Forty-Four #3
Ignoring his mother’s crestfallen expression, he stalked out of the room. As he ascended the stairs, he kept one hand braced on the railing and the other pressed on his pounding head.
Julian had just reached the threshold of his bedroom when he realized Christabel was following him. He turned, the air thick
between them. In the half-light seeping in from the hallway, her blue eyes gleamed.
They landed on his bed, her mouth hot against his. Julian shoved her sundress up over her hips and fumbled with the clasp
of her bra, fingers clumsy from the wine. Christabel let out an impatient sigh and unclasped the bra herself.
“You’ve gotten less competent in your time away,” she huffed, tugging down his pants and straddling him.
He grunted a wordless reply as Christabel worked to unbutton his shirt. Her hair fell loosely over her shoulders; Julian grasped
it in his fist and jerked her mouth to his.
All of it was so easy, expected. Julian knew exactly how she would moan, how she would dig her nails into his shoulder when
he first pressed his fingers between her thighs. The faint pricking of pain bled through his numbness.
Christabel pushed him flat against the mattress. Julian reached for the drawer on his bedside table and dug out a condom.
Christabel lowered herself onto him.
Briefly, Julian closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he didn’t see Christabel anymore. Her skin had paled, her hair
had darkened, her pink lips had turned a rich and deep red. He saw gray eyes, curls spilling down her back. Her breasts heaved
beneath his hands, full and sweet. The soft mewling sounds that came from her mouth made his groin tighten and his heart race,
heady with victory. It was indecently satisfying to think that he could tease those sounds out of Klaudia’s mouth, that he could make her whimper and moan and want him, too.
When he came, it was Klaudia’s face that burned his vision, Klaudia’s voice that brushed the shell of his ear.
Christabel crawled off him and perched on the edge of the bed. She smoothed her dress and clasped her bra. Julian pushed himself
up onto his elbows, pulse pounding.
“And what is Blake going to think about that?” he asked, even though it was cruel. Maybe because it was cruel.
“We’ll see. He’s supposed to be picking me up.”
There was a note of challenge in Christabel’s voice. She wanted him to be jealous. Once upon a time he might’ve been.
Now Julian just scoffed and said, “Wow, I’m quaking in my boots. Is he coming here alone to defend your honor, or is he bringing
the crew team, too?”
Christabel’s face crumpled. “You’re such an ass.”
She rose from the bed and stormed out of the room. Julian lay back, squeezing his eyes shut.
When he came back downstairs, the plates had been cleared and the mood was subdued. Christabel had taken the empty seat beside
her mother, gaze tearful. Mr. Downing and his father were chatting quietly. Mrs. Downing was staring down at the table, as
if trying to commit the grain of its wood to memory.
Feeling slightly more sober and wanting to avoid a confrontation with Blake, Julian announced that he and Landon were going
to a last-minute concert at the Fens. It was such a bad lie that he was sure he would be caught out, but the adults had polished
off three bottles of wine between them and no one had the presence of mind to prod his story for holes.
Landon immediately jumped to his feet, looking grateful. Just as the two of them turned to go, Mrs. Downing grasped Julian’s
wrist.
“You’ll get him home safely?” she asked quietly.
“Of course,” Julian said.
With a soft sigh, Mrs. Downing released him. Julian cast one last glance at his parents. At his father, who didn’t even look
up. At his mother, who was nursing her fifth glass of wine.
Suddenly it all seemed so inane. The juvenile little game he played with Christabel. His childish desperation to please his
father. Even his futile efforts to hold his mother together. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
Julian stalked out of the house and into the cool dimness of the garage, Landon at his heels.
They passed his father’s Rolls-Royce and his mother’s Land Rover before reaching his Porsche. Cafferty had been concerned
about the optics and advised him to get a Cadillac, a “nice American car,” at least for the duration of the election. But
he had wanted the stupid Porsche. Julian couldn’t recall why it had ever mattered so much.
He hadn’t driven it since the week before his arrest. As soon as he put the key in the ignition, Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without
a Pause” blared from the speakers. Julian winced and turned it down.
Landon climbed into the passenger seat. The garage door whirred open. In another moment they were out, onto the dark, gusty
Boston streets.
Julian drove in silence for a while, listlessly circling the neighborhood. He felt devoid of any will, any desire. He could
only feel the hum of the car’s engine through his grip on the steering wheel.
Landon, who had been staring out the window, suddenly turned to him and said, “I got expelled.”
“What?”
“They started drug testing the lacrosse team. Some kid from Andover was juicing.”
“Shit.”
“My dad wanted to kick me out. My mom convinced him to send me to rehab. I leave tomorrow.”
“Shit.”
That explained Mrs. Downing’s quiet despondence, and Mr. Downing’s compensatory effusiveness. Julian chewed the inside of
his mouth. He had always seen himself as Landon’s caretaker, protecting him from his worst impulses. In his absence, Landon
had spun out.
So Julian said nothing when Landon removed a bag of white powder from his pocket. He watched the road as Landon inhaled, groaned,
and spluttered.
“Might as well make the most of my last night,” he said.
Julian slowed at a yellow light, directional ticking. His mind was utterly empty.
Several more minutes passed in silence. Julian came to the cross streets that separated Back Bay from the rest of Boston.
After a beat of hesitation, he drove through them, exiting the neighborhood.
“Dude,” Landon said, his voice a hoarse wheeze, “I can’t believe you actually met Chane. What’s he like in real life?”
“Insipid.” Julian’s gaze flickered toward Landon and then back to the road. “Wait, how did you know I met him?”
Landon took out his phone and opened the web browser. He mumbled inaudibly to himself as he typed something in the search
bar, then held out the phone to Julian.
Pausing at a stoplight, Julian glanced over.
It was a rather seedy-looking blog post, titled who hates chane renier-BOTHA more?
the wage slaves in his factories, or his hairdresser?
They had posted several grainy photos of him from the gala, clearly trying to smear Chane by revealing his association with
such a disreputable character as Julian Joyce-Young III.
Julian took the phone from Landon and scrolled down.
Some furtive photographer had managed to capture a single moment of intimacy between him and Klaudia: his hand brushing the small of her back, her arm around his shoulder, their fingers laced together.
The shot was in profile, over the heads of the other guests, and slightly blurry—but it caught the glow of Klaudia’s pale skin against her dark hair, the graceful line of her neck, and . . .
The faintest smile on her face. He remembered how the worried hesitation in her eyes had melted into pleasure as he drew her
onto the dance floor, holding her close, feeling the flutter of her breath and the answering spike in his pulse.
Klaudia had been right; photos from the gala had leaked. She had been right about everything.
Except, evidently, about trusting him.
Landon was saying something. Julian blinked out of his reverie.
“. . . doesn’t really look like your type, though.” A lazy smirk came over Landon’s face. He scrutinized the photo again.
“Maybe from the neck down.”
Julian grasped the steering wheel and swerved to the nearest curb, then slammed his foot on the brake. The car lurched to
a halt. “Get out.”
Landon’s jaw went slack. “What?”
“Get out,” Julian said. When Landon continued to stare at him in blank shock, Julian reached over and unbuckled Landon’s seat
belt. He leaned far enough to catch the door handle on Landon’s side and thrust the door open. “Get out.”
“Julian—”
“Get out,” Julian repeated, voice shaking.
Landon, looking dazed and already halfway through his high, rose unsteadily from his seat and stumbled onto the curb. He managed
to balance himself against a streetlamp before he fell.
Julian slammed the door shut after him. He hunched over in his seat, bracing his arms on the steering wheel, and stared at
Landon’s phone in his lap. At the picture of Klaudia, at her shy but earnest smile.
He pounded his fist once on the dashboard, feeling the pain reverberate up his arm, as if that might make his decision for him. He raised his head and stared at himself in the rearview mirror, streetlights casting his face in a glaze of red.
Julian drew in a breath. He set Landon’s phone in the cupholder and peeled out from the curb.
He didn’t look back, or even away from the road, until he reached the Boston city limits. That was when his breathing finally
steadied, too. The dark thing was still inside him, but it no longer tapped its claws or gnashed its teeth. His heart felt
light as he turned onto the highway and headed south.