Exposed (boyxboy) (Book #2)

~Chapter Thirty One~

March. Five Months Later

Will's childhood bedroom was cold, just as he remembered it. One large, baron mansion with guilt and shame seeping from its thick walls. His leather bag fell from his shoulder onto the carpeted floor, just beside the rest of his suitcases that had been flown all the way from New York, back to London.

The entire flight had him feeling sick to his stomach, and at one point during some pretty rocky turbulence, he found himself kneeling over the tiny toilet bowl, clinging to the rim of it with white knuckles. With bloodshot eyes he'd stared at his fingernails, bitten down to the cuticles. The veins in his hands were a deep purple, protruding from his pale skin painfully, and he could feel every beat of his heart, working hard to pump the blood around his frail body.

God, he felt awful.

He had travelled alone, of course, with his usual pilot who had promised to be discreet about his inflight activities. When asked by his father whether he wanted a chaperone on the flight, Will had said no. A security guard would be waiting for him straight off the private jet, but he said he wasn't coming home unless he got to do this by himself. His father agreed.

So Will had obviously snorted as much coke as possible on the flight over, knowing he'd need as big a bump as he could before seeing his family again. He'd stopped caring what the tabloids wrote about him at that point. Ever since that first horrendous article came out, revealing his relationship with Parker and Max and drugs, the world hadn't left him alone.

Columbia kicked him out.

And he was a mess.

He knew with the reputation of his family there was nothing that could be done to change it, either. No bribes would be taken from one of the most watched and most likely despised families in the world. Columbia was an Ivy League university and Will Lockwood was no longer welcome to attend.

He received the call around two weeks after that article surfaced.

So Will had nothing.

He'd avoided any calls from Eleanor, who was clearly very concerned about him. But after about a month of being ignored, eventually her messages dwindled to nothing and she hadn't reached out since. Max called him too, but Will had pressed decline. The actor was the last person he wanted to speak to.

Dylan had well and truly ruined his life.

And now he was home. He was home for his brother's murder trial. For the murder of both Arthur Evans and Jasmine Calloway. He knew Jasmine wasn't completely innocent in all of this, but his brother was manipulative. It was likely he had ways to get her to do things for him that she wouldn't dream of doing herself. And because of this she was dead.

Burned to death, choking on smoke and gasping for oxygen that wasn't there. Will could see the image in his head, clear as day.

The gates of the mansion were crowded with photographers, waiting to snap images of him getting out of the car. Before stepping out of the vehicle on shaky legs, he took a deep breath and pulled the hood of his jumper over his head to hide his face. Obnoxious clicking noises sounded from the hundreds of cameras all eager to catch a glimpse of him, and he cringed as he heard shouting from a security guard at the gate, telling them to step back.

That was only ten minutes ago.

He hadn't looked for anyone when he arrived home.

He'd just taken himself up to his bedroom and stayed there.

His bookshelf was as he had left it, minus a few books he'd decided to bring with him to New York- not that he'd done much reading. His large, arched bay window had new curtains, he noticed. And when he looked inside the bathroom he saw that his soaps and products had been completely restocked for his arrival. The floor was squeaky clean and smelled like vanilla, just as he liked it.