Page 61 of Oleander

“The girls aren’t staying,” Luke supplied before I could.

“They’re not,” I confirmed. “They’ll be there for a bit but Ellie’s dad will be picking her up later. He’d never let her stay over.”

“Hmm,” Beth said. “No, but Georgia’s parents might and if they think Ellie is there.”

“I swear, they’re not staying.” And they weren’t. George had a midnight curfew so they would be there late, but they weren’tstaying. This whole thing seemed ridiculous to me since what they were afraid might happen between a bunch of horny teens left unsupervised could just as easily happen between 6 p.m. and midnight.

“Okay,” she said at last. “I’m trusting you. It’s your birthday – you’re sixteen now – and you should be able to have a good time with your friends. Be sensible though, please. Don’t let us down.”

I gave her an appreciative smile. “I promise, I won’t.”

“Okay, hurry up and finish that and we can open your gifts,” she said and stood up to carry her plate to the sink.

My gifts turned out to be an iPad, a pair of noise cancelling headphones, and a book voucher. I was a little stunned, stammering out my thanks before giving them both a hug and disappearing upstairs to set it up. There was a voice message from Ellie on my phone, singing me happy birthday and telling me she couldn’t wait to see me later.

Alfie’s read: ‘Happy Birthday Dickhead’ and Josh’s was just a birthday present and beer emoji.

I thought about Caspien. Would he have bought me a gift had he been around? I didn’t think he knew when my birthday was; couldn’t remember it ever coming up in conversation. I went to his Instagram and checked for anything new. Nothing. The last post was his own birthday post over a month ago. It had 656 likes. I wondered if the pervert was amongst those 52 comments.

Surely he wouldn’t be stupid enough to comment on an Instagram post of his underage boyfriend, lover, whatever he was? Curiosity crept, spidery, across my brain. I wanted to know more about this pervert tutor of his.

I glanced down the comments, clicking on any usernames that stood out, anyone who sounded like a teacher or a pervert. I hadthat same trembling rage I had whenever I thought about him, about how disgusting he was, how he should be in prison or, at the very least, not teaching students privately.

I wondered again whether I should tell someone, Gideon, at least. Had he suspected anything at all? What would he do if he knew?

What had Caspien said to him that day as I’d listened?If he sees you here, if anyone sees you here, and they tell him, how will you explain it?

How would they have explained it?

My whole body drew up, a sharp realisation narrowing to a pinpoint.

If that was his tutor, then that remark made absolutely no sense. His tutor’s presence in the house could be explained quite easily. Perhaps there’d be some difficulty with it being a Saturday, but it wouldn’t be entirely implausible for his tutor to be in the house altogether.

I thought back to when I’d confronted him in his bedroom before I’d kissed him. The fear in his eyes when I’d said I knew his identity, but more importantly, how that fear disappeared when I knew it was his tutor.

It wasn’t him. I’d been wrong. It’s just that Caspien had let me believe that I wasn’t. His words took on an entirely new meaning then:If he sees you here, how will you explain it?

Did that mean Gideon and he knew each other? It could have been a generalisation, that he meant ‘if anyone sees you here’ it would be hard to explain, but some spidery inkling in my head told me that it was the first; Gideon knew this man. This man knew Gideon.

It was killing me not knowing the identity of this fucker. This man who had so easily wrapped his arms around Caspien and pulled him close, who Caspien had allowed to do that. Now Iknew the feeling I got in my chest whenever I thought of it: jealousy.

I thought of the note inside the book again:Caspien, my beautiful boy, let me be yours.

Love, X

I felt it like an electric shock to the chest then, that ‘X’.

What if it wasn’t, as I’d assumed, the ‘x’ someone puts on a birthday card? What if X was his name? I sat up and looked at the comments again, scanning each one for something that would tell me if X was a name and if this X followed him on social media.

My heart sank when I saw there were a lot of followers with X in their usernames. I checked all of them. He didn’t appear to be among them.

I needed a new plan.

I had no clue what I was going to do once I found out who he was; maybe I wasn’t going to do a thing. But not knowing who he was was driving me crazy, and with Cas completely gone from my life, it seemed as good a way to spend my time as any.

Seventeen

I’d not enjoyed the champagne I’d drunk at Caspien’s birthday, but I found that vodka coupled with something sweet and fruity could achieve that perfect, blissful, drunken state. One I’d become very accustomed to at university.