Unplugged: A Blue Phoenix Book

by Swallow, Lisa

  “Why are you here?” I ask Craig.

  “I came to see my daughter. Why’s he here?”

  “None of your business,” I say.

  “I think it is if you’ve got people like him in the house.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on, Cerys, everyone knows what the Blue Phoenix guys are like! One of them overdosed earlier this year!”

  “Are you suggesting I’m letting a drug addict into the house? Don’t be ridiculous!” I say in a low voice.

  “Fine, where is she? He said I had to wait for you before I went upstairs which is a bit fucking cheeky when this is partly my house.”

  Liam walks in with two green mugs and sets one on the table in front of Craig. “Everything okay?” Liam asks.

  My discomfort at Craig’s presence isn’t shared by Liam. Craig is a few inches shorter and stockier, and coiled like a spring ready to snap at Liam, but Liam barely looks at Craig. Their lack of engagement is a good thing. I wish to God, Liam would go upstairs and find a t-shirt, though.

  “Ella’s not here,” I tell Craig, “I’m going to pick her up from a friend’s in about half an hour.”

  “What?” he growls. “Whose house? How long has she...?” Realisation crosses his face. “Oh, I see, you’re dumping Ella at a friend’s, so you can be with him,” says Craig. He turns to Liam. “I guess my daughter hanging around you gets annoying, an extra part you don’t want.”

  “You couldn’t be further from the truth! Liam likes Ella,” I retort.

  With those words, I trigger off a chain reaction I never dreamt possible.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” says Liam to me, continuing to act as if Craig isn’t in the room, and heads toward the stairs.

  “I don’t want him around my daughter.”

  “Hypocrite,” I snap.

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It’s two weeks since you saw her! Why are you here?”

  “I’ve been busy, working hard to give you money for Ella!”

  I sweep a gaze over his clothes. His smart jeans and designer trainers would’ve cost as much as a week’s groceries. “Right, sure. Too busy for your daughter?”

  “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

  “You should’ve called first. We need to organise days for you to see Ella. You can’t just turn up. We have plans today.”

  “We?” he says narrowing his eyes.

  “Yes, we. Me and Ella.”

  “So the half-naked man in your house is a casual thing?”

  “Seriously, Craig, my relationship with Liam is none of your business. Me and you ended almost six months ago.”

  “I came across the city to see Ella; I’ll wait for you to bring her home.”

  “You can visit Ella next weekend. This is too short notice.”

  “What the fuck?”

  I dig my nails into my palms, surprised by my new ability to stand up to Craig. “Me and Ella have a different life now; you can’t expect us to drop everything when it suits you.”

  Craig glances over my shoulder toward the direction Liam went. “If you try and keep her from me...”

  “I’m not! I just want us to organise this properly if you’ve decided you want to see Ella more often!” I temper my tone. “Look, today is a bad day. Let’s catch up in the week and sort something out? It would help Ella too if she knows when to expect you.”

  “So you’re saying ‘no’ to today?”

  “Correct.”

  Craig steps toward me. “Remember, this is partly my house, for my daughter. Not you. If you make things difficult for me, you’re out.”

  His deep brown eyes are filled with anger, anger I know he’s close to the edge of. He’s not violent, but Craig’s moods are unpredictable. Christmas was a prime example of decisions he makes when gripped by whatever the fury does to his logic.

  “I won’t. We’ll sort something out. Maybe if you came round tomorrow?” I say, using my well-practiced calming tone.

  Will he leave or will this escalate? What possessed him to come and see us out of the blue? Liam moves around upstairs and the situation turns my stomach. The only good thing in all this is that Ella isn’t here.

  Craig pulls his car keys from his pocket. “I’ll call you.”

  Relieved he’s closed down and the unpredictable mood hidden, I smile with false gratitude. “Thank you, Craig. I’m so sorry about this, I wish you’d called.”

  “Yeah,” he mutters with a final glance toward the stairs.

  As I close the door behind Craig, I lean against it and take a shaky breath. This guy kicked me and Ella out in a fit of rage at Christmas. He holds the cards when it comes to financial support for Ella, and by default, for me. Please don’t let this go badly.

  Dazed by the encounter, I don’t notice Liam approach and touch my arm. “Are you okay?”

  “I need to get Ella,” I say absent-mindedly.

  “Do you want me to come?”

  “No!”

  Liam’s face registers surprise. “Okay. Do you want me to leave?”

  “No,” I say quietly.

  “Cerys, you’re shaking.” He takes my hand and squeezes. “Don’t let the dickhead get to you. He’s behaving like a dog pissing on his territory.”

  I pull a face. “That’s gross, Liam.”

  “Here.” He holds his phone out. There’s a picture of me and Liam, hand in hand, leaving the club last night. My first exposure by the media.

  “Where’s that from?”

  “Our PR girl sent it across, the picture was on my phone when I checked this morning. We both knew this was coming.” He brushes hair from my face. “Do you think someone sent it to him and that’s why he came over?”

  Who would do that? “Maybe, but that was bloody quick! Where’s the picture now?”

  Liam shrugs. “A few places probably.”

  My thumping heart pushes harder. “The press won’t come after me, will they?”

  “Not sure. They don’t always get on my back as quick as they do Dylan’s or Jem’s, but there’s the whole Honey business. You’re the first girl since.”

  Honey. “First girl,” I say to myself.

  Liam turns my face to his. “And last.”

  “This is really happening, isn’t it?” I ask him.

  “Cerys, I wouldn’t have let you seduce me last night unless I thought I meant something to you.” His mouth tips at one corner and his teasing takes the edge off my anxiety.

  “Very funny,” I say.

  “You’re special to me and if that means I have to share you with the world, I will. I want everyone to know Liam Oliver has a new girl. Then when they realise how uninteresting we are, they’ll leave us alone.”

  “What do you mean by uninteresting? Because I’m not a drop-dead gorgeous actress?” I pull my face away from his hand.

  “No, because there’s no scandal, just me loving you.”

  Liam’s words knock the breath from me as hard as his kisses last night. I pick my keys up from the table and grab my handbag.

  “I’m going to collect Ella.”

  I glance back at his confused expression as I leave the house. I’m unable to process whether he meant what he said or whether Liam Oliver falls in love too easily.

  CHAPTER 22

  CERYS

  Liam taps his fingers against his coffee cup as I brush Ella’s hair ready for school. I’m half-irritated he’s around and doing nothing, and half-excited he stayed a second night. Ella wriggles, complaining the brush is hurting her hair, but I know the real reason is she doesn’t like her hair tied into a ponytail.

  “Stop fussing, you’ve got a week left at school and then you don’t have to do this.” Images of a scarecrow-haired Ella running around in her princess costumes for six weeks come to mind.

  “School holidays,” says Liam with a smile. “Bet you can’t wait!”

  “Me or her?”

  “Both.”

  I wrap a hair
band around Ella’s thick, brown hair. “I guess.”

  “Jordan is going to Greece,” Ella informs Liam.

  “Really? Where are you going?” he asks her.

  “We might go camping for a few days,” I say, releasing Ella.

  “Camping?”

  “You know, in a field, in the rain probably. Overseas holidays are out of my price range.”

  Liam places his empty cup on the table. “Come back to LA with me.”

  I almost drop the brush. “What?”

  “For the school holidays, come to LA. I’m working but not every day.” He glances at Ella. “We could go to Disneyland.”

  At that moment, I’m prepared to smack him across the head. Hard. “Liam!”

  Ella jumps up and starts hopping around the room shrieking about going to Disneyland. I stand. “You do not tell a child something like that out of the blue! Not if it may not happen.”

  “Why not? She can go if her mum isn’t too boring to come to the States with me. Come on, Cerys, why not?”

  I can’t think of an excuse and have to admit that a small part of me secretly feels like dancing round the room too. “I don’t know.”

  “A hot rock star offers you a luxury holiday to LA and you have to think about it!”

  I rub my head. “I’ll have to organise passports and I’d need to get some new things for Ella and...”

  Liam grabs my hand and squeezes. “Cerys. Let go of your practicality for five minutes. When I’m away from you all I want is to be back with you again, so this makes perfect sense. When I’ve finished the session work in LA, I’ll come back to England and stay around. This is the answer until then. You don’t need to be on your own, and I want you with me.”

  For a week, maybe two, I could avoid having the Liam sized hole in my life. How could I deny my daughter a trip to Disneyland? Or myself a trip into the fantasy world of celebrity.

  ****

  A week and a half later I arrive in LA with Ella, dressed in her yellow Princess Belle costume. Luckily, she didn’t behave like a princess on our First Class flight, even though the cabin crew treated her like one. I’ve never travelled further than the European mainland, so this is going to be a test of my comfort levels.

  When I told Phoebe about Liam’s offer, she couldn’t understand why I didn’t say ‘yes’ on the spot, and I tried to explain how nervous I am about putting myself in someone else’s hands again. She told me I needed my head examined, to stop being ridiculous, to go and enjoy myself. Then Phoebe whispered that if I didn’t want to go, she would and don’t tell her husband. At that point, I realised how stupid I was being.

  Craig’s renewed interest in Ella continues and, after a frosty meeting, we came to an arrangement. The agreement for him to see Ella every other weekend is loose because he randomly appears on days he ‘feels like’ seeing her. Even though his lack of contact with Ella over the last few months has upset her and annoyed me, his lack of interference in our life allowed me to breathe.

  Single motherhood is hard, but my new life has opened my eyes to everything wrong in the old one. I’m not a hundred percent free of Craig’s control because I need financial support for Ella, but I intend to get a job as soon as Ella goes to school full time. We don’t need Craig, and I definitely don’t need him toying with Ella’s feelings the way he once did with mine.

  Craig knows I’ve taken Ella on holiday, but not where or who with.

  Ella takes everything in her stride; we could be half an hour from home, not halfway across the world, as she excitedly chats about all the new sights around her as we navigate the airport. The brightness of the lights hurts my tired head, not helped by the one champagne too many on the flight over. Ella and I are directed away from the other passengers by a concierge, toward the place Liam waits for us.

  I last saw Liam a week ago; but each day away from him, the ache to be with him again spreads. He’s standing at the end of a smaller hallway, resting against the wall with his legs crossed at the ankles. When he sees us, his bored expression disappears and he straightens. For once, he’s not wearing jeans, dressed in black board shorts and a blue sleeveless t-shirt revealing more of his tattoos and bright ink than usual. As Liam steps toward me, I run to him. Liam scoops me off the floor and kisses me hard, as if we’ve been apart months. I cling to him, burying my face in his neck, and inhaling the clean scent of his skin. I don’t want him to let me go. I never want Liam to let me go. And that’s a bigger step out of my comfort zone than this trip.

  He sets me down, arms still around my waist, and crouches down to greet Ella. “Are we going to Disneyland now?” she asks.

  “Er... Not today, Ella. Aren’t you tired?” replies Liam.

  “No. When are we going?”

  “Ella, don’t be rude. Liam has paid for us to come on holiday, but he works too. We’ll go when he has time.”

  “You can come for a swim in my pool instead,” Liam says, and ruffles her hair.

  This appeases Ella and as we continue out of the airport, the three of us holding hands, I nudge Liam in the ribs. “You are going to regret telling her about Disneyland every minute, of every day until you take her there.”

  ****

  Liam’s place is less than an hour’s drive from the airport, out of the city and along winding roads overlooking the brightness of the painted blue sky and azure ocean. Already Wales is a lifetime away. Ella’s excited chattering slows and half-way I look over my shoulder at the sleeping princess. Finally.

  “You have no idea how happy I am you’re here,” says Liam, taking my hand and kissing it as he drives.

  I don’t want to let go of the warm hand encompassing mine and place our hands on my lap. “Thank you.”

  “What for? This is pure selfishness on my part. I want you here, simple.”

  I laugh softly and he squeezes my knee.

  My knowledge of mansions comes from reality TV shows and American soaps. Behind electric gates and a barrier of pink frangipani and palm trees, a gravelled driveway heads away. A white building emerges as Liam drives through. The place has a Mediterranean feel to the architecture with a white façade and ornate pillars. I get out of the air-conditioned BMW, hit by the humid heat, and stare at the dream in front of me. On the journey over, Liam informed me his house is small by local standards, but five of the house I live in would fit inside this one sprawling half the length of my street back in Cardiff.

  Liam appears next to me holding a sleeping Ella. “You look as tired as her, come on.”

  In a speechless daze, I follow him through glazed double entrance doors into the marble-floored hallway.

  Liam strides through the high ceilinged rooms toward the back of the house. “Come and look at my view.”

  Windows reach from the wood paneled ceiling to the tiled floor and spread the length of the room, leading to a balcony. Expansive lawns perfectly tended, to the point they look like carpet, stretch to the edge of the cliffs, and a pathway cuts through toward the white sandy shore below.

  “Private beach,” he grins.

  “Wow,” is all I can manage.

  The low whirr of ceiling fans circle cool air and the scent of nearby jasmine through the room; I sink onto the sumptuous grey cushions of the day bed and gaze out of the window.

  Liam sets Ella next to me. “She’s heavier than she was at Christmas.”

  “Christmas. That feels like five years ago, not seven months.”

  “I wish you’d come back with me then.” He sits and pulls my legs onto his lap, rubbing my calves. “So much crap could’ve been avoided.”

  “Everything happens for a reason,” I say. “Even the bad stuff.”

  “I want to keep you protected from anymore bad stuff, Cerys. Starting with lots of good while you’re here.”

  “Including Disneyland.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Including Disneyland.”

  “I suggest you buy a season ticket,” I say with a smile.

  “I think I have a lo
t to learn about parenting, huh?” Liam rubs his cheek and looks at the snoozing Ella.

  Then I see it. Liam’s fantasy is here too, his fantasy of me, him and Ella all together and living an easy life. His clear love for Ella comes naturally from his huge heart and his easy empathy with people around him, and his childish nature. At the back of my mind, a worry niggles. If this doesn’t work out, I won’t be the only girl left with a broken heart.

  ****

  LIAM

  Oh, crap, did I do the right thing?

  I have trouble reading women sometimes but Cerys’s pink face and tight mouth are unmistakable as she studies the young woman in front of her. Emily sits on a white chair on the patio, long, tanned legs crossed, brown hair pulled back into a ponytail.

  “Can I talk to you, please, Liam?” Cerys says tersely and smiles sweetly at Emily.

  “Sure thing,” Emily says and disappears toward the home theatre room where Ella watches TV.

  “What were you thinking?” Cerys hisses at me.

  Shit, I knew it. “Umm.”

  “Umm?”

  This is Cerys’s holiday too and I want her to have time to do the things for herself, not just with Ella, so I brought in a babysitter. Well, nanny I guess. Talk about going down like a lead balloon. Maybe I should’ve waited until tomorrow but I’m fucking desperate to spend time alone with Cerys. Doesn’t she want time out, too?

  “Emily helps out Pete and Leeann, friends of mine. She’s really lovely, and she’s qualified. Ella will be fine.”

  Cerys rubs her eyes and glares at me. “Why didn’t you ask me? I wake up after a jet lagged rest and find a strange woman with my daughter!”

  “She’s not strange, I know her! Ella likes her too.”

  “And that makes it okay?”

  “Shit, Cerys, I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I’m not going to put Ella in any danger, am I?”

  “This holiday is for both of us; I want to spend time with her.”

  “And I said I’m selfish. I want you. Yes, I know Ella is part of the package; but come on, you deserve to be Cerys, and not Ella’s mum round the clock.”