Bilal felt himself grow warm, his chest tightening, constricting to an unbearable level, and for a moment, he was convinced he was about to have a heart attack at the ripe age of seventeen and three quarters. Because of course the twisted sicko that controlled the universe’s chessboard would give him a freaking heart attack after the day,no, the year he’d had. It wasn’t enough that his career was probably over; he’d now probably drop dead in front of everyone, wearing the world’s most hideous sweater too. It was just his luck.
At least the rain had stopped.
After a further three minutes and twenty-one seconds of holding his breath, it became clear to Bilal that it was not a heart attack that was causing his discomfort, but instead a classic cocktail of heartbreak and a guilty conscience.
He looked back over at the pair, Evelyn—Evie—Grayand Anwar Shah, feeling like he’d stepped into some kind of alternate dimension where all of his demons resided.
He wondered how Anwar even knew Evie. He felt sick to his stomach at the thought that the two might be in cahoots somehow, or worse yet… friends. He really hoped they weren’t, and this was just another coincidental twisted maneuver by the universe.
Bilal almost jumped overboard (again) when Anwar suddenly shifted his focus from Evie, his eyes dancing around the deck a little before fixing squarely on Bilal. When they locked eyes, Bilal felt his entire body freeze, cold rattling through him as though he had been plunged into an ice bath. Then Anwar did something perilously unexpected: Hesmiledat Bilal.
Anwar actually smiled at him.
The metaphorical knife still lodged in Bilal’s chest plunged farther in and twisted, cutting through flesh and bone, blood dribbling out of the open wound in his heart.
Bilal did not smile back. He couldn’t bring himself to—or rather, the shock was preventing him from doing anything but stare.
It turns out Kelly Clarkson was wrong. What doesn’t kill you shows up to your father’s yacht parties.
It was his fault, really, for not thinking ahead about the likely possibility of Anwar being here tonight. His ex-boyfriendwasa prodigy, after all; he always got invited to these things.
Bilal quickly tore his eyes away. He needed a drink.
He turned to the waiter stationed next to him and picked up two glasses from the tray.
The champagne would help dull the pain of seeing Anwar for the first time in eight months, and also hopefully dull the pain from his shattered bones.
“Having fun without me?” The smooth sound of his sister Perdita’s voice interrupted his thoughts as she walked up to him. Bilal glanced at her sideways, feeling a little ridiculous next to his sister, who was dressed in a blue ball gown, while he was wearing what felt like a clown costume.
“Yes, I’m having a fucking blast, Dee,” he replied, his voice sounding slightly raspy, as he was still recovering from the injury of beingsmiledat.
“Incorrect. Your answer should be that you only ever have fun withme,” she said, nudging him softly.
“Apologies,” he replied unfeelingly, as he took a large swig from one of the flutes.
Perdita raised a curious eyebrow at him. “That bad, huh?” she asked.
“What’s that bad?” he replied, staring at her as he took another sip.
“Whatever the mysterious thing weighing you down is. Must be real bad,” she said, moving some of her dark curls from her face.
“Well, I don’t know if you somehow missed it, but I fell into the ocean earlier, so I don’t know, maybe it could be that,” he snapped, immediately regretting it. Out of all his siblings, Perdita was probably the one he was closest to and kept in contact most regularly with, despite the fact that they both no longeractivelylived at the Manor. If this hadn’t been one of the worst nights of his life, he might’ve been less frosty. But he couldn’t help it.
She blinked up at him. “Well, on the bright side, your hair looks really good,” she said, unaffected by his sour attitude. That was one thing he always appreciated about his youngest sister; she never returned the malice the world force-fed her.
Bilal knew he looked like an unkept rodent and rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”
“I mean it! Curly hair suits you,” she said, her smile earnest.
“Whatever,” he muttered, leaning over the railing, downing the dregs ofeach of his drinks and then tossing the glasses into the sea. A more sober Bilal might have cared about the environmental implications of his actions, but in his current state he didn’t want to care about anything. He just wanted to get through the evening without losing his mind.
“Is your goal going to be to keep being a grump all night?” Perdita asked him.
“Yes,” he grumbled. “And to also get absolutely shit-faced.”
“In that case, I think I’ll join you,” she said, and then she grabbed her own glass from the waiter and joined him in leaning over the railing. They both looked out at the vast blue-black ocean stretched before them, silently battling their own demons in each other’s company.
Bilal couldn’t tell if his sudden nausea was brought on from the motion of the yacht slowly gliding away from the shore , or if it was yet another side effect of his pain meds, or if it was the Anwar of it all.
