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He’s grinning, being typical Bryn with his weird sense of humour, but his comment makes things worse. Steve slams his hands on the table. “Jesus fucking Christ, Liam! Do you have a secret kid?” Not funny Bryn, the poor guy has enough to deal with.
“No, I haven’t! She’s Cerys’s daughter.”
“Cerys?” asks Bryn, sitting forward with his elbows on the table. “You never told me when I spoke to you the other day. Cerys has a kid now? Wow, she’s young for that.”
“Okay, not your kid. Good. Right.” Steve dismisses me. “Bryn?”
“Do I have a secret love child? I have six. Hang on, no, seven.”
“Not helpful! I need to make sure you’re free of shit they can drag up. Where’ve you been staying recently?”
Bryn’s grin disappears. “I said, under the radar.”
“With?”
“Me, myself, and I. Shit, Steve, I’m the drummer, nobody cares.”
I glance at Dylan who stares at the table as if he’s not present. Am I selfish, not wanting to support Jem? Maybe, but I’m over his dragging us down. Between him and Dylan, the crazy doesn’t stop and I’m over this shit.
“What do you expect us to do now, Steve?” asks Dylan. “All stay here for a happy Christmas?”
“I reckon you boys should go back to the States until this blows over,” Steve replies
“No way!” I say. “I understand this is bad, but I’m not going back there yet. Besides, Jem needs support, right? We can’t all fuck off and leave him.”
“He’s right. Bring Jem back here. We should stay at my place. See what happens over the next few days and go from there,” says Dylan.
* * *
I kickaround Dylan’s house as we wait to hear what’s happening with Jem. Tina came with a debrief—the police are releasing Jem but there’s still a big question mark hanging over his head over his involvement. Now I’ve spoken to Tina and told her everything she needs to know, I want to leave.
Me and Bryn spend a few hours on the Xbox losing ourselves in yet another fantasy world but I can’t concentrate. The beers don’t help my accuracy so I give up and wander to the kitchen for a snack.
Dylan and Sky are in the kitchen, and when I pull out a bowl of nachos and dip, I sit at the huge table and watch them. They’re cooking, a simple, everyday thing but there’s something odd in the synchronicity they have. They’re coordinated; the way they move around each other is like they share an unspoken pattern. Dylan’s hands on her waist as he moves past, Sky touching his hand as she stirs a pot with the other. Natural and real, they don’t need to communicate to tell each other and the rest of the world how in tune they are.
The sight opens my eyes further to Honey and me. I don’t doubt she cared about me and I felt a lot for her, but I’m looking at the definition of real love. Although I’m sure things aren’t all rosy after four months apart, I can’t help but be fucking jealous. Dylan never wanted a girl and the love of his life lands in his lap.
I want someone to share my life who I can grow old and have kids with. Something stable. I live the Blue Phoenix life, but I also have a crazy dream that I head home to my wife and kids at the end of a long tour. Plenty of people have long-distance relationships—after a few years, I can jack it all in and they can be the new centre of my world. I thought I could have this with Honey, but how can I with someone who so easily finds her way into the arms of another man?
I don’t hang around the kitchen long. Things are awkward with Sky after she saw me with Cerys. She’s friendly and chatty but the wariness behind her eyes matches mine. I’m fairly sure she hasn’t mentioned anything to Dylan because the only caginess from him is his avoiding talking about Honey.
I’ll stay at Dylan’s for tonight then decide what to do tomorrow.
* * *
CERYS
“But where didUncle Liam go? He said he’d take me to the park!”
I huff and place Ella’s dinner on the table. Cheese spread sandwiches, cut into triangles, crusts off. Her incessant whinging about Liam irritates me, mostly because the same whinging happens in my own head.
Where did Liam go and why didn’t he say anything? I shake my head at myself. Why would he? We’re nothing outside of the weird kisses we shared. Louise has no idea either—he left this afternoon when everyone was out of the house. Liam didn’t leave a note.
“Okay, here’s your answer!” calls Louise from the lounge room.
Leaving Ella at the kitchen table, I go to Louise. The TV flashes pictures of Jem and Dylan, police gathered outside a hotel, and a picture of a young, platinum blonde-haired girl onscreen. I stalk all things Blue Phoenix online so I know who this is—Jem’s latest girlfriend.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Jem’s girlfriend died.”
“Wow,” is the best I can manage. “How?”
Louise looks over the sofa at me. “Drugs, of course.”
The Jem I knew ago was as big a mess as he is now. He was always closer to Dylan than Liam, but he came over to Liam’s place when I spent time with Louise. He was skinny and nervy but always polite. I heard whispered conversations about his home life—never anything good. From what I understood, he was left alone to look after himself a lot, as his mum would go away for days at a time. Once Jem hit his mid-teens, the quiet attitude switched to rude self-defence and he retreated from everyone apart from his three friends.
Sometimes when Jem was high, he’d talk to me in Liam’s kitchen as he made a snack, but I was awe by but uncomfortable around him and would scurry away. Jem was Louise’s crush and after years of walking around after him with puppy-dog eyes, he gave her what she wanted. This was the same night Liam kissed me, although she and Jem didn’t stop at kissing. The event obviously blew away her rock star dreams because they haven’t spoken since that night.
“I’ll call Liam and find out where he is. If this is true, I think he’ll be with the rest of the band somewhere,” Louise says.
