Seven

Ellie came over after school on Wednesday. Beth was out at her gym class, and Luke was working in the bedroom down the hall, the one that was to be the nursery. We were on my bed with the door pushed slightly closed, kissing.

We’d made an attempt at studying; our books were open on the page we were supposed to be looking at. But then she’d surged toward me without warning and pushed me flat on my back and pushed her tongue into my mouth. I’d not known how to react right away, though after a minute, all the parts of my body that were supposed to react did.

“I like you,” she told me between kisses.

“I like you too.”

This made her smile – a shy thing that didn’t quite suit her. I wondered if it was an act. Or maybe the other Ellie, the confident, bold one I saw every day at school, was the act. She leaned in to kiss me again, but before she could push me back down on the bed, the phone rang – a brazen shriek from where it was on the wall at the bottom of the stairs.

“Ah, I better get that.” Luke was drilling, so he wouldn’t have heard it. However, when I was at the door, the drilling stopped. “I’ve got it,” I called to him before flying down to catch it before it rang off.

“Hello,” I asked, breathless.

There was a moment’s pause. “It’s Caspien.”

My whole body felt like it had been shot through with electricity.

“Hello,” I said again. “Are you...I mean, Luke is upstairs.”

“I called to speak to you.”

Another zap of electricity. My breath thinned. “Oh, right.”

“I wondered if you wanted to come over. To...hang out.” His voice sounded strange. Stranger than normal. Stiff and careful, like he was reading the words from a page.

“Hang out?” I repeated. My shock at the sound of his voice on the phone had overtaken my confusion, so it came out as a question. “With you?”

“No, with bloody Gideon,” he said. “Yes, with me.”

“I...” I wanted to say don’t be bloody ridiculous, but part of me was too gobsmacked to get anything out. With horror, I realised I wanted to say yes. I was about to when I remembered Ellie was upstairs.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” He almost sounded put out.

“Because my...because I have a friend over.” I didn’t understand why I hadn’t wanted to call Ellie my girlfriend, why I hadn’t wanted Caspien to know I even had a girlfriend, but at that moment, I told myself it was because the more stuff Caspien knew about me, the more advantages he had over me, and the more dangerous it made him.

But the truth, of course, was far simpler than any of that.

“Oh, it’s the girl, is it?” he said in a flat voice.

I didn’t even question how he knew. Maybe he’d seen her arrive somehow. Maybe Luke had mentioned it. Maybe he had cameras in my room.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

I hesitated too long. “Yeah, sort of.”

He was silent for a bit. “Okay then. Well, bye.”

“Wait,” I rushed before he hung up. I didn’t understand it; perhaps it was the sheer novelty of him having called me at all - that he wanted to hang out with me was something monumental, too - but I didn’t want him to go.

He hadn’t hung up and so I grasped at the first thing that came to mind.

“We’re going to the beach on Saturday,” I heard myself saying. “My friends and me. If you wanted to come with us.”

“Is your sort of girlfriend going to be there?”

“Yeah. And her friend. And my other two friends, who’re boys: Josh and Alfie. So like, it won’t be weird or anything.” I had no idea why I was saying this, why I was inviting him. Shit. Alfie. Alfie was going to be seriously pissed off.

“Yes, okay then. I’ll come.”

“Cool.”

“Bye,” Caspien said, and then he was gone.

After he hung up, I sat on the bench at the foot of the stairs with the receiver in my hand for five whole minutes, wondering what on earth had just happened.

He turned up early on Saturday morning.

I was still in bed, thinking about wanking, when Luke called up.

“Judey! Caspien’s here.” I heard him giving him directions to my room and the sound of the stair creaking, and then he knocked on the closed door.

I practically flew out of my bed and pulled on a pair of sweats, glancing around the mess of my room. There were still a few unpacked boxes, a glass by the bedside, some dirty underwear on the floor. I kicked the underwear under the bed and opened the small window wide before shouting for him to come in. He strode in like a gust of fresh, clean air.

He looked fresh and almost glowing in shorts and a crisp white t-shirt. He was wearing white trainers that looked new (and not his ridiculous too-big sandals), and his hair had been cut. Shorter around his ears and face but still longer than most boys I knew wore theirs.

He looked me up and down and then moved to sit on my bed. The sight of him there, on top of my bedcovers, on my bed, made me feel very strange.

“I wasn’t sure what time we would be going,” he said, glancing curiously around my room. His eyes lingered on my bookshelf before he stood up and went towards it.

“You could have called?”

He scanned the titles as he said, “Shall I go and come back?”

“No, it’s fine.”

He slipped out a book, flipping through the pages before turning it to read the back. It was my third-hand copy of Dracula.

“I’ll wait outside.” He looked at me. “I’m borrowing this.”

Then he was gone, the stair creaking as he descended.

I showered quickly and pulled on clothes, shorts, and a T-shirt that I debated far too long over. I made sure my phone was charged, shoved a towel and some sunscreen in my rucksack, and headed downstairs. Beth was in the kitchen making what looked to be sandwiches for us all.

“You packed sunscreen?” she asked as I put my bag down on the dining room table. When I nodded she asked, “Have you put it on already?”

“I’ll do it.”

She packed a tinfoil-wrapped parcel into a cool box. She’d made enough for twelve, it looked like.

“He’s in the garden,” she said. “He came with nothing, bless him. So make sure you give him sunscreen too. Gideon’s a little hopeless with this stuff.” Beth had an almost fond look on her face. A look I’d never before seen for other people she considered to be hopeless: her boss, the dental receptionist, the waiter who messed up her order when we went out to eat.

Outside, Caspien was sitting cross-legged on the wooden bench reading. He wore sunglasses now; a designer pair that suited his face. The sun pooled over him, making his hair look like it was made of pure white. He had turned golden over the summer, a bronzed pinkish glow that contrasted against the bleached white of his t-shirt.

I thought of him saying, ‘Play with me,’ in that very low secret voice he’d used on the phone, and my insides turned watery and hot.

I realised I’d been staring too long when he spoke. Not looking up.

“Have you read this?”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”

“It’s quite boring, isn’t it.”

“The film was better.”

He snorted. “I highly doubt that.”

“You haven’t seen it?”

“I don’t like films.”

I frowned. “Like...in general?”

He closed the book and lifted his head. “In general, I prefer books.”

I mean, so did I. But I still enjoyed watching films.

“What about the cinema?”

“What about it?”

“Do you...go?”

He thought about it and then shook his head. “I’ve never been to the cinema, no.”

“Not even to see The Avengers?”

He looked at me from behind his sunglasses. “If I were going to go to the cinema, trust me, it would not be to see The Avengers.”

“It’s not nonsense,” I defended. I guess, on some level, it was, but I also enjoyed it.

“What’s not nonsense?” Luke said as he popped his head out of the house.

“Caspien hasn’t seen The Avengers.”

“I never said that.”

“You did, you said—.”

“I said I hadn’t been to the cinema to see it. Not that they didn’t make us all watch it in the recreation room at La Troyieux. It was nonsense.”

“I agree, buddy. Too far-fetched for me.” Luke chuckled at his own joke. One he made frequently about the far-fetched nature of films like The Avengers. “Right, are you two ready to go?”

Caspien stood, still holding the copy of Dracula, which it looked like he was taking with him to the beach, despite how boring it was. He followed Luke, and I followed him. Beth handed the cool box off to me as I passed along with the rucksack she’d packed.

“Remember, sunscreen.”

“I know, I know. I will. Thanks.”

Outside, I put the cool box in the boot of Beth’s car, and while I did so, Caspien climbed into the front seat with Luke without so much as a glance at me. I glared at the back of his head. I already regretted inviting him.

I hadn’t even mentioned it to Alfie yet, and so when he sent a text to the group chat to say they were already at the beach, I decided to break the news.

Me:

OMW. And...Caspien is here with me.

Then, because I was a coward, I said:.

Me:

Beth made me invite him.

Alfie sent a dozen question marks and a few exclamation points, and Josh sent a few crying with laughter emojis. I typed back for him to chill, and that Caspien was cool. Then I shoved my phone back in my pocket and stared out the window.

This was going to be terrible.

It was terrible. But not for the reasons I expected. It was terrible because they liked him. Because once again, he’d been nice to them. When I introduced them he told them he was glad to meet them and that they should call him ‘Cas’. I’d tried to hide my annoyance at that. I’d known him close to three months at this point and had not been given that nickname to use.

Ellie had come forward and kissed me quickly, sliding her arm around my waist to pull me closer – proprietary in a way I wasn’t sure how I felt about. Not with Caspien’s presence two feet away. It felt weird having her do it in front of the others. She’d been a little handsy in school this past week, but this was more than that, and I couldn’t help glancing at Caspien as she laid her head on my shoulder. He wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he’d begun pulling off his T-shirt and then his shorts to reveal a pair of navy blue swim shorts with a little designer motif on the waistband. Alfie was a little chilly at first, but an hour later he’d come around and was inviting him to his birthday party in a month’s time.

I hadn’t known what to expect. I was certain there was another personality buried in there somewhere and that he’d pull it out just the way he had with Luke and then Beth. I’d been right. I just wasn’t sure why it annoyed me so much. Seeing him talking with Alfie and Josh and smiling at Ellie and Georgia shouldn’t have annoyed me, but it did.

It felt too complicated to understand, too stupid to even articulate, but I hated that I was the only one he didn’t act like a normal person around. More than that, I hated that I cared enough to be annoyed about it.

“He seems nice,” Ellie said, stretching out beside me.

“Does he?” I said moodily.

“I mean, Georgia thinks so...” She looked over to where the others were.

“Yeah, he’s a proper prince charming. Just her type.”

“She’s waiting on him to ask her, you know.”

“Who?”

“Alfie.”

Something relaxed inside me. “She knows?” My eyebrows shot up and Ellie gave me a look as if I were stupid.

“Hey, will you put some on my back?” She nudged me with the bottle of sunscreen and then flipped onto her front, pulling her pigtails out of the way of her exposed back. She wore a green floral bikini that tied around the back of her neck. I squeezed a dollop onto the middle of her back, causing her to shriek loudly.

“Jude! You put it on your hands first! It’s too cold!” She laughed, throwing a playful glare over her shoulder. After she’d settled, I began rubbing the lotion over her shoulders and down the slope of her back, smooth and already golden from the sun. She had a freckle in the right-hand corner, just above the waistband of her bikini bottoms, and I focused on it. It felt strangely awkward. And suddenly, I had the memory of Caspien washing my hands over the large sink in the kitchen of Deveraux House.

As though my thoughts had summoned him, a shadow fell over us, and I looked up to find him staring down at me. Dripping wet, his cheeks flushed from exertion, his body a glittering golden thing; he looked like a magical sea creature.

“I need a towel,” he told me like I was his mother.

It was strange then that I abandoned Ellie’s back and reached over to get my backpack, pulling out one of the towels Beth had packed for us.

When he was finished drying himself, he laid it out on the sand next to me and fell on top of it. He’d wrapped up my copy of Dracula in his clothes before going into the water, pulled the book out, and started reading it.

“So, Cas, Jude says you used to go to school in Switzerland?” Ellie asked, sitting up. She hooked a hand over my shoulder and perched on it, looking over at him.

“I did,” he said without glancing up.

“And now you’re home-schooled?”

“Now I’m home-schooled.”

“So what do you do for, like, fun?”

“I guess I come to the beach and hang out with Jude’s friends.”

Ellie snorted at this, but Caspien didn’t. His expression didn’t change. He kept his eyes focused on his book – my book – and his head turned away from the sun. When he didn’t say anything else, she turned her gaze to me and shrugged.

“You coming in?”

There was no reason not to, though part of me felt bad for abandoning him, despite the fact he’d been in there with the others while I’d sat here. He’d be completely fine here on his own. His body language practically screamed for us to leave him alone anyway. I’d been staring at him too long because Ellie nudged me.

“Yeah, let’s go,” I said and let her pull me towards the water.

Luke picked us up at 6:30 p.m. We shook out our shoes and towels of sand and bunged everything into the boot of the Kia before climbing in.

After asking if we’d had fun, Luke launched into the work he’d done on the south-facing gardens, which included some landscaping and levelling off the lower patio, removing and reinstalling the stepping stones which led from the water fountain and under the arch to the covered walkway. Caspien looked and sounded interested, asking all the right questions and validating Luke’s work, but I could see him furiously texting someone on his phone. His knee bounced rapidly, too, and his teeth chewed at his lower lip furiously. I’d never seen him so tense.

“You wanna stay for dinner, Cas?” Luke called over his shoulder as we turned into the long drive of Deveraux House. “We’re doing a barbecue.”

“Oh?”

I was certain he’d say no. He was like a coiled spring, as though the second the car stopped, he was going to bolt off. Whoever was holding his attention on the phone had him completely on edge. It had to be the person he’d been speaking to on the phone last week. My insides felt twisted and pulled tight, a knot of anxiety I couldn’t think past.

“Yeah, you have to try Beth’s potato sweetcorn salad. It’s something else, isn’t it, Judey?”

“Yeah, it’s great,” I managed.

“Sure, I’ll come. I just have to nip back to the house really quick to change, and then I’ll come back. If that’s okay, Luke?”

“Sure it is. We’ll drive up there first and wait for you; how’s that?”

Caspien pressed the lock button on his phone, turned it screen down on his knee, and nodded to Luke.

He did bolt from the car when we stopped, saying he’d be as quick as he could before disappearing inside the kitchen door of the large house.

Staring after him, curiosity licking like flames up my spine, I told Luke I really needed to pee and followed Caspien inside. He might have to change, but I was certain that the reason he had to go back to the house had something to do with whomever he had been texting furiously on the drive back from the beach.

The house was relatively dark. Only the lamps in the hallway were lit, and they didn’t offer much illumination, given the height of the ceilings. I passed the arboretum, then the music room where I’d watched Caspien play piano, and then the library, where the door was slightly ajar. I leaned into the gap and listened, but it was deathly silent inside it.

Then I heard it. A soft muffled cry that sent my pulse thundering.

I turned my head in the direction it came; the large reception room off the front entryway, and hurried toward it. The doors were closed but not all the way, and when I pushed it open, I could barely breathe. My eyes took a moment to interpret the scene.

A tall male knelt with his arms wrapped tightly around Caspien’s middle, his head buried against his stomach as he nosed and rubbed his face against the skin beneath Caspien’s t-shirt. With a gentle tug, he pulled him into his lap, forcing Caspien to straddle him as they embraced. I watched transfixed for a moment, the tenderness with which the figure held him, the desperate way he kissed and sniffed at his throat and his hair. There was something almost...fatherly in the way he held him, but then the man made a noise which caused something sickening to twist in my chest and something hot to flood my cheeks. I looked at Caspien’s face, hoping to see something I understood there.

He looked...unsettled. But still distant and removed from the situation in the way he often did.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Caspien said.

“I can’t stay away from you, you know that.” The man explained, miserably. “I miss you all the time.” He lifted his head then, and I caught a glimpse of his profile. A dusting of dark hair brushed a strong jaw and a small, neat nose. Had I seen him before? I wasn’t sure. He wore a short sleeved T-shirt which revealed muscled arms with a smattering of dark hair. “Don’t you miss me? This is driving me fucking crazy, Cas.”

“I told you not to come,” said Caspien.

“Cas, he’s gone for the whole weekend. A whole weekend alone. How could I resist?”

“I’m not alone,” Caspien huffed. “If anyone sees you here, and they tell him, how will you explain it?”

The man laughed. “I’ll tell him you seduced me. That I had not a hope in hell of resisting you.” He reached up and kissed him then, and Caspien visibly softened in his arms.

I felt as though I had been slapped, hard. My face stung, and I backed out of the room. As I turned, my elbow banged against the sideboard and rattled the antique birdcage on top. I bit back the yelp of pain, scurried across to the music room and hid myself up behind a large sideboard near the door. Here, I crouched, pulling my knees up to my chin and making myself as small as I could.

Outside the room, footsteps grew closer, and then the sound of the door opening, lights flicking on.

For some idiotic reason, I squeezed my eyes closed. This was stupid. Why didn’t I hide somewhere else? Why didn’t I run back to the car? Then I could have told Luke that some grown man was kissing and touching Caspien.

I knew it wasn’t right. I knew it then, and I know it now.

I opened my eyes to find Caspien in front of me, staring at me. He looked furious. But more than that, he looked...frightened.

Before I could say anything, he turned on his heel, walked back out of the door, and flicked the light out as he went.