“I need to stay with you for a bit until I can figure out how to get her to forgive me,” I answer, trying to explain.
“Forgive you for what?” Prin demands. “Wait…did she find out about the party? How? Girl, tell me you didn’t break.”
She sounds exasperated, as if I’m the idiot friend she never should have taken on in the first place. She might be right about that, but I beg, “Please, Prin. I would not ask this favor if it were not truly needed.”
“I mean, yeah. I guess you can stay with me. I’m just trying to figure out how one of the goodliest girls I know got kicked out of her house, ya know.”
I open my mouth to answer, but suddenly the phone is snatched out of my hand.
“Hey, Prin, is it?” Holt says, speaking into my flip phone with it turned up inside his hand like it’s a piece of ancient technology he’s never encountered before. Maybe he hasn’t.
“What are you doing?” I try to snatch the phone back from him, but Holt blocks my attempt with an upturned elbow as my Jersey friend answers, loud enough for me to hear, “Yeah, this is Prin. Who the hell is this?!”
“No, wait, don’t…” I say.
But it’s too late, he’s already answering, “This is Holt Calson. Sorry Sylvie called this early in the morning, but no worries about hosting her. I’ve got her.”
“What? Holt, no…” I say again, but this time for a much different reason.
“Wait, are you trying to tell me she’ll be staying at your place? With, like, you?” I can hear the alarm in Prin’s muffled voice.
“Yeah, tonight and every other night,” he answers. Then he figures out that my flip phone works just like his iPhone, because he raises it to his ear, effectively blocking me out of their conversation altogether. “I’ve got her. As long as she needs.”
Holt listens to whatever Prin is saying on the other end of the line. Then he says, “If you’re worried about that, come to my next party. I’ll show you the box of condoms I keep beside my bed.”
The conversation continues after that but I can no longer hear what is being said. A bonfire burns inside me, so noisy I can’t feel, hear, or see anything but shame.
“Sylvie…Sylvie…”
Someone’s calling my name beyond the raging flames. Hands—now too familiar—cup my shoulders. No, scratch that. Those hands try to cup my shoulders. But I knock them away, hating Holt in that moment. For speaking about me in such a manner to my best friend. For making me not just feel sorry for him, but also desire him last night. For causing me to forget myself. For not yelling at me to get out as soon as I showed up at his bedroom door.
“Why did you do that?” I demand, shoving him with all the anger now in my heart. “Why did you keep me here all night? Why did you say those things to Prin?”
My shove has only pushed him back a step, but his face is full of anger as if I pushed him over a cliff. “Why did you come here if you didn’t want to be with me?” he snarls back. “Why was Prin your first call when I’m standing right here?”
I falter because in truth, I did not expect this argument from him. “Prin is my best friend,” I point out.
That is a fact, but he rears back like I have slapped him. “Okay, that’s what you and Prin are—best friends,” he says. “So, what the hell are we, Sylvie?”
I have no idea how to answer him. And my silence seems to enrage him.
“What am I to you? Some news story? Some guy you felt sorry for so you threw him a pity fuck?”
I stare at him, too aghast to speak for several seconds. Then I explode. “I’m a good girl! A virgin before I came up here last night. I actually need this job I am going to be late for now. But you? You are a Calson. You don’t have to clean your own house or make your own food or take care of anyone, including your own self. You have so much money, you can live jobless in this apartment without a care in the world. Why do you think I would ever feel sorry for you?”
“You think I don’t have a care in the world?” he yells back, his voice full of derision even though everything I said was correct. “The only reason you’re here is because my mother killed herself so big, they’re still talking about it ten fucking years later! You think getting kicked out is bad? Try having your goddamn mother jump off a balcony right in front of you!! Try being stuck in the place where she died ten years later because every time you try to leave your apartment, it feels like your head will explode.”
His face twists into an ugly sneer. “You know what, Sylvie? Try falling hard for a girl, finally getting her, and then having her decide she’d rather live in fucking New Jersey than with you, even though you and the job she claims to need so bad are in New Haven. How’s that for not a care in the world!?”
Of course, I cannot answer this because though everything I said is truth, everything he said is truth, too. It is my turn, but I have no comeback, no comeback at all.
And then Holt ends the standoff. He walks away to the bathroom and closes the door behind him. Leaving me standing there, not knowing what to do or how to feel about any of this.
But I guess my heart knows what to do, because a few minutes later, I’m sticking my head through the bathroom door.
I find him sitting on the ground in front of a very nice marble and granite sink, hunched over his bent knees and still naked.
“Holt?” I say quietly.
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move. But because of his nudity, I can see the change in his breathing at the sound of my voice. So, feeling like a very awkward Eve to his Adam, I take a naked seat beside him on what turns out to be a heated floor.
“I’m sorry,” I say, hoping that will be enough.
It’s not. He doesn’t answer, doesn’t even turn to look my way.
But him not looking at me makes it easier to speak all the things I haven’t told him. “I’m not like you. My parents raised me to be good…godly. They are very strict with many rules which they don’t abide us breaking. My sister found this out the hard way, you see. She broke the rules by getting pregnant during her second year of college. And my parents sent her back to Jamaica as soon as her school year was over. That was in early May, just a few weeks ago. So, maybe you can see why I have been trying to be even better for them ever since. And why before today I can’t say I ever chose to do anything for myself. But yesterday…last night…I chose you. Not because I felt sorry for you, and not because I’m a charitable friend. I don’t and I’m not. I chose you because I like the way you look at me with your hungry eyes and see me like boys don’t usually see me. I chose you because you talk to me and you make me feel like I am truly someone worth talking to. I chose you because I like you. But I was not raised to do the things I like or follow my heart. Before last night, I would not have even guessed I knew how to do such a thing. And this morning, things feel very scary because I no longer have my parents to make all my choices for me. I do not expect you to understand my mind, but I hope what I’m saying makes you feel better, even if it does not make the most sense.”
I turn my head to see how he is taking what I have said. His head is still on his arms but turned toward me now, his blue eyes filled with wonder.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again.
But this time he answers. This time he says, “No.” Chastising me for my apology with a word before giving me one soft kiss that tells me all is forgiven, easy as that.
“I’m a fucking mess. You get that, right?” he asks, resting his forehead against mine.
I shake my head, not understanding. Because to me, he’s beautiful. Tortured, tormented, and tragic maybe, but I think of how he helped get me the job I so desperately needed. How he not only bought me dinner every night after work, but did his best to make me feel comfortable at his table, talking to me instead of pawing at me or making me feel like I owed him what’s between my legs. I think about how after years of being invisible at Beaumont, this boy who could have any skinny rich girl he wanted saw me.
I think about how he made me f
eel last night. Not like something conquered, but like someone he needed.
I think about it and then I whisper, “I think you are a blessing. A true blessing. But maybe because of the way you grew up, because of the way your mother died, you do not know this.”
He leans back and half his face lifts into a smile I would call cynical if not for the soft way he is looking down at me. “I’m not the blessing in this relationship, believe me, and I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful about your parents kicking you out. I’m just…I’m crazy about you. I’ve been fucked up over you since the moment we met. You know that, right?”
No, I did not.
But the way he looks at me now, as intently as he did before I finally gave it up to him, makes it clear. If anything, the hunger in his blue gaze is even more intense, even more voracious than before.
And that’s when I find myself applying a word to him that I never in my life thought I’d ever apply to a boy who was born with an eleven-figure spoon in his mouth: authentic. The look in his eyes. His feelings. Everything about him feels 100% the real deal to me.
And without any conscious decision, my hand reaches out. Touches his bare chest to see if he’s truly as real as he seems right now, and not just a figment of my wishful thinking.
He sucks in his breath, as if my touch hurts him. But when I try to pull my hand away, he holds on to it. Pulls it up to his cheek, then rubs the side of his face into my palm with a deep exhale. As if my touch is something he’s been craving for a very long time. A balm for his soul.
I don’t know if it’s his idea or mine. If I move toward him or he pulls me into his lap. If I lean down to kiss him or if he reclaims my mouth. But whoever made the first move, the result is the same. We kiss for eons, every care that seemed so big just a few minutes ago falling away.
It is the kind of kiss that does not demand sex or words…at first. But eventually my body warms with a now not so unfamiliar desire. And eventually, he whispers, “Can I get inside you?” his voice husky but cracking with a desperate need that will become familiar to me by the time our summer is through.
I nod, wanting him there despite what last night cost me. And Holt fumbles inside the cabinet behind him, returning with a condom from another box.
It’s on in a flash. And before I can have an uneasy thought about how many girls he’s done this with besides me, he scoops his hips up into mine, and pushes himself in with one easy thrust.
Before this moment, I would have described myself as inflexible, both physically and emotionally. But my suddenly supple body stretches and bends to his body’s command, working with him to give him what he wants, what I want, what we—I gasp when the climax erupts inside me, mind-wiping me with such an extreme onslaught of pleasure, it almost feels like pain.
Almost…
I pant as I come down. And then my senses slowly begin to come back on line. His mouth is on my neck and I shiver because I never knew how sensitive the skin there could be.
The last sense that comes back on line is my hearing. He’s murmuring something into the side of my neck. Three words: “Stay with me.”
The way he says this over and over, chanting the words…it could be a command. Or a request. Or a plea.
In the end, it does not matter because my answer is the same. He asks me to stay with him and I answer with a breathless, “Okay.”
I am a solid transformed into air, and as I float back down to earth, all the answers feel inevitable, if not very clear. I don’t know how it happened or even why. But less than a month after meeting him, I am suddenly, irrevocably his.
It’s not a question of saying no. It is as if no has been obliterated from my vocabulary by this new stunning truth.
Holt Calson wants me. And so Holt Calson has me. I belong to him. So, that is how it will be.
“Does this make us boyfriend and girlfriend then?” I ask, resting my mouth against his shoulder. I can both smell and taste sweat. His? Mine? Who knows?
He stiffens under me. “I don’t do labels. That’s not my thing...”
My heart constricts with a new feeling that goes beyond the usual “you’re just not cool like them” that I felt the entire time at Beaumont. This is complete mortification and basically every reason I stuck to the shadows of the hallways instead of ever trying to fit in with the rich kids—
“…but you know, yeah, let’s put a label on it. You’re my girlfriend, and I’m your boyfriend.”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s still talking. And even longer to get what his words mean.
I sit up to look down at him, my eyes filled with questions like, are you serious? and are you crazy? and why would a guy like you want to be boyfriend/girlfriend with a girl like me?
He answers these questions and more with a kiss. And I make a mental note to call in sick the next time we come up for air, because for the first time in my hard working life, I will definitely be playing hooky.
Chapter Eight
HOLT
I’m a Calson. Everything I ask for I get. Anything I want is mine. Including Sylvie. But unlike the penthouses and sports cars and servants who used to come at my beck-and-call before I dismissed them, I’m actually grateful for Sylvie.
It only takes a week of living with her for me to know I did the right thing. Yeah, closing my blackout curtains to trick her into staying the night when I knew how her strict parents would respond—it was a dick move. The kind of evil endgame strategy my grandfather excelled at. But it’s not as if her parents ever took care of her the way I can.
With them, Sylvie is like Cinderella, slaving away for everyone but herself. With me, she wants for nothing. She doesn’t even have to work. I remind her of this every morning before she leaves for her job.
“Yes, I do,” she answers in that apologetic way of hers. “My parents need the money I bring in.”
That Friday, Javon calls to tell me Sylvie is late getting home. He asks if I still want him to order us a pizza… and that’s when I discover I have a jealous streak. Waiting for her, I inhale two joints…. thinking about all those dads at the daycare. All the older half-brothers resignedly picking up the trophy kids from their parents’ rebound marriages.
We almost get in a fight about it when she finally gets home.
“Where the hell were you?” I demand as soon as she walks in the door, like, ninety-three minutes past her usual arrival time. Yeah, I counted. I also sat in the den for over an hour…like a dog waiting for its owner.
But before I can tell her she won’t be going back to that fucking daycare ever again, she starts apologizing and rushes to explain.
“I am so sorry, Holt. I had to cash my check so I could send the money home to my mother, but the line at the check cashing place was very long. Then I had to find a Western Union so I could send the money. I really am sorry for worrying you and holding up dinner.”
Then she drops down into my lap and hugs me. As if I am all she needs after standing in line for over an hour to send money to the woman who kicked her out.
That old Zombies song from the 60s, “Time of the Season,” lurks in the back of my mind. No, her daddy isn’t rich like me, I realize. Plus, he’s sick…
I may be a Calson. But right then I decide I don’t always have to act like one. Instead, I hug her back, kiss her, and tell her to give the check to Javon. Let him handle the delivery. Let him go to the parts of New Haven I definitely don’t want her visiting at night.
“Holt, my neighborhood is way worse,” she reminds me. “And besides, sending checks to my mother is not Javon’s job.” Then she laughs and says, “No worries, I will be perfectly fine.”
I don’t laugh with her. And just like that, my brief respite from being a Calson vanishes like a shimmering mirage.
The next day when I’m a little more sober, I call down to Javon and tell him what I want done. And maybe Sylvie gets kinda mad when instead of giving her a check, her supervisor tells her it’s been sent directly to the address on file
as requested. When she returns home, there are a few “Holts” and a lot of head shakes. Her mother already has enough on her plate, she informs me. Two cleaning jobs she has to work on Saturdays. When will she find the time to cash a check?
As Sylvie chastises me, I stare back at her—until she breaks off to say, “Okay, Holt. Why aren’t you saying anything?”
I shrug, not even bothering to hide my bemusement. “Because I didn’t think we had that much in common, but you’re worse than me with my dad,” I answer. “You want your mom’s approval. But you’re never going to get it. Just like I’ll never get it from my father. And now, instead of being pissed at your mom, you’re pissed at me for helping you live your life instead of the life she wants for you. Because you really don’t have a clue, do you? You have no idea how lucky you are not to live a life planned for you by someone else.”
Sylvie looks at me, her eyes soft with understanding and sympathy. “Is that how you feel, Holt? Like your only choice is to live the life your dad planned for you?”
And just like that, the discussion is over. We spend the rest of the night in bed, talking about all the shit I never talk to anyone about. Not even Luca or Zahir. About how my grandfather went from hillbilly to self-made millionaire. About how my dad grew up in Arkansas, mean and poor, until his father won the local five-and-dime in a game of cards and turned that single store into a nationwide big box chain.
That definitely solved the poverty problems for my dad. But it was never enough to fix his mean streak or redneck ways. My grandfather advised his son the best he could. He even bought two buildings to get Big Jack into Beaumont and Yale. But despite his best efforts, Hank never was able to polish his only son up enough to fit in with the other masters of the inherited universe. That’s why he pushed my dad so hard to marry my mom, an heiress from an old money Connecticut family.
My birth was supposed to be the start of a new era for the Cal-Mart dynasty. Take us from poor white trash to upper crust. And Mom’s death aside, things were actually going to plan. But…
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