LAUREN

 

 

We decided to leave my car at my parents’ house, and instead, we travelled in Gabe’s old jeep for the three and a half hour drive it would take to reach his father’s holiday house. As we reached the outskirts of the pristine town littered with fancy houses, quaint cafés and people with too much money, Gabe’s fingers drummed against the steering wheel.

“You okay?” I asked, noting that he suddenly couldn’t keep still.

Gabe flashed a smile. “I just haven’t been home in a while. I guess I’m a little nervous. Not really sure why.”

I lifted an eyebrow and Gabe laughed. “Okay, so maybe I know why. Dad and I haven’t always exactly seen eye to eye on things, and Tyler and I have never seen eye to eye.”

“Tell me about them,” I said, reaching over to still his jiggling knee. “You’ve barely said a word about your other brothers. What are they like?”

“Tyler is an arsehole.”

“Really?” I asked, a faint smile crossing my lips.

“Really,” Gabe confirmed seriously. “He thinks he’s perfect and he struts around as though he owns the world. And of course, he thinks I’m useless. They all think I’m useless.” His head tilted to one side. “Well, not Jake. I guess it’s just Tyler and Dad. They are too much alike. Rich men who think they own everything and everyone.”

I shook my head. “I’m getting confused. Tyler is the eldest, right?”

“Right,” Gabe confirmed. “He and Jake are from Dad’s first marriage. They are a lot older than me and I didn’t really have too much to do with them growing up because Dad sent them away to some fancy boarding school that breeds rich young upstarts.”

“You’re not a fan, I take it?”

Gabe snorted. “You could say that.”

“How much older?” I asked.

Gabe lifted his shoulders as he turned the jeep down a side street. “Tyler’s thirty-two, I think, and Jake’s like twenty-six or twenty-seven.” He frowned. “Maybe older.”

“So they’re around my age then?”

Gabe grinned. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“And Jake?”

“He’s alright. I mean, out of the two of them, Jake’s the one I actually like. That’s the reason I’m going home, just to see him.”

“Okay,” I said, bringing my hand up and beginning to count on my fingers. “Tyler is an arsehole, your dad is like Tyler, and Jake is alright. Am I forgetting anyone?”

“Billie.”

“Billie? You’ve got another brother?”

“Billie is Dad’s latest wife. They’ve been married about five years, I guess.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What’s she like?”

“Billie?” Gabe chewed on his bottom lip. “She’s Billie. You’ll see. In fact, you’ll see a lot.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked as Gabe pulled into a steep driveway.

Gabe just grinned. “We’re here.”

I’m not sure what I was expecting but a garage at the end of a short but steep driveway was not it. The remainder of the house stretched beyond the garage, hidden from view. Of the parts that were visible, a corner there, a strip here, they showed nothing but panels of glass and exterior walls covered in schist rock.

Hamish Thornton was one of the wealthiest people I knew. Not that I really knew him, but I knew of him. Everyone knew of him. He owned so many properties both here, at home, in the city, and possibly all over the country. For all I knew, he had holdings overseas as well. The latest property being developed under his company was the city’s first casino. Protests over its construction had been featured on the news, my mother joining the march.

Although my first impression of the house was underwhelming, it didn’t last long. Gabe opened the door and stepped out of the jeep, jerking his head for me to follow. “We’ll grab our bags later. I want to give you the grand tour before they arrive home.”

“They aren’t here to greet you?”

Gabe shook his head and reached for my hand, dragging me through the garage into the house. We were greeted by a long white hallway with framed photographs along the wall. Each of them was a family portrait, the first showing Mr Thornton, his first wife who stood regally beside him, and two smiling boys with mops of dark hair. One of the boys was smiling politely, and the other appeared to have just finished saying the word ‘cheese,’ his mouth open and an over exaggerated grin plastered on his face. As we walked down the hallway, the pictures changed as the two boys got older, until, about half way down, the mother in the first picture disappeared, and was replaced by a smiling blonde woman in flowing skirts and a baby in her arms. This picture was less formal than the previous ones, having been shot at a beach, the light shining in from the side, and the lady’s head resting on the shoulder of Hamish Thornton lovingly.

“Is that your mum?” I asked, thinking of the woman I had briefly met at the hospital.

Gabe reached out and traced the lines of his mother’s face. “She looks so happy here, don’t you think?” He squeezed my hand tightly. “It’s hard to even think of them together. They are so different.”

Gabe tugged me further along the wall, stopping at the next photograph which was taken in a studio with perfect lighting, a staged background and formally posed stances. The two dark haired boys were older and sported serious smiles, hinting at their resistance of being made to pose for the family portrait. The baby was now a young boy and there was a toddler in the mix. A beautiful, blond haired, smiling angel of a boy with his hands on his hips and a wide smile that scrunched the rest of his face so you almost couldn’t see his eyes.

“And then came Gabe,” Gabe said proudly, looking at the photo and mimicking the exact same grin.

“You were so cute!” I let go of his hand and stepped to examine it closer.

“Were?” Gabe asked, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind and resting his chin on my shoulder.

I turned in his arms, squeezed his cheeks together and planted a firm kiss on his puckered lips. “You’re still alright, I guess.”

Gabe talked with his cheeks still mushed between my hands, his words coming out mumbled and distorted. “Dad was so pissed about this photo. I remember him telling me in no uncertain terms how I had to stand, how I had to smile, but each time the photographer counted down, I pulled this expression. In the end, they just gave up and took the picture.”

We continued down the never-ending hall as the boys grew. The smiling face of Gabe’s mother faded until she disappeared altogether. After that, I noticed Gabe’s smile faded too.

Gabe stopped at the second to last photo. “This one was taken three years ago. It’s the only one of all of us, the only one that will ever exist of all of us.”

I studied the photo, barely noticing the new woman draped by Mr Thornton’s side. It was the four boys which struck me. The dark and the light of them. Gabe looked so much like his older brother, Clark. He had his arm slung over his shoulder even though the style of the photo demanded formality, and he had this sort of half grin, one side of his mouth sloping upwards, the other laying still. Clark had the same expression as though it were a mirrored reflection.

The lack of the two smiling blond boys in the final image stood out starkly. Tyler and Jake stood tall and straight, their dark hair and handsome faces unsmiling and dressed in dark suits standing beside Hamish and his wife. The photo was taken outside, a casual snap of a shutter rather than a poised stage.

Gabe cleared his throat. “It was taken at Clark’s funeral. I refused to be in it. I was so pissed Dad insisted on taking a family photo. It was outside the fucking church for god’s sake.”

We stood in silence looking at everything the photo didn’t say. Something seemed familiar about Billie, Gabe’s step-mother, but her face was slightly shielded by the shadow caused by her large brimmed hat, and I couldn’t make out why I felt like I knew her.   

Gabe tugged on my hand. “Come on,” he said. “I want to show you the house.”

Gabe led me through every room, and I stared in wonder at the detailed decoration. I felt like I was walking through a showroom rather than a holiday home. The walls were covered in massive paintings that stretched from floor to ceiling, some of them captivating, others making you wonder what the artist had been on while creating them. Gabe narrated the tour with mock reverence.

“And here we have yet another room with stark white walls, accented with off-white tones, and an overly big white table with plush white chairs, just to mix it up a little.” We moved through the dining area and stood at the base of a large staircase that led to the upper level. “And if you would be ever so kind as to raise your eyes upwards, you will notice the masterpiece that is Billie.”

At the top of the stairs the wall was dominated by a portrait of a naked woman lying on her stomach on a white bed, deep pink silk draped in just the right places, breasts slightly exposed, toned and tanned legs bent at the knees and held in the air, ankles crossed, staring seductively into the lens of the camera. Recognition rippled through me.

“Holy shit.”

Gabe crossed his arms and grinned up at the portrait. “I know, right? I told you you’d see a lot of her.”

“No,” I said, walking up the first steps of the staircase. “Holy shit, I know her. We went to school together.” I turned back to him, looking him directly in the eye. “You are dating someone the same age as your step-mother.”

Gabe threw his head back and laughed.

“It’s not funny, Gabe!” I exclaimed. I was already regretting coming here. Willa, short for Wilhelmina as she was known back then, was someone I was never close to in school, but that didn’t negate the fact that we were in the same year, and shared the same classes. I never knew what happened to her after we finished school, to be honest, I never cared. Willa had always been so sure of herself, so embedded with self-confidence she had been someone I couldn’t help but despise. Somewhere along the line, I heard she had got a modelling contract, but I never knew if it were true or not.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I wailed, looking back at the oversized portrait of Willa/Billie which seemed to have grown even larger.

“Nonsense,” Gabe said. “Think of it as my father married someone the same age as his son’s girlfriend, rather than the other way around. The girl is nearly thirty years younger than him. They’re the ones who should be embarrassed, not us.” He started walking up the stairs. “Would it help if we had sex in their bed?”

My eyes flew wide. “No! That would not help one little bit.”

Gabe’s eyes twinkled as he walked back down the few steps and stood alarmingly close. “What about the stairs then?”

“Gabe,” I warned as he moved closer and began to nuzzle my neck. Despite my abhorrence at his suggestion, the familiar warmth began to tug between my legs. I took a step back, tearing myself away from his lips which felt so good, so soft and so seductive on my skin. “Gabe, no,” I said firmly to his smirking face.

“They won’t be home for a while yet. Please?” He pouted playfully and I slapped away the hand which had reached out to stroke my breast.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I frowned at him. “I don’t want the first meeting with your father and step-mother to be one when I’m naked.”

“Oh, go on,” he teased. “Then you and Billie will be on even ground.”

“Haha,” I said dryly.

“But what am I going to do about this?” Gabe looked down at the bulge in his pants.

“You can sort that yourself.”

Gabe sucked in a breath and whistled, his mouth somehow still showing the hint of a smirk. “Harsh. I seem to remember someone being rather horny at her parents’ house.”

“That was completely different.”

Gabe lifted a single eyebrow, something I was momentarily distracted by as it came off sexual.

“It was three in the morning, everyone was asleep and it was private.”

“Right,” Gabe said, drawing the word out and turning to walk back down the stairs.

“Hey,” I said, stepping after him. “Where are you going?”

Gabe, having reached the bottom of the stairs, turned around but continued walking backwards. “You said to sort it myself.” He shrugged and blew me a kiss as he disappeared into the next room.