Rock You (Fallen Star Book 1)

by Candy J. Starr

  “The grocery man just came,” I said.

  Then I looked at the clock. Damn. The guy was supposed to turn up in the 2.30-4.30 window. It was 10 to two.

  “He came early,” I explained. “I had him booked for later.”

  He leaned against the doorway. Not in a casual and relaxed leaning way but in an “I need to support myself or I’m going to explode” way. This guy really had some anger management issues. He glared at me and I wondered if I should just back out of the room.

  “You booked him for later?” His voice drawled, heavy with sarcasm. Like I’d purposely organise the delivery guy to cut into his personal kitchen time.

  “You can check the docket if you don’t believe me. It has the delivery time written here.”

  I waved the paper at him but he ignored it. He just frowned and glared at me. I found myself blushing under his scrutinising gaze. He could just take the bloody receipt or shut up instead of standing there, thinking stuff in his head about me. I didn’t like the amount of judging I could see going on.

  Even though I tried to act tough, the way he looked at me had me shaking a little. I bent down to get the frozen foods out of the boxes the delivery man had left on the floor. They needed to be put away before they spoilt but, more importantly, it gave me an excuse to not look at O’Malley. He just stood there, watching, not saying anything.

  Normally, silence is my friend — we are on the best terms ever — but I’d never met a silence as mean as O’Malley’s silence. I opened the freezer door and took my time about rearranging things, safely hidden from his view. Those blue eyes of his were like ice and every bit as sharp.

  “Make sure you manage things better next time.”

  Before he could storm off, storm being the operative word since that guy really did seem to have dark clouds around him and lightning bolts coming out of his eyes, I asked him about the groceries.

  “Put anything you like on my card, I don’t care. Just don’t bother me about it.”

  He started to walk off and, before he reached the stairs, I clarified.

  “Even tampons?”

  He was not amused but he stomped back upstairs without mentioning anything about giving me the sack, which was a definite bonus.

  How could he be angry with me for something that so obviously wasn’t my mistake? Next time I’d make sure the delivery guy came early in the morning or later in the day. It’d be much easier than dealing with that surliness.

  As I put away the groceries, I thought about what was going on. If anyone in the world could understand not wanting to interact with people, it was me but O’Malley really took the hermit cake. Surely a dude delivering groceries wouldn’t be that big a deal. If I could cope with it, surely he could.

  O’Malley obviously had money but he was pretty damn messed up. I wondered if I’d imagined that he’d actually smiled at me the night before for those few seconds. He must’ve almost cracked his face doing that. He didn’t smile often, that was for sure.

  I thought about telling my friend, CJ, about him when I next chatted to her. My imaginary friend, Mum called her. Which shit me. Just because you haven’t met someone in real life, doesn’t mean they can’t be your best friend. I’d “met” CJ when we were both really into writing Pokemon fan fiction years back and we’d always kept in touch. She still wrote fan fiction but I got over it. I wasn’t that into popular culture like she was. I liked stuff that most people my age had never heard of. Not in a wanky, hipster way but in a really embarrassing way.

  Anyway, I knew what CJ would say. She’d think he’d been hurt in the past. Hurt so bad he was damaged. In fact, Tex O’Malley was exactly the type of guy she loved. A guy who needed rescuing from his own pain. Me, I tended to run from other people’s pain in case they decided to talk about it. Mum said I had no empathy but I thought I had too much. If I let other people’s pain into my life, it overwhelmed me to the point I had trouble functioning so I just put up a wall to keep it out. A big, strong wall with a moat filled with crocodiles and things. Well, it wasn’t so much human pain that upset me, to be honest. But animal pain, that really upset me. I cannot watch or read anything where animals get hurt. I just can’t cope with that. The cheesy, lamest animal movie for kids will have me crying buckets of tears. But actual people, I didn’t get so much.

  They do all this stupid stuff like falling in love then it mucks them all up inside. I had boyfriends, sure, but mostly they were just imaginary boyfriends. Not even imaginary like Mum thought CJ was imaginary but boyfriends from books and historical boyfriends, stuff like that. Like Napoleon. I’d have totally tapped that.

  At least I could use all the annoyance from that man’s stupid moods to fuel my work. I scrubbed and polished like I was rubbing his stupid face off his head. He made me so angry. Those stupid, long eyelashes annoyed me the most. The way he flicked them when he was looking down his nose at me. They were so stupidly long. His lips were pretty stupid. All plump and full. If he didn’t have that hard angled face with those cheekbones, his lips would just look girlie but he managed to have those lips and still radiate all kinds of manliness from him. But it was definitely the eyelashes more than the lips that made me angry.

  Once I’d finished cleaning the front rooms, there were actual parts of the house that sparkled. The sun shone through the bay window in the front room. Upstairs, I could hear the boss man pacing the floors. With no carpet in his room, by the sound of it. The back part of the house with the kitchen, laundry and my bedroom had obviously been built on later. They weren’t as old as the rest of the house and that part was only single storey. At least I wouldn’t have to put up with him pacing over my head.

  I chopped up some vegetables and made a casserole, leaving it on to simmer while I put away all my cleaning stuff.

  My last job before I finished for the day was tackling the mess that was the bathroom. I hoped O’Malley had his own bathroom upstairs because the one downstairs had not been used in a long, long time. Surely he had to shower somewhere because I remembered how piney fresh he’d smelt the night before.

  I’d not showered since I got there. I hadn’t wanted to use the room for anything more than the essentials until I got a chance to clean it but you can’t do hard manual labour for two days without bathing. Even I have my limits. If I can smell myself, I have to wash.

  The bathtub was massive. Like something you’d see old Hollywood movie stars soaking in with bubbles. Except I don’t think it’d actually been cleaned since the days of black and white movies. Since I just needed a shower, I figured I’d leave the tub for another day. Now I had cleaning supplies, I could at least get the shower defuzzed and functional.

  When the shower was actually in a usable state, I grabbed a towel from my room. Luckily, I’d had one in my suitcase because I would have hated to use one of the ones in the house. I couldn’t imagine O’Malley having a well set out linen closet.

  I stripped off and jumped under the warm water.

  The grime washed off me and down the plughole. It kinda disgusted me thinking I’d gone to bed the night before so dirty.

  When I got out, all clean and lovely, the house was filled with the aroma of super delicious food. I was really looking forward to that casserole. I’d not eaten too much since I’d been at the house and my stomach rumbled in anticipation. Just from the smell alone, I could tell it would be one of my personal best casserole efforts. I planned to dish myself up a huge bowl full with some of that crusty bread I’d got, and then leave the rest for O’Malley’s lunch.

  I scoffed it down, not realising just how hungry I was until I started eating. Warm, delicious food was one of the great joys in life. I didn’t stay awake for long after dinner. I’d exhausted myself cleaning the house and pretty much fell straight asleep.

  I woke up in the darkness to a noise in the kitchen. I had no idea what time it was and no intention of going to investigate, not after the previous night’s drama. If O’Malley wanted to creep around his own house, I
’d leave him to it. I put the pillow over my head so I couldn’t hear him and went back to sleep.

  I woke up again, not sure what had disturbed me. The kitchen was quiet, at least. As I tried to get back to sleep, I could hear strains of music coming from somewhere. I figured O’Malley was playing a CD or downloading something. I didn’t know much about music but it sounded like an old rock song that had been popular when I was in high school. One of those songs that you hear absolutely everywhere you go for like a month. Mainstream rock but different enough to grab your attention. I guess it was his house and it wasn’t for me to judge his music tastes. I fell asleep again while the music drifted through the house. At least it wasn’t a ghost or a crazy wife rattling chains.

  When I woke up the next morning, the big bowl of casserole that I’d left out for O’Malley’s lunch was empty. So that had been the noise I’d heard. He must’ve been hungry because the whole bowl had been scraped clean. God, was the man a wild animal? Huddling in his cave, licking his wounds, and then sneaking out in the middle of the night to eat a few scraps?

  Maybe he was a werewolf? When was the full moon anyway? But more likely, he was just a weirdo.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  For the next week, O’Malley and I managed to keep out of each other’s way. A few traces of him appeared around the house — his dirty dishes in the sink, food eaten. And, every night, I heard that song. Maybe it meant something special to him because I never heard him listen to anything else. I didn’t know it that well but, because I heard it all the time, one line from the chorus was constantly stuck in my head. Buzzing around in there like a mosquito. Even when I put on my headphones and listened to something else, that line weaved its way into my music.

  Something something love you forever,

  Something something something never.

  It wasn’t particularly profound but it sure stuck in your head. Since I didn’t know all the words, I’d catch myself making them up.

  Pizza and ice cream, love you forever,

  Kale and bean sprouts, eat you never.

  Stuff like that. Then I’d think about how long it’d been since I had pizza. I wondered just how cranky O’Malley would get if I got one delivered to the house. The answer, I thought would be “very”.

  During that time, I actually managed to get everything in order in the house. No more rancid dishes or cobweb-covered corners. Everything was spic and span. After working my butt off for over a week, I woke up one morning to realise that I had nothing to do. Well, not nothing but just some light dusting and the dishes. After that, I cooked up meals for the rest of the week.

  I spent the rest of the day working on my own projects. I grinned as I settled in at my desk with a few snack foods beside me. This was my idea of heaven, just long blocks of uninterrupted time to hack away at something brain challenging.

  But then I started getting bored. Not that I loved doing housework or anything, but I’d gotten used to the physical work. I was having one of those days where you feel twitchy sitting down for too long and your brain doesn’t work. I had work to do on my app development project but it didn’t give me the instant gratification that cleaning did. I really felt like I’d made a difference. I knew that O’Malley wouldn’t thank me for my cleaning but I didn’t need his approval. I could see for myself that I’d done amazing things.

  The garden was another matter. It wasn’t included in my list of duties and I knew little about gardening but I wondered if I could find a lawn mower in the shed out the back and at least get that under control. Although, it was so overgrown that I would probably need more than just a lawn mower to do the trick but O’Malley would never agree to hiring any kind of gardening service. I think he only hired me because he’d finally run out of clean dishes.

  I wandered out to the backyard to check for any gardening equipment. Roses grew wild around the edges of the garden, twisted amongst the weeds. They were the only plants I recognised, and only then on account of the thorns and stuff. Nothing flowered at that time of year. There were things poking out of the garden that could’ve been plants coming up but also could’ve been weeds.

  The grass almost came up to my knees and I walked carefully, sticking to the bit that one time would’ve been a path. Who knew what was hidden in that jungle? The outdoors sure were scary. I’m pretty sure that snakes hibernate in winter but I wasn’t taking chances on that until I confirmed it on the internet.

  The shed at the bottom of the garden was massive, nearly as big as my parent’s entire house. It had to have a wealth of stuff in it. Like the house, paint peeled from the wood and a couple of the boards hung loose. There was a porch running the length of the building that looked like it had been tacked on as an afterthought because it lacked the solidity of the rest of the building. One side had a window that looked out on the garden. I half expected to find something freaky staring back at me from that window. My flesh goosepimpled but I was being a stupid scaredy-cat so I made myself stand taller and wiped the creepy thoughts out of my brain.

  When I reached the door, I realised no, actually, it was as scary as hell. Scary shed at the bottom of the garden could contain any kinds of horrors. Why’d I had this fool idea? I bet the place was full of spiders and other creepy-crawlies. Maybe worse.

  The porch nearly collapsed when I stood on it.

  I turned the door knob. It had rusted and I had to grip it tighter to get it to turn. I’d probably end up with tetanus from it. Then I gave the door a good shove with my shoulder. The smell of neglect and long-forgotten dreams flooded out of that shed. Well, mainly dust and damp. I walked into a small room with cardboard cartons stacked against the walls, all falling apart from the damp. The room looked trashed and the smell made me wish I’d brought my nose-covering bandanna with me.

  There had to be more to the shed though. The front room was tiny. Then I found a door behind a stack of metal boxes.

  I’d come so far, I had to keep going. I’d go into the even spookier other room. I didn’t think it even had windows, since the only window I’d seen from the outside were for the smaller front room. The back room was probably where he cut up the corpses of his previous housekeepers or something.

  I shivered. Even though I didn’t believe it, I had to stop thinking thoughts like that otherwise I’d spook the hell out of myself.

  The boxes weighed a ton but I managed to move them. Then I realised the door had a massive padlock on it. I couldn’t go in. I kicked the stupid door. Why couldn’t the padlock have made its presence felt before I moved super heavy boxes, possibly damaging my insides?

  Something tickled the back of my leg and I screamed. It was a spider, I knew it. A big, poisonous spider. I hated to kill things but I swatted at my leg. It was becoming a kill or be killed situation.

  When I spun around though, it wasn’t a spider but some papers spilling out of one of the cartons. I pulled the top sheet out.

  FORSAKEN live tour.

  The picture at the top was of three band members silhouetted against a setting sun. They held instruments except the drummer who was seated at his drum kit. It was a pretty standard band flier with the tour dates and venues listed at the bottom.

  The band name sounded kinda familiar. Then I thought of the song O’Malley kept playing. Same band. Was O’Malley like some creepy fan boy with a room filled with fan goods? I looked at the rest of the box. All the fliers were the same. That was super obsessive.

  Since I was curious, I opened another box. It had more of the same. What? Did the guy collect them all or something? I could imagine keeping one for a souvenir but boxes of them? I’d come across some weirdos on the internet in my time so I knew people collected all kinds of stuff but this was beyond weird.

  One of the other boxes was filled with CDs. So old school. Same band. Same picture on the front. A whole box of the same CD. Maybe O’Malley had worked at a record shop and ended up stealing a bunch of the stock or maybe he had worked for a record company? He looked like the overwr
ought kind of guy who worked in some wankfest, hipster record shop and always got judgemental about the customers’ music taste, maybe yelling at them… But then, why would he have the CDs of such a mainstream band?

  Unless, the hipster record shop started selling them, and O’Malley hated that so much, he stole all the stock and stored it in his shed. Now he was on the run from the law and had to hide out to avoid detection. Maybe. I knew there were some major plot holes in that theory but it amused me.

  Something else grazed my skin and I jumped again. This time I wasn’t 100% sure it wasn’t a spider. I wanted to keep checking the boxes but remembered I’d put on a big pot of soup and I didn’t want it to boil over. And that’s why I had to leave. Not because I was all girlie afraid of spiders or that something would burst through the padlocked door and devour me.

  I got back inside in time to save my soup. I’d taken to leaving two meals for O’Malley. Who knew what he’d been eating before I arrived. Maybe he was just one of those lucky bastards with an awesome metabolism and had lived on junk food without turning into a big lump.

  When I’d finished that, I went online and did a search on FORSAKEN so I could see what the connection to O’Malley was. I mean if he was a freaky stalker and there was a restraining order put out by the band on him then surely it’d have made the tabloids. I could deal with a cranky recluse but if there were any violent tendencies, I wanted to be prepared.

  The search results came up and that lead singer looked mighty familiar. Shit, was O’Malley like a famous rock star or something? Ha, that would be hilarious.

  The lead singer dude was much better looking than O’Malley though. O’Malley was good-looking in a way that would turn heads at your local bar or cafe. Above par. But the lead singer was smoking hot in that way that would have girls all over the country, maybe the world, screaming his name. And he was scruffy in a carefully constructed rock star way, not in a “looking like a burglar in the kitchen” kind of way. This guy definitely wasn’t gaunt and he didn’t have that look of barely constrained rage that O’Malley had in his eyes.