Five

BJ

“How was the wedding?” Jordan asks the next day.

We’re getting breakfast at a cafe by her house in Fulham.

She likes it here. I don’t.

The coffee’s always shit and the eggs are overcooked, but it’s across the road from her so she calls it her local.

Bit of a sad local.

Sadder for me than for her, because she drinks coffee with milk in it but I drink it black. Milk covers a lot of sins when it comes to burnt coffee.

I stir in some sugar because the brew is particularly shit this morning.

“Yeah, fine—” I shrug.

It’s a necessary level of downplaying how the wedding actually was.

Fucked. That is how the wedding was. For me anyway.

God, she’s beautiful — that’s all I keep thinking. Parks, not my girlfriend, unfortunately. And in the lilac? Fucking shit of her. Did that on purpose she did, I know it. Know her. That’s the kind of shit she’d do to pull the rug out from under me.

I’m fine finally, I’m doing good, she comes back and wears fucking lilac, the twat.

“Did you see her?” Jordan asks, watching me closely.

Makes me feel more shit.

I look up at her, try to smile in a way that will make her feel good.

“Yeah.” I shrug again. “Just for a sec—”

She asks, chin in hand. “Did you talk?”

“Yep—” I take a gulp of bad coffee then nod. “A bit. Nothing major.”

That’s a lie and I know it because that bit of conversation with Parks was the most exhilarating thing I’ve done in the last ten months and it was about the literal colour purple.

Jordan grinds her jaw absentmindedly.

“She’s leaving,” I remind her — pretend the thought doesn’t feel like a tackle.

“Right.” She swats her hand. “And it’s not like you’re going to see her again…”

I squint uncomfortably. “Actually, we’ll probably see her around a bit for the next couple of weeks. Like… at Christian’s thing in a few days.”

She sighs. “Great.”

I scratch the back of my neck. “We have all the same friends—”

Jordan shakes her head. “Yeah but she left—”

“Yeah, because I fucked her best friend.”

She shifts, uncomfortable.

Don’t know whether it’s because I’m a cheater or because I’m defending my ex-girlfriend.

Both options are shit.

“Also,” I say and then grimace a bit. She gives me a dark look. Swallows. “I’m going to meet up with her.”

“What?” She blinks. “Why?”

Nice eyes. Crazy blue.

I shrug. “Because I need to.”

“But why?”

“Jordan—” I shake my head. “Me and Parks, we’ve been friends since I was six. And we were together for — how many years?” I shrug. “And I’ve hurt her more than anyone. I need to talk to her.”

She folds her arms over her chest. “What about?”

“We just need to sort out our shit.”

“You have shit?” She blinks, put off. “What shit?”

I look over at her, annoyed. More annoyed than I mean to be. “Of course we have shit.”

She breathes out of her nose, stares at her plate. Fruit salad. Parks would never order that. Too many things touching each other.

She sighs after a few seconds. “Do you have to?”

I nod. “Yeah, I do.”

Her eyes pinch. “I thought she was leaving?”

“First week of December.”

That’s another eyeball from her. Warranted, I guess. “You know her flight details now?”

Yes.

I pull a face.

I do, but not for a reason I could explain to her.

And you know what — I do feel for her. Jordan, I mean. She’s on the back foot here. All girls are on the back foot when it comes to me and Parks.

“Why would she come to Christian’s? I thought she hasn’t spoken to Jonah in a year?”

“She hasn’t.” I rub my temples without realising. “But Christian and her are close.”

I steel for the grimace my face naturally wants to pull, even though I know it’s different now and I don’t have a fucking leg to stand on.

Their closeness, in context, is still a kick in the dick.

“Visits her with Henry sometimes,” I shrug.

I deleted Instagram whenever they went. Safer that way.

“Yeah, but he’s your best friend.” She sounds annoyed for me, which is sweet of her, I guess.

“Yeah—” I sigh, shoving my hands through my hair. “But he was hers first.” I give her a quick smile. Don’t know why I’m defending her — habit, I guess. “Her and the boys were in the same class since nursery.”

“Oh.” She nods but she doesn’t get it. Not her fault. Jordan didn’t watch us grow up like the rest of London did, all in each other’s pockets and shit.

Parks and her family have been in the papers since she was tiny. Comes with the territory with what her parents do, I guess. For me and the boys it didn’t start til later, but it did start. And it’s always had its pitfalls. There’s a lot of shit to be said about being watched in some way or another all the time, but one of the redeeming parts (usually) is that I don’t have to explain very much. People just know.

But Jordan’s not from here. She grew up on a horse ranch in the outback. From money too, but not from money like us. And it’s different there, with the society pages and shit. So she says, anyway. People might know who you are there, but it’s un-Australian to give a fuck about it, so no one cares.

Jordan hasn’t seen me and Parks together, doesn’t get the connection we have… Wish I could say that in the past tense, but the wedding showed me that I can’t.

So this, here and now, Jordan all weird that Parks is close with my friends, weird that me and Parks still have shit between us — it’s just a fracture of understanding, that’s all.

Jordan did go to boarding school though, so probably could have propagated her own experience if she gave it a whack, but I guess I get why she doesn’t want to. Being the girl I’m with who isn’t Magnolia Parks has to be a bitter pill.

Jordan swallows, looking nervous again. “Is she nice?”

Feels like a trap. Scratch my neck again.

“Depends,” I sniff.

Her face flickers. “On what?”

I bang my fist absentmindedly on the table. “I wouldn’t be banking on you two being best friends, Jords.”

“I don’t want to be her friend,” she says with a scowl. “She hurt you.”

I nod, throw her a small grateful smile.

“I hurt her first,” I remind her.

She shrugs. “Yeah, well, she and I aren’t sleeping together so that’s harder to give a shit about.”