How to Belong with a Billionaire by Alexis Hall

Author:Alexis Hall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2019-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

I don’t completely remember how we got to the Millennium Bridge—only that, despite the crowds and having to tumble breathlessly into bathrooms to take more coke, I was feeling good. Not the jittery, frenetic joy of ecstasy or the lazy softness of weed, but this smooth conviction of well-being that—had its duration not been so fleeting—would have been indistinguishable from any other kind of happiness. A night of perfect sleep. A truly amazing shower. The best cup of coffee imaginable. The slog back from Boston had fallen away, sloughed off like old skin, taking with it everything that had made me sad or worried or scared. And I had this…this clarity now—as if I’d finally ripped off the dirty glasses of my own doubts and insecurities and could see the world as it truly was.

Full of hope. Adventure. Possibility.

Nothing I couldn’t handle.

And so beautiful, as we pushed our way forward, invincible amongst the press of strangers. Ellery’s hand was warm in mine as I turned my face to the horizon—to the pale moon of Big Ben’s illuminated face and the rainbow hoop of the London Eye.

Ten…

Nine…

Voices all around us. The sky sinuous with shadows, like a lover’s body, turning in your arms.

Five…

Four…

It didn’t matter I wasn’t with Caspian.

I was strong. I was whole. I was happy.

Two…

Happy. Happy. Happy.

One!

The chimes began to strike, rolling out over the dark waters. Then came the crackle of gunpowder in the distance, and suddenly everything was colour on colour on colour. With bonus Adele.

I’d always loved fireworks. I mean, they were loud and sparkly, what wasn’t there for me to be into? But my only real experience of them was Rabbie crouched in the middle of our back garden, swearing and dropping matches, and then running away frantically as a couple of rockets wheezed into the air.

This was…this was…not like that. There were fireworks that whooshed upwards from the ground, leaving long comet trails in their wake, and others that exploded into vast and lavish starbursts. Some of them spun in spirals in the centre of the Eye and some poured down from the sky like it was raining light. My soul crackled with each new explosion, shining amethyst, emerald, and jade, like the reflections in the Thames. I felt…almost transparent. But in a good way. The usual mess that lived inside me, gone. Transformed into a stream of bright moments under a fresh-born sky.

I glanced at Ellery, lit up, and wanting to share it, and she grinned back at me, her eyes full of tiny fireworks, and so blue just then. The bluest I’d ever seen them. Blue enough to break me.

And then it was slipping away—whatever I’d felt, or thought I’d felt, everything I’d learned, or thought I’d learned. And I knew it was fairy gold. Had only ever been fairy gold. And here I was, exhausted, on a bridge in the middle of London, with my still heart in ruins, and nothing to show for it but handfuls of dust.

I missed him.

I missed him so much.

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