You're a Mean One, Matthew Prince, page 25
“Did you get a chance to look through all the photos out in the entryway?” I ask, attempting to pull her out of her head. I’ve never seen her this flighty before. She prides herself on public composure. Part of the reason why even I, her son, never know what she’s thinking.
I suppose returning to your hometown after so long will do that to a person—dig up old habits—so I grant her the grace of a distraction.
She nods sharply. “I did. It was a throwback I wasn’t expecting.”
I can’t tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing. “It was a lot of work, but I think it paid off. People seemed to enjoy it. I think it reminded everyone how magical Wind River can be around the holidays.”
I pause, giving Mom the space to agree and validate what I’ve come to know, but instead she briskly says, “Would you like to come home with me tonight? Oksana will do cinnamon buns tomorrow morning.”
I don’t answer right away. I knew this possibility was coming, but somewhere inside my head I’d convinced myself I’d fuck this up like I’ve fucked up countless times before. This gala was destined to be yet another misfortune brought upon the Prince family name. Yet somehow, someway, with a little help and a lot of heart, I aced the assignment.
Except this isn’t the prize I once thought it to be.
“Your father and I want to do Christmas right this year.” Mom’s tone is persuasive. “You don’t need to decide right this second. Maxim should be here in about an hour. Take your time.” Though I’m not sure how much patience she’s willing to spare. She hastily kisses my forehead and I notice her sight line land on Arthur across the way. He’s standing alone, shuffling to the music. “Come find me when you know.”
I can’t help but allow my eyes to follow her over to him. The bag-squishing halts, and her supernova shine intensifies in his presence. I think about my own supernova shine, and the way it intensifies each time I’m beside Hector.
Hector. Hector. Hector.
His melodic name running through my mind lets me know that I need to tell him. This is a decision we should make together. Perhaps he’ll be thrilled for me. He’ll agree to come to my warehouse party. He said he’s willing to be pleasantly surprised.
I hold on to that flimsy hope as I scan the room, but don’t see him. Guests are trickling out, some with elaborate silent auction prizes in their hands. Jack, the now-recovered former organizer, has agreed to help with the teardown and is scuttling about the room at the ready.
Hector. Hector. Hector.
Where has he gone off to?
Chapter 33
As I make my way down the mostly empty corridor, all I hear are the sounds of the food crew cleaning up. Siena, in the catering uniform, comes hastening out of the swinging doors that lead into the kitchen.
“Everything was delicious,” I say. It’s hard to hide the hammering of my heart under the sound of my shaking voice. I desperately want to talk to Hector right now.
“This was such a beautiful event. Christina and I couldn’t be prouder to have been a part of it,” Siena says. She envelops me in one of those overly friendly hugs people love giving out around the holidays.
“Remind me, Hector has an old-fashioned paper check for you before you all head out,” I say. “Oh, and the extra is to tip your waitstaff for such extraordinary service. Seriously, they were better than most of those out-of-work actors trying too hard to impress people with their pouring skills I’ve worked with in New York.”
She shimmies around me with the bus-person trays to finish cleaning up. I call back once more. “By the way, I’m sure Noelle is still out there! Just in case you were wondering…”
“I’ve seen her.” Her fierce blush lets me know what that really means. “She was actually looking for you. It seemed a bit urgent.”
I rack my brain for a reason Noelle would need to talk to me, but can’t find one. Maybe she wants to cash in on that promise of a dance. I’m on a hunt for Hector. She’s on a hunt for me. I don’t know where to go next. I thank Siena before turning around and coming face-to-face with a harried Noelle, clutching her phone like it’s a stolen heirloom.
“I need to show you something,” she says in a low voice. She pulls me into the nearby stairwell. It’s freezing in here and our voices echo with a creepy, cave-like quality. “You don’t have your phone with you, right?”
“No, I left it on silent in my bag in the kitchen. Didn’t need the distractions. Why? What’s up?” I ask.
“I wasn’t sure if I should show you this, but I think you need to see it for yourself,” she says. My nervous system switches into overdrive.
It’s a Google alert for Mom’s name followed by sensational headlines like:
Privileged Prince Jr. Buys Island Real Estate to Impress Mommy and Daddy
Bad Breakup Leads to Bad Investments: Yup, Matthew Prince Jr. Just Got Worse
It’s like somebody turned the temperature up five hundred degrees. My skin feels as if it’s about to burn up and slide off my skeleton. Culture writers never spare my feelings, which is rude considering I always give them something good to write about. They should be sending me Edible Arrangements, the fancy kind that include chocolate-covered strawberries, along with their thanks for being able to make their rent payments on time.
My eyes snag on another:
Poor Little Rich Boy Shipped Out of Manhattan after Prince-a-Palooza Plans Leak
Well, now I know word of my exile has hit the internet and that my failed music festival dreams, whipped up alongside my married ex-boyfriends, are open for anonymous ridicule. Even though the breakup was almost six months ago, seeing our joint brain-child chalked up to a laugh still stings.
I stand there, shaking but still, running but stuck in place. Somebody sold me out.
“I should’ve waited,” she says.
“No,” I force out. “No, I needed to see this.”
Though what I really need is to block out the world with a soft bed, a weighted blanket, and blackout curtains. A dark, trigger-less box to calm myself down as every breath becomes shallower and the walls start to fall in.
Noelle’s quiet for a long while. My heart feels dangerously close to escaping the lockbox inside my chest.
“Can I be alone for a minute?” I ask. Just her eyes on me are making this situation harder to handle. I give her back her phone.
“Are you sure? I can stay. I can get you out of here. What do you need?” she asks.
“I need to be alone,” I say with more bark than I intend to.
Noelle just nods, pats my shoulder, and slips back into the hallway.
Krampus has usurped me this time, grabbed the reins and taken my mind on a sleigh ride straight to hell. I lose all sense of time and space, vision growing hazy at the edges. Fingers tingly.
I don’t even notice I’ve grabbed my things and pushed back into the Great Hall.
I thought I had tamed my past, but now my brain is on the run again and so am I. My fast feet carry me away from here. The tinny sounds of “Matthew, what’s going on?” ring out behind me, but I don’t place the voice.
I’m convinced that everyone has seen this. Everyone is looking at their phones and laughing.
Hector. Hector. Hector.
My mind flips on repeat mode. If I find him, he’ll know what to do. He has to. Even if he doesn’t, he’ll talk to me. He’ll calm me down. He’ll…he’ll…
Searching for him among the chaos of the Great Hall is a losing game of Where’s Waldo? Fuck, why didn’t I think to dress him in a striped candy-cane suit when I had the chance?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I push out into the entryway. The Past exhibit, a former wonder, is now a snowstorm of overstimulation. The lights, the pictures, everything funnels together into a blurry mess until I’m barreling forward through the crowd without a sense of direction, no regard for who I’m shoving out of the way to clear a path.
I only stop when a manicured hand finds my shoulder. Mom is behind me, coat-check ticket in hand, worry creasing her forehead.
Without thinking, I collapse into her arms. A rush of relief comes, but doesn’t stay. I tilt my head up at her, eyes seconds away from becoming waterfalls. I say like a little boy, “Take me home?”
She ushers me outside, sensing the urgency in my hiccupping voice. Probably embarrassed by my hysterics.
Counting. Breathing. Fake-event planning. All of it goes to shit as I stumble down the front steps. Coping is not in the cards. Surviving this moment is all there is left.
Wendy’s Christmas lights are far too bright, so I shut my eyes—but the darkness waiting behind my eyelids scares me even more.
I’m not safe anywhere. That realization causes the truth to come out: “Island Gate leaked.” I brace for the firm hand of disappointment to come crashing down on me.
“It did? I mean, it did.” Mom’s voice is distant, faraway, caught in her throat, but her expression is a neutral mask.
Fresh tears spring up to my eyes like a geyser. I’m trembling out here in the cold. Mentally and physically frostbitten. “Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t understand how it happened. I was careful. So so careful. I promise.”
There’s a millisecond where I fear she won’t let me in the car. She’ll get in, drive off, and leave me to sort through this myself. Instead, she nods for Maxim to open the door and allows me to slide in first. It’s not the panic room I need, but its walls, leather seats, and tinted windows are enough to calm my senses.
“Give me a moment,” she says, underscored by the door shutting. She’s already got her phone out, looking at an email, lower lip becoming a chew toy.
“Is that Sarah? Does she know how it happened?” I’m frantic, needing every ounce of detail possible. Some nugget to help this all make sense.
She ignores me. “We’ll handle it, Matthew.”
“I didn’t tell Bentley.”
“We always handle it,” she says.
“Baz and Spencer didn’t know I was here.”
“All right. Good. That’s good.”
I hug my coat tight to my chest to try to mute the relentless thumping. “How, then? I can’t explain it!”
“Matthew!” she shouts, an unexpected burst of energy that fizzles out with a few deep breaths. “Sarah says a…young man contacted her stating that he had information regarding our family that they’d go to the press with if funds weren’t paid promptly,” Mom details slowly. “You must understand, we get threats like this all the time, and they’re almost always toothless.”
“But not this time?” I ask, sounding stupid but needing to hear it.
“No, not this time it seems.”
“This is why you sent me here…”
“Well, it’s complicated…”
“God, I’m such a selfish, stupid idiot.” My hands rake furiously through my hair.
“Matthew, please. Pull it together.”
“What was his name?” I ask. I’m coming unstuck enough to see my biggest mistake rising through the mayhem.
Mom blinks at me, her fake lashes cartoonish in the overhead light. “Whose name?”
“The young man?” I prompt her. Because if the name in my head matches the one on her lips, I don’t know that I’ll be able to handle it.
“His name?” she asks, dazed. Her eyes flick back to the screen. “This was a bit ago. I believe, well…I believe it started with an H.”
I’m sucker punched.
Hector. Hector. Hector.
I don’t dare speak his name aloud for fear that will make it true.
But it already is true. Isn’t it? Mom has just confirmed what I couldn’t see. I shared all the dirty details of Island Gate with him in confidence as I fell for him.
I was tricked. Hector played me for his own plane ticket home.
He didn’t trust me, and I misplaced my trust in him.
“Hector.” When his name finally comes out, it’s nothing more than a raspy sob.
Mom nods. “Yes, now that I think of it. That’s what it was…yes.”
“I’m sorry,” I croak, knowing those words will make me seem weak, won’t be enough, but they’re all I have left as the anxiety rocks me from the inside out.
Mom sighs, straightening her back and pushing her hair behind her ears. “It’s not your fault, Matthew.” Those are words I’d never thought I’d hear come out of her mouth. “Everyone wants what we have. Everyone wants more and some people will do dastardly things to get it or keep it.”
Her words are a horse pill in my mouth, impossible to swallow.
As we pull away from the curb, Hector comes rushing out the front entrance. He paces in frustration, seemingly scanning the faces for mine.
I hate how utterly heart-stopping he still looks in the moonlight. I squish that thought like the pest it has become.
What I felt from the start was right. I don’t belong here. Being here made me soft. It made me care. It opened me up, and it sent the bucket of paint on an impossible string slamming straight into my chest.
No more.
I face forward and find Mom’s hand on the leather seat between us.
Chapter 34
Mom stays in the car while Maxim and I run inside to grab my things from the basement.
I’m grabbing items left and right, a Frankenstein’s monster of mistakes causing destruction every which way.
In the bathroom, I catch sight of Hector’s Breathe Right strips beside my SpectraLite mask. It makes me sick to my stomach how the sweetness could spoil so quickly.
Krampus roars right on cue. Autopilot prompts me to throw everything into the nearest bag without a care. Clothes, shoes, and toiletries are strewn into the suitcases, lotion bottles spilling all over expensive fabric. Fuck it. I don’t have the energy to care.
I shudder, slinging one zipped bag toward the staircase. My moment of thought cost me necessary seconds because a text pops up from Mom.
Hector incoming, it reads. His car just pulled up.
My heart bounces up into my throat, and my vision narrows even more.
Bang, bang. There he is. He stands backlit by the patio light, looking like the Ghost of Christmas-Yet-To-Come finally here to claim me. I back away, needing a wider stretch between us. Otherwise, I might curl up into the fetal position and begin to cry.
I’m comforted momentarily, thinking the door is locked, but Hector has a key. I can’t bear to look him in his stupidly handsome face. He’s not even wearing a coat.
“Where are you going?” he asks. Maxim grabs the packed suitcase and lugs it up with his usual strength and speed. I don’t want him to witness this, but I also don’t want to be left alone with Hector.
Alone with Hector is what got me into this mess in the first place.
“Back to New York,” I croak.
“What? You said you were staying. You said you would stay.” He’s pleading, eyes puppy-dog dreary. A bungee cord, like the one we wrapped around the Christmas tree, constricts my heart, making me feel faint.
“That was before you…” I can’t even complete that sentence. The betrayal burns through me at lightning speed.
“Before I what? Matthew, what are you talking about?” he asks like he doesn’t have a clue. A spectacular act of duplicity. His face crumples up when I hold out my hand to keep him from coming any closer. If he punctures my personal space bubble, I might scream as loud as the piercing wails inside my head.
“This was the plan all along, right?” I ask, not looking at him or caring if he even hears.
“What plan? What are you talking about?” he asks.
“Make a profit off my big mistake,” I mutter, ravaging the closet for anything left behind. “Think the worst of me like you have since day one.” I’m laughing uncontrollably for no good reason. “Up there on your righteous high horse. Ha! You have everybody fooled.”
“I have no idea what you’re saying.” He nearly gets hit with one of my wieldy, wayward kilts as I fling it off its hanger.
“Get out of the way,” I command. He’s standing between me and the last open bag.
“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
The rage becomes too much. Krampus grabs hold of my voice box, lowering my pitch and pushing out frightening, protective words. “You’re a liar and a bottom-feeder and a fake, and I’m the stupid asshole who believed you were different.”
Shock covers up the confusion on his face. “You…you don’t mean that.”
“Don’t tell me what I mean,” I growl. I get to my suitcase and stuff and tug until I’m almost tearing the seams apart. “Have a merry little Christmas and a happy fucking new year at home.”
God, home. Why won’t that word stop assaulting me with its evasive meaning?
“Home? Please. Let’s sit and talk.”
I scoff. “I don’t want to talk to you after what you did. My mom told me everything!” I believe it started with an H. She knew his name. She just didn’t want to say. She needed me to make the conclusion for myself.
“Your mom? Matthew, please, stop for a second.”
“No, you stop pretending you care!” I shout.
He’s got his hackles up now. “Does it look like I’m pretending, dude? I chased you here to make sure you were okay, and now you’re just up and abandoning me, this town, us.”
“This town is a joke, and there is no us.”
“Matthew.” His tone dips to a calmer place, and his eyes are twin probes, attempting to placate me. I won’t be a rag doll to his whims.
“Don’t ‘Matthew’ me! There is no us,” I hiss in a tailspin.
He puffs out his chest, stands his ground, and asks as evenly as possible, “What if we do that mental event-planning thing again?” His strong-willed composure has never been more infuriating, especially as he tries to help me using my own anxiety-coping mechanisms.
