Page 35 of Save You (Maxton Hall #2)

I put the boxes down in the center of our circle and lift the lids; Jessa leans in right away.

“Mmm. They smell delicious.”

“Help yourselves.”

As the others dig in, James leans over to me. “You didn’t have these this morning.”

“Mum dropped them off at lunchtime,” I explain with a smile. “They’re really fresh.”

“They’re the best muffins I’ve had in ages,” says Camille, and Doug nods his head. “Where’s this bakery?” she asks then. “Mum’s spent weeks trying to find someone to make her a birthday cake. Maybe she should try there.”

“In Gormsey,” I reply. “It’s small, but everything they do is delicious and made with love. I can give you a card.”

“That would be amazing,” says Camille, and I’m surprised by the sincerity of her words.

I’ve noticed something different about her lately.

She’s been putting more effort in, and for the last few meetings, she’s stopped looking like she loathes everyone and everything in this room. I wonder what’s up.

“This is such a nice idea,” says Jessa. “Last week was so stressful. I had an English essay to do on top of all the work for the gala.”

“How did it go?” Lin asks.

“I screwed up. I totally lost the thread and it made no sense at all.”

“Sounds familiar,” says Kieran. “I had a test last week too and my mind was totally blank. I couldn’t remember a thing.”

“What was it on?”

“The Cold War.” Kieran pulls a face. “How about yours?”

“ A Midsummer Night’s Dream .”

“Poor you,” says Camille. “I hate Shakespeare.”

Jessa shrugs. “The play itself is fine. We watched a film of it too, and it made me think that it would be an amazing theme for the ball.”

I pause with my muffin halfway to my lips. “Yeah, that could really work,” I say slowly, turning my head to Lin.

“Yep…” She’s looking thoughtful. “When we got all those quotes for the Halloween party, one of the firms had a kind of magic forest set you could rent. With fake trees, fairy lights, a fog machine, the whole works.”

“Were they the ones who had the wooden swing you could use for photographs?”

“Yes, that’s them.”

“Yeah, I can really see it,” says Jessa, and Camille sighs.

“It sounds lovely. What would the dress code be?”

“Everyone could dress up as elves,” Doug suggests at once.

For a moment, we stop and stare at him. Who’d have thought Doug’s quiet demeanor would hide a love for fairy folk?

“Yes,” I say, but add hastily: “Or just floral for women and black tie with pastel shirts for the men?”

Jessa nods. “Perfect.”

Lin and I exchange glances. Have we just accidentally stumbled on the perfect theme for our next event?

“What’s the budget?” Kieran asks, frowning slightly. For the first time today, he’s looking directly at me. “Sounds kind of expensive.”

“True. But we didn’t have to pay the décor firm for the charity gala.”

Opposite me, James snorts. Clearly that’s still a touchy subject for him. I don’t know why, but I find that kind of sweet.

“So with that plus the money Lexie’s promised us for this event, we can really go to town. There should be plenty.”

“Well, I’m in,” says Camille. “Guys?”

“Should we vote on it, just to be certain?” suggests Lin. “All in favor of A Midsummer Night’s Dream , raise your mugs.”

There are no mugs left behind.

As I look at the relaxed faces of my team, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling. I don’t know why, but it feels like the last half hour has really brought us closer together.

James

The week flies by, and they’re the best five days I’ve ever spent at Maxton Hall. Ruby and I spend as much time as we can together, which isn’t easy as we’re in different groups for all our subjects, but it still works out better than we’d have believed.

I meet her off the bus every morning and walk her to her classroom.

Saying that, on Wednesday, Ruby insists on walking me to my classroom, and as that’s in the east wing, she has to practically sprint across the school to get to her own lesson on time.

We have a couple of free periods at the same time, which we spend together in the library, where I try to focus on my revision, despite Ruby’s presence.

On Thursday, we manage to eat lunch together, although I get the feeling that Lin is anything but thrilled by my being there.

There are times when I’m scared she’ll jam her spoon into my eye, but she seems to be holding back.

For the first time since Mum died, I don’t feel like everything’s hopeless. It’s as if a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders, although I could do without all the gossip and unashamed nosiness of everyone at this school.

But the lads are more suspicious of Ruby than ever, and things are still tense since that bust-up with Wren.

On Friday evening, Alistair invites us all over, in a blatant attempt to clear the air.

I’m longing to spend the time with Ruby, but I know that I really need to speak to Wren.

We haven’t said a word to each other since last Saturday, and I want to patch things up, on top of which, I want to know what’s wrong for him at home. And how I can help.

Annoyingly, Alistair’s brother, Fred, has crashed our little party, and he’s been droning on at me nonstop for over half an hour.

He’s twenty-two and the Ellington poster boy: He’s at Oxford, he’s got a fiancée, and—unlike Elaine and Alistair—he’s keen to uphold the family traditions.

None of us can stand him, mainly because their parents dote on Fred while acting like Alistair doesn’t even exist.

“Is it true that you’re on the Beaufort’s board already?” he asks, swirling a finger of whisky around the glass he’s holding.

“Yep,” I reply, not looking at him. I pull out my phone and see that I’ve had a message from Ruby:

JAMES! Alice Campbell invited me to see her in her London office!

I feel Fred’s curious eyes on me, so, much as I’d like to grin from ear to ear, I fight it down.

How did that happen?

“What’s it like?” Fred asks, totally oblivious to my blatant hint that I’m not putting up with his interrogation.

“Thrilling.” I growl my standard answer while waiting for Ruby to reply. “A real honor.”

I hear Cyril snort, despite his efforts to muffle the sound behind his hand. Unlike Fred, who just keeps on asking questions, he knows that what I really mean is Would you kindly shut the fuck up?

“Come on, Beaufort, spill the beans!”

At that moment, my iPhone lights up. Ruby’s sent me a screenshot of Alice’s email, above which she’s commented Eeek!

Dear Ruby,

I was very inspired by our conversation last Saturday at the gala. Any time you happen to be in London, you are very welcome to pop into my office for a chat.

Best wishes,

Alice

My fingers type my reply almost by themselves:

So when shall we go?

Suddenly, Fred nudges my shoulder. I turn to look at him, raising an eyebrow. He clocks that he’s made a mistake and moves back slightly. Then he clears his throat.

“After all, we’re the only people in this room who’ve already achieved anything, got anywhere in life. So we should stick together.”

He laughs like he’s said something hilarious.

Nobody agrees.

“You’re full of bullshit, Frederick,” says Kesh quietly.

Fred gasps with outrage.

“Leave it, Kesh.” Alistair’s voice is flat.

He’s always like this when his brother’s around.

Cold and distant—the total opposite of the Alistair we generally hang around with.

If he’d known Fred was going to be here this weekend, he’d have invited himself round to someone else’s, instead of having us all here.

“So, what exactly have you achieved?” Kesh insists, his voice so deep and calm that it sends an icy shiver down my spine.

“You got into Oxford. Congratulations. And you’re getting married.

Congratulations again. That doesn’t make you some big shot, though—you’re still a spineless little weasel.

” Kesh takes a slow sip from his highball glass, not taking his dark brown eyes off Fred for a second.

“If you had an ounce of class, you wouldn’t talk like that,” Fred says. He’s trying to sound cutting and to look bored, but I can see one of his eyelids fluttering nervously.

“Don’t talk to me about class. Unlike you, I know better than to treat my family like shit. The fact that you don’t stick up for your brother tells me everything I need to know about you, you absolute—”

“For God’s sake, Keshav, shut up!” Alistair jumps up, his fists clenched and his face flushed bright red.

“Fine friends you have, Alistair. Mum and Dad have every right to be proud of you,” says Fred, pulling his phone from his pocket. He gets up. “Sorry, I have to take this. My fiancée.”

We hear him answer the call, addressing his girlfriend by a soppy nickname, then he flounces out of the sitting room, leaving us in peace.

“What the fuck, bro?” Alistair snarls, having not moved a muscle.

“He was being a dick,” Kesh retorts.

“So? If any of your family acts like a dick to you, do I get involved? No!”

“That’s because my family would never treat me the way yours act to you. Just be glad I’ve got your back.”

Alistair snorts. “You’re such a hypocrite. You only have my back when it suits you. I can do without support like that, thank you.”

Kesh flinches like Alistair’s hit him. His eyes flit to Wren, Cyril, and me, and then back to Alistair. I frown and look from one of them to the other, but before I can make sense of what’s going on, Alistair turns and runs out through the same door as Fred.

“What the…?” Wren starts, but Kesh instantly begins moving and chases after Alistair. The door slams behind him.

“…fuck was all that about?”

Wren, Cyril, and I all seem equally confused.

Then Cyril groans and leans his head against the back of his armchair. “This isn’t how I was expecting this evening to go.” He fiddles with his phone and turns up the volume on the music.

“I hope they don’t kill each other,” I say after a while.

Cyril grins and shakes his head. “Doubt it. But my money’s on Alistair.”

I’m not really listening, still looking at the door they just vanished through. I’ve never seen Alistair and Kesh fight like that.

When Alistair came out as gay and his family practically disowned him, he spent a lot of time at each of our houses because he couldn’t stand it at home.

It brought us all closer together, but especially him and Kesh.

Kesh’s parents are friendly and accepting, and they became like a second family to Alistair.

“Something’s not right with those two,” Wren says.

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

Wren raises an eyebrow and for a moment I get the feeling that he wants to say something, but instead he just takes a huge swig from his whisky and Coke.

I sigh. “Wren,” I begin.

He looks cautiously at me.

“I’ve been a crap friend lately,” I say. “I’m sorry for being too caught up in my own shit to be there for you.”

“It’s not like you didn’t have a good reason,” Wren replies quietly. He exhales audibly. “Your mum died. I acted like a dickhead. Sorry, bro.”

“I should have noticed that you’ve got stuff going on too, though.”

Wren shrugs his shoulders.

“Now would be a good time to tell me,” I say. “That’s the main reason I came tonight.”

Wren looks uncertain. He glances at me over his glass. Then he shuts his eyes like he’s psyching himself up.

“We’re…moving.”

I scoot a little closer to him. Did I mishear that? “What?”

“My parents lost all their money. We found a buyer for the house last week. We’re moving in March. To a semidetached.”

I stare at Wren. The words echo around my head, but I can’t make sense of them.

“Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?” Cyril asks. He stands up, comes over, and drops onto the sofa beside Wren. “We could’ve helped.”

That frees me from my state of shock. “Cy’s right,” I say. “There must have been some way you could have kept the house.”

Cyril nods. “My parents would have bought it and let you keep living there.”

Wren raises his hands in an appeasing way. “You know how proud my folks are. They’d never accept charity. Anyway, having your parents as landlords would be super weird, Cy,” he replies. But Cyril just shrugs.

“What happened?” I ask.

Wren sighs and rubs his chin with his free hand. “Dad was playing the markets. He put all our eggs in one basket—and lost.”

All I can say is, “Fuck.” I don’t know exactly how rich the Fitzgeralds were, but I know their house and their various holiday homes. I know the companies they had shares in. It’s hard to imagine that they could have lost it all—and in such a short space of time.

“Is there anything we can do?” I ask after a while.

Wren twitches one shoulder. “It’s all a bit chaotic at the moment. And Dad…He’s kind of down.”

“Just let us know—anything at all,” I say, and Cyril murmurs in agreement.

“It’s a lot. I can’t keep up at school at the moment. And now I have to think about loans and scholarships for Oxford too. I…I really don’t know if I can deal with it all.”

Wren buries his face in his hands while Cyril and I exchange glances. I’m sure we’re thinking the same thing. In the worst case, we’d all chip in to lend Wren some money. Hell, we’d give it to him no questions asked, but we know him well enough to know he’d never accept that.

“You’ve got this. And we’ll help,” I declare, bumping shoulders with Wren. He slowly lowers his hands from his face.

“James, the thing with Ruby—”

“Is in the past,” I interrupt him.

At this moment, this isn’t about me, or Ruby, but about the fact that Wren’s been carrying all this around for ages, without his best friend having a clue. That’s not how things should be. Not with us.

I don’t care about our fight now. All that matters to me is that I want to help Wren. Even though I have no idea how.