How to Belong with a Billionaire

by Alexis Hall

  “Oh, Nik.” It wasn’t much of an answer but he couldn’t have been expecting one.

  “Don’t worry. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this kind of shit.”

  I pouted at him. “I’m your best friend. I’m exactly who you should be telling. Well, me and maybe professionals who can concretely help.”

  “I’ve got plenty of those.” He made a dismissive gesture. “It’s more that I know I’m supposed to be bearing this with grace and resilience, and clearly I’m not.”

  “The fact you struggle sometimes doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.”

  He turned to look at me, his eyes and mouth framed by lines that hadn’t been there before. “I guess you always think…you’ll be braver, somehow.”

  “You are brave,” I protested. “You are so brave.”

  He didn’t answer for a long time. And then all he said was, “I could probably take another hug.”

  I threw my arms around him and tucked myself tightly against his side, and this time he did nothing to push me away, so I stayed. So we both did, evening deepening into night beyond the horizons of the windows. Quietly we sat together, as we had at Oxford, except it was Boston we watched, gleaming on the silky waters of the harbour in shades of amber and scarlet and jade.

  Chapter 20

  The next day I was woken up by Ellery punching me urgently in the shoulder. “Come on. You’re missing stuff.”

  “I’m missing sleep.”

  “But…but…” Her voice rose into something dangerously close to a whine. “Arden.”

  “What? This better be spectacular.”

  Groaning, I allowed myself to be bullied out of bed. Whereupon Ellery sprang over to the window and ripped the curtains open, revealing the dirty redbrick of the bar opposite and the wire curlicues around the car park—or parking lot, as I guess Americans would call it—all thickly sugared with…

  “Snow!” I yelled.

  “Yeah.” Ellery offered one of her rare, non-mocking smiles.

  “I can’t remember the last time we actually had snow at Christmas.”

  “Well”—she seemed to remember herself and shrugged—“give climate change another couple of years.”

  “Oh, come on. You were excited too.”

  “No I wasn’t. I just thought you would be.”

  “And you were right. Let’s go out and play.”

  It turned out, snow didn’t fuck around in this part of the world. It came down in fat, fluffy flakes and piled up in pillowy drifts by the sides of the roads, bringing fresh unfamiliarity to an already unfamiliar city. I was glad of Caspian’s coat and Ilya’s scarf, and relieved that Ellery’s various expeditions had included a shopping trip, because she was, at last, dressed for the weather, even if her beanie had cat ears on it. Caspian would probably have killed me if she’d fallen ill on my watch.

  Which was when a different, but still horribly relevant, thought hit me like a freight train.

  “Ellery,” I said, “your family know you’re with me, don’t they?”

  Her eyes flicked to mine and then away again. “Probably.”

  “What does probably mean?”

  “You’re the one with the English degree.”

  “I don’t mean its etymology. You did tell them, right? Please tell me you told them.”

  “They won’t notice anyway.”

  Oh Jesus. My mind was already whirling with headlines: HART FAMILY SCION IN ABSCONDMENT SCANDAL; POSH BIRD BAILS WITH BROTHER’S BF; GAY JOURNALIST ABDUCTS HEIRESS. “Believe me, they’ll notice.”

  “That’s their problem.”

  “You have to tell them. Or”—I paused beneath an ice-crinkled awning to catch my breath and calm my racing heart—“if you won’t, then I will.”

  She pulled her hat even further down her brow. “Do what you like. But I’m not going back.”

  “What? Ever?”

  “Until you do.”

  Okay. We could work with that. My numb fingers fumbled my phone out of my pocket and I began swiping through my contacts. I’d deleted Caspian’s number in a moment of remembering I had pride, and Ilya—even assuming he took my call—didn’t work for Caspian anymore. That one time I’d contacted Finesilver had gone awfully. So that left…

  Well, fuck me sideways with a rusty banana. Nathaniel had given me his contact details when he’d invited me for dinner. And while he was absolutely the last person I wanted to be texting, it didn’t seem like I had much choice. I started Dear Nathaniel and then realised how weird that looked. Hi Nathaniel, I tried again, this is Arden St. Ives. Wait. How many Ardens was he likely to have in his phone? Hi Nathaniel. This is Arden. I’m afraid yours is the only number I have. Could you please tell Caspian that Ellery has decided to spend the holiday in the US. She’s safe and well, and sorry not to let you know sooner. Happy Christmas to everyone.

  I hit SEND before I could obsess over it, trying not to resent how much it probably cost me to text the UK. And in a less than a minute, despite how early it must have been over there, got back: Season’s greetings, Arden. Thank you for letting us know.

  Ellery and I weren’t best pleased with each other for a little while after that, but then she took me to the Public Garden, which looked so beautiful, with the stripped bare trees and the silver glaze of ice on the pond thing, that I couldn’t stay cross with her. We found some untouched snow near a parade of brass ducks in Christmas hats, and tried to make a snowman. Except it ended up looking more like a penis, so we committed to the design, and fashioned a towering, majestic snowdong, complete with scrotum, instead. After we’d unleashed it on the world via Insta, I got worried about kids seeing it, as it were, in the flesh, and went full Bastard of Bolton on our creation.

  From there, we stopped for French hot chocolate at a mildly pretentious coffee shop, and strolled through the various Christmas markets, arm in arm, before looping Nikwards. This time he was up in his room, waiting by the window, shadows of the falling snow dappling his face like sunlight.

  “Love what you’ve done with the place,” drawled Ellery, taking in the nice but undeniably hospitaly furnishings.

  “Thanks.” Nik turned towards us. “Walks off.”

  We’d had plans to wander a bit in the gardens, which wound gently down towards the harbour. He’d delivered the words so aggressively, I wasn’t quite sure how he was expecting me to respond. In the end, I went with a neutral-sounding “Oh.”

  “Can’t do snow,” he added. “Well, I can. But I’d need to fuck around with wheelblades and I’ve never used them before and…I don’t know. I don’t want to.”

  “Fine with me.” Ellery pitched herself onto the crisp white sheets of Nik’s bed. “It is literally freezing out there.”

  Nik shot me a shifty look from beneath the fall of his hair. “I’m sorry, okay?”

  “Good grief, don’t apologise,” I told him hastily. “I’m here to be with you. I don’t care what we do.”

  “I care. I care about not being able to do things.”

  Ellery rolled her eyes. “It’s not about doing or not doing. It’s about when and how, and if you want to figure out navigating snow with us standing right there, pointing and laughing.”

  “I would not point and laugh,” I cried, outraged.

  “No,” said Ellery, “but you’d look all, like, worried and shit, which is even worse.”

  “She’s right.” Nik was smiling—his old, dimple-touched smile.

  And Ellery, of course, looked unbearably smug. “I’m always right.”

  “Before I forget”—Nik pointed to a large box in the corner of the room—“your family had that delivered. But we’re not allowed to open it until Christmas Day.”

  I ran over to poke at it, smell it, and peer through the gaps of the packing tape. None of which helped me discern the contexts. “Oooh. What do you think it is?”

  “Well.” Nik scratched his stubble thoughtfully. “I’m by no means an expert but I’d say it’s a box.”

  I
gave him a withering glare. “Har, har.”

  And then Ellery made an odd sound, a sort of awkward half cough. “Look,” she muttered, “I kind of…picked something up for you as well. But it’s not a fucking Christmas present, okay? Because I do not do Christmas. Or presents.”

  “So”—Nik raised a quizzical eyebrow—“it’s what exactly?”

  “Something else.” She pulled a carrier bag out of her rucksack and tossed it into his lap. “Here. You might like these. Or not. I don’t care.”

  Gingerly—and I couldn’t blame him for that—he peeled open the plastic.

  Ellery squirmed in evident discomfort. “They’re these really tragic choose-your-own-adventure books from the eighties or whatever. My dad was really into them because he was a big stupid nerd and my brother, who is also a big stupid nerd, used to make me read them with him when I was sick. And since you’re clearly a big stupid nerd as well, I thought you might…not hate them.”

  “Thank you,” said Nik. “I think.”

  “Don’t do them by yourself, because that would be beyond sad. But you could play them with Arden, maybe. If you wanted.”

  Nik was watching her with the confused but okay with it expression that signified a positive Ellery action. “What about you?”

  “Why the fuck would I want to play a choose-your-own-adventure book with Arden? I’ve got way better things to do with my time.”

  “No”—his lips twitched—“would you play one with both of us?”

  She got super interested in the toe of her boot. “Out of pity.”

  “Then it’s a deal.”

  “Do I get a say in this?” I asked.

  They both stared at me. “No.”

  It wasn’t a real complaint. Not when Nik’s eyes were bright and Ellery was blatantly trying to hide a smile. And that was how we ended up spending Christmas Eve playing The Warlock of Firetop Mountain in Nik’s hospital room. We took turns reading, passing the book between us after every decision point, and bickering constantly about whether we should go east or west, or if it was better to sneak past or stab the goblin, and whether it was ever acceptable to beat up an old man just in case he turned out to be a wererat like the last guy.

  We died a lot: first to an orc, then to a giant sandworm, then to a minotaur, then to the same orc that killed us the first time because we were pretty sure you needed the stuff you got from the orc to have any chance of winning later. And before long, Nik was mapping the whole thing on his tablet, and arguing with Ellery about whether they should do it geographically, by dungeon layout or meta-textually by connections between paragraphs in the book, with my suggestion that we could just Google a walk-through being shouted down by both of them.

  This wasn’t a new side to Nik—he was, and always had been, a total geek in the body of a Greek god—but Ellery, despite her initial attempts to appear disinterested, was surprisingly engaged. Though, of course, her story had made me think of Caspian too: a time before grief and shame had made him theirs, a boy with restless hands and hopeful eyes, laughing with his little sister as he led her through these paper labyrinths.

  Chapter 21

  Ellery vanished again that night. Fuck knows what she was doing and probably I should have been worried, but worrying about Ellery was like worrying about water: Yes, it had the potential to cause a lot of carnage, but it was also just kind of there. And it was only when the door of my room clicked closed behind me that I realised I’d essentially committed myself to spending Christmas Eve alone in a Holiday Inn. Which apparently hadn’t occurred to me in my rush to prove what an awesome friend I was.

  Of course, I had my phone and my Kindle. There was absolutely no need for me to spend the time lying on my bed, watching the drift of snowflakes against the windows, as if I was the sole survivor of a very quiet apocalypse. Except, y’know. There I was, lying on my bed, watching the drift of snowflakes against the windows, wondering when I could Skype home without it looking so desperate my family would notice.

  This was…this was going to be a long night.

  Then my phone rang. Unknown number. Oh my God. Oh my God. My heart was going like the spinner in Inception. It couldn’t be. Could it? Could it really be Caspian?

  My hands were shaking so much I nearly swiped the wrong way and hung up. “H-hello?”

  “Happy Christmas, poppet.”

  Help. Fuck.

  “I take it,” murmured George, “you were hoping for someone else?”

  I made a desperate attempt to pull myself together. “N-not hoping. Not exactly. I’m sorry.”

  “Love’s such a pisser, isn’t it?”

  “It really is.” Covering my nose with my, well, my sleeve, I indulged in a sniffle or two. “I’m glad to hear from you, though.”

  “Of course you are. I’m delightful.”

  That almost made me smile. “I didn’t…I mean…you’re not, um, upset? Because…because…”

  “Because you’re not crying in a hotel room over me?” I practically heard the eye roll. “I think I can live without that.”

  “I don’t wish you were him or anything.”

  “Poppet, I’m far too egoistical for the thought to have even crossed my mind.” Her voice softened. “The things I want from you—your body for sex and art, and your company, when you’re not being put to other uses—can exist with perfect safety outside whatever you need to feel for Caspian Hart. Let’s not start confusing the two.”

  “I’m not. Not really.” I adopted a less…sobby position on the bed. Maybe I was getting better. Because while everything I felt for Caspian still held me in a tiger-clawed grip, the wounds seemed less…forever, somehow? Or maybe I was used to the pain. “Thank you for calling. You really are the best, um, whatever we are.”

  “Lovers. Friends. It’s not complicated.”

  It wasn’t. And it didn’t have to be. “What are your Christmas plans?”

  “Beyond talking to you, I don’t have any. Which,” she added firmly, “is how I prefer it. Although I may well go to Mara’s on Boxing Day, and lightly threaten her husband.”

  That sounded…something. “Threaten him with what?”

  “With myself.” She gave a very knowing, very wicked chuckle. “We all know better, but there’s still a part of him that fears his wife is going to spontaneously turn gay and run away with me.”

  “You don’t actually want her to, right?”

  “Fuck no. Things that may not be are infinitely beautiful. Things that are…well, they tend to be tedious.”

  Perhaps someday I’d feel the same about Caspian. It wasn’t the worst idea in the world. “Do you come up with these things in advance?”

  “No, poppet. I don’t have to. I’m not Mr. Collins.”

  I snickered. Because you could always trust George with a bit of lit-themed shade.

  “Truth time, though,” she went on. “How are you really?”

  “I”—I had to think about it—“I’m really not too bad. It’s weird being away from my family but I’ll Skype them later.”

  “And your friend?”

  “Could…probably be better,” I admitted. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. I don’t know what’s a normal level of frustrated, demoralised, and pissed off for someone with a spinal cord injury.”

  “Whatever level he wants?”

  “That’s fair.”

  “Yes. I am terribly fair. It mostly comes from indifference.”

  “That or caring more than you let on.”

  She made an appalled noise. “Don’t think you’re safe from punishment just because you’re in another country.”

  “Aren’t I?”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “that depends. How obedient do you think you can be?”

  I shivered, pretty much ready to be as obedient as she told me to be. Except then I remembered a night in Oxford when I’d also felt alone, and how Caspian had given me exactly what I needed: kindness and pain and surety and safety. It was easy to be with George whe
n I was with her. But like this, when memories were closer than bodies? I was afraid Caspian would slip between us. And I just couldn’t do that to her. “Can we wait until I get home?”

  “Of course we can. After all”—another of those silences that left me imagining her expression—“absence makes the arse grow fonder.”

  “You’re the worst. But you should also know my arse is incredibly fond of you.”

  “Good. It’s very charming and I’m looking forward to spending more time with it in the new year.”

  Suddenly my Christmas Eve was looking way less bleak than it had before. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

  “Count on it, poppet.”

  * * *

  Maybe my Holiday Inn Christmas Eve had fucked up my sense of perspective but Christmas Day in a hospital could have sucked way more. I mean, when you got right down to it, holidays were supposed to be about being with the people you loved—and I was. I’d managed to catch my folks in the creepy window between time zones, which meant it was Christmas for me when it wasn’t for them, and the sight of our pokey living room strung with fairy lights had briefly made me homesick. But even that wasn’t so bad, the warm ache of having something worth missing. Someday, I’d have someone to take back with me. Except fantasy and memory were tricksy bedfellows, and kept leading me to Caspian. That weekend we’d spent together in Kinlochbervie. What Christmas with him, and my family, might be like. The games we’d play. How we could walk hand in hand along the beach in the bright chill of Christmas morning and snuggle beneath the eaves at night. All the kisses I’d steal. The smiles I’d coax from him. The way he’d hold me, with such strength and need, it had always felt like love.

  Fuck. When was I going to stop doing this?

  Anyway, anyway, anyway. The café laid on a proper Christmas lunch, and the staff had done their best to decorate, so we were feeling fairly festive by the time we were heading back to Nik’s room to open our presents. I knew Ellery didn’t Do Christmas, but I’d got her a copy of Rat Girl, which she accepted with enough ill grace that I could tell she was into it. And Nik and I had a gift-exchange tradition from our student days, when we’d had more time than either money or sense, although to be honest I don’t think much had changed since then. It required you to go somewhere, or be somewhere, and find a piece of tourist tat from a different place entirely. This meant Nik got a baseball cap with I ♥ TOKYO on the front, purchased from a souvenir stall in London, and I got a T-shirt with the New York Yankees logo on it that Nik had found in a bin on one of his therapeutic walks.