Chapter 353 P.M.—The Button Manor
Anwar Shah had been dismissed from the Button Manor forty-five minutes ago but, for two reasons, hadn’t left yet. The first of those reasons was Bilal Button.
Right now, Anwar should have been on a five-hour train back to his parents’ house in Boston, where they were preparing a celebration dinner for him for later that evening.
He wasn’t even sure his Prodigy of the Year award existed anymore, considering the circumstances, and the dinner was a celebration he didn’t even want to have.
For one, Anwar wasn’t really the celebratory type—he barely even celebrated his own birthday.
And two, it felt wrong to celebrate anything when someone had been killed.
Instead of being at home with his relatives having this morbid celebration, he was still in New York at the Button Manor during an ongoing murder investigation—of his ex-boyfriend’s father, of all people—engaged in a very steamy make-out session with said infuriating ex-boyfriend.
It was all very strange. Anwar wasn’t quite sure how he’d even got in here.
One minute he was being dismissed by the police, no longer a suspect, safe to return back to his normal life.
The next he was sneaking away and making a beeline back inside the Manor.
He decided he would search for Bilal, wanting to bid him farewell before leaving for good since, after their disastrous conversation that morning in the Manor’s basement, he was pretty certain that Bilal would never want to talk to him again.
So he’d quietly knocked on Bilal’s door expecting the worst, but the next thing he knew, Bilal was dragging him into his bedroom and kissing him.
Just like he’d done last night.
Anwar wasn’t sure how that had happened either. He’d been working up the courage to say hi to Bilal all night, and then when he finally had, it wasn’t long before Bilal was asking Anwar to come back to the Manor with him.
Not that Anwar was really complaining. This was a welcomed distraction from the awfulness of today.
The past twenty-four hours had been the most contact he’d had with the fencer in months. After a year of being together, he and Bilal had broken up several months ago, ending their relationship in the most amicable way any two people could choose to break up.
It had started with a conversation about how long distance clearly wasn’t working for either of them, with Anwar living five hours away and Bilal never being free to hang out whenever Anwar was in New York City.
The fencer spent his days and nights training, no time for rest or distractions.
The last thing Anwar wanted was to be an unsupportive boyfriend or be the thing holding Olympic gold medalist Bilal Button back from his massive career.
So for the sake of them both, he had been the one to suggest that maybe they were better off as friends.
And to his disappointment, Bilal did not fight him on it; instead he nodded and agreed that that was what they would be from there on.
Friends.
By Bilal’s definition, it was perfectly normal to ignore your friend for eight and a half months.
Their breakup had been the last time they had spoken.
Anwar was pretty sure Bilal had deleted his phone number, seeing as the other boy wasted no time with unfollowing him on every social media platform he could find and pretending not to notice him whenever they ended up at the same events, such as the YSASFBM (the Young South Asians Symposium for Brilliant Minds) event four months ago where Bilal had flat-out avoided him.
Anwar was almost certain that Bilal had no idea what being someone’s friend actually was. Because if he did, they wouldn’t be here right now on Bilal’s bed, not behaving like friends at all.
Up until last night, Anwar had assumed that Bilal hated him. But if the way Bilal was kissing him was any indication of how he felt, it was obvious that the fencer couldn’t hate him that much. Maybe they had something akin to friendship after all—in Bilal’s mind, anyway.
“Ow,” Bilal muttered, breaking their kiss momentarily.
“Are you okay?” Anwar asked, looking up at Bilal, who was hovering over him.
“It’s just my leg, it’s fine,” Bilal said, shifting forward a little to adjust his position before reconnecting their lips without another word.
Anwar’s fingers were tangled in the endless mass of Bilal’s black curls. The fencer’s hair had always been Anwar’s favorite feature of his … That, and many other things.
Anwar felt one of Bilal’s hands slide down to his waist, pulling them impossibly close to each other, so close that Anwar could feel the other boy’s heartbeat. Bilal’s other hand cupped the side of his face, kissing him desperately as though he was scared to let go and lose Anwar forever.
You don’t have to lose me. You could fight for me if you wanted, Anwar wanted to say but never would. It was pointless; Bilal was stubborn and his walls were impossible to penetrate.
Just then the sound of a duck quacking filled the room, startling Bilal, who pulled away from Anwar once again, his eyes wide with alarm.
“What was that?” Bilal asked, searching the large room for any sign of a nearby duck.
Something vibrated in Anwar’s pocket and he pushed himself up onto his elbows.
“It’s just my phone, Billy.” Amusement coated his words as he reached into his pocket and pulled the quacking device out.
On the screen were texts from his mom, his dad, and his older sister, Aisha.
He’d put his phone on a temporary do not disturb, and it seemed his time was now up.
Mom: How long until you arrive?
Mom: Your cousins are starting to turn up and everyone’s asking for you!
Dad: Mom wants to know how close you are, she’s really excited
Dad: We are ALL really excited, I should say—call us when you get this
Aisha: Mom says you haven’t been answering her calls. Are you with that boy again?
Aisha: For an apparent genius, you aren’t very good at making smart decisions.
Anwar had to refrain from rolling his eyes at the last message from his older sister.
Once he’d escaped from the Manor that morning after his embarrassing run-in with the Buttons at breakfast, Anwar had taken a quick taxi to Aisha’s apartment in Queens to change out of his suit from the ball.
There, he had told her briefly about the events of last night and she had called him an array of colorful terms.
He ignored her messages and instead began devising another lie to his mom and dad.
Anwar had been lying to his parents since that morning. Really, he’d been lying to them since last night. The first lie had been when he’d told them he was staying at his sister’s place in New York City for the night so it would be easier to travel into Westchester for the brunch today.
His second lie had been telling them that the brunch was still happening and that he was delayed in leaving the Manor because he needed to file some paperwork for his Prodigy of the Year win and collect his trophy.
His biggest lie, though, was the lie he told them about Mr. Button.
Anwar’s parents did not know that Mr. Button was dead. And he planned on keeping it that way for as long as he could. So much so that he’d even asked his sister not to mention it.
It was easier to conceal the truth from his parents than he’d thought it would be.
Since he’d turned eighteen two months ago, he wasn’t required to bring a guardian with him to the ball and had attended by himself.
He hadn’t known that he was going to win the award last night, and was thankful for that, otherwise he might have been more inclined to bring his mom or dad.
Them not being there meant that neither of his parents were invited to the Manor for the brunch this morning, or for the subsequent police questioning, and were able to live in blissful ignorance for the time being.
Thankfully his parents were so busy preparing for this last-minute celebration dinner that they probably hadn’t even turned on the news yet.
He’d know by now if they had. His dad would have probably come knocking down the gates of the Button Estate as soon as he heard.
Anwar was relieved that they didn’t yet know, as it would only worry them; murder had the tendency to incite worry and fear in parents.
Anwar felt bad as he begun typing out another lie.
He hardly ever lied to his parents. They were his best friends and his biggest supporters.
They’d always supported his hopes and dreams, even when they couldn’t afford them.
And they’d been over the moon when he’d called them last night and told them about the award and all it entailed.
The cash prize alone would change his and his parents’ lives.
Somehow in the span of only a few hours, they had organized to have his cousins and aunties who lived nearby come over this evening to celebrate.
Their house would be slowly filling up with relatives at this point, waiting for his arrival later in the day.
He had several missed calls from his relatives in India, wanting to congratulate him on all of his achievements.
It would be an understatement to say that this was a very big deal for the Shah family.
Anwar didn’t want to tell them the truth yet. That this thing they were looking forward to was probably no longer happening. He didn’t want to break their hearts.
“Do you have to go?” Bilal asked, breaking Anwar’s thoughts and staring down at him with his big brown eyes. His eyes that looked so … so broken.
Anwar hadn’t noticed it before, just how wrecked Bilal truly looked.
And of course, it made sense. His father had just died—and not only that, his father had been killed.
That was a lot for any person to take on their own.
Bilal needed someone, and more than anything, Anwar wanted to be that someone for Bilal.
He quickly sent his reply to his parents.