by Anna Martin
“That’s mine,” Jared said, handing the bottle of Jack to Ryder. “Watch it for me, and I’ll share it with you.”
“Works for me,” she said with a shrug. “Pepsi?”
“Yeah. And ice.”
“Got it.”
The three of them piled back upstairs with drinks in hand, joining Chris where he’d planted himself next to the DJ and his turntables. Jared looked around, trying to take things in.
The DJ and his setup were clearly portable and not a permanent structure in the house. If he had to guess, Jared thought that this was probably a study area, although a huge, luxuriously appointed one.
The walls were a sage green color, and walnut bookshelves reached floor to ceiling on either side of a wide fireplace. Huge windows looked out over the front of the house, and this was where the DJ had set up, so the light from a low-hanging white moon shone in behind him. The effect was eerily entrancing.
Any furniture other than a couple of leather couches and wingback chairs had been moved out of the room, and most of the kids were dancing or spilling out of the carved wooden doors into the entrance beyond. The room was almost antique in its design, apart from a wide flat-screen TV on the wall opposite the fireplace.
“Where’s Mia?” Chris demanded as Clare handed him his drink.
“On her way,” Clare said easily, ignoring the flash of anger coming from the big man. “She’ll be here in a minute.”
It was more like half an hour later when Mia arrived looking slightly disheveled and out of breath. Jared caught sight of her through the big double doors and lifted his hand in greeting. She gave him a grateful look, smoothed down the front of her cherry red dress, and walked calmly through to the library, snagging a drink from some poor girl on her way to make it look like she’d been around longer than she actually had.
“Hey,” she said, nodding at the small group, sipping the drink, then wincing slightly.
“Where you been?” Chris demanded.
“Oh, come on,” she sighed. “You knew I was going to be late. Ben’s planning this thing for the Grammys, and he wanted to show off.”
“What’s he doing?” Ryder asked.
“Some big equal marriage thing. I can’t really talk about it,” Mia said.
Jared had what he liked to think of as a finely tuned bullshit detector. Mia might be playing it cool, but it was a delicate balancing act between desperately wanting to tell her friends about her insider Grammy knowledge and being so very, very cool.
“Don’t talk to me about the motherfuckin’ Grammys,” Chris said suddenly, his eyes wider than normal. “Clare, load it up.”
“Oh, Chris, not now,” she said with a groan.
“Clare.” His voice was a little dangerous, and Jared worried for a moment whatever it was Chris was on would get them all in trouble. “Load up the fuckin’ video.”
Clare sighed and reached for an iPad on the arm of the chair, pressing a button on it to make the TV come on. A few minutes later, the familiar YouTube buffering screen loaded, then sprung to life. With a flick of his hand, Chris silenced the music from the DJ stage.
The assembled partiers groaned, then silenced as people turned to the TV.
“Watch this, Haggerty,” he said to Mia, “from twenty-five fuckin’ years ago. This shit is older than all of us, and still this bitch has got more soul and balls than any other diva out there right now. And that includes your cousin.”
Clare pressed play.
Jared was forced to take deep, even breaths, trying not to fall over laughing, because it was the 1989 Grammys. Whitney Houston and her epic performance of “One Moment in Time.”
The bouncing crowd of teenagers who had been dancing to Nicki Minaj only moments before was suddenly enraptured by a sadly deceased singer belting out a power ballad in a sparkly white dress.
When Whitney had finished wailing the final notes of the song, Chris led the way with a standing ovation, then Clare turned the TV off again, and the DJ resumed with Rhianna.
“Yeah, all right,” Mia conceded. “Whitney was good. Now she’s dead. Time to move on, Biggie.”
“Whitney did not die,” he corrected. “She was martyred.”
“From a coke overdose.”
“So don’t talk to me,” Chris continued as if he hadn’t heard her, “about the Grammys, or about same-sex love, or whatever it is Ben ‘Macklemore’ Haggerty is preachin’ this time. That is how you do a fucking Grammy performance, and you will never—” He paused. “—ever see anything like that ever again.”
“Rest in peace,” Jared added, and Chris nodded.
“Word.”
It was too much for Jared, who already loved Chris more than he thought possible, but couldn’t spend another moment in his presence without killing himself laughing. His questions about Chris’s authenticity were redundant, really; Wallace was a legend. The rest didn’t matter.
“Did you enjoy Whitney?” someone asked as Jared headed back down to the kitchen for a refill, and he startled, then turned.
Adam was leaning against the wall holding a short glass with a measure of liquor.
“How can you not enjoy Whitney?” Jared answered. “She’s a legend.”
“Martyr,” Adam corrected.
That was it. Jared lost it, and sat down on the top step of the stairs that led to the kitchen, and laughed until his stomach hurt. At one point he was dimly aware of Adam sitting next to him and giggling too. They had shared nothing but a few short conversations so far and this changed things—they could laugh together. Maybe Adam got it—the pure ridiculousness that was this group of people.
“How do you take them seriously?” Jared asked, wiping his eyes. “I just….”
“Who said I take them seriously?”
People were having to step over them or between them to get down the stairs, and Adam clearly didn’t care at all. After a moment he slipped his hand into Jared’s.
“Come on. I want to give you the tour.”
After being warned not to go upstairs, being led to the sweeping staircase with his hand in Adam’s made him feel like Belle in Beauty and the Beast, exploring the forbidden west wing. And holding hands was weird. It wasn’t childish, like kids taking each other’s hand for safety, or romantic, with fingers laced together. It just was.
“So, you probably figured out already that the house is built on levels,” Adam said as they ascended. “It’s all about light and green, and where you can get the best light at certain times of day. So it seems weird at first for the kitchen to be downstairs, but that’s the best place to watch the sunset, which is when we’re in there anyway.”
“That makes sense,” Jared said.
“Yeah. And up here… my mom likes to wake up when the sun comes up, so the master bedroom faces east, so she gets the most sunlight in there.”
At the top of the stairs, Jared looked up into a large glass dome that showed the stars. No one could see this from downstairs. Adam tugged lightly on his hand and led him down a short set of steps and to the far side of the house, where a bedroom suite wrapped around the building.
“Is this your room?”
“Yeah.”
“Who was the architect for this place?” Jared asked, standing at the top of the stairs and looking into the forest through the bedroom windows. “It’s incredible.”
“My mother,” Adam said and finally let go of Jared’s hand. “She’s in Paris at the moment, working there. She’s great.”
Jared decided not to ask anything else, instead walking down into the room that had clearly been designed to be minimalist, and had then been taken over by a teenage boy.
The walls were the color of whipped cream, and the floors were natural wood, matching the furniture. A long, curved, steel desk had a Mac desktop on it, the wide screen dominating, and a laptop was on the unmade bed. One whole wall was taken up by windows that looked like they could be folded back, opening the room to the elements.
“There’s actual
ly a balcony out there,” Adam said. “You just can’t see it from here. Bathroom’s down there. Let me show you out here.”
Jared followed Adam. He didn’t really have a reason to refuse.
What might have been a playroom for a younger child was now a game room, complete with a low black leather sofa and an enormous television. It all started to make more sense. The house was a little too shiny, too perfect to look lived in by a family. This was where Adam’s family existed, hidden away upstairs while the ground floor served as a beautiful, modern art showroom.
“This is awesome,” Jared said with a grin. “Do you play GTA?” Conquering Grand Theft Auto was one of his personal challenges for this school year.
“When I have time. Which isn’t as much as I’d like,” Adam admitted. “Even though my mom’s out of town, she sends tutors round most days.”
“Why do you have a tutor?”
“Because,” Adam said lightly, though Jared thought he could see something lurking under the cool exterior, “I’m going to Harvard. I need to keep my grades up.”
“Oh. So, you get left alone too,” Jared said without thinking.
“I suppose. Where are your folks?”
“My dad’s in New York. Mom’s in Michigan.”
“That where you grew up?” Adam crossed to the sofa and flopped on it, clearly inviting Jared to follow.
“Michigan? Yeah. I’ve been in Texas for the past year, then my dad wanted me to get decent grades too, so I got sent here.”
“Don’t worry, Clare filled me in on all the sordid details,” Adam said, throwing his leg over the arm of the sofa. “What I don’t get is, why here? If your dad is in New York and so are your sisters, wouldn’t it make more sense for you to go a school there?”
“To be honest, I didn’t ask,” Jared said, sitting down and trying to avoid looking at Adam’s crotch. And failing. There was a considerable bulge. “My options were either stay in Texas for another year or go to this random private school in Washington and live with my aunt. It was an easy choice.”
“I guess so. What was military school like?”
Jared rolled his eyes. “Don’t ask. Please.”
Adam laughed. “I’ve got this idea in my head that it’s all yes, sir, no, sir, then the slutty boys exchanging blowjobs behind the barracks at night.”
“I wish. It was really homophobic actually, which is probably not that surprising. My dad thought a year of ‘hard labor’ would somehow make me straight.”
“I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work….”
“No, me either.”
They were both quiet for a minute, watching the rain slip down the windows, then Adam stood up quickly.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked.
“Um, yeah. Sure. There’s a bottle of Jack downstairs that I left with Ryder. I don’t know if there’s anything left.”
Adam nodded. “Give me five.”
He walked over to a wall, and Jared watched, intrigued, as he pushed one of the wood panels, and it easily slid to one side. When Jared murmured “holy shit” under his breath, Adam shot him a cocky grin.
“Secret staircase down to the kitchen.”
“Your mom is seriously awesome.”
“The remote for the TV is over there,” Adam said, nodding to a table. “Help yourself. I won’t be long.”
He didn’t bother to slide the panel back into place, so after a few minutes Jared stood and dared to take a look. The staircase was narrow, but not uncomfortably so, with bluish lights fixed into the ceiling, lighting the passageway. He hadn’t seen a doorway in the kitchen, so he didn’t know where it came out, but it was cool. Really cool.
Jared turned the TV on and found a rolling-news channel that provided fairly decent background noise. If nothing else it could spur a conversation on current affairs.
When Adam returned via the main part of the house rather than his secret staircase, he had the half empty bottle of whiskey, a bottle of Pepsi, a packet of double-stuffed Oreos, and a ziplock bag Jared guessed had come from Chris. There were two joints tucked safely inside.
“Are you warm enough?” Adam said as he carefully set his stash on the coffee table. “I’m going to grab a sweater if you want one.”
“Oh,” Jared said, only then realizing he was rubbing his bare arms. “Yeah. Sure. If you don’t mind.”
“No worries.”
He returned a few minutes later with a Harbor Academy hoodie and a Seahawks sweatshirt, throwing the latter at Jared and keeping the former for himself. It took a few minutes for drinks to be poured. Then they leaned back with feet on the coffee table and a general feeling of wellbeing.
They watched the news for a while in companionable silence, then Jared reached for the weed.
“You mind if I light up?”
“Not at all. It’s your junk, dude.”
“Nice,” Jared said. “My liquor, my junk—”
“My house. My sweatshirt,” Adam countered. He pulled a lighter from his pocket and tossed it high in the air, forcing Jared to reach up to catch it.
Jared twisted the end of the joint tightly, then leaned back and lit it, letting the paper scorch for a moment before he inhaled deeply. And exhaled messily.
“Won’t people care that you’re not downstairs?” Jared asked as he passed the joint. “Not that I’m complaining, by the way.”
“Nah. Wallace has it covered.”
“I like that guy a lot.”
“Everyone likes the underdog,” Adam said and brought the joint to his lips.
“Harsh, man.”
“But it’s true. Chris represents everything that people—our parents and grandparents—worked so hard to keep out of the school. He’s black, his family hasn’t been here since 1790 like everyone else’s, and he got here on his own merit. He’s charismatic and fun, and people like him. He grows great weed.”
Adam passed the joint back and pulled open the long, thin drawer in the coffee table to find an ashtray.
“Why does Clare call him Chris?”
“’Cause that’s his fucking name, dude,” Adam said, laughing.
“But everyone calls him Biggie.”
“It’s a nickname. You’re under no obligation to use it. Call him Chris if you like. He won’t care.”
“No,” Jared said. “You’re not getting it. It’s not about what I call him, it’s about what Clare calls him. And why.”
Adam grinned. “You see it too.”
“Am I the only one? Seriously?”
“Nah, there’s been shit going down between Wallace and Clare for years. I don’t know what it is because I don’t ask. There’s no point. They wouldn’t tell me anyway, and they’d only get pissed that I asked. It’s their shit to figure out. Let them at it.”
“Ryder?”
“Dumb bitch. Here ’cause she’s from the right family, not because she’s got any brains.”
“Mia?”
“Are you seriously going to make me psychoanalyze all my friends?” Adam asked.
“Only if you want to.”
“All right. Mia doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. She’s smart, and she got involved with the right people at the right time. Clare’s carrying her through this school, and they both know it.”
“So you’re saying not to trust her.”
“Don’t trust anyone,” Adam said seriously.
“Not even you?”
“Especially not me.”
Chapter 5
The party started to wind down around three in the morning, when the noise from downstairs ebbed and the cars around the house growled to life.
“I’m blocking someone in,” Jared said, remembering. He’d kicked his shoes off to tuck his feet up on the couch, and he was pleasantly buzzed from the whiskey and weed.
“Which one?”
Jared snorted. “The fucking pink Caddy.”
“That’s Wallace’s ride. You’re all right.”
“You’re kidding m
e.”
“Fuck, no. And that’s not any pink Caddy, dude. That’s Elvis’s pink Cadillac.”
“Bullshit,” Jared said. “That’s at Graceland. I’ve seen it.”
“Nah, he had a fleet of them. Wrecked a couple, too. Someone bought one of the wrecks, paid a shitload of money to fix it up, then sold it. Wallace has the papers and everything. Elvis motherfuckin’ Presley owned that vehicle.”
“You want it,” Jared said with a grin.
“Oh, hell yeah. That’s a money-can’t-buy ride, you know? Trust me, I’ve tried. Chris won’t sell.”
Jared nodded. “Will he crash here tonight, then?”
“Yeah. A few people usually do. There’s a couple of guest rooms, and they’ll argue over those and who has to sleep on the couch. No one will come over here, though.”
If there was an offer in his words Jared couldn’t hear it. His brain was foggy with drugs, and he was tired. Bone tired.
“I’m gonna go,” Jared said, hauling himself to his feet with extreme effort.
“No, you’re not. Stay here.”
“I can’t, man.”
“I can’t let you drive,” Adam countered. “You’re drunk and high. It would be… irresponsible of me.” Sarcasm laced his words, but they were delivered with a lazy grin.
“All right,” Jared acquiesced. “Where’s the linen closet? I’ll grab a couple of blankets.”
Adam rolled to his feet and flicked off the TV, then stretched his arms over his head until something popped. “Fuck it, I can’t be bothered to go and find shit for you. Just sleep in with me.”
“Nuh-uh. People will think we had sex.”
“So fucking what?”
“I’m not going to have sex with you,” Jared said, leaning against the arm of the couch.
Adam shrugged. “Your loss. I’m not in the mood to fuck right now anyway. I just want to go to sleep.”
For a moment Jared wondered whether he should be offended. There was something in the look Adam was giving him he didn’t know how to interpret, but he was too tired and too high to think about it in any depth.
