TWENTY-ONE
Belle
An existential crisis—that’s what I’ve been told this is called. That point where you don’t know what to do, which road to take… which one will lead to a better future. Cerise moved in on Monday, and for the entire week I’ve wished for some miracle that would make her realise the whole thing were a mistake and leave. Because if she doesn’t, I just might.
I never wanted her back. Not when she left the first time, not now. Some things never change, and my lack of love for my mother is one of those.
“You realise this is your fault, don’t you?”
Zeus messaged to say he’s on his way home from work, and Dad has not long left for his night shift. Cerise is almost through her first bottle of wine, her words beginning to slur as she jabs her mostly empty glass at me.
“I drank before you came along, sure,” she rambles. “But I had control of it. After you were born, though…” She huffs a bitter laugh. “Christ. You wouldn’t shut up for the first few weeks. Cried, and cried, and cried.” She waves her arms around as she talks, moaning the words. “You were a handful from the get go.”
As the days go by, it seems more and more likely that her return coincides with a need to have someone to look after her. I can’t shake the feeling that she’s taking Dad for a ride, taking advantage of his good nature. I wouldn’t put it past the woman, that’s for sure. I might not have known much about my mother since she left when I was so young, but I learnt enough from the things Dad told me to know that Cerise doesn’t do anything unless it’s to her benefit.
She’s a user. In every aspect of the word.
I glance over the top of my phone as she leans her head back to take a sip of the wine. Cerise doesn’t look like what I imagine a mother should. Pressure makes her veins stand out against her pallid skin, the words she speaks to me gritted out through a stiff jaw. There’s no softness, no comfort. Nothing that I longed for as a kid.
I clearly didn’t miss out on anything, not having her around.
“What are you going to do with yourself now school is over?” she asks, her hand shaky as she pours another glass.
“I’ve contacted a few shops about placement as an apprentice.”
Dad thinks I should jump straight into what I want to be doing and not waste time saving cash at a regular job for school leavers, like the supermarket, or a takeaway joint. He has a point, in that I should focus on my chosen career rather than waste time in a job that doesn’t help me learn or grow in my preferred field. So I started to contact the artists I’ve followed for years on social media, asking for placement.
A bold step, yeah, but nobody got anywhere by sitting on their hands. The worst they can do is say no—which most have—but a few have either not responded or asked for a sample design to gauge my skill level.
It’s a start.
“Apprentice for what?”
I rise from my seat in the living room and head through to the kitchen to get her something to eat, rather than let her consume so much alcohol on an empty stomach.
“Tattooing.”
I’m not dumb—feeding her slows her absorption, which in turn makes my life easier.
She laughs as I pull a bag of bread rolls from the pantry and retrieve the butter and ham. “Do you have any plans to get a real job?”
Why the fuck Dad thought it was our responsibility to look after her, get her on the straight and narrow, I have no idea. If he wanted a project, he could have adopted a stray animal. At least an animal would have been grateful to have the free roof over its head while it mooched on what we gave it.
“Being a tattoo artist is a real job.” I slam the ham in her unbuttered bun, my level of care suddenly diminished.
“Don’t kid yourself, Belle.” She eyes the roll dismissively as I set it down on the table beside her. “You’ll never make good money doing that.”
“You shouldn’t offer advice on things you don’t understand.” I swipe my phone off the sofa and drop onto the cushions.
I catch her lift the food in my periphery as I flick through my timeline. She inspects the bread roll, lifting the ham as though I would have hidden poison beneath it, and then takes a bite.
My thumb hovers over the screen while I glance her way. “If I wanted to get rid of you, I’d think of something more practical than giving myself a dead body to dispose of.”
Cerise sneers before taking another bite and then setting the food aside while she chews.
“You’re giving me that look,” she says, wiping the crumbs from her lips. “That one that says you think you’re better than me.”
Because I am.
She lifts her glass and takes a large gulp. “I’m your mother, Belle.” Exactly. I wish she’d act like it. “You’re supposed to respect me.”
“Give me something worth respecting and we’ll go from there, huh?”
She sets her glass down with a clang and rises abruptly from her seat. I stiffen, ready to flee the room, when the click of the front door freezes her in her tracks.
“Afternoon, everyone.”
Zeus. I’ve never been more thankful for his untimely interruptions in my life.
This week has been hard on both of us, having to hide the connection we so clearly acknowledged on this very sofa. He avoids eye contact, and more often than not leaves the room when I enter. It’s painful, especially since my self-doubt has begun to creep in telling me that perhaps he’s realised his mistake.
“How was your day?” Cerise asks sweetly, taking a step back to retrieve her glass. “You look tired.”
Tension crackles between the two of them as he stares her down without answering. My skin heats when his intense gaze slides to me, his eyes softening a fraction.
“Everything okay, here?”
“Fine,” I mumble. “I’m in my room if anyone wants me.” I hold his gaze as I stand, willing him to read between the lines.
Cerise knocks back another gulp of her drink and then picks her smokes off the side table as I leave the room. I cast a glance back at her, my gut tight when I catch the way she blatantly looks Zeus over with appreciation while his back is turned. They hate each other—that much is clear—but she still seems to like having him around.
Makes me want to throw caution to the wind and claim him as mine for all to see.
I retreat to my room and shut the door before I cross to my music dock and set the mood with some sombre rock. My pencils are still spread over my small desk from earlier in the day, the piece I was working on calling to me.
The tip of my red intensifies the shading in the centre of the flower, the work almost complete by the time I hear him enter.
“Hey.”
I turn on my seat and fail to find a smile for him. “Hey.”
“She’s taken her wine outside to have a smoke.” Zeus tips his head toward the door as he closes it softly behind him. “We’ve got five minutes, more or less.”
“This is bullshit.”
He frowns. “What is?”
“Having to hide like this.”
I track the way his body moves as he crosses my room, the roll of his huge shoulders as he takes a seat on the side of my bed. “I know it’s hard.”
“But?”
“I’m hoping I’ll have a place of my own sorted soon.”
I don’t say anything; the conversation seems so absurd. I feel as though if I talk it would wake me from the dream.
“Come here.” Zeus pats the bed beside him. “I miss you, dove.”
“Even though,” I say as I move to sit beside him, “we live under the same roof.”
He wraps an arm around my waist before I can drop to the bed, and manoeuvres me so that I straddle his thick thighs. “That’s what makes it so hard.” He pulls me forward, shunting me hard against his hips. The proximity is unbelievably erotic, despite the fact we’re both fully clothed. “I want to sneak over here every night, but Cerise is a light sleeper. I hear her get up sometimes, early in the morning.”
“I know.” I hear her too.
She drinks during the day, and more often than not, falls asleep too. Which unfortunately for us means she doesn’t always sleep that well at night. I’m only new to her habits, but already I hate them. She’s a waste of oxygen.
“I thought maybe you’d changed your mind,” I admit. “I couldn’t tell.”
“No,” he coos, burying his nose against my throat. “No way.”
I lean my head back, the heat of his lips against my flesh making my nipples pebble.
“I did everything I wanted to with you, dove.”
“Everything?” I tease, smiling as he pulls back to look in my eyes.
He smirks, the tilt of his lips sending butterflies thrumming through my middle. “Everything I wanted to do that night,” he clarifies with a raised eyebrow. Zeus hooks his fingers in the neck of my shirt, pulling the fabric away from my body so he can peek below. “Everything else will come in good time.”
“I need you.” The words escape before I have time to doubt saying them.
He answers by sealing his lips over mine, stealing my breath away as he sets both hands on my butt and grinds me against his thickening erection. I feel nothing like the teenager I am in that moment. I feel respected and revered. Equal with the man I crave.
“We don’t have very long, dove, and I don’t want to rush things with you.”
I lament the loss of his touch as he pulls away, letting me slide further down his legs.
“Who says we’re rushing?”
“I am.” My feet are dropped to the floor as he stands to run a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m still wrapping my head around exactly how this works. I don’t want to screw up because I’m being careless.”
“Screw up with who?” I cross my arms.
His silent shrug says it all: Dad. He’s cautious because of the chance of getting caught out, not to spare my feelings. Fuck. Am I always going to come second?
“You can leave,” I say flatly. “I should go make us all dinner, anyway.”
“I can help if you want?” Zeus hesitates by my door like a lost lamb.
“I think you’ve done enough.” The blow is low, but it gets the desired reaction as I push past him and head for the kitchen.
I understand the need to hide me away, but I don’t want to be shut out in the cold completely. Sure, take things slow in the public eye for my father’s sake, but why the hell can’t he act on his urges behind closed doors?
Unless that’s the problem. What if the trouble I cause is more than the reward is worth? Maybe I’m just too much of a challenge?
Fuck it.
Cerise enters the house as I walk into the kitchen, waving her hand around as though she can simply bat the smell of nicotine off her. “What’s got your face looking like a pinched arse?”
I roll my eyes at her and cross to the fridge to retrieve the meat I thawed earlier.
“Do you have your driver’s licence?” She rests her butt against the edge of the counter, eyeing me as I prepare the cutting board.
“Why?”
“I’m on my last bottle.”
I lift my brow as I draw the knife from the block. “Well, that’s your piss poor preparation then, isn’t it?”
“There’s ten dollars in it for you.”
“You can’t buy my obedience.” I slice the blade into the meat, wishing it were her.
“Fine.” Her shoulder bunts me as she passes, making the knife slip. “I’ll ask Zeus.”
I hesitate to catch my breath after narrowly missing cutting my fingertip off. “He’s not your slave.”
Her eyes are hard as she swings around to meet my gaze. “And you’ve got no say in what I do. If he wants to help me when my own daughter won’t, then that’s his choice.”
My heart thunders in my chest; just the thought of her going down to his room to talk to him makes me murderous. My mother was beautiful once, before the poison ravaged her body and aged her prematurely. I can’t shake the idea that Zeus might see that, see past all her vices, as absurd as the concept is.
I need to get a grip on this jealousy. I kissed him, and he fingered me—what of it? We’re hardly an item, especially after the way he acted just now.
“I can drive you after dinner.”
She leans to one side, eyes narrowed on me. “Why the sudden change of attitude?” Cerise lifts a thin hand to thumb toward the hallway. “It’s almost as though you don’t want me to ask Zeus.”
“I don’t want you to put him out, is all.”
“Huh.” She studies me as I cube the meat.
My face flames, my hand clammy around the hilt of the knife. I’ve tripped the wire, cut the wrong colour. I have seconds to fix this, if any time at all.
“You might be onto something though.” My gut twists at the mere thought of my next words. “If he takes you now, you can get yourself another bottle in time for dinner.”
I don’t want her in the same car as him, let alone the same house. I don’t want her to even look at him—not how she did before, especially.
“For once in your life, Belle, you’ve said something that actually makes sense.” She smirks, knowing she’s got me, just not how.
I steady my breathing as she turns and leaves the room. She calls out as she makes her way down the hall, “Zeus? I need a favour.”
Fuck. I need a lot more than that.
I need a miracle if I’m going to make it through this evening in one piece.