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Fifty
Magnolia
I don’t much like going to the bathroom in front of anyone. Call me crazy — it’s just not for me.
Gun to my head, if I absolutely had to, I could have a wee in front of BJ. But Julian? I can’t. Could never.
He asked me about it once. “You can’t piss in front of me?” Piss. He said the word piss to me, can you even believe the nerve of that boy? Anyway, I told him no and he said, “Why? I’ve seen you in much more compromising positions,” and I said, “I BEG YOUR PARDON, LIKE WHAT?” And then he said — well actually, never mind what he said — but anyway so it’s about 2am and I’ve left his room to use the hallway bathroom because I don’t want him to hear me wee and we just had sex so I have to wee because I don’t want a UTI.
It’s very dark in here. People come and go. I presume it’s quite safe, what with all the security about, but then sometimes I wonder what they’re securing it from.
Anyway, it’s not necessarily my favourite place to be without Julian. Julian makes everything feel safer, but this house without him — even with him down the hall — frightens me a bit. But lots about my life right now frightens me a bit so I venture on.
Julian is so strange. There have been a few times where I started to wonder whether he liked me — like properly liked me, do you know what I mean? Like-like. And then Jonah told Taura who told Henry who told me that Julian said he can’t get rid of me? As though he tried to and I wouldn’t budge. Like I’m the one telling me not to leave, like I’m the one organising myself private masseuses to his house, like I’m the one making Alexia Clark come in to give me private training.
It annoyed me when I heard that because he’s making me sound stupid. But also I guess I’m relieved because sometimes it’s easy to feel like you’re falling for Julian but you aren’t really because he doesn’t want you here and he just doesn’t have the heart to tell you. I don’t need to fall for another person. I don’t need a repeat of last year’s fiasco. I don’t think any of us do.
Though, of course, there are some variables this round.
BJ has a girlfriend now, who I thought he’d have broken up with by now but he’s staying with. Henry said it’s because I’m with Julian, and I said, “I’m not with Julian,” and then he gave me a look I didn’t like. He said he thinks if I stop seeing Julian, BJ will call it with Jordan, but I don’t think that feels fair. He should go first. It wasn’t me who slept with someone else the second after we had a fight. I had the good sense to wait a full 36 hours after said fight before I went to find Julian. Henry also gave me a look when I said that.
I nearly didn’t come by Julian’s today at all. I filled my day with a terrible amount of work — really, really over-committed to several things — but my blasted laser-focus-when-sad kicked into gear and I finished everything I had to do disastrously quickly, so I stopped by and found Julian being straddled by a mostly-naked girl.
I thought I was maybe going to faint, actually. I won’t tell him that. I think it makes it sound like something it mustn’t mean, but I did feel sick when I saw it. Felt a bit as though someone threw a bucket of cold water over me while I’d been having a really nice dream, because I know who Julian Haites is. He is sexy and fun and apparently dangerous, though I’ve never seen the fruit of that. He’s also a notorious womaniser. I didn’t really think that I was the only person he was sexually involved with at the minute, but then, I just never really thought about how it would feel to see that. And they weren’t doing anything more than kissing, but still it made me feel weird and as I turned on my heel to leave, I told myself it was good that he was doing that because it meant that he didn’t like me and it’s all pretend.
It’s important to remind myself that how Julian makes me feel — like when he’s holding my whole face in one of his hands — that it’s not real. And I don’t need it to be real, I just need the person I’m actually in love with in real life to come find me, get down on his knees, tell me he’s an idiot and that he made a mistake — again — that it was just a misunderstanding, and please please please will I take him back? I’d pretend to umm and ahh about it for a minute but then I’d get down on my knees too because I love him and I always will.
Julian ran after me though and we had a weird exchange and he kissed me and asked me to stay. So I did and now it’s 2am and I’m wondering if I should call my car to come and get me or if that’s selfish to do to my driver?
That’s what I’m thinking about when I walk smack-bang into an invisible person in the dead of night in the home of the sexy criminal-adjacent man I’m sleeping with.
When I tell you I screamed — my god. When I also tell you that the person clamping their fucking hand over my fucking mouth didn’t help ease my concerns…
It wasn’t until he practically somersaulted me over his arm to face him that I realised it was Christian.
“Motherfucker!” I cover my face. I never say that word. So vulgar. “Sorry!” I reach out and touch his face where I just clawed at him. He winces at the sting.
“I can’t believe you just said ‘motherfucker.’”
“I know,” I sigh, rueful.
“You fuck a gang lord for a couple weeks, Parks, and you get a real mouth on you.”
“Well, I thought I was about to die.” I clamp my hand to my chest. “Phewf!” I sing loudly as I bend over to catch my breath. It’s then, in my bent over position, that I start mulling over some things.
It’s 2am.
Christian is mostly naked bar his little black boxer briefs from Calvin Klein. Cotton classics.
“Hold on—” I frown at his navel as the pieces land in my mind. “Wait. Are you just in—” I reach over and snap the black band of his Calvins and gasp.
“Oh my god!” I whisper rather loudly.
Christian gives me a look. “Magnoli—”
“OH MY GOD!” I whisper even louder.
“You love her!” I poke him in the chest.
