by Lesley Jones
You remember that kids game Buckaroo? Well, that’s how my heart was feeling right then, like the horse had bucked, throwing bits of it in every direction. It was hitting my ribs, my belly, and my throat.
It took her a few seconds to notice me, then she screamed, dropped her bag and moved one hand to her chest.
“Fuck,” she said breathlessly, sexily. Her face changed in an instant.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Didn’t my mum call you?” I asked.
She frowned and shook her head. “No, why?”
“Hmm, sorry about that. I thought you knew I was gonna be staying here.” I tried to sound like I was sorry.
Obviously I wasn’t, not in the least.
“Wh-What? Staying here? Why?” She stuttered out, all colour now drained from her face.
I should’ve felt bad, but I didn’t.
“Well, you wouldn’t believe what’s happened at my place. Some “fucker,” I used finger air quote thingy’s when I said it, “has broken into my place and left rotting food everywhere. And a thick, green mould growing all over my bedroom. Could take weeks to put right.” I held my hands out, shaking my head and trying to look as if I was in despair, which I kinda was.
“So yeah, anyway. What with the wedding being just next week, I needed to be in town, so my mum said that since you have a spare room, I should stay here, at least until after the wedding.”
She was shaking her head before I even finished talking.
“No. I can’t have you … I won’t have you here. Get out. Get the fuck out right this fucking minute. How dare you even come here?” She picked up her bag and stepped closer as she spoke.
I stepped closer as I listened, but ignored what she was saying.
“Ash, look, I’m so fucking… Argghhhh. What the—” I couldn’t see … I couldn’t fucking breathe. Fuck, I was on fire. My skin was fucking dissolving, along with my eyeballs.
“Get out of my fucking flat.”
“Oghaghfuuuck,” was the sorta sound I made as my legs gave way and I crumbled to the floor. A kick in the balls would do that to ya.
I rolled onto my back and held onto my balls, which were now hiding somewhere near my ears. I coughed and spluttered as my eyes burned and streamed with tears. I reached up to rub them.
My eyes … not my balls.
“Don’t rub them, you’ll make it worse,” Ash said from above as she dug, what I assumed was her shoe, into my ribs.
“What the… What the fuck?”
“Pepper spray. Your mum supplies all of us girls with it. She likes to know we’re safe when we walk out to our cars, or into our flats. Never know what weirdo’s could be lurking.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She fucking pepper sprayed me, then kicked me in the balls when I couldn’t see it coming.
“Stop complaining. I aimed it over your shoulder. You didn’t even get a full blast, else you wouldn’t be able to breathe right now.”
I laid there, rocking from side to side on my back, still cupping where my balls used to be; eyes bleeding and foaming at the mouth as my skin burned away, and ya know what she said? Go on, guess.
“Can you see your way to the front door yet? I wanna take a shower. I’m going out in a bit.”
I threw up. I didn’t do it on purpose, it just came up out of nowhere.
“Great, now you’re throwing up on my floor,” she complained.
She complained about me throwing up?
“Don’t you even dare fucking complain. I spent a whole night dealing with your spew.” I coughed and spluttered out.
“You only did that so that you could see my tits.”
“Believe me, babe, I don’t need to clear up spew to get a bird to flash me her tits.”
“Well, from what I can tell, Ankles Legitrowski’s ain’t worth flashing.”
“Who the fuck’s Ankles Legi—” I didn’t get to finish.
“The long legged, flat chested Russian you’ve been fucking.” She dug me in the ribs with her shoe again as she spoke.
I tried to open my eyes to glare at her, but it was too painful. “Fuck, this burns.”
“Yeah, that’s kinda the point,” she sarcastically replied. I heard her move around and the fridge door opening and closing. Surely she wasn’t gonna leave me here while she made a cup of tea?
“Arghhh,” I shouted as something cold and wet hit my face. “What the fuck have you done to me now?”
“Milk. S’posed to help with the burn.” It actually did, but I wasn’t gonna tell her that.
I laid there quietly for a while, too scared to move in case I got poked in the ribs by a pointy shoe, or roll over into my own up chuck or a puddle of milk.
“I’m sorry for running out on you the way I did, Ash,” I started to explain.
“Save it for someone that cares, Rock Star. I don’t wanna hear your bullshit excuses.”
“But I just wanna—”
“What part of ‘I don’t wanna hear it’ do you not understand?” I knew she was pacing the floor. I could hear her footsteps. I just wished I could open my fucking eyes. At least I didn’t feel like my throat was closing up anymore.
“I don’t care what you’ve got to say, Marley. As soon as you can see, I want you to get the fuck outta here, and then I want you to stay the fuck away from me.”
I remained silent. It was pointless trying to argue with her in my condition. I’d lost this battle, but the war was far from over.
I’d left Ashley’s the night before without getting a chance to say anything that I wanted to. I ended up driving to Len and Jimmie’s to stay the night, not wanting to face the mess or be alone at my place.
Luckily, Jim was already in bed and Len was about to head up when I got there, so I didn’t get asked too many questions.
I spent the following week calling Ash, buzzing at her front door, and generally making a nuisance of myself, but she wasn’t having a bar of it, and I got nowhere.
Jim told me that she’d be at the wedding so at least I’d get to see her then.
When the day finally arrived, Len looked the part in his velvet collared suit and boot lace tie. Jimmie looked stunning in her fifties-style wedding dress, as did all the bridesmaids. The church service went off without a problem, apart from the fact that Ash turned up with a bloke. I was at the front of the church, showing people where to sit when she walked in.
She looked stunning in a blue dress and silver heels—no purple in sight. Her gaze met mine and I watched as she squared her shoulders, tilted her chin and reached for the hand of the fuckhead standing next to her.
“Fuck,” I said under my breath. I instantly felt my mother’s eyes burning into me. She was twenty fucking feet away. The woman had bionic hearing when it came to swear words.
“Sorry,” I mouthed to her. She narrowed her eyes and shook her head like I was four-years-old.
The service was lovely and romantic and blah, blah blah bullshit. Jim gagged at even the whiff of shit or puke, so there went the in sickness bit, and there was no way she’d ever obey Len, so that was out the window too. I seriously didn’t see the point of all that bollocks, except I did, and she was sitting four rows from the back with a Desperate Dan lookalike. He was four feet wide and nine feet tall. I just knew that he’d eaten a whole cow in a pie for breakfast that morning. In fact, I swear he had part of the tail caught in the designer stubble on his chin and a hoof stuck between his front teeth.
I looked at her a total of seventeen times in the church and desperately tried to get near her as the photos were being taken.
“Will you get the fuck over here and stop wandering off,” Bailey growled through gritted teeth. He was taking the best man bullshit far too seriously if you asked me.
“You’re behaving like a fucking bored toddler the way you keep wandering off.” I dug my hands in my pockets and kicked at the gravel, probably looking a lot like a bored toddler.
When the photos were fina
lly done, Ash was nowhere in sight. When we got to the function hall, she was sitting nowhere near me.
I spent the next few hours eating, drinking, and smiling my way through the speeches. Kissing aunties and cousins and being chatted up by no fewer than nine women, most of whom I was related to.
Finally, when the tables began to be cleared, I stood and made my way past where she was sitting and out to the bar.
It didn’t take long for her to follow. She had her arm looped through Georgia’s and she totally ignored me as they both headed towards the ladies toilets.
A minute later, Maca appears next to me with the Neanderthal in tow. He cleared his throat and looked a little uncomfortable. “All right, mate? This is Ashley’s fella, Dan.” I spat my bourbon. I kid you not, the fuckhead’s name was Dan.
I nod my head in his direction.
“All right. Ashley’s boyfriend, eh? She moves fast, that girl.”
I shouldn’t have, I really shouldn’t have.
“We’ve only just broken up. I can’t believe she’s moved on so quickly. We only decided a few days ago that we were gonna try and work through our problems.”
But I did.
His mouth opened and closed a few times before he said, “I’m not … I’m not her boyfriend. I’m just her date for the night. We don’t really know each other that well. This is our first date, really.”
And your last.
Ash and Georgia came back from their bathroom break and there were a few seconds of awkward silence.
“Ashley, you look absolutely beautiful—stunning, in fact,” I told her.
She narrowed her eyes on me then opened, looked inside, and then closed the bag she had with her. We all watched, mystified as she patted herself down, as if checking her pockets. She then looked all around her.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“The fuck I’m supposed to give about what you think of how I look.”
Oh, she’s such a comedienne.
“Nup, can’t find it. I reckon that means it don’t exist.” She turned her attentions to Dan the cow killer.
I should’ve just said fuck this for a game of soldiers and walked away, but I wasn’t done yet.
“Ash, can we go somewhere and talk for a minute please?” I reached out and put my hand on her arm. She looked down at where I was touching her before meeting my gaze, her eyes filled with tears.
“No, now take your fucking hands off me.” She spoke to me through gritted teeth and I didn’t hesitate to remove my hand.
“I’m sorry. I just wanna—”
“Just wanna what, Rock Star? You just wanna what? Fuck with my head some more? Fuck me some more? Or just fuck off and leave me, again? What, tell me?”
‘Desperate to be anywhere but here’ Dan said nothing. He pretty much stood with his back to us as he tried to get served at the bar.
I wasn’t doing this now. It was Jimmie and Len’s wedding. I wouldn’t do what everyone expected and cause a scene.
“Nothing, Ash, nothing. You look beautiful, that’s all. I just thought you should know.”
I watched as a tear rolled down her perfect cheek, then I did what I did best; I turned and walked away to the sound of Georgia calling out my name.
I spent the next couple of hours chatting with family members and drinking far too much. Maca found me sitting at the bar at the opposite end of the room to where I left him.
“I had no idea she was bringing him, else I would’ve warned you. What the fuck is going on with you two anyway? I had no clue things had gotten serious.”
“Well, if you’d have been the fuck around, you might know a bit more,” I said without looking at him.
He sat down on the bar stool next to me. “Fair enough, but I’ve had some bridges to build with your sister. We needed some time on our own to get back on track.”
I felt like an arsehole. What had gone on with Ashley was in no way Maca’s fault. I was just pissed off at the world.
“How are things with my sister?” I asked, whilst destroying a cardboard beer coaster. “You get to the bottom of the Cameron King thing?”
“We’re okay. I’m not sure that she’s all in yet. There’s gonna be trust issues for a while, I’ve gotta expect that, and he’s messed with her head, big time. Told her that he loves her and went on a drink and drug binge.”
“Fuck. Seems hard to imagine, a big hard bloke like that falling apart over my little sister.”
“Yeah, she’s good at getting blokes to do that,” he said with a shake of his head.
“She’s feeling guilty over what she’s done to him and still struggling to totally trust me. I think she’s already worrying about next year’s world tour.”
I nodded my head, knowing a little of how he felt and being only too aware that I’d fucked up any chance of Ashley ever trusting me.
“So, you two gonna get married?” It seemed like the logical move to me. He surprised me by shaking his head no.
“We’re not gonna rush into anything. We’ve got four years of catching up to do. If we get married, people are gonna expect babies, and we just want some time for us right now. We’ve both grown up and changed a lot in the time we’ve been apart. We need to get to know each other again. We’ll get around to it when it suits us, not everyone else.”
He gestured to the barman for more drinks. Someone came up and made small talk, a cousin of Jim’s, he said. When he left, Maca asked, “So come on, then. What’s the go with Ash? She’s really pissed off with you, dude. She was almost in tears when you walked away.”
“We had something good.” I turned and looked him in the eyes. I wanted him to know that for once, I was serious. For the first time ever, I, me, this bloke right here, had feelings for a girl that went beyond sex—way, way beyond. “We had something good and then I did what I do best and fucked it all up.”
“How?”
“I had her move in with me because she was sick and I wanted to look after her. She was with me for over a week and I never touched her,” I admitted.
His bushy eyebrows raised up into his hairline. “All this time, and you haven’t slept with her?”
“I slept with her plenty of times, but we didn’t have sex, not until the night before I left.”
“You fucked and ran,” he stated.
“I panicked. She’s perfect … too fucking perfect and I’m…” I shrugged my shoulders at him. “I’m just me, and I knew that eventually I’d balls it all up and let her down somehow, so I thought it’d be better to get out sooner rather than later.” It felt good getting it off my chest, even if it didn’t change anything.
“So you jogged off and banged the Russian?”
“I didn’t bang anyone. I made sure I had my picture taken with plenty of birds so that she would hate me and move on, but I didn’t bang a single one of them. I couldn’t. I could only … all I can think of is her. I want her back, Mac, but she won’t listen to a word I say.”
“Have you tried talking to her in private? Like, not at a bar at a celebrity wedding?”
Oh, I tried, and ended up traumatised for life and probably unable to father children. “I went to her flat.”
“And?”
“She pepper sprayed me and kicked me in the balls. I went down like a sack of shit.”
He spits his bourbon all over the bar. “She did … what the fuck, Marls?” He actually had to hold his sides as he laughed.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh all you like. Don’t forget I’ve seen the state you’ve been in over my sister.”
He cleared his throat and took another sip of his drink before speaking. “That’s a classic, mate. I tell ya what, you two are made for each other. You’ve met your match with that girl, and that’s exactly what you need.”
“Yeah, she is, but am I what she needs?”
He leaned away from me and opened his mouth a couple of times before any words came out. “Why the fuck wouldn’t you be?”
“Come on, Mac. This is m
e we’re talking about … Marley? When I’m not busy fucking up my own life, I’m busy fucking up other people’s.”
“Marls, listen, mate. You need to get your head around the fact that what happened between me and G wasn’t your fault. Yeah, you were there and yeah, you did nothing to stop me … encouraged me, in fact. But at the end of the day, it was down to me. Me and no other fucker. I had a girlfriend waiting at home. I had the option to say no. I knew that what we were doing was wrong but I did it anyway, so stop being a martyr and beating yourself up over it.”
I sipped my bourbon in the hopes that it would push down the lump in my throat that Maca’s words had caused.
“Dude, you’re the founding member and guitarist of one of the most successful bands this country has ever seen, and you’re what, twenty-three? You, my friend, are so not a fuck up. You’re like a brother to me, so as one brother to another, take it from someone that knows. If you want a future with that girl, then you don’t stop telling her until she listens. Scream it from the rooftops. Fuck, you’re a musician, write it in a song.”
“You’re the songwriter, Mac, not me.” I reminded him.
“Well there’s nothing wrong with your voice. Yours is every bit as good as mine, so sing her a song, do what you gotta do to make her listen.”
I drained my drink, thinking about what he’d said. It was all right for him, he had no issue with expressing his feelings. He’d loved my sister since they were kids. Outside of him and my family, I’d never loved anyone. I’d never been in love.
“What sort of song am I gonna sing to her?” I asked him, feeling clueless, feeling like … I don’t know what. I can’t believe a girl had gotten me so twisted up in knots.
“You’re sweating, mate. You feeling all right?” Maca asked with a grin.
“No. Just the thought of singing something to her is making me wanna throw up.”
His eyes dart all over my face. “You really like her, don’t ya?” He draped his arm over my shoulder as he asked.
“Like you wouldn’t believe. Like I don’t believe.”