“Just peachy, babe,” I tell her, snuffing the cherry out in a nearby ashtray and closing my eyes as a warm breeze breaks across my skin. I'm still torn between loving it here and being miserable. It's nice to be off the tour, away from Ice and Glass, away from Stephen, but somehow, I feel like we got off too easy. If I was a betting woman, I'd say this wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot.
“I'd stay out of the kitchen if I were you,” she tells me as Ronnie breaks the surface of the pool and folds his arms on the edge, smiling at me with dark hair dripping into his face. I smile back and my heart skips a few beats. My cunt, not so much. She hits every beat, letting the desperation I feel downstairs hit me up top. My nipples get hard as rocks and I find myself crossing my arms over my chest to hide the reaction from Sydney. The fingers of my left hand and trail down and probe gently at my wound. I'm feeling a fuck of a lot better. Now, if I could only convince Ronnie of that. “Turner just got off the phone with the hospital. No change in Naomi's condition and nobody seems to know exactly why she's not waking up.” Sydney sighs and closes her eyes, getting out a cigarette of her own as she stands oblivious in her pink bikini. Tattoos stand at sharp attention from her arms, her chest, her sides. I think about what she said, about having a photo shoot sometime soon. I hope our shit doesn't derail hers.
“Gotcha,” I say, looking back at Ronnie as he climbs from the pool in his tight ass little budgie smugglers. They're so fucking small that they emphasize exactly how big he really is. My breath hitches and I have to force myself to look away. Sydney's staring off into the distance, eyes cloudy, arms hanging by her side. I want to say something to her, like how happy I am that she's here, but I'm not sure how to go about it. I need a friend right now, am fucking desperate for it. My subconscious whispers evil things, tellin' me I'm trying to replace Poppet with somebody else's sister.
I light up another cigarette as Ronnie moves across the pavement towards me, leaving wet footprints in his wake. The smell of chlorine mixes with the spicy sweetness of the tobacco, and I sigh.
“Morning, babe,” he says, leaning down and pressing his lips against mine. The gesture's so familiar, so personal and casual, I'm not really sure how to respond. My mouth, though, she's not suffering from the same mental hang-ups. I find my hand drawn to the back of Ronnie's wet head, my tongue diving into his mouth as a thrill of heat washes over me and I shudder. He feels it, I know he does, but whether he's refusing to acknowledge it because of my injury or because of the shit week he's having, I'm not sure. Phoebe's parents won't answer the phone and visits with Lydia are still stiff and uncomfortable. I had hoped meeting my new bloke's mum and dad would go over a bit better than this, but they hardly look at me. There's so much baggage between Ronnie and them that even though I can tell they love each other, they refuse to work past it. It's frustratingly as all fuck out. Or maybe I'm just horny? “Got any plans today?”
“Same as yesterday and the day before that. Same as tomorrow and a week from now. Nope, nope, and nope.” I smoke my cigarette as Ronnie stands up and nods at Sydney. “Why?” I look up at him as he grabs a towel from a nearby chair and wraps it around his hips, hiding that perfectly pleasant bulge between his legs from sight. Damn. “You do?”
Ronnie coughs into his hand and glances away, towards the outdoor barbeque area that none of us have used yet. That sort of thing's reserved for celebrations, and nobody in this friggin' house is in the mood to celebrate. Too many dead people, too much fucked up shit. I sigh and a cloud of gray smoke wafts in the air for just a moment, clinging to an oncoming breeze and whispering away through the palm trees. In the distance, I can hear a slight murmur of voices. There's a crowd out front, you bet your ass there is. Started off about two days after we moved in. I like to think it looks smaller, but that just might be my dying optimism having a go at me, the bitch.
“I got to get Turner out of the house for a while,” he begins, and I tilt my head to the side, trying not to focus too hard on that lily tattoo of his. If I do, I'm liable to cream my fucking panties. I'm so sex deprived! It's not fair. Not only am I a red-blooded woman with needs, but since I'm trying my best to lay off the good stuff – the drugs and the alcohol – I need something to keep my mind off the toilet that is my life. I try to tell myself that I'm livin' it up with a rock star, kicking the shit in a mansion with no responsibilities, but the reality's a lot less pretty than all of that. I'm a girl with no future, no band, no money, no visa. I'm afraid that if I blink, I'll find myself back to being a cane cocky's daughter, picking up the dead mice that the cats always leave lying around the barn. “Anyway,” Ronnie continues, drawing me out of my thoughts. “I need to get Turner out and about and … ” He gives Sydney a look and she smiles, holding up her hands and backing away without a word. I thought privacy would be hard to come by, living in a house with all these people, but it almost feels like the opposite. I'm almost … lonely. “So we're going to get tested.”