Page 3 of Symphonic Synergy
Cain finishes his sentence with an oof and grips his side. I giggle as I see Billie glaring at him. “You’re sleeping on the sofa tonight.”
Lars drapes his arm around their girl and smirks. “Sweet. More for me.”
“Come on, Tinkerbell,” Cain groans as he rubs his side. “It’s an appreciation of her talent, that’s all.” He grabs Billie by the waist and hauls her to his chest before sprinkling kisses on the side of her neck.
“You okay with this?” Iggy whispers, pulling me away from Cain, Billie, and Lars.
Why would Iggy ask me that? Usually, he teases me for being a corporate lap dog. “Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”
Iggy shakes his head and points to my neck. “I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve got a picture or that band’s lead singer inside the locket you wear around your neck.”
The window was ajar, but I didn’t go in. Not right away. I wasn’t sure if I was in the mood to fuck Larken. He said I didn’t have to, but nobody did anything for free. We both knew what was expected of me. He let me crash at his house to escape my broken home, and I opened my legs until he came.
I’d been sneaking into Larken’s window for two years. I’d had to tap and wake him the first few times, but now he left it open for me. It was a crap shoot of when I’d show up. It depended on how much my dad drank.
I pulled out the pack of smokes from my pocket. The package was bent at the edges, but the cigarettes inside remained intact. My shaking fingers fumbled with the filters.
Tonight had been worse than usual, his anger volcanic. His red-rimmed eyes had warned me that he was finally going to kill me. Or worse. My father hadn’t always been like that. He’d cared about me, fed me, hugged me, and put Band-Aids on my superficial cuts simply because I demanded it. Then my mother left, and suddenly, my sweet Daddy, who’d loved me, morphed into a drunk and used me as a punching bag.
My hand moved to my face, and I traced the tender flesh. It would look ugly the next day. The puffy white skin on my cheek would bloom into pink and purple before dulling to a brownish yellow. Another present from my father to prove his undying love.
She’d been here the last time I came to Larken’s, all beaten up—Piper, his twin sister.
I liked how Piper had touched me. Her touch hadn’t seemed predatory. No lingering questions of what I would do in exchange for her kindness. The alcohol she’d wiped along my lip had stung like I was back there taking the punch from a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man. Every time I’d winced, she’d used the pad of her thumb to soothe the wound and whispered, “It’s okay to cry.”
Crying was an emotional reaction I didn’t have the luxury of partaking in. Tears and misery were for women who had the privileges I’d never had. Perhaps I’d cried as a child when my mother still cared about me, but not since she’d left.
Girls like me weren’t allowed to weep because no one cared about our tears. Society didn’t paint us as dainty flowers with pretty petals requiring protection. No one would stand up for me and demand justice or hold my hand when I broke a nail. I could bleed out in the middle of the street, and not one person would look at me in concern. Girls like me were used and discarded. We weren’t pampered and fawned over. Girls like me were unseen.
The cigarette glowed red under the starry sky as I pulled deeply, letting the heavy smoke hit my lungs. I didn’t particularly enjoy smoking, but when that first hit of nicotine invaded my bloodstream, it gifted me with a sense of peace. Almost like things would be okay. It was idiotic to take comfort from a substance that could give me cancer, but I figured my father would kill me long before lung cancer ever could.
“Those things will kill you,” a soft voice murmured from the darkness.
I opened my eyes to see Piper Hughes, Larken’s twin sister, standing over me. “Isn’t your momma gonna yell at you for being out at all hours of the night?”
Piper shrugged before lying beside me. She pointed to the cigarette in my hand with a lopsided smile. “You got another one of those cancer sticks?”
“How are you gonna sneak into the house?”
Piper pulled out her lighter and sucked the filter of the cigarette, making the ember glow. “I reckon the same as you, through a window. Hopefully, I won’t wake them up like last time. I’m pretty sure Dad would send me to military school if I were a guy.” Piper laughed as she deepened her voice to imitate Mr. Hughes. “‘You’re acting like a no-good hussy, gallivanting around these streets like a woman of the night. Want the whole town talking about you? You won’t have any eligible suitors if you behave like those women who live across town. Fatherless.’”
Her mocking tone, mimicking her father, made me sad and uncomfortable. I lived on the other side of town. Was that why Larken hadn’t introduced me to his parents? Usually, when I slept over, he shook me awake in the early hours and rushed me out of his bed before his mother started making breakfast in their sunny kitchen. Well, I assumed it was sunny. I didn’t know what the kitchen looked like.
Whenever I saw Mrs. Hughes around town, she seemed like someone who would be a fan of yellow wallpaper with a daisy or sunflower pattern. She wore floral dresses and smiled sweetly at everyone. Her pies were the talk of the town, and everyone praised her for being the perfect mother and wife.
My mom had been an aspiring actress who got knocked up and forced to marry a man she didn’t love. Why didn’t my mother have an abortion? It would’ve saved us both from a lifetime of misery.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and ignored my emotions. Taking a deep breath, I willed my tears to stay at bay. “What show did you go to tonight?”
“Some garage band. They had a female drummer. She was amazing. Hot too.”
Why did Piper mentioning another girl’s attractiveness bother me? We might have lived in a somewhat close-minded town, but I wasn’t a homophobe. Love was love, and in a world full of misery, if you were lucky enough to get a hold of it, you should death grip it. No, I wasn’t judgmental. I was jealous. I would’ve reacted the same way if she’d made the statement about a guy.
She laughed and leaned into me. “Don’t worry, Kaye. You’re hotter.”
I stiffened at her words. It was almost like she’d somehow cracked open my brain and was privy to everything within.
“Were they a cover band, or did they perform their own songs?” I asked, wanting to change the direction of the conversation.