Bright Young Things

by Anna Martin

  By Monday he was tired, not so much that he was unproductive, just feeling the early start and a certain inability to function. It would go by lunch, he was sure, but the rain-streaked glass in homeroom provided the perfect window to daydream through.

  The bell rang, and Jared rolled lazily to his feet, only to be stopped by Ms. Bowen as he headed for the door.

  “Do you have a moment, Mr. Rawell?” she said in a low voice.

  “I sorta have to get to class,” he said, vaguely gesturing but knowing already it was useless. He waited for the room to empty, then sat in the desk opposite hers.

  “It has been brought to my attention that your grades have… suffered somewhat in the past year,” Bowen said. Jared guessed she was trying to be tactful.

  “Am I failing already?”

  “No. Most of your teachers have reported that you’re bright and intelligent. However, a year spent in a less rigorous academic environment has set you back and the work you’re turning in is notably below the standard we expect of students here.” Bowen sat back and folded her hands. “We want you to succeed, Jared, which is why I’m bringing this to your attention this early in the academic year. If you want to graduate with the rest of the class, I suggest you consider a private tutor.”

  Jared nodded. “I don’t think my father is going to like that much.”

  “I could contact him on your behalf?”

  “No. No, I need to do it. The last thing I want is for him to pull me out of here and send me back.” Jared sighed heavily and rubbed his hands over his face, then pushed his fingers through his hair.

  “The Academy is willing to support you wherever we can,” Bowen said. “There will be extra credit assignments made available to you to help you pull those grades up, if you want them. No one here wants to see you fail.”

  No, Jared thought. Can’t have that blemish on your shining record.

  Her words played on his mind for the rest of the morning, and more than once Jared forced himself to stop doodling in the margins of his notebook and start paying attention. Bowen had given him a list of the subjects where his grades were “less than expected,” and it wasn’t really a shock. Government, chemistry, French. Three academic areas that, surprise surprise, there hadn’t been a huge emphasis on at military school.

  At lunch Jared bought cookies to cheer himself up, then collapsed into the seat at Chris’s table that was rapidly becoming his.

  “All right, losers, who has a tutor?” he asked, splitting the packet open and offering one to Clare. Who turned it down. Like he knew she would.

  “Uh, nearly all of us,” she said. “How the fuck do you think we keep up at this place?”

  “Okay. Well, I need tutoring. Can someone hook me up?”

  “Ryder,” Clare said. “Give him Dylan’s number.”

  Across the table, Ryder tore a sheaf of paper from her notepad and scrawled a number on it. “Let him know you’re here, and you’re friends with us, and he’ll make time for you.”

  Jared nodded and folded the paper, tucking it into his wallet. “Cool. Thanks. Who is this guy?”

  “A friend,” Clare said. “Ryder’s brother. He was in our grade until we were what… thirteen? Then they skipped him, so he graduated last year. He’s at UDub now, but he tutors a lot of people here.”

  “He graduated early from this place and ended up at a local college? Why isn’t he at an Ivy League school?”

  “Family stuff,” Ryder said with the sort of finality that told Jared not to press.

  He nodded and leaned back in his chair, content with his cookies. “All right. I’ll call him.”

  More people started to fill the table, nearly all of them looking to Chris first to make sure their presence was allowed. He quietly nodded to some. Others, like Adam, ignored him and sat down anyway.

  “What do you need tutoring in, anyway?” Ryder asked.

  “The classes they didn’t give at my last school,” Jared said, rolling his eyes. “Chemistry, government, and French.”

  “Don’t pay for a French tutor,” Adam said. He didn’t even look up from methodically splitting chicken strips. “I’m fluent. I can help.”

  “That’s nice of you,” he said cautiously. The memory of their bedtime kiss flickered through Jared’s mind. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing,” Adam said with a laugh.

  “You’ve never tutored anyone before,” Ryder said. She looked upset.

  “That’s because, darling Ryder, your tits do nothing for me, but his ass does.”

  Jared snorted and reached for another cookie, snapping it neatly in half. “When are you free?” he asked Adam, ignoring Ryder’s wounded look.

  “Give me your number. We can work something out.”

  When Jared got home that afternoon, he was surprised to see a car parked in front of the house. Hadley’s car. He parked next to it, leaving her plenty of space to get out if she needed to, and called out when he walked into the house.

  “Hi!” Hadley said, sticking her head out of the kitchen. “Come in. I’m just fixing dinner.”

  “I didn’t know you were due home.”

  Jared threw his bag on the floor next to the door and toed off his shoes, loosening his tie as he walked through the house.

  “Change of plans,” Hadley said lightly. “I’ve got a few friends who want to come and see the area, so I came back to fix the house up.”

  “It’s not a mess,” Jared said, feeling oddly defensive.

  “I know. Thank you.”

  He slid onto one of the stools tucked under the breakfast bar and regarded Hadley with a curious expression. She was wearing jeans, barefoot, with an apron tied around her middle as she stirred a red sauce on the stove.

  “What are you making?”

  “Lasagna.”

  “Oh. Sounds good. Smells good, too.”

  Hadley gave him a grin over her shoulder. “Thanks.”

  Hadley was about ten years younger than Jared’s mother, making her thirty or thereabouts. She wore her hair long, and had it tied back in a ponytail while she worked. Jared didn’t know much about his aunt; his mom didn’t like her much, and he’d only heard vicious gossip since her marriage and subsequent divorce.

  “I wanted to apologize,” she said, turning the burner down on the stove and leaning against a cabinet. “I wouldn’t normally have been out of town for so long, but I picked up a few jobs down in Cali, and it made sense to stay there for a while.”

  “It’s fine,” Jared said. “I like the peace and quiet.”

  “Oh, God, I can’t stand it,” Hadley said dramatically. “This place drives me mad after a while. I have to get out.”

  “Why don’t you sell the house then?” he asked, hoping to sound genuinely curious rather than confrontational. “You could use the money to buy something nice in a place you actually like.”

  She huffed a laugh. “Yeah, fair point. It’s… political.”

  “Go on,” Jared said. “Share. I won’t tell anyone.”

  Hadley grinned and reached into the fridge, grabbing two Pepsis and handing one to Jared. “Oh, all right. Don’t go reporting back to Mommy, though, will you?”

  “Jeez, sister. I haven’t spoken to my mother in about a month.”

  “Lucky you,” Hadley muttered. “She’s been on my back for weeks. Well, it’s driving my ex-husband crazy, knowing I still have this place. He expected me to sell it, and he was going to buy it back. Stupid, really; he had to know I’d inflate the price, and he’d pay twice as much as it’s worth. And it’s worth a lot.”

  “So you’re doing it to keep it out of his hands.”

  “For the time being, yeah. I earn enough that I don’t need his money right now. When I do, I’ll kick him where it hurts and call a Realtor.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “I was given a fair incentive to keep it.”

  “My dad,” Jared said frankly.

  “Yeah. He’s a complete douchebag, Jared, if you
don’t mind my saying.”

  “Not at all. I can’t stand the man. Has he still got a bug in his ass about me being gay?”

  “Just a little bit,” Hadley said. “He palmed you off like a fucking pregnant teenager to an aunt in another state who will look after you so he doesn’t have to see the ‘evidence of his failings as a parent’.”

  “He actually said that?”

  “Word for word.”

  “Bastard,” Jared muttered.

  “Sorry, sweetheart. You’re a nice kid, you really are. You don’t deserve the shit he gives you.”

  Jared took a deep breath, playing with the ring-pull on the can. “I need a tutor,” he said on a long exhale. “I’m failing the classes they didn’t offer at my last school because I’m behind.”

  “I’ve got it,” Hadley said immediately. “Don’t worry.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. It’s not your fault you got sent to that horrific place, sweetie. I’ll call your dad and get the money out of him.”

  “Please don’t tell him I’m failing,” Jared said. He didn’t care what his father thought about his sexuality or what he was getting up to on the other side of the country. But he didn’t want to have to listen to the awful lecture that would surely follow hot on the heels of that news.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Hadley said and crossed the kitchen to touch Jared’s arm lightly. “You’re at one of the best schools in the country. I know your dad wants you to go Ivy League, and I’m sure that’s still not out of the range of possibility. We’ll get you there. As long as he’s paying.” She winked.

  “Thanks,” Jared said with a laugh. “How come I wasn’t allowed to move in with you before now?”

  Hadley sighed dramatically. “Oh, I’m a terrible influence, of course. Black sheep of the family. Or I was, until Richard’s son decided to be gay, and all hell broke loose.”

  “Did I steal your crown?” Jared said, teasing.

  “Yes! I should be very annoyed with you.”

  “Please don’t send me home.” Jared was only half-joking.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Tell me about work?”

  Hadley was an artist, which annoyed Jared’s mom no end. There were buildings all over the west coast with her murals painted on the side, all in her distinctive, graffiti style.

  Most of her connections were in the cities where she liked to hang out, which meant anywhere along the coast where the sun shone. Jared realized he didn’t know much about the woman he’d been staying with for a while now and felt a little guilty. Hadley had done him a favor by opening her house to him, even if she was getting a decent financial reward from his father. She was nice, and she didn’t have to be. Jared decided to make more of an effort.

  He listened as she fixed dinner and chattered about her commissions and projects, and he tried to nod and smile and mm-hmm in all the right places. Truth was, he’d never really understood the art world, and Hadley was so immersed in it she barely knew anyone who wasn’t.

  They stayed in the kitchen to eat, sitting across from each other at the breakfast bar. Jared had to admit it was good.

  “Hey,” Jared said on impulse. “I don’t suppose you know the Hemlocks, do you?”

  Hadley snorted. “Sure. It’s hard to live in this town and not know them. Old man built half the businesses around here from the ground up.”

  “The kid is in my class.”

  “Adam?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is he a brat?” Hadley asked.

  “He’s….”

  “Uh-oh. Do you have a crush on him?”

  “No,” Jared said, hoping to inject the right amount of derision into his tone. “He’s gay, though. The girls I hang around with seem to want to set us up.”

  He took another bite of his lasagna and tried not to look too interested in what Hadley was saying. Even though he trusted her, he wasn’t ready to admit his feelings for Adam to himself yet, let alone his aunt.

  “Well, they’re filthy rich, so if that appeals to you, I’d say go for it. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not all about the money, but it certainly helps.”

  “He’s good-looking,” Jared conceded.

  “I bet. His grandparents used to run this place. His family was one of the first to settle here, god knows how many years ago. Didn’t his dad die?”

  “I don’t know,” Jared said.

  Hadley leaned back and frowned. “His mom is an architect, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Hadley said, clearly remembering now she’d been prompted. “Her husband died when Adam was a baby. I can’t remember how. I know he was in the army at some point, but it wasn’t a military funeral, so I don’t think he died in service.”

  “How can you know this?” Jared asked with a laugh. “You didn’t even live here when all of that went down.”

  Hadley shrugged. “One of the most important things to know about high society is anything that’s anyone else’s business. You’ll figure that out soon enough.”

  “These kids gossip like old ladies.”

  “Oh, god, yeah. As long as it’s someone else’s private life, they want to talk about it.”

  “Do you know the Metagos?” Jared asked, aware he was the one gossiping now but wanting to know as much as he could. Hadley was an untapped source of information he hadn’t anticipated.

  “Yeah,” she said darkly.

  “Their daughter is in my class too. Clare.”

  “If she’s anything like her mother, she’s beautiful and evil.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “The Metagos are old money as well,” Hadley said, licking her fork clean and pushing her plate away. “Their sense of entitlement is ridiculous. I never got on with Sharon Metago when I was with Mark. She called me a tramp once.”

  Jared laughed. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” Hadley grinned. “Oh, I was wrong for this place right from the start. Too young, too artistic, too liberal. I liked being the ‘other woman’ for a while; that was fun. It felt sexy, you know? Then we got married, and it all went downhill from there. Never get married, Jared.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” he said drily.

  “You can talk to me about sex, you know,” Hadley said, leaning forward on her elbows.

  “Oh, really?” Jared said with a groan, covering his face with his hands. Hadley reached over and pulled them away. “I’m very sure that’s not necessary.”

  “Jared, I’m serious,” she told him. “I won’t get squicked out, I promise. I don’t like that you don’t have anyone to talk to about your relationships.”

  “Trust me, if I was living at home, I wouldn’t be talking to anyone there.”

  She harrumphed. “That’s another issue entirely.”

  “I’m okay. I don’t need to talk to you about anything.”

  “Are you having sex?”

  “Yes,” Jared said, staring out of the dark window and the huge low moon hanging in the night sky. “Not right now, obviously. But it’s on the cards.”

  “Okay. Are you being safe?”

  “Yes.”

  “That means more than just using condoms, you know—”

  “Yes,” he said again, interrupting her. “I know.”

  “And there are other ways for you enjoy each other apart from penetration.”

  “Oh, God,” Jared groaned again, and Hadley laughed.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I feel like I have a responsibility to you though, Jared. I know you don’t have anyone else to talk to.”

  “Thank you,” he said and hoped he sounded grateful. Her concern was unnecessary but appreciated.

  “Trust me. I know what it’s like to be eighteen and think the world begins and ends with having sex.” She got up, crossed to the fridge for a bottle of white wine, grabbed two glasses, and was pouring them as she sat back down.

  Jared accepted the glass gratefully. Ha
dley always chose good wine. “I like sex, Hadley. I’m not going to apologize for that.”

  “I’m not saying you should. But like I said. The world doesn’t revolve around fucking.” She shrugged, her expression nonchalant. “You’re growing up in this hypersexualized culture. There’s nothing wrong with waiting a while.”

  “For what?”

  She laughed again. “For… the right time. The right person. The right….”

  Jared got where she was going with this. Waiting for the right person was fine, in theory, but there was nothing wrong with fucking a few guys until Mr. Right arrived. Waiting was what Christian girls with Republican fathers did, and he definitely wasn’t one of those.

  Hadley slid off her stool and collected the dirty dishes. Jared rushed to help. He didn’t want her to think he was a total freeloader.

  “I’ll try and be around more,” she said softly as Jared loaded the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, and Hadley portioned the rest of the lasagna to be frozen.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Really. After living in a dorm room with seven other guys last year, this is bliss.”

  “You’re a good kid, Jared. Work hard and get the fuck out of here. God knows, you don’t want to stay.”

  With Hadley funding the tutoring mission, Jared called the number on the paper Ryder had given him and got through to Dylan Gorden, who had a smooth, deep voice and was more than willing to help out a friend of his friends. It turned out knowing who to name-drop was key in these parts.

  After a bout of Facebook stalking, Jared discovered Dylan was hot. Not cute or nice looking, but all-out hot. He had light brown hair that was a little too long, worn styled back from his face. Smoky eyes. Charming smile with a dimple. Jared got all this from one profile picture, but it was definitely enough.

  For a moment Jared was confused, then he realized Dylan must be Ryder’s twin, not just her brother. He wondered why no one had mentioned that. It was strange to think Dylan was at least six months younger than Jared but currently a college freshman. Still, Jared needed the help, so he set up a first meeting in a coffee shop between New Harbor and Seattle. The last thing he wanted was to be flirting with a hot guy and someone walking in on them. That someone being Adam.