I did pull out a t-shirt to keep. It needed a good wash because it had a musty smell but I wore it anyway. The smell didn’t matter when I was just cleaning. I’d never owned a band t-shirt before. I’d never even been to see a band play live. It wasn’t that I didn’t like popular music so much that I didn’t understand it. Like, there was this huge mass of music and I didn’t even have an entry point.
There were a couple of other boxes of personal-looking stuff that I set aside.
Once I’d finished, I tackled the camp shower to get all the dust and grime off me. I got changed and then started cooking dinner. Something healthy with vegetables for a change.
By the time that was simmering, it was getting dark outside. Tex wasn’t back. Where was he? He so rarely left the house and, if he’d wandered down to the beach or something, he’d be stumbling back in the dark. But then, it wasn’t as if he was a little kid or a puppy that I had to go find. He was capable of looking after himself. I’d wait 30 minutes then eat dinner without him.
For once, the studio seemed too quiet. I sat at the table, not wanting to encase myself in the soundproof room. Not that I was anxious or anything. I didn’t even want to put my headphones on in case he had gotten into trouble and tried to call me. I sent him a text, just asking if he was planning to be home for dinner, not wanting him to laugh at me for being a mother hen but, as soon as the message sent, I heard a beep from the sound booth. He must’ve left his phone in there.
The wind howled through the trees, making them creak and sway. I picked up the CD he’d thrown at me and put it in the disc drive of my computer. At least I could listen to that instead of the wind.
I didn’t pay much attention to the music to start with, it was just background as I pottered around. With all the boxes out of the way, I rearranged the small table and chairs so that they were in a better place. That meant dusting and cleaning some more. When we’d first gotten the furniture for the studio, I’d figured it’d be a temporary arrangement and we could make do but now it was becoming more permanent, I thought about the things we needed. Proper curtains for the windows and some rugs. The place could do with painting too.
I checked the clock. It’d been more than 30 minutes. I wasn’t sure I wanted to start eating before Tex got home so I called Hannah to find out what to do with the stuff in the boxes.
“Chuck it all out, if that’s easiest,” she said. “If it’s been sitting there for that long without anyone missing it, it’s not like anyone cares.”
I paused for a minute, wanting to ask the question but not wanting to at the same time.
“You haven’t heard from Tex, have you?”
“No. Why?”
“I mentioned the festival and he got upset and left. That was hours ago. He left his phone here…”
“I’m sure he’s fine. Maybe he’s walking around, thinking about things. That’s what we want.”
I wasn’t so sure you could include me in that “we”. What did I want? What was best for Tex? Maybe the reasons he didn’t want to perform were perfectly valid ones. It wasn’t like I could see into his head. But that look on his face earlier — he’d glowed just thinking about those days.
When I got off the phone, I turned the music up to stop my thoughts. The music on the CD wasn’t like the band’s other songs. This music was darker. It had some crazy moods running through it. I looked up the songs on the internet and realised this CD had never been released.
I was starting to feel tired but I didn’t want to be wrapped up in that soundproof room by myself. It wasn’t that I was scared… well, yeah, it was that I was scared… but also Tex didn’t have a key and if I slept in that room, I’d not hear him knocking to get in. And I sure as hell would not be sleeping without the door locked.
I grabbed my blanket and wrapped it around myself and sat on the chair with my laptop balanced on my knee, wondering where the hell that man had gone. Maybe I should just go out myself. Then he’d get back and I’d be missing. Would he even care?
Anyway, where would I go? Some annoying cafe or bar? That would be totally tiresome.
What the hell was wrong with me anyway? I’d never in my life been unhappy alone and amusing myself. Mostly, I wanted to be alone. Well, I was alone and it bugged me more than I thought possible.
Maybe Tex had fallen into a ditch somewhere and was laying there with his leg broken, crying out for help in the darkness with no one coming to look for him. He might lay there all night, in the freezing cold. If only I had a torch, I could go look for him.
I had a torch app on my phone but that wasn’t very strong. Maybe it’d do though.
I put on my coat and boots then added a scarf and hat because the night had turned freezing cold. I wondered if I should keep the blanket wrapped around me too but figured that would be annoying to hold while I tried to use my torch app.
Damn that man, he could’ve at least taken his phone if he was going to disappear.
I checked that I had everything I needed and was just locking up the studio when I saw a light through the trees. As the light moved, I realised it was a car on the road below. I waited on the porch. When I saw a cab pulling into the driveway, I quickly unlocked the door and rushed inside, throwing off my coat. Otherwise Tex might think I missed him or cared about where he’d gone.
The cab idled outside and I wondered if I had time to get my boots off as well but then it took off and Tex’s footsteps pounded on the porch. I sat down at the laptop as though I’d been there all night, not even worried about Tex. I didn’t want him to think that I cared one little bit.
He fumbled with the doorknob, even though it was unlocked. I tried to ignore him but he sounded like he was having real trouble. When I opened the door for him, the smell of booze hit me. He was drunk. Almost falling-down drunk. I wanted to punch him. Instead, I picked up my laptop and flounced into the other room, throwing myself onto the bed. Screw him. If he wanted to go out and mess himself up, then I wasn’t going to waste another thought on him.
I waited for him to come into the room but he was silent. It was almost torture. If I tried to sleep, he’d come crashing to his bed and wake me.
Then I smelt something. Smoke. Cigarette smoke. Wafting into the room.
I walked out to the front room and found Tex sitting on a chair, smoking a cigarette.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and took it outside, butting it out in the bucket.
“Give that back,” he yelled.
I heard the flick of a lighter. He had another cigarette out.
“I’m not kidding, Tex. That’s how you burned your bloody house down in the first place. I do NOT want to go through that again. You can’t be trusted to smoke a cigarette, not in that state!”
“It’s my house. I can do what I want with it,” he slurred.
He flicked the lighter again but couldn’t keep the flame alive long enough to light the cigarette. I snatched the lighter from his hand.
“Not with me living here, you can’t.”
He grabbed for the lighter.
“Give it back,” he said.
He didn’t have the co-ordination to get it from me though. He got up, unsteady on his feet and stumbling forward. His eyes were glassy and his movements jerky.
I reached out to balance him, worried that he’d fall. As I moved in closer to him, he gripped my shoulder. To steady himself, I thought. I put my arm around his waist to help him.
Carrying him to bed would at least rid me of this burden.
As he got to his feet though, his other arm wound around my neck and I was trapped in his embrace. I turned my head to avoid the potent fumes coming from him.
Instead, his mouth crashed onto mine, our lips coming together into a surprisingly skilful kiss.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I couldn’t believe he kissed me. I couldn’t believe I let him. I could’ve pulled away. I could’ve stopped him but I didn’t. I let him kiss me an
d I enjoyed it.
It wasn’t even like he kissed me seriously. He was drunk and probably would’ve latched his lips onto any woman who was around. Who knows if I was even the only woman he’d kissed in that state. But, even with the taint of booze and cigarettes, his lips were so soft on mine. And what the hell was going on with those thrills of passion going on in my body? I was not a “thrills of passion” type of girl. I wasn’t the type that melted with bliss just because some guy kissed me. I was the type who pushed them away so I didn’t get cooties. The immature type.
I stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. The squares of foam lining the walls formed curvy lines. Where the edges of the foam panels met, the curves didn’t line up properly. I focussed on those lines, counting them and seeing where the joins were. Because that was dead boring and kept my mind off that body on the other side of the room. His hands so firm and strong, holding me tight, his thigh rubbing against mine, like he wanted to get inside my skin. All that heat and those squishy body parts. On the other side of the screen, Tex snored in a drunken sleep. It was fine for him, coming home and flaunting his Lips of Lust around the place then collapsing into a deep sleep.
I wasn’t a girl who kissed lightly. I was pretty much inexperienced with the whole kissing thing. I didn’t know a simple kiss could make your toes curl and every hair on your body stand on end. I didn’t know you could fall as though you were floating through space. I didn’t know one kiss could turn your world on its axis and make it seem as if nothing would be the same again.
I turned onto my stomach and tried to sleep but, every time I closed my eyes, that kiss replayed in my mind.
He’d never kiss me again.
I didn’t want him to kiss me again.
Yes, I did. I couldn’t lie to myself. I wanted him to but I wanted him to mean it.
Feelings, they’re no good. They made your head all stupid and fuzzy. I wanted to sleep, not to feel things. If he was going to do that kissing thing, he could do it with other girls.
No. That was worse.
Maybe I needed to make a spreadsheet with colour coding to sort out my emotions. I could code something in simple binary logic that would sort out all the feelings and make them understandable.
Because it made no sense. That smelly, annoying, frustratingly moody lump in the other bed, I couldn’t be in love with him.
Tex didn’t say anything the next day. I didn’t either. Mostly I just wanted to nap, since I’d been awake all night, but I had to get up and make him breakfast. A big, greasy breakfast.
“Are you proud of yourself?” I said. Loudly, because I wanted to torture him.
“How did I get home?”
He couldn’t remember getting home. That meant he couldn’t remember anything after he got home. My belly hurt and I felt worse than he looked — and that was pretty darn bad. His eyes looked as if a child had gone crazy with a red marker pen, and he was paler than a ghost.
I’d cleaned pretty much the whole studio while waiting for Tex to come back the night before so, once I’d done the breakfast dishes, I had nothing else to do. Tex looked like he planned to spend the whole day rolling around, moaning about his aching head and I wanted to block him out.
I sat on my bed with my laptop. I’d started coding a new app. It was nothing too complicated, just an idea I’d had for a game. I had to keep it simple so I could do it all myself. At least it was a project I could lose myself in for a while and forget all the messy stuff. Coding was awesome. It made logical sense. There was no problem I couldn’t solve — it was just a case of applying analytical thinking and time. The game was going to be like a combination of Tetris and Sudoku. Kinda. But more awesome than either. I wished I wasn’t actually coding it because I wanted to be able to play it.
Something distracted me out of the corner of my eye. Tex waved at me from around the side of the screen, so I took off my headphones.
“Do we have orange juice?” he asked.
“No. We never buy orange juice. Have never bought it. I didn’t know there was a need for it.”
“Oh, there’s a need for it. Maybe I’ll walk to the shop and get some.”
“Okay.”
Wait, it was a 2 km walk to the shop. And Tex didn’t just walk to the shop, on account of it being out of the house. That was a 4 km round trip. Could he even walk that far? He wouldn’t catch the bus. He hated the bus and it was Sunday, the bus only ran once every three hours on Sundays. It was not a normal situation at all. Maybe he did remember the kiss and he felt weirded out being in the studio with me?
“Hey, Tex,” I called after him. “If you are planning to be out in future, could you take your key?”
I said that with my voice normal and everything but I couldn’t look at him. I hadn’t been able to look at him all morning. I didn’t want to see those Lips of Lust that had taunted me. Even if I sounded like a nagging granny, that was better than sounding like I cared.
“No worries,” he called.
I heard the door close. He was really walking to the shop? That was so not normal. I made a note to include orange juice on the shopping list, then I got back to my coding. The darned purple graphics wouldn’t do what I wanted them to do. I called those bits Tex because they were so frustrating. I got out my notepad and tried to work through the problem. I could figure it out if I just got all the steps in order. That was the way to do it, one step at a time until I discovered what the problem was.
Moments later, I heard the door open. Ha, I knew Tex wouldn’t walk to the shop. He probably got to the end of the driveway and turned back.
“Why are you back so soon?” I called out.
Tex popped his head in.
“Soon? I’ve been gone well over an hour.”
Huh? I checked the time and he was right. I’d been so engrossed in the coding, I’d not even noticed. Tex grinned like a crazy guy. And he had something in his hands behind his back.
“What’s going on?”
“I got you something.”
He threw a bag onto the bed. I opened it up. It was full of sugary treats. Just what I needed.
“Thanks,” I said.
“I wanted to say sorry for last night.”
He walked off, leaving me unsure what exactly he was apologising for. Did he remember kissing me or not? Just when I’d gotten all that confusion inside me settled down, he stirred it up again.
A little while later, Tex came back.
“Are you cooking dinner?” he asked.
I had a belly full of sugar and wasn’t hungry at all but it was my job and also, it probably wouldn’t hurt me to eat something with some vitamins in it.
“Are leftovers from last night okay?”
We had a lot of leftovers since he hadn’t come home for dinner but I didn’t want to mention that.
“Sure. Hey, what are you working on anyway?”
He’d sat down on my bed and was looking at my laptop screen.
“Nothing,” I replied, shutting the top.
“Sorry, I don’t want to pry if it’s something secret. I just figured when you mucked around on that thing, you were on Facebook or something. I didn’t realise you were actually doing stuff.”
I sucked in my cheeks, wondering if I should tell him. I hated talking about the stuff I did. People asked stupid questions and thought you were making a zillion dollars like those Angry Birds people. As if.
“I program apps.”
I walked into the kitchen and he followed me.
“Really? Like the actual apps you can download for your phone? Wow, Ruby Red, I didn’t realise you were like a genius.”
I grabbed a tea towel and flicked it at him.
“I’m not a genius. I just like mucking around with things.”
“So how does a girl who knows absolutely zippo about anything from this century get into that kind of thing?”
I put the bowl of leftovers in the microwave. Really, Tex could’ve done that himself. Why did I have to do it? Well, apart
from him paying me, I mean.
“I studied it. At big school. That’s what you do. I’ve always been interested in coding and it’s fun.”
“Okay, I thought you didn’t go to university.”
“Didn’t graduate. Different thing.”
I got out the two bowls and sat them on the table. Surely Tex could see I was busy preparing a gourmet meal and didn’t have time to talk about my educational history.
“Pass me that spoon,” I asked Tex.
“There’s a story there, isn’t there?”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to tell it.”
“Fair enough. So, what are these apps you make? Would I have one on my phone?”
“I doubt it. I don’t get many downloads. They’re just simple things. Games I want to play, that kind of stuff. Most of them are free. I make a few bucks a month but not the big leagues.”
“But money isn’t the main thing. It’s the process…”
I paused with the serving spoon in mid-air. He totally got it. He got it like no one I’d ever met before. It was like he was in a totally different league of “getting it” to the rest of the human beings I’d ever met. Even when I went on forums and stuff for developers, they talked more about marketing and sales techniques than I cared for.
Then I remembered, his music. Of course, he’d understand. Not that he seemed to have struggled being a poor and undiscovered artist.
If his kiss had thrown me out of whack then this total understanding of the fundamentals of me knocked me into outer space.
“Yep, that’s about it. Even if a few people like what I’m doing, that’s enough.”
The microwave beeped and I got the bowl out, the heat of it burning my fingers. I dished the food up and we sat at the table eating and talking about the creative process.
“You could do more though.”
“Don’t start,” I said and gave him a warning stare. “Please don’t be that kind of person”.
“What? Sensitive area, is it?”
“Yep. Doing more means working with other people. I hate teams. I don’t work well with others.” I gave him a look, daring him to challenge me.
Rock You (Fallen Star Book 1) Page 11