Bright Young Things

by Anna Martin

  His eyes met hers across the counter, and he breathed “I gotta go,” before running out of the house to the car, Hadley’s laughter following him.

  When he arrived at the Hemlock house, Jared’s heart was beating so hard he thought there was a genuine possibility it would escape his throat, a bloody mess of sinew and tissue running down the front of his body. When he slammed the truck door closed, the front door of the house swung open and Adam stood there, barefoot, clutching his own open letter.

  “Well?” Adam demanded.

  Jared swallowed hard. “I got into Brown,” he said, his lips dry, throat raw.

  For a moment Adam didn’t say anything. Then, “I got into Harvard.”

  The words didn’t carry any of Adam’s usual swagger and arrogance. He’d been saying he was going to Harvard for years. The words barely held meaning any more. Now it was real, though. Now it was actually happening.

  “That’s like, less than an hour away.”

  Adam nodded. “More like thirty minutes if I’m driving. I looked it up earlier.”

  They were still talking across a space of a hundred yards or so, Jared standing by his truck, Adam framed in the doorway to the house. All the things they hadn’t dared to say crossed that space, back and forth, back and forth.

  We don’t have to split up.

  We can still see each other all the time.

  Hell, we could live together if we want.

  Maybe in our second year. First year we have to do dorms. It’s part of the college experience.

  You’re not going to be on the other side of the country come September.

  After everything we’ve been through, I get to keep you.

  Jared’s fingers twitched, then Adam ran out of the house, still barefoot, and hurled himself into Jared’s arms.

  Jared caught him neatly and hauled him up, supporting his boyfriend by that very nice, very tight ass and buried his face in Adam’s neck. They didn’t need to say all those things aloud. For once Jared knew they were thinking the same thing. In a few months, they’d both move to the East Coast and start at Ivy League schools, and they’d be close enough to keep this still new, still fledgling relationship alive.

  Thank God, he thought as he squeezed Adam tighter. They had a future together. Thank God.

  Chapter 22

  The Murano was one of the nicest hotels in the area. And even though it was only a high school prom, the hotel had gone all out, decorating the modern building with thousands of twinkling fairy lights and gorgeous displays of flowers. No balloons. New Harbor Academy was far too classy for that.

  Jared had thought he was going to rent a tux, but it turned out there was no way his boyfriend was taking a date to prom in a rented tux, and they spent a very tense afternoon together in Seattle shopping before Jared picked something out to wear.

  Apparently not all tuxedos were created equal. Who knew?

  So, when he and Adam stepped out of the Caddy, Adam was wearing a Givenchy suit, and Jared was in Dolce & Gabbana. He’d nearly gone with Alexander McQueen, but D&G had won in the end.

  They were dressed to perfection with the very definite goal of impressing. Jared tossed the car keys to a waiting valet and linked his fingers with Adam’s before they walked into the hotel.

  Signs on large pieces of white paper directed them to the ballroom where the prom was being held—not that they needed directions. They could just follow the noise.

  “Wait,” Jared said and pulled Adam into an alcove before they got to the main room.

  “Hm?”

  “I just… you look really amazing tonight.”

  They’d already gone through this at Adam’s place. Juliette had insisted on taking a hundred pictures of them together before she let them go, and they’d promised they wouldn’t get drunk and drive home. Adam told her they had a room, and she’d relented. A little.

  Because they’d both gotten dressed at Adam’s place, Jared knew his boyfriend wasn’t wearing underwear tonight, and on the whole ride over he’d been thinking about how fun it would be to peel the tight, glossy black pants off Adam later.

  Later.

  Adam reached up and cupped Jared’s face in his hand, then pressed their lips together lightly.

  “I know,” he murmured, making Jared smile. “I love you.”

  They walked into the ballroom holding hands, heads high, looking fucking good. Both of them.

  It was, Jared decided after a few moments, like every other high school prom in the country. Just with more expensive outfits.

  Someone was busy spiking the punchbowl, and he would bet his life savings everyone in the place had a sterling silver hipflask concealed somewhere on their person, ensuring the liquor kept flowing even when all the bar would serve was soft drinks. Except he’d been turned off bets recently.

  Clare had selected, or possibly ordered, a table that sat on a slightly raised platform, giving her a view out over the whole party and the whole party a good view of her. She was wearing a tight gown that sparkled with crystals, more sparkle at her throat, wrists, and ears, and her hair piled up on top of her head in an elaborate twist. Next to her, Chris reclined in a black velvet suit, and although other minions fluttered and buzzed around them, Jared didn’t recognize them with more than a passing familiarity.

  Ryder and Mia were dancing, wearing brightly colored dresses that made them look like elegant birds-of-paradise. Around them, other girls were dressed in Dior and Versace and labels movie stars wore on the red carpet to movie premiers, and no one thought twice about how ostentatious it was to put an eighteen-year-old in a twenty-four-hundred dollar dress.

  “Come on, I’ll get you a drink,” Adam said, and led Jared to the bar with a hand on his lower back.

  He ordered two Sprites with a smirk on his face that told the bartender the soda was about to get dirty very, very soon. The bartender didn’t seem to care and took the tip with a friendly nod.

  At the head table, Adam pulled out a seat for Jared before reaching into his breast pocket and retrieving a slim silver flask. Chris nodded at them.

  “Lookin’ sharp, gentlemen,” he said with exaggerated sophistication.

  “You too, bro.” Adam held out the flask but Chris declined.

  Between them, Clare sniffed.

  “You look nice too,” Jared said condescendingly.

  “I know.”

  She couldn’t know that she’d echoed Adam’s words from earlier, or why Jared let out an amused snort. Adam swatted him on the thigh.

  “So, what’s been going down?” Adam asked.

  “Well, princess here”— Chris gestured to Clare again, and Jared had to try really hard not to laugh again—“has been giving scores to the best dresses.”

  “Anyone ranked over a five yet?” Adam said to Clare with a grin.

  “Not yet,” she said.

  Under the table, Jared groped for Adam’s hand, then linked their fingers together.

  “Not even us?” he asked her.

  Clare looked them slowly up and down, taking in the crisp suits and expensive accessories.

  “Fine,” she relented. “Combined, you get an eight.”

  Instead of bitching back, Jared laughed.

  Jared wasn’t sure what started it, or who. He and Adam were making out in a corner when he heard a shriek of horror from the dance floor, and he almost bit Adam’s lip in his haste to look over and see what was going on.

  “Fuck,” Adam gasped, then turned to look over his shoulder. “Bitch fight?” He turned back to Jared, his face bright and excited. “Aw, yeah.”

  Jared laughed and pulled his hand back from where it had been gratuitously groping Adam’s ass. “Wanna go watch?”

  “Oh hell, yeah.”

  They stumbled away from their dark corner and out to the dance floor where pools of light pulsed pink and yellow and green. There was a crowd gathered in a tight circle, and Chris was barging his way to the center of it, his thick elbows shoving people out of the wa
y.

  Adam quickly followed in his wake, and they found themselves in the middle of cat fight hell.

  For three young women who’d been raised with poise and class, when they were fighting, Clare, Mia, and Ryder looked deranged. Clare’s carefully styled hair was loose around her shoulders, and her dark red lipstick was smudged across her face. Mia’s lip was bleeding, and Ryder was crying even as she snarled and clawed at Mia’s dress.

  “Aw, fuck this shit,” Chris crowed and grabbed the girl closest to him—tiny Mia—and hauled her away. As Adam grabbed Ryder and threw her over his shoulder fireman-style, the crowd parted and Jared was left with Clare.

  “Come on,” he said and dragged her away by the wrist before anyone could step in.

  As they ducked into a door marked Employees Only next to the bar, Clare hissed and spat and cursed at him, but Jared marched on, only stopping when they got to a corridor that led to the kitchens.

  He looked back and saw the telltale swelling around Clare’s left eye. He’d been in enough scrapes in military school to know the beginnings of a black eye when he saw one.

  “Fuck’s sake,” he muttered and dragged Clare into the kitchen.

  “Hey!”

  They both turned as someone finally caught up to them. An older woman in a white chef’s jacket stood with her hands on her hips.

  “Y’all can’t be down here.” She narrowed her eyes at Clare’s scratched face, then at Jared, who was pulling the hapless woman along. “Is there a problem?”

  “Gay,” Jared said, pointing at himself. “Very gay.” He pointed at Clare. “Bitch fight. Can we get some ice for her face?”

  “I fucking hate you,” Clare hissed as the woman rolled her eyes and marched through a set of swinging double doors. He ignored her and followed the chef.

  This kitchen was empty, a smaller space Jared assumed was used for catering more intimate parties. Their savior in a white jacket was piling ice cubes into a ziploc bag that she then wrapped in a dish towel.

  “Here,” she said, thrusting the icy package at Jared. “There’s a smoking area out back.”

  Behind them, Clare sniffed in disdain.

  “Thanks,” Jared said with a grateful smile and steered Clare away before she said something insulting.

  The smoking area wasn’t the cramped shack Jared expected. It was more of a walled garden with a couple of benches. Since he didn’t know where Chris had taken Mia or what the argument had been about in the first place, it seemed the safest place to be.

  “Here,” Jared said, steering Clare onto one of the wooden benches. “Stick this on your face.”

  “I don’t fucking need—”

  “Shut the fuck up and put the ice on your face,” Jared said. “You can’t out-princess me right now, sweetheart.”

  Clare looked livid but sat and slapped the ice over her swollen eye.

  “Good girl.”

  A slim Hispanic guy wearing checkered chef’s pants came out of the door to the kitchens, whistling to himself and stopping short when he saw the high school kids in fancy clothes snarling at each other.

  “You guys shouldn’t be here,” he said cautiously.

  “Please,” Jared said. “I will give you twenty bucks for a cigarette right now.”

  Hispanic Guy grinned and pulled a battered packet of Marlboros from his pocket. “How about your number instead?”

  Jared hesitated, then tucked a folded bill into the packet in place of the cigarette he took. “I’m taken,” he said.

  “Not her?”

  “No. Not me,” Clare said around the ice on her face. “Him inside.”

  “What happened?” Jared asked, lighting the cigarette and taking a long draw on it.

  “Fucking bitch,” Clare spat.

  “Which one?”

  “Mia. She should know when to keep her fucking nose out of other people’s business.”

  Jared took another drag on the cigarette, passing it to Clare when she held her hand out. He didn’t claim to know much about women, but this seemed to be one of those situations where he could do no harm by staying silent and letting her speak.

  “Bitch has been trying to set me up with Chris for fucking ever.”

  “Hm.”

  She passed the cigarette back. “What happens in my relationship is none of their fucking business.”

  Jared raised an eyebrow. “You have a relationship?”

  “Fuck you, Jared.”

  He schooled his face into a picture of nonchalance, even as his inner gossip queen went wild. After one more drag on the cigarette, it was almost burned out, and Jared walked over to the metal box on the wall, scratching out the embers before dumping the butt.

  “Let me see,” he said as he sat down next to her, gently bringing the ice pack away from her face. The cold was keeping the swelling down, but she’d likely have a shiner. She winced, and he apologized and carefully pressed the pack back onto her face. “Keep it there for a while longer if you can.”

  She nodded. “You don’t hate me,” she said, her voice perfectly matter-of-fact.

  “No.”

  “Hm.”

  “Should I?”

  “A lot of people would.”

  Jared nodded. “Yeah. They would.” He waited for the Hispanic guy to duck back into the kitchens, nodding a good-bye and tossing Jared one last sorrowful look over his shoulder. “I think I feel sorry for you.”

  “Bitch, please.”

  “You love him. It’s clear to anyone with eyes you love him, and he fucking adores you, Clare. He worships the ground you walk on.”

  “It’s none of your fucking business,” she repeated, although the venom had drained from her voice.

  “I’ll tell you what I think,” Jared said, getting into the swing of this now. “I think you’re scared. Chris offers you the world on a silver platter, but you know you won’t ever be able to leave him if you go there. So you keep him at arm’s distance.”

  “Jared,” Clare said, a low warning.

  “You’re a fucking bitch, Clare.”

  She laughed once, hollowly. “That’s why you should hate me.”

  “You push people away and it works. It works for everyone, apart from the people who can see through your bullshit. No one looks through your bullshit like Biggie. That’s why you call him Chris. Because there are no masks, there are no walls, there’s no hiding between you two.”

  Clare sniffed, but this time a tear rolled down her cheek. Jared pressed on, knowing there would never be another chance for him to say this.

  “You call him Chris,” she said petulantly, but he ignored her.

  “You need to stop playing with people, Clare. You got away with it with me and Adam because it all blew up in your face, and he fell in love with me. He loves me, Clare. And I love him. One day though you’ll play the wrong game with the wrong person.”

  Another tear rolled down her elegant cheek.

  “Stop playing him. He doesn’t deserve it.”

  To his amazement, she nodded.

  They weren’t now, and would never be, super gal pals, but he felt sorry for her. He couldn’t imagine being in her shoes. Would never want to be, either.

  “I’m going to go find Adam,” Jared said. “Go get yourself fixed up, and you better come back fighting, bitch. Don’t you dare fall now.”

  He rose and walked off in the direction of the front of the building, hoping to loop round and get back to the entrance. The hotel was surrounded by delicate, manicured gardens, and he walked through them slowly, watching the sun start to sink over Mt. Ranier.

  When his phone buzzed with Adam’s ringtone, Jared smiled to himself and pulled it out of his back pocket.

  “Good timing. I’m heading for the front of the building.”

  “Me too. Do you have Clare?”

  “No. I just gave her a serious talking-to and left her on a bench.”

  Adam snorted, and Jared felt himself fall a little bit more in love.

  As
promised, Adam was waiting on the front steps of the hotel when Jared rounded the corner, hands shoved deep into his pants pockets and frowning, although his face softened when he saw Jared approaching.

  Wordlessly, Jared pressed himself to Adam’s side and let Adam be the quiet comfort he needed. Adam ran his hand up and down Jared’s back and pressed a soft kiss to his neck.

  “So, according to the valet, there’s an ice cream place right down the street that’s open late. You wanna go get some frozen yogurt?”

  “Yeah,” Jared said. “I really do.”

  “Awesome.”

  It was a warm night, so Jared undid the top button on his shirt and pulled his bow tie loose, letting it drape around his neck. Adam looked a little disheveled, like Ryder had put up more of a fight than any of them could have expected.

  As they walked along Broadway, Adam linked their fingers together and swung their arms back and forth.

  “So, you told Clare off?”

  “Yeah.” Jared grinned. “Called her out on her bullshit, told her to stop fucking with people’s lives, said that she needs to get her shit together and give Chris a chance because he worships her.”

  “Holy shit,” Adam breathed. “Are you serious? How are you still alive?”

  “No idea. Someone needed to do it. I caught her at a weak moment, probably the only reason why I got away with it.”

  The ice cream parlor was an old mom-and-pop type place, deliciously kitsch and welcoming, even at this time of night. Jared held the door open and let Adam lead them inside.

  The ice creams were lined up in bright rows in the freezer, a rainbow of tempting sweetness. There were a few other patrons tucked away in booths, couples and lovers out on dates on a nice summer evening.

  “Wanna share a sundae?”

  Jared grinned. “Sure.”

  They bickered good-naturedly over flavors for a few minutes until they were called forward to place their order, then found a booth at the back where they could hide while dessert was being made.