I woke up miserable and slightly shocked I’d been able to sleep at all, with all the crying and raging and soul-searching I’d been doing. But unconsciousness and a small amount of distance had calmed me down.
Yes, Caspian had been, to put it bluntly, a dickhead. But we’d been having a very intense conversation and he’d probably felt exposed and pounced on, and—in any case—I shouldn’t have reacted by trashing the place like I was Keith Moon. And while part of me really didn’t want to be dependent on Caspian’s generosity in the middle of a fight, it seemed a bit off to throw up my hands and run away immediately.
Not that I didn’t want to. Right now, I would have preferred to be pretty much anywhere than One Hyde Park, including with my family up in Kinlochbervie. But, even putting aside my lack of relationship experience, it seemed pretty fucking obvious that being in the same country was likely a major factor in resolving romantic conflict.
And, hopefully, waking up somewhere across the city—actually, he’d probably already woken up and been at work for sixty-seven hours—Caspian was reaching the same conclusion. The drug dealer phone was almost out of juice because I hadn’t bothered to charge it last night, but a quick check revealed no messages. My thumb hovered over sending one myself, but in the end I didn’t.
He’d started the argument. He could start the peace negotiations.
Although, by three o’clock, I was starting to think that maybe he wouldn’t—and we’d be locked in unending, unacknowledged conflict, like he was Russia and I was Berwick-upon-Tweed. Or, more likely, he would simply send Bellerose to evict me and that would be the end of everything.
The rest of the afternoon dribbled away. Still no word from Caspian.
Several messages from Nik though—and a picture of him shirtless, about to drink a cappuccino, which stopped the day from being 100 percent abysmal, and got it down to a mere 94 percent utter shite.
I had no idea what Caspian was thinking. But maybe he had no idea what I was thinking either. If I’d secretly entertained fantasies of groveling apologies and kissing at the airport while random strangers applauded, the cleaner had put paid to them. Honestly, at this point, I would have settled for a text.
When none came in by bedtime, I’d circled back to the get-the-hell-out-of-Dodge plan. Possibly I was being petty and who contacted who wasn’t important…but no matter how reasonable I tried to force myself to be, it still felt important.
I mean, what was I doing here? What did he want from me—if he wouldn’t trust me, wouldn’t believe me, wouldn’t fucking pick up the phone and call me?
Miserably, I began packing my stuff. It took longer than I expected because it turned out I’d been colonizing. And, while One Hyde Park still intimidated the shit out me, I’d managed to accrue a fair few good memories. That evening with Nik. Eating the Pocky Caspian had bought me. Caspian’s hands on me, when he’d lost control and touched me like I was real. The times I’d made him laugh. The times he’d listened to me.
Gah.
No more crying, Arden.
I crawled into bed and set an alarm for nasty-early—it was going to take the best part of a day to get back home, unless I flew, which wasn’t exactly in my budget, given my income of nothing-a-month. But it was better than hanging around here, waiting for Caspian to decide whether he still wanted me or not. Once again, I didn’t expect to sleep much but I must have dropped off because I was woken up again a few hours later by…
Sounds in the apartment?
My first, hopeful thought was that Caspian had finally come to talk to me. At 4:00 a.m.
Oh shit. There was no way it was him.
Which meant there was someone else here. The cleaners? Surely not at this hour. Was it a burglary? A home invasion? The revolution? Was I about to be executed as a presumed minor dictator or Russian oligarch?
I spasmed into a sitting position. Fuck fuck fuck. I’d left my mobile in the study and the drug dealer phone in the sitting area, so I couldn’t even ring someone. The police or the front desk or the private security company Bellerose had mentioned.
Probably my best option involved diving under the bed and waiting until the thieves…invaders…assassins…zombies had gone but if the noises they were making were anything to go by, it didn’t seem as if they were leaving anytime soon.
Also, once I started paying proper attention, they weren’t particularly aggressive noises. More…laughy-talky-drinky noises.
Right.
Nothing for it.
I was going to have to go out there.
I took a deep breath, de-cocooned myself, and glanced around for something I could use as a weapon. Unfortunately, the closest thing to hand was my Lelo Billy and that probably wasn’t going to do the job. Unless I intended to scare them off with my liberated approach to self-pleasure.
There were various designer knickknacks elegantly positioned here and there about the bedroom—not actual possessions, such as ordinary humans owned, so much as things that looked good and matched the décor—but I wasn’t sure if I’d feel any safer wielding a…was it a vase? Or a candleholder?
Well. Okay then.
I slipped into the corridor and headed for the receiving room.
Where I found a bunch of strangers making themselves very at home. Sprawled over the sofas I still hesitated to touch. Splashing champagne over the exquisitely simple, clotted cream rug I feared to put my feet on. Prepping lines on the pristine glass of the scary designer coffee table.
I felt like Bilbo Baggins if the dwarves had come to Play ’n’ Party.
“Um,” I said, taking control of the situation.
Silence fell.
A slight figure—a mere shadow against the floor-to-ceiling windows—turned, bottle and cigarette balanced in the same hand with effortless expertise. Regarded me for a long moment, before asking in this husky, lazy voice: “Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m…I’m Arden. Caspian said I could stay here.”
Her eyes were the oddest shade, not quite blue, not quite green, cold and contrary and…oddly familiar. I wished I was wearing slightly more than a pair of boxers. “Why would he do that?”
“We…he…” What the hell was I supposed to say? I couldn’t imagine Caspian being particularly happy if I disclosed our probably already defunct whatever-it-was to random people who had somehow got into his building. “We’re friends, I guess.”
“My brother doesn’t have friends.”
Oh. Oh. “Sorry, he didn’t tell me he had a sister.”
“Google me.” She lifted the bottle with a clanking of bracelets and took a swig, bubbles running down her arm and splashing onto the floor.
I tried not to wring my hands in dismay. It wasn’t my rug or my champagne, but after Rosegate, I really didn’t want to be responsible for any further damage. “You know Caspian’s not here, right?”
“Right.” She threw herself down on the sofa, slamming a motorcycle-booted foot onto the table, where one of her friends was still faffing about with his drugs. “Fuck. I want some music.”
I wondered if I would ever have made the connection if she hadn’t told me. I could trace some similarities to Caspian, maybe, in her coloring and the cast of her features, but it was probably confirmation bias. She was nothing like her brother at all. My age, possibly a year or two younger, as careless as he was controlled. Striking, though, with her smoky eyes and her long, coltish legs in their torn fishnets. Her look seemed to be pissed off and messed up, as if she’d rolled out of bed and into her clothes.
“Then what are you doing here?” I asked a little plaintively.
The problem with pseudo-housesitting was not really knowing what the boundaries were. How far to make yourself at home. Was it my responsibility to make sure people I didn’t know didn’t cut coke on Caspian’s furniture? Was I supposed to be welcoming his sister or throwing her out?
“Needed somewhere to crash.”
“Um. Okay. So I’ll just go back to bed then?”
“Stay if you like. This is—” And she reeled off a list of names I wasn’t in any state to remember.
I gave the group a halfhearted wave. Thankfully, they were mostly unconscious, distracted, or making out in that desultory postparty way.
“I’m Ellery, by the way.”
“Nice to meet you.” And, with a desperate attempt to be a good host: “Do you need anything?”
“Never. I like your tattoo.”
I looked down in this idiotic way. As if I’d forgotten it was there. “Thanks.”
She pulled her legs up and swung herself over the back of the sofa. It was a move that took a certain amount of confidence—or fucklessness—to attempt, especially in a very tiny tank dress. Though mainly I was worried about the marks her boots were leaving on the cream and gold cushions.
When she was close enough, she traced the letters that were visible over the low-hanging waist of my boxers. “What’s it say?”
“Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time.”
“I like these too.” Her fingers came up to tug my nipple rings.
She was about my height. I was so used to looking up at people that it was a bit disorientating to have someone else’s eyes be inescapable. Hers had an almost hypnotic quality. Or maybe I was just searching for Caspian. I very gently removed her hands. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t think my brother fucked younger men.”
That was information I absolutely did not need. “I’m definitely going to bed now.”
She shrugged. “’Kay.”
Needless to say, sleeping was well and truly borked now. A combination of noise from outside—some of which was definitely fucking—and general anxiety. About Caspian. About Ellery. About going home. About what the hell I was doing with my life.
My alarm went off a couple of hours later and I felt so completely rotten that I decided to give myself an extra five minutes in bed. And then woke up again at midday. I pulled on clothes, just in case I still had guests, but while the main reception room showed rather brutal signs of its previous occupation—broken glasses, empty bottles, champagne rings, traces of cocaine on the coffee table, and something that looked like a used condom curled up on the floor like a smooshed slug—it was definitely empty now. Glancing round, somewhat despairingly, I felt like the hapless host in an American teen comedy after the mandatory party-gone-wrong scene.
Probably I was a spoiled brat for even thinking it but: where were the cleaners? Urgh. There was nothing for it except to get to work myself.
Which was how Caspian found me. On my hands and knees on that amazingly soft and beautiful rug, trying to blot up the worst of the stains with warm water and washing up liquid.
“Arden.” His voice, utterly unexpected right then, made me flinch like he’d struck me. “What are you doing?”
I sat up with a yelp. “I…uh…there was…I didn’t mean…”
“Why haven’t you called the cleaning company?”
“Oh. I…I didn’t think of that.”
I pushed the hair out of my eyes with the inside of my wrist, feeling sweaty and sticky and as messed up as the room. All the more so with Caspian standing over me, looking flawless and majestic and sleek in a black suit of the sort of terrifying simplicity you only got when a garment cost more than, say, a car. Against such austerity, his eyes were devastatingly blue, and for a moment I couldn’t quite believe this stunning, ice sculpture of a man had been inside me.
Had once gasped and moaned for me.
Tangled his hands helplessly in my hair.
Made me feel special.
I could, however, definitely believe I hadn’t existed for him the past couple of days.
“Call them,” he told me. In his non-fun ordering-me-about voice.
“Oh, well, I don’t really want to bother—”
“It’s their job. It’s what they’re there for.” He stepped past me, shoes clicking on the marble floor. “Now where’s Eleanor?”
“Who?”
“Don’t cover for her.”
“I’m not. I don’t—” But I was protesting to his back.
“Eleanor.” He wasn’t quite shouting but he definitely sounded…exasperated. “I know you’re here.”
“Yeah, I’m here.” Ellery came into the room, still in last night’s clothes, with the same skillfully mussed hair and smudged eyes. “If I didn’t want you to find me, your own house would be a dumb place to hide.”
“You missed your appointment.”
She shrugged. “I’m bored of counseling.”
“Then you should cancel, rather than simply failing to turn up. You’re not a child.”
“So don’t talk to me like I am.”
Well this was awkward. I didn’t want to be in the middle of it, but I also didn’t know how to leave without drawing attention to myself. Don’t mind me, guys, just squeezing past your familial dysfunctionality.
“Eleanor—”
“It’s Ellery.”
Caspian’s back was rigid. And even though he’d been a total dick to me and apparently not even thought about apologizing, I imagined being able to touch him. Ease him. “We haven’t heard from you since yesterday morning. Mother was worried.”
“That’s her problem.”
Wow. It was Alien versus Predator over there.
“I’ll let her know where you are,” Caspian was saying, “and that you’re all right. And I’ve had your session rescheduled for this afternoon.”
“I told you, I’m done with that.”
“No, you said you were bored. That’s not the same thing. You should go.”
Ellery’s jewelry jingled as her hands flew up and then down again, disappearing behind her back. Caspian probably didn’t even notice but I did: that hint of restlessness, uncertainty, a crack in her sullen defiance. “Well, I can’t.”
“You will go to counseling, Eleanor, if I have to drag you there by the hair.”
I shivered. He sounded like he meant it. Implacable and without warmth. I’d seen that in him before, even felt it a little when he’d turned on me the other night, but it had never been like this. With me, it had always been banked, tempered by care and the promise of heat in his eyes. For his sister, there was only a blank chill.
I would have been a distraught pile on the floor, but Ellery just rolled her eyes. “Like I’d let you anywhere near my hair. And, anyway, what part of I can’t aren’t you getting?”
“The part where I give a damn.”
It hung there for a moment like an icicle and then Ellery shrugged. “Tough. Because I’m going out with…with him.”
Me?
“You’re what?” I wasn’t sure if I’d spoken or Caspian. Maybe it was both of us.
“Yeah. We’re going shopping.”
I glanced nervously between them. Caspian was very still and very pale. And probably very angry.
Despite being an only child and growing up in town with a population of about four hundred, I wasn’t an idiot. I could see what was going on here and I wasn’t mad keen on being a nonconsensual participant in a sibling power game.
I stared at Caspian desperately. If he’d looked at me, given any sign of remembering I was there—of remembering I wasn’t just a less effective alternative to a cleaning company—I wouldn’t have agreed.
But he gave me nothing. As usual.
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
And that got his attention. Not in a good way. But before he had a chance to respond, Ellery had pulled me out of the room.