Bright Young Things
Anna Martin
Copyright © 2020 Anna Martin
www.annamartin-fiction.com
© 2020 Anna Martin
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
First edition November 2014 (Dreamspinner Press) – released as Les faits accomplis
Second edition June 2020
Characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Any person depicted on the cover of this book is a model and is not affiliated with, nor do they endorse, this story.
Bright Young Things
by Anna Martin
Prologue: The Bet
New Harbor, Washington State, USA
September 2014
9:15pm
Adam swayed his head in time with Snoop and tapped his bare toe to the beat of the music. He was hazily high and sexually satisfied—some closeted kid had blown him in the linen closet an hour ago.
Parties at Chris’s house were almost as good as the parties Adam’s. New Harbor was a small town north of Seattle, situated on Whidbey Island on Puget Sound. The town had been developed surprisingly early in the history of the area and remained a pocket of conservative Republicanism in what was otherwise a fairly liberal state. Probably because of the sheer, mind-boggling wealth of its inhabitants.
There was a dusky sort of early evening heat hanging in the air that made chilling out on the porch perfect. The party was happening inside, but out here, in a rocker, watching the world go by in peace, was just about all Adam needed.
“Drink?”
He blinked and looked up into a pair of dark eyes framed with impossibly long lashes. Clare. Great. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with her.
“What is it?” Adam demanded.
“Psh. Gin and juice.”
Gin and juice was pretty standard at Chris’s place. He was… old school. Or, he liked to think he was. Normally Adam would be wary of taking anything from Clare, especially drinks he hadn’t seen her pour. But the weed was making him blasé and actually, he wanted the damn drink.
Adam took the short glass, sipped at the clear liquid. When he was satisfied it was what she claimed, he swallowed the rest in one gulp, then handed the glass back to her.
“Thanks.”
A few moments later, she hadn’t moved. Adam regarded her lazily. “Can I help you?”
Clare smiled slowly.
Adam found himself in a hot tub with three beautiful women, something he was sure many men would envy. He wasn’t like most men, though. That much was clear to anyone who met him.
“So,” Adam said, sipping at another gin while the girls reclined in the gently bubbling water, breasts bobbing on the surface. “What can I do for you ladies?”
School started again in a week. This was the pre-party-party, the one where they could all let go for one last time before starting their senior year. The last time they’d ever rule the school. Until they got to college, of course.
Adam was going to Harvard. He’d said it so many times, it had become a given in the same way “tomorrow will be Saturday” was taken for granted, or “Adam likes getting his dick sucked.” He knew his grades were good enough, and even if they hadn’t been, his mom knew the right people. There was something to be said about getting into college on one’s own merits, though.
Clare sighed, quietly drawing attention to herself, and lifted a delicate champagne flute to her lips. “We’ve only got a year left. I want to have some fun, Adam.”
“So go have fun,” he said. “I don’t give a fuck what you do.” His head lolled back in the steamy water, and he grinned at the night sky.
“I thought we could play one of our little games.”
They had been playing Clare’s “little games” for years. It was how Mia had broken her arm back in eighth grade, and how Tristan got his first blowjob, and probably the reason why Nora fled town in tears only a year ago, convinced her house was haunted by an evil spirit and she was possessed.
For a while, Adam had refused to play. He’d made up his own fun, on his terms, and let Clare do her thing.
“What sort of game?” he asked, curious.
“Well, you know I told you about the new guy.” Adam gave her a carry-on-and-hurry-up gesture. “He’s gay.”
“Whoopie-do.”
“He’s a virgin.”
Adam laughed. “How the fuck can you know that?”
“The records from his counseling session at his last school.” She grinned, and sipped her champagne again. “His Daddy sent him to military school because Jared’s a raging homo. The one time he tried to play ‘drop the soap in the showers’ he got the shit beaten out of him by all the other boys who are successfully repressing their own homosexual desires. He didn’t try again after that. At least, that’s what he told his counselor.”
“All right, so what? You want me to fuck him? Oh God, is he really ugly?”
“He’s quite hot, actually,” Clare said. “Tall. Blond. Sort of surfer type, although I’m not sure he’s ever surfed. He plays soccer.”
“It’s truly terrifying how you know these things.”
Or it would have been if Adam hadn’t known almost all there was to know about Clare Metago. Under the veneer of cool disinterest, she had been worming her way into other people’s computers, lives, and heads for years. She was a hacker. And she did it in style.
“What’s in it for me?” Adam demanded.
“Other than the delight you’ll surely take in being his first?”
“I can have sex whenever I want,” he said dismissively. “You’re going to have to give me some incentive other than that.”
“How about,” she said, “something you’d never be able to get otherwise. Something totally priceless.”
Adam leaned forward, the water lapping around his waist.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Chapter 1
If Jared was surprised there was a party happening on a school night, he
