teeth, hoping Luc hadn’t heard him, and splashed water on his face to hide the splotchy color his skin had taken on. There was a car waiting to take them over to the hospital, and Luc held Caleb’s hand the whole way.

  This journey was familiar now. They could, if they wanted, walk the dozen or so blocks, and Caleb thought he might like to walk back again, depending on how he felt. It was a perfect summer morning in New York: warm and clear, a light breeze stirring the tops of the trees. The city smelled like car exhaust and garbage, like it always did, but this corner of Manhattan was decidedly more genteel than other areas Caleb had seen.

  As they crept through traffic, he watched a woman walking an impossibly tiny dog while tottering on impossibly high heels, a father struggling with three unruly children, an old man wearing a flat cap and tweed jacket shuffling along, a newspaper tucked under his arm. None of these people knew about the significance of this day. No one knew what was about to change.

  At the hospital Caleb gripped Luc’s hand hard as a lot of people swarmed around them. They’d been shown into a small waiting room, then ushered into the office that Dr. Marshall seemed to be occupying for the trial. He greeted them with a smile and a warm handshake, then excused himself to go talk to the nurses.

  Those nurses bustled in, took Caleb’s temperature and blood pressure, asked him how he was feeling and if he’d eaten anything that morning. He’d managed a croissant—just. Luc was uncharacteristically quiet, his thumb stroking back and forth over Caleb’s wrist in a soothing gesture.

  When the time finally came, finally, Caleb thought, he was so stressed his fingers were trembling, and he was forced to press his hand flat against his thigh to keep it still. There were far too many people in the room now—Dr. Marshall and Luc, two nurses, one person making notes, another technician who knew how the CI worked, and a few people he thought might be interns.

  “Okay, Caleb,” Dr. Marshall signed. “Are you ready?”

  Caleb nodded, not trusting his fingers to say what he wanted them to. One of the nurses started to peel the bandages off his head with gloved fingers, the latex catching uncomfortably against his skin. He’d had the dressings changed a few times since the operation, so this procedure was familiar to him.

  His ear felt hot when all the layers were peeled away, the air unnaturally cool. The area where the device had been implanted in his head had long since healed, and even though there was some ache around the hole in his skull, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been post-operation.

  The doctors had been forced to shave his head in order to fix the devise in place, and Caleb had had his hair cut short before coming to New York for the operation so it wouldn’t look so unnatural. He was still playing with the idea of letting his hair grow out, long and shaggy, to hide the CI and the thick white scars that would forever cut through his hairline. Those were decisions for later.

  Unlike the hearing aids, which Caleb could and would take out fairly regularly, the CI would remain attached to his body for the rest of h
is life. There was a hard case that fitted around the shell of his ear and a small wire that connected under his skin to a receptor on the back of his head. It would always be obvious to outsiders that there was something different about him.

  Stretching his neck from side to side, Caleb tried to relax. He rolled his shoulders and gave Dr. Marshall a reassuring smile.

  “Why don’t you open up your app?” Dr. Marshall said.

  Caleb had already downloaded the AIL app to his iPad, and had played around with the settings and pre-programmed options that he could use in different environments. Dr. Marshall had explained that this was particularly important for someone like Caleb, who had other issues as well as his deafness. If he was feeling overwhelmed or panicky, he could limit the amount of information being sent to his brain, then restore his hearing when he was ready.

  There was a manual override switch too, on the back casing that sat behind his ear, just in case of emergencies.

  When the nurse turned the CI on, he didn’t feel anything. The group of people assembled in the room were looking at him expectantly, Luc included. It was incredibly anticlimactic.

  “Now what?” Caleb asked, and Dr. Marshall laughed.

  “Now it’s all yours,” he signed. “I recommend you don’t turn it up more than about ten percent at a time, to allow your body to get used to the change.”

  “Okay.”

  Caleb carefully tapped the button on the app that would bring the CI to about ten percent power. Caleb twitched his head. This was similar to when he had his hearing aids in—a disconcerting soft buzzing in the back of his head. He only noticed how hard he was concentrating on this when Luc squeezed his hand again.

  Caleb turned to his boyfriend, brow furrowed.

  “Hi,” Luc said.

  One word, but loaded with emotion that felt like a punch right to Caleb’s chest. Luc looked the same as he always did: dark hair, pale skin, the silver loop through his bottom lip. He’d known all this about Luc, and so much more, but not what his voice sounded like. Not until now.

  Caleb’s throat felt thick, and tears welled in his eyes. He didn’t bother to push them away.

  “Hi,” he said back.

  Bright Young Things

  by Anna Martin

  Prologue: The Bet

  New Harbor, Washington State, USA

  September 2014

  9:15pm

  Adam swayed his head in time with Snoop and tapped his bare toe to the beat of the music. He was hazily high and sexually satisfied—some closeted kid had blown him in the linen closet an hour ago.

  Parties at Chris’s house were almost as good as the parties Adam’s. New Harbor was a small town north of Seattle, situated on Whidbey Island on Puget Sound. The town had been developed surprisingly early in the history of the area and remained a pocket of conservative Republicanism in what was otherwise a fairly liberal state. Probably because of the sheer, mind-boggling wealth of its inhabitants.

  There was a dusky sort of early evening heat hanging in the air that made chilling out on the porch perfect. The party was happening inside, but out here, in a rocker, watching the world go by in peace, was just about all Adam needed.

  “Drink?”

  He blinked and looked up into a pair of dark eyes framed with impossibly long lashes. Clare. Great. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with her.

  “What is it?” Adam demanded.

  “Psh. Gin and juice.”

  Gin and juice was pretty standard at Chris’s place. He was… old school. Or, he liked to think he was. Normally Adam would be wary of taking anything from Clare, especially drinks he hadn’t seen her pour. But the weed was making him blasé and actually, he wanted the damn drink.

  Adam took the short glass, sipped at the clear liquid. When he was satisfied it was what she claimed, he swallowed the rest in one gulp, then handed the glass back to her.

  “Thanks.”

  A few moments later, she hadn’t moved. Adam regarded her lazily. “Can I help you?”

  Clare smiled slowly.

  Adam found himself in a hot tub with three beautiful women, something he was sure many men would envy. He wasn’t like most men, though. That much was clear to anyone who met him.

  “So,” Adam said, sipping at another gin while the girls reclined in the gently bubbling water, breasts bobbing on the surface. “What can I do for you ladies?”

  School started again in a week. This was the pre-party-party, the one where they could all let go for one last time before starting their senior year. The last time they’d ever rule the school. Until they got to college, of course.

  Adam was going to Harvard. He’d said it so many times, it had become a given in the same way “tomorrow will be Saturday” was taken for granted, or “Adam likes getting his dick sucked.” He knew his grades were good enough, and even if they hadn’t been, his mom knew the right people. There was something to be said about getting into college on one’s own merits, though.

  Clare sighed, quietly drawing attention to herself, and lifted a delicate champagne flute to her lips. “We’ve only got a year left. I want to have some fun, Adam.”

  “So go have fun,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck what you do.” His head lolled back in the steamy water, and he grinned at the night sky.

  “I thought we could play one of our little games.”

  They had been playing Clare’s “little games” for years. It was how Mia had broken her arm back in eighth grade, and how Tristan got his first blowjob, and probably the reason why Nora fled town in tears only a year ago, convinced her house was haunted by an evil spirit and she was possessed.

  For a while, Adam had refused to play. He’d made up his own fun, on his terms, and let Clare do her thing.

  “What sort of game?” he asked, curious.

  “Well, you know I told you about the new guy.” Adam gave her a carry-on-and-hurry-up gesture. “He’s gay.”

  “Whoopie-do.”

  “He’s a virgin.”

  Adam laughed. “How the fuck can you know that?”

  “The records from his counseling session at his last school.” She grinned, and sipped her champagne again. “His Daddy sent him to military school because Jared’s a raging homo. The one time he tried to play ‘drop the soap in the showers’ he got the shit beaten out of him by all the other boys who are successfully repressing their own homosexual desires. He didn’t try again after that. At least, that’s what he told his counselor.”

  “All right, so what? You want me to fuck him? Oh God, is he really ugly?”

  “He’s quite hot, actually,” Clare said. “Tall. Blond. Sort of surfer type, although I’m not sure he’s ever surfed. He plays soccer.”

  “It’s truly terrifying how you know these things.”

  Or it would have been if Adam hadn’t known almost all there was to know about Clare Metago. Under the veneer of cool disinterest, she had been worming her way into other people’s computers, lives, and heads for years. She was a hacker. And she did it in style.

  “What’s in it for me?” Adam demanded.

  “Other than the delight you’ll surely take in being his first?”

  “I can have sex whenever I want,” he said dismissively. “You’re going to have to give me some incentive other than that.”

  “How about,” she said, “something you’d never be able to get otherwise. Something totally priceless.”

  Adam leaned forward, the water lapping around his waist.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  Chapter 1

  If Jared was surprised there was a party happening on a school night, he tried not to let it show. He’d only been in town for a few days, but he’d already figured out that he was going to need his poker face a lot.

  “Party at Biggie’s,” Jared had been told while he leaned against the front bumper of his truck and smoked a rolled cigarette. “Be there or you’re nobody.”

  That had been in the parking lot of the local Metropolitan
Market. Jared had given the girl a withering look and not responded. The fact that she seemed to know who he was made him feel slightly uncomfortable, but it was a small town. There was no point in getting upset about it.

  It took a couple minutes of Internet searching to find out who “Biggie” was and where he lived. Fortunately, he already had access to the school’s student forums, and he knew what to look for to get the information he needed.

  Jared had driven out of town, then took a road that looked like it led nowhere. After ten minutes he almost turned back, convinced he’d been given false directions and someone, or a number of someones, were lying in wait to ambush the new guy.

  He rounded another corner, and a huge white house came into view, lit up against the dark sky.

  Mansion. Jared rolled the word around in his head. It was a motherfucking mansion.

  There was a rhythmical thumping coming from the building that seemed to reverberate through the car, the source surely bass speakers of seriously decent quality. A few girls were smoking on the porch that wrapped around the front of the house. Another was already puking in the bushes.

  Jesus Christ, Jared thought. It’s not even eight thirty.

  He grabbed the bottle of Jack from the passenger seat and his rolling tobacco, stuffing the latter in his pocket before sliding out of the truck. There were a number of other cars already parked around the perimeter of the driveway, a fountain stuck ostentatiously in the middle. Audis, Mercedes, Jags, Bentleys. These kids knew how to play, considering none of them were out of high school yet.

  Since he’d not been given an address for the party, let alone a dress code, Jared had gone with casual elegance in cutoff khakis and a denim shirt, the sleeves turned up to his elbows. Vans sneakers and his knitted beanie hat hiding his scruffy blond hair stopped it all from being too damn preppy. Being tall, Jared was always told to straighten his shoulders, stand with his chin up. He tended to hunch his shoulders.