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He looks down at her, eyes sweeping from her head to her toes, and twists his face like she’s a cockroach.
It’s official. I’m going to kill him later. I’m going to murder him in his bed.
“Lucas,” I grit out.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he tells me, looking past Cleo like she doesn’t exist. He walks off without sparing either of us another glance.
Cleo stares after him. When the bathroom door slams, she blinks, as if woken from a daze.
“Sorry about that,” I say when she returns to the couch. “He can be a dickface sometimes.”
She nods slowly, looking over the back of the couch where the bathroom is located. “How do you know each other?”
“We grew up together,” I explain. “We went to the same primary school and high school.”
“Are you two close?”
“Kind of.”
“Is he studying?”
“Yeah, same uni as us.”
“Does he have a lot of friends?”
Weird question. “I guess. A lot of people like him. He can be nice when he wants to be.”
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
“No. I think he just…screws around. He’s not the relationship type.”
“Right,” Cleo says.
She drags her eyes from the bathroom door to me, then smiles, something catlike in her eyes that makes me shiver. Then she brings her lips back down to press them against mine.
*
My sister looks like me, just cooler. We have the same fair skin. The same almond eyes. The same dark hair, although while mine is short and choppy, her hair is long with a sensible straight across fringe over her eyebrows. Of course, the sensibility of her haircut is undercut by the twenty colourful barrettes decorating the sides of her hair, making her look more like a six-year-old rather than a twenty-four-year-old currently studying a Masters of Education.
We sit across from each other in a pastel-coloured cafe, both holding laminated menus. The air around us rumbles with chatter and laughter.
“Charlie,” Jemima starts, giving me puppy eyes.
“No.” My voice is firm.
“What? Why not?”
“Because,” I say, exasperated. “You’re older than me! You should be grown up.”
“I am grown up. I have an investment portfolio. I vote. I remember to clean the shower drain. So, I am grown up, thank you very much.”
“Except you can’t do this one thing. When you’re a teacher, how do you expect your students to listen to you if you don’t even have the guts to talk to the waitress?”
“Because I’ll be teaching kids! Kids are younger than me, therefore, they aren’t scary. Besides, you don’t want to talk to her either.”
“Because I — it’s not that I’m scared. It’s just a matter of principle.”
“Charlie,” Jemima says. “Don’t make me go through with it. I already have to do it all the time. Yesterday, I had to make a phone call — a phone call — and it was the worst. I need a reprieve. Please.”
