by Aubrey Irons
“You can’t be serious.”
“And if I am?”
I laugh a brittle laugh. “Then the answer is hell no.”
“You want me to fucking triple it?”
“Stop, Bastian.” I shake my head, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Just stop.”
“Why. Please don’t look like an idiot by saying you don’t need the money. Because we both know you do.”
“I—”
“How’s that demo doing?”
A part of me wants to scream and ask how the hell he even knows about that, but I know it’s useless. Of course, he knows about my failures. Of course, he does.
I glare at him. “It’s not the money.”
“Well?”
“It’s you, that’s why. There’s a catch here, and I know it.”
His brow arches as he appraises me silently. He reaches for his pack of cigarettes, pulling one out and placing it between his perfect, sinfully tempting lips before lighting it. He slowly drags on the smoke, the soft wisps of it teasing and curling around his face.
“Look, this is an easy decision for you.”
“Why,” I hiss. “And please do not tell me it’s because of my gardening skills either.”
“Maybe I just like having you around, Texas.”
“Except you don’t, and you never have, and the feeling is mutual.”
His face is neutral this time. No grin. No arrogant smirk. He studies me, silently smoking his cigarette.
“Fine.”
“Wonderful. I’ll be out by tomorrow morning.”
“No,” he growls. “I mean fine I’ll tell you why you’re here.” His brow furrows. “Why you’re actually here.”
“Save it,” I hiss, turning and starting to walk away. “I honestly don’t give a single sh—”
“I need you to be my fiancée.”
I come to a stop, a shiver running up my spine.
Keep walking.
It’s so obviously just one of his psychopath mind games, and yet I stop. I shake my head, my lips tight as I start to whirl on him. And I’m just opening my mouth to tell him exactly where to go with all of his bullshit when my sandaled toe catches a small piece of firewoood. I falter, and I’m pretty sure I make some sort of garbled animal sound as the world flips upside down and I go tumbling into the pool.
Water rushes past my ears, and I’m barely breaking the surface again when there’s a huge splash next to me. I gasp, sputtering and choking out water as powerful arms grab me, tightening around my body and pulling me close to him as he yanks me toward the edge.
“Let go of me!”
He ignores me and ignores my hands whacking at him as he reaches for the edge of the pool and pulls us over to it. I sputter, finally twisting out of his arms against the side.
“Goddamnit, let me go!”
“Fine,” he snaps, throwing his hands up. His chest rises and falls with his breath, his hair wet across his forehead. He pushes it back with one hand, his fierce dark eyes flashing in the light of the bonfire behind me.
“You’re welcome, by the way,” he growls.
“I can swim, just so you know.”
“Well, your walking skills leave something to be desired.”
I flash a sarcastic sneer as I yank my phone out of my pocket and bring it out of the water, groaning at the black screen and tossing it onto a pool chair.
“Told you to wear a bathing suit in the pool area.”
I twist in the water, turning to face him with my back against the edge of the pool. Our eyes meet.
“I wasn’t planning on jumping in.”
“What else didn’t you plan for?”
His hands come to rest on either side of me, holding the pool’s edge that my back is against. I shiver, even if the water is warm, feeling the deep thud of my pulse in my veins.
I swallow thickly.
“A lot of things.”
He holds my gaze another second or two, unblinking, unflinching, and unrelenting before he lets go of the edge and backs away. He moves past me, his arms bulging and muscles tensing as he lifts himself from the water. I quickly look away, but it’s not fast enough not to see the water dripping from every part of his perfect body as he climbs out.
“Here.”
I finally turn and glance up to see him standing, reaching down with his hand. I take it and gasp as he effortlessly pulls me from the water and up onto the patio.
“Thanks,” I mumble, grabbing a towel from one of the pool chairs and wrapping it around myself before I sit. The heat of the bonfire sizzles over my wet skin and hair as I shake my head, staring at my feet. Bastian throws another log on the fire before he slumps back into the chair next to me.
I ruffle the towel over my hair, squeezing the water from it.
“I was being serious,” he says evenly.
The laugh is bitter on my lips.
“Then you’re drunker than I thought you were.”
“I’m not actually asking you to marry me. Calm down.”
I drop the towel and eye him. “Then what are you asking me?”
“Have a drink.”
“I’m fine.”
“Trust me, you want one.”
I chew on my lip, weighing the idea of still just walking away from whatever insanity Bastian’s about to drop. Instead though, when he hands me the bottle, I take it.
“I turn twenty-eight in six months.”
“Who would’ve thought?”
He smiles grimly, his eyes on the fire in front of us.
“The case has been made that I’m….unfit to inherit the remainder of my trust fund. I’ll grant that my actions haven’t ever been exemplary—”
I laugh, giggling out loud and shaking my head as I take a sip of the whiskey.
Bastian glares at me.
“Hey, your words,” I shrug.
He snatches the bottle back.
“You know about my dad’s brother, in London.”
“Your uncle?”
“Uncle implies family, and family implies not trying to stab someone in the fucking back. So no, I’ll be referring to Franklin as my dad’s brother.”
I nod.
“Here’s the deal. The lion’s share of my trust is supposed to come into my possession on my twenty-eighth birthday. Except, there’s some ambiguous wording involved from whatever hack lawyer my parents used, and Franklin is using that and my accident to try and steal what’s mine from me.”
“You’re not going to really try and cry poverty to me are you?”
“It’s my money.”
“Right, but what do you have now, like ten million dollars?”
“Forty.”
I snort, shaking my head in disgust as I look away. “And what does this have to do with me?”
“I need stability.”
“You need sobriety.”
“I’m going to let you have that one,” he mutters. “What I need, or at least what it’s been suggested to me that I need, is proof that I’m getting my shit together. I need to show that I’m settling down, and starting a life with someone in order to settle this bullshit with Franklin.”
“You mean keep all the money for yourself.”
“This isn’t about the money.”
I snort. “Right.”
“This is about my parents’ legacy. It’s about not sullying the Crown name that’s gone back for generations.”
“Like you’ve ever cared about that.”
Bastian says nothing, turning to glare into the fire.
I let him stew for a second.
“So what exactly is this ‘ambiguous wording’?”
“Just what I said it is. It suggests that I need stability in order to be fit to receive. Planning a wedding would give me exactly that.” He turns to me, pulling a swig from the bottle - swallowing as he passes the bottle my way.
“Look, you don’t even have to tell anyone. Hell, I’d rather you not.”
I flip him off, and he smirks.
“Look,
are you in or out.”
The whiskey burns as I take a quick sip.
“Triple your salary, your dad works here when he’s better, if he wants, I settle your financial messes, and I set you up with Luminous Records.”
I rake my teeth across my bottom lip, toying with the bottle in my hands.
“How about ten percent of the money.”
“Not a chance.”
“One percent.”
“You’re a shit negotiator, and still not a chance.”
I shrug. “Or I could walk.”
Bastian’s lips curl wickedly as he reaches out and plucks the whiskey bottle from my hands. “Believe me when I say there are other girls who would do this for me.”
“So go ask them,” I scowl. “Why me?”
I glance up and instantly shiver as our eyes meet, his shimmering that dark fire as the bonfire flickers over them. Wordlessly, he holds mine captive with his, saying nothing and yet everything.
“Do we have a deal or not,” he says lowly, his voice deep in his chest.
I finally break free of the gaze, turning to look into the roaring end-of-the-world bonfire raging a few feet from me.
I want to say I need time to think about it. I want to need time to think about it if only to keep the power balance here at least somewhat equal. But I already know what I’m going to say.
Maybe it’s the money.
Maybe it’s that everything else in my life is somewhat falling apart, and hate it or not, being back here where I grew up is a sort of comforting stability.
Maybe there are questions here we never answered, and answers we never questioned hard enough.
The word comes easy, or at least without thought.
“Yes.”
Bastian’s lips pull into his version of a smile - triumphant, smug, tempting.
We say nothing after that, the fire crackling and clawing at the night sky.
End-of-the-world indeed…
9 Years Ago:
My eyelids half close, the fogginess of sleep threatening to take me down.
Here, in the middle of 5th period chemistry class, would be a bad place to fall asleep. But it’s dark, the heat is on full blast, and it’s grey and very January-ish outside.
The movie we’re watching on the importance of eye safety - something Mr. Turner, our chemistry teacher, insists on making us watch before any lab segment we do - drones softly from the TV at the front of the room. A middle-aged woman with Donna Summers hair explains in a voice far too calm for the situation behind her, why it’s important to flush acid from the eyes if you get some in there.
Duh fucking duh.
The younger girl behind her - the one with the acid in the eyeballs, rocks comically side to side, holding her left eye.
“Oh no!” she says it in this hilariously drawn out, overly dramatic way.
And here it comes.
We’ve watched this four times so far this year, so the whole class knows it’s coming. The girl on screen glances back across the fake chemistry classroom at a handsome guy with blonde, eighties Flock Of Seagulls hair and a blue and white varsity football jacket who flashes this super cheesy smile at the camera before it pans back to acid-face.
“Bobby Jones will never take me at prom now!”
The class erupts into laughter.
At. The freaking video seriously says “Bobby will never take me at prom”, instead of, presumably, “to” prom. Mr. Tanner coughs and frowns at the class.
“Settle down, settle down. This is important.”
Even I’m smiling, albeit quietly to myself as the whole class hoots and giggles. The camera pans back to our Donna-Summers-hair video host.
“A perfect night, ruined by one minute of carelessness,” she says seriously. Her overly red lips pursed tight.
“Jackie should have used protection.”
The class, predictably, erupts again as the video moves on to something about fire extinguishers.
Mr. Tanner is still trying to calm everyone down, but something catches my attention outside the window. I turn and immediately roll my eyes.
They’re honestly beyond any rules. Zero repercussions. Untouchable in their wealth and privilege.
Bastian, Tyler Van Der Haus, Dylan Forbes, and Asher Harrington are camped out in the parking lot between Bastian’s ludicrously expensive, flashy sports car and Tyler’s brand new Mercedes Benz SUV with the chrome detailing and the matte black finish. They’re parked in the faculty lot, by the way, but that’s also the least of their transgressions at the moment.
Bastian is smoking freely - on school grounds, like that’s not a problem. Even better, I watch as Asher opens bottles of beer with his keys and passes them around.
It’s eleven in the morning, on a Wednesday, in a high school faculty parking lot, and they’re eighteen. And no one has anything to say about this. Not the entire wing of the school - including Principle Worther’s office, which has a clear view of all of this. Of course no one says shit because they’re them. The four princes of South Neck. It also helps that Kip Van Der Haus - Tyler’s father - has just pledged a new scoreboard and new stands for the lacrosse field next year. New, because the scoreboard and stands some other rich kid’s dad bought five years ago are clearly way behind the times.
I shake my head, sitting there in the dark of Mr. Tanner’s chemistry class listening to the importance of overhead vents, while I watch the princes hold court in the parking lot. The four princes, I might add, who’ve been strangely paying attention to me recently - strangely like something’s up. Like there’s a punch line to a joke I’m not privy to waiting to jump out.
Well, I should say three of the princes are, at least. Bastian is still being Bastian to me, even if his three pals have all variously tried to ask me out over the last month - each in their own ludicrous way.
Dylan literally had a hundred roses delivered to my second period English class, along with a - badly - written poem that may have been sweeter if half of it wasn’t directly lifted from Shakespeare.
Asher cornered me in Bastian’s driveway after school the other week and asked if I’d like to sit on his face.
No, for real.
And in true over-the-top Van Der Haus way, Tyler asked me to come to St. Lucia for the weekend with him on his father’s private jet.
Three of the most popular, gorgeous, wanted guys in the school, doing crap like that for me? No way. It doesn’t add up. And I don’t mean that in a self-deprecating “I’m not worthy” way, I mean it in a “I’m not an idiot and I know there’s something going on here” way.
On the bright side, my popularity in this school is already in the toilet, so the fact that any girls at South Neck high who didn’t already hate me for not being rich now definitely hate me for having three out of the four most desirable douchebags in school fawning over me doesn’t really bother me much.
Whatever.
Out in the parking lot, Bastian pulls out a bag of what is very clearly pot. He turns, cigarette between his lips as he leans over the hood of his sports car and starts to roll a joint.
Unbelievable.
The bell rings, and I shake my head as I quickly grab my stuff and hustle from the chemistry classroom.
My heart sinks as the truck engine clicks idly for the fifth time.
You’ve gotta be kidding me.
It’s January, it’s cold, it’s getting dark, and I just want to go home. And my dad’s damn pickup truck won’t start.
I try it again, shivering in the cab, as the engine does nothing before dropping my head to the steering wheel
Shit.
The knock on the window has me jerking bolt upright, gasping as I whirl and find myself eye to eye with Bastian.
“What are you doing?”
“My—”
I frown as he cups his ear, shaking his head. I open the door and step out of the truck. Hell, it’s not like it’s any warmer in the freezing cold cab anyway.
“My truck won’t s
tart.”
He nods, his dark eyes unreadable.
“Want a hand?”
I raise a brow suspiciously.
“What?”
“A hand. Help, Texas. Do you want some.”
“You know how to fix this?”
He frowns. “Fuck no, but I know how to call someone and pay them to fix it.”
I roll my eyes.
“I’m fine, I’ll call—”
Bastian’s phone is already out and to his ear. I watch curiously as he barks some orders into it, his eyes piercing and dark as he issues commands before hanging up and slipping it back into his pocket.
“Fucking tow truck is out. It might be a little bit.”
“Thanks.”
We stand in silence, hands jammed into coat pockets - mine the army-green hooded puffer with the Radiohead patch sewn onto it, and his the knee-length jet-black pea coat with the collar turned up. Plumes of breath whip away like clouds around our faces.
“Look, fuck it, I’ll give you a ride home. You can get this fixed tomorrow.”
I laugh. “Yeah, no thanks.”
“Oh swallow your pride, Texas.”
“No, I mean no thanks because I watched you drinking beers and smoking pot all through fifth period out here. I’m not driving with you.”
“I’m usually high when I drive.”
“Not a convincing argument.”
He arches a brow. “It’s four miles back to the estate. We’ll be there in a minute.”
“Or we’ll be in a ditch on the side of the road in half that time.”
His jaw clenches.
“You’re difficult.”
“I don’t think not wanting to die in a car crash is being difficult.”
Bastian frowns and pulls the sleeve of his coat up to glance at his silver, elegant-looking wristwatch.
“Fine, c’mon.”
He turns and starts to march over to his car, parked diagonally across four spaces a few feet away.
“Bastian, I’m not driving home with you.”
“And I’m no longer offering that. But you can sit in the damn car and not freeze your ass off while we wait for the fucking tow truck.”
I hesitate, watching him walk over and open his own door.
“Are you waiting for a formal invite?”
“No, I’m just waiting to see what you’re trying to pull here.”