by M R Field
I notice Jules’s shoulders tense before she adjusts into her sitting position. The boys continue to bicker about the quality of the ladies last night at the club as my phone buzzes on the floor beside the beanbag.
“Can you check that for me?” I ask Robbie, sipping my drink.
“Um, I don’t know your code, Farfalla,” he says.
“Yeah you do. It’s your birthday.” I sip casually, and chance a side glance at him. His eyes widen and he looks at me, perplexed.
“No shit?”
“Uh-huh.” I watch him type in the code “0605” and smile. He grins when he unlocks it and clicks on the message. I chuckle and take another sip, but the drink rests in my mouth as I feel him tense beside me. I turn my face towards him and notice his playful eyes have turned hard and his jaw has locked. I swallow the smoothie down slowly and feel a tinge of apprehension in the pit of my stomach.
“Who is it, Robbie?” I ask, but I already know the answer. He doesn’t respond, but instead hands over my phone to my shaky palm. I glance up at him, but he looks away, focusing on the edge of the patio. Looking down, my pulse quickens as I recognise the familiar sounding text and another photo. This time of him in bed alone, with his naked broad chest taking up the whole image. Ugh. Get a clue.
Petal, it’s rude to ignore my messages. Happy New Year. U should b here with me, where u belong. We need to talk. Jerry
I clench the phone in my hand mutter, “Idiot. Now he has a new number.”
Robbie turns his head sharply at me and barks, “What the fuck is that? Is that your ex?”
“Yes, it’s him, and it’s nothing. He’s been trying to contact me, and I’ve been ignoring him.”
“Why don’t you fucking tell him to piss off?” He stares at me accusingly.
“I have! I told him to never contact me again. He even tried to sweet talk my mum and I told her to never talk to him again, too.”
“What? Why is your mum talking to him? What’s going on? Why is he sending you naked fucking photos?” he demands, and before I respond, the bickering that was going on around us has stopped, leaving us the focal point of several shocked stares.
“Haze.” Trice steps closer to us, eyes wide on her face. “Is Jerry still contacting you?”
“I told him to leave me alone!” I shriek. “Here.” I hold out my phone. “See for yourself. They aren’t naked photos. His pigeon chest is hardly worth mentioning!”
“Well, block his fucking number!” Robbie chastises me, ignoring my outstretched hand. “That’s what you need to do. Far out, Hazel. He’s acting like he should be contacting you. You obviously haven’t deterred him enough. Clearly he thinks it’s okay to call. What the fuck were you thinking? Petal? What the fuck does that mean? Are you planning on seeing him again?”
“I refuse to answer that question!” I snap, breaking out of his hold and standing up. I jam my feet into my flip-flops and look over to Trice. “I’m suddenly not hungry. Please excuse me.”
I look down at Robbie, who has risen more in his beanbag, “For you to insinuate that I haven’t tried hard enough after I blocked his number, means that you are an arsehole. Do not follow me.”
Turning on my heel, I march out of the patio and down the stairs into his apartment. I storm to Robbie’s room and snatch my bag, frustrated that I left my car at home. I move quickly out of his room as the thunder of his footsteps race down the stairs. I move to the front door and turn just as I hear him stomp towards me. I hold my hand up and yell. “STOP!”
His body jerks as he freezes a short distance from me. His eyes are dark as he stands there, stiff shouldered, staring back at me with a worried frown on his face.
“Don’t,” my voice orders, and I secretly wonder how it hasn’t cracked. “I need some space.”
His eyes snap to mine as he holds his hands up.
“No, Robbie. For months he has been contacting me, and for months I’ve ignored him. I will continue to ignore him and you have no right to tell me how to handle it. I will get a new number and consider whether or not you deserve to be given it.”
His eyes widen in shock. “Farfalla,” he begins.
“Don’t you dare call me that while I’m angry with you!” I point to his face. “You talked to me like I was the dirt under your shoe. Just like my family.”
His shoulders stiffen as I continue, “If you must know where petal comes from”—my nostrils flare in disgust—“he calls me that because he deflowered me.”
Feeling the sting of tears as they fill my eyes, I blink to fight them back. Robbie’s mouth opens in shock as he mouths fuck. He steps towards me with his arms raised, but I won’t buy it.
“Hazel,” he pleads. “Come here, honey. Let me hold you. I’m so sorry.”
“No. I need to cool off and right now you are the last person I need near me.”
He flinches as I shift and grab the handle and turn it, pulling the open door towards me. I grip the handle tighter as I mutter, “Isn’t it funny how I’ll dance on stage in next to nothing, and you don’t care that the guys in the front row ogled at me, but a bloody text message from the UK and you’re acting like a jealous arsehole. You know I never loved him. He was never you.” I walk through the door and mutter over my shoulder, “Have a think about that.”
I storm off in the direction of the tram and refuse to look behind me. How dare he? How bloody dare he?
I walk to the tram stop and sigh in relief as a tram trundles towards me. My hands begin to shake as I grip my handbag, tears threatening to pour out from my eyes. I will not cry. I am no fool. The doors open, and I climb on the landing and take a seat with my back facing him. I refuse to turn to see if he’s looking.
I’m afraid that he is, but I’m more afraid that he’s turned away.
“One word.”
Baby Animals
ROBBIE
“Robbie, what are we doing?” she murmured between her lips, my hands shaking with the uncontrollable lust. Her rosy lips had been a beacon for me to taste, since she strutted out on the stage. Now, after her dance tonight, watching her wild red hair twirl as she spun, her eyes bright with allure—I couldn’t hold back.
“We’re doing what we should have been doing a long time ago.” I kissed her lips and her sigh whispered against my mouth. I pulled back reluctantly and stared up at her. “I couldn’t hold back; you on stage, was just … incredible. You undo me.”
She smiled against my lips nervously and grabbed my hand. Pulling me towards her bed, she bit her lip and said in a faint whisper, “I want my first time to be with you, Robbie. Before I go away.”
I froze in shock and stared at her. Her swollen lips, her trusting eyes, all called to me. But I couldn’t be that guy. The guy who fell in love with her and watched her go.
I grabbed her hips and turned her towards me. “I can’t do that, Hazel. You deserve so much better.”
She flinched. Her cheeks blushed in a deep crimson as she looked away from me. Closing her eyes tightly, she took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. Once she composed herself, her words took the world from under my feet, leaving me torn between heaven and hell.
Motherfucker.
I remember her lips, her sighs from that night that changed me. Those lips changed this whoring twenty-year-old into a guy who started to finally give a shit. Who didn’t throw away wasted opportunities or stir shit just to get a reaction. She wanted me to be her first, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It would have kept her here, and away from her dream. Instead, my rejection led her giving her virginity to the biggest fucking arsehole known to man.
“ARGH!” I bellow, turning and punching my fist into the wall. The plasterboard cracks as my fist breaks through, the wall shattering around my hand, leaving a gaping hole. “Motherfucker!” I yell, the throbbing pain ricocheting into a blinding one as I pull my hand back. The sharp and burning pain tears through my knuckles, which are now coated in thick warm blood. The throbbing intensifies, but I struggle
to move from the gaping hole I left. Four years, I planned for this. Four years, I waited. Five minutes—she was out the door. I sigh and look down at my knuckles, and the droplets against the floor by my feet. What a fuck-up I am.
A wet cloth gently eases its way to my hand, and I turn abruptly to find Josh there.
“Dude,” he says. “Take a moment to calm your arse down and clean that up.”
I close my eyes for a moment and nod. “I fucked up.”
“Yep. You did. But Hazel will forgive you, buddy. She cares too much for you to throw that away.”
“I insulted her.”
“You didn’t know.” Josh grabs the cloth from me and dabs at my swollen knuckles. I hiss at the sting, but it’s nothing compared to the empty cavity in my chest.
“She wanted space …” My voice trails off.
“Don’t you give it to her! She gets enough of that from her family,” Trice pleads, her footsteps thudding down the patio stairs. She turns into the hallway and gasps at the wall.
“Fucking hell, Robbie. You really are a powerhouse. Can you at least save that for when we need it? Say, with arsehole customers?”
She tilts her head to look at my wrist, and I grab the cloth again with my other hand, and draw it closer to me. I know she’s trying to lighten the mood, but the shame of busting a hole in our wall coupled with the ache I saw in Hazel’s eyes leaves a foul taste in my mouth. My skin bristles, and I’m drawn back to feeling unworthy of her again. I look at my hand and the bleeding has stopped. My skin is cut between my knuckles, leaving a nasty ugly mess.
“Fuck. If she had seen me do that, then she’d never see me again,” I moan.
“Ah, Robbie?” Trice waves her hand towards mine. “She’d hate to see that, and you putting a hole in the wall is all kinds of stupid, but she’s not stupid. That’s the difference. You’d never hurt her; you love her too much.”
I blink from shock as Trice stares back at me. “Love?” My chest warms at the thought. Huh. Well, there you go. “Of all the times to work it out,” I mutter.
“Come on.” Trice gestures to the bathroom. “Let’s fix this up so you can go to her. Don’t worry about the wall; we’ll get it fixed. We’ll get a two-for-one to fix the scratches that Alex and I did in the lounge room.”
“Oh!” Josh coos. “Was that when you guys were doing the nasty and accidentally broke Robbie’s pinup picture?”
Trice nods and turns on the bathroom light. I stroll over, holding onto my throbbing hand.
“That was hot!” Josh says excitedly.
“Don’t remind me,” I grumble. “I had erased that from my mind. Until now. Now, the fucker just slammed right on back in there.”
“Oh, there was slamming alright.” Josh jokes, winking at me as I enter the bathroom.
“Anyway …” I shudder, “I need a new pinup girl.”
I already had one, and now I have to win her back.
“Sit.” Trice points to the edge of the bath. “We’ll fix you up and then you can go get ’em tiger.”
Yep. I needed all the fixing up I could get.
Shortly after, I raise my uninjured hand and knock on Hazel’s apartment door, hoping like crazy that’s she’s home. I shuffle the bouquet of red tulips that I picked up on the way here in my injured arm, cursing myself that this might look too sucky.
Her door guy gave me a wink as I entered, so I hope like hell Hazel wasn’t too distraught as she walked through earlier. The crinkly cellophane irritates my ears as it hisses at me. Condescending fucking paper. Yeah, it knows I’m sucking up, and the noise it makes irritates me like a wasp attacking my face.
Muffled footsteps sound on the other side of the door, and I hold my breath, knowing that she will be checking the peephole. I try to move the flowers lower, to not look like such a suck arse, but my sore hand loses its grip and before I can move the other hand around, the flowers smash to the ground. Several tulip stalks snap while a head or two breaks off. My clumsy hands flail as I try to bunch them together, but to no fucking avail. The broken tulips break free from my grip, their heads rolling across the hallway carpet in mock victory. I groan in embarrassment. I squat down quickly and begin to pick up the remnants of the pathetic bouquet when the door finally opens and a pair of rosy red toenails greet me. My eager eyes trail up her lush cream legs and rise to appreciate her hot body until I meet her gaze. That body is my undoing, but I don’t show any reaction. I don’t smile. Instead, I frown with regret as my eyes travel to her red-rimmed emerald eyes that stare hauntingly at me. Yep, I’ve fucked up royally. My mamma often says that men who make their women cry should feel a stab to the heart. In this case, it’s more like a grenade.
She stares down at me and my heart aches. She bites her lip and for a moment, I think she’ll slam the door in my face until a soft smile breaks across her lips.
“Hey,” I say warily, the smooth texture of tulips now feeling like coarse sandpaper against my fingertips.
“Robbie, I thought I told you I needed space.” I rub a petal between my fingers and nod.
“You did, but Hazel.”I clear my throat. “There’s no chance I can give you that. If you won’t talk to me, I’ll sit in the corner. But …” I move to stand, gripping the broken bouquet. “I won’t leave you.”
She presses her lips firmly in frustration and looks down at her toes, stepping back to silently welcome me in. I don’t hesitate. I step through the threshold, as if a fire is chasing my arse.
“What did those flowers ever do to you?” Her soft voice asks behind me as the door clicks shut. I stare at the broken pieces in my hands and frown. I then move the flowers to my uninjured hand and shrug.
Her brow raises, while she’s waiting for me to speak, but my tongue is thick with dread. I’ve already hurt her and the fear of making her more upset negates the little attempt at humour that she’s given me. I don’t want to make a tool of myself.
Hazel eases my discomfort by saying “They never stood a chance in your manly hands.”
I harrumph. “I was trying to be a good boyfriend. I know,” I drawl. “Flowers are a bullshit way to say sorry, but I didn’t know where to start,” I hastily answer, kicking myself internally for being so fucking feeble. I chance a look at her and notice that she’s staring at my bandaged hand. She gestures with her hand towards it, and I hold it up briefly and quickly add. “Please, not now. Let’s just say I had an argument with the wall, and the fucker kicked my arse.”
Her eyes widen in concern as her hand covers her mouth. “Is it broken?”
“Me or the wall?” I joke. She frowns, raising her eyebrow. I give in. “Hole in the wall, just broke the skin to my hand, it’s going to hurt more tomorrow.”
She rolls her eyes and mutters, “Men.”
My chest loosens as I breathe out in relief. I move to put the broken tulips on her kitchen bench. The distance between us engulfs me like a black cloud. She’s standing four feet away, but feeling more distant than when she was in the UK. I can’t stand it anymore, and I walk towards her, her shoulders stiffening with each step.
“I lost control.” I admit, stopping a short distance away. “My mind started going fucking crazy the second you left. My thoughts took me to that that time when we first kissed and how it …” I swallow hard, pleading with my eyes for her to believe me. “I have made mistakes in my life, Hazel, but one that stands out daily is that night. It should have been me.”
Her eyes glare at me as she puts a hand on her hip in anger. “I watched you for years dating other girls, Robbie. Years. You’d date them and then move on each and every time. You’d kiss them and hold them at the bus stop, and I’d watch them stare at you like you hung the moon. Because …” she presses her lips together for a moment. “You did. Then you left them, like it was effortless. You didn’t see that each and every time, I wondered if I would ever be good enough as you tore my heart along with theirs over and over.”
“Fuck, I didn’t know how you felt before that night.
I thought I was letting you chase your dreams. But knowing that fucker took what should have been cherished … and then turning into a cheating prick.” I hiss, grinding my teeth in vain.
“What difference does it make, Robbie?” She blinks, taking a step back.
“I’m saying that he didn’t deserve you. That moment could have been the start for us, but I wasn’t going to strip our local talent’s dream for a guy with half the ambition that you had. But your kiss changed that. It woke me up, and I haven’t been the same since. I know the choice was yours to go over there, but I wanted to be a better person for you. I became focused on getting you to achieve your dream, and then he swooped in and fucked it all up.”
“Oh, Robbie. No, no.” She steps closer, but I still can’t reach her. “You know he used to attempt to control me. With either my hair—‘Go blonde, Hazel, all the good actresses are’ or ‘Do you really need that extra cupcake?’ For two years, Robbie, he tried to control me. But I didn’t listen. I ate that cupcake and I wore my hair out to show it off.”
“Why did you stay with him?” I ask, before my mind can tell my mouth to shut it.
“Because he was the closest thing I had over there to someone who liked me. When I spoke to Trice and she casually mentioned you, it was usually “Spoke to Robbie recently. Sounds like he, Ty and Alex are having fun at uni. Bet they’re enjoying those tarts.”
I cringe at the memory. I stopped fucking around after she left, but didn’t tell anyone. “Hazel—”
“So I held onto him. But he never had me, Robbie. I was too far gone for you. Even with you slutting around, I couldn’t seem to let go of you, and I tried. But I failed spectacularly.”
“Hazel, let me—”
“And, he knew. He slept with a friend under my nose, but if I think back on it I guess it was to try and get me to feel something more for him. To beg for him, plead him to give us a chance, when all I took it for was my ticket to escape.” She clasps her hands in front of her hips and continues, “I left. I left a tutor at the academy I adored, I left the bitchy diva girls who pretended to be your friend until they peer assessed you and later tore you down. It was a highlight for them to hurt me, and I came back.”