“Hey, is Aaron going to be cool with you coming home on such short notice?”
There was a pause like a piece of toffee being stretched to maximum capacity.
“I’m sure he’ll understand,” Nicole said finally. “He’d want me to help my family. Wants me to help my family.”
Sam privately thought that what Aaron really wanted was for Nicole’s family to die in a mysterious cruise ship explosion and leave him all their money, but she wasn’t going to point that out. “Sure.”
“Do you want to tell Scott we’re not selling, or should I?”
“I will,” Sam said, trying not to sound as guilty as she felt.
“Cool. God, Scott Sanderson. I haven’t thought about him in years. What does he look like?”
“He’s…”Gorgeous? Friendly? Extremely buff? “…Super British again. It sounds like he’s barely been home since he left for uni.”
“Can you blame him? His mum died and then his dad was getting drunk and smashing up their house every night.”
Sam remembered. She remembered Scott Sanderson had smashed a few things of his own, including a strawberry pie that she’d…but she didn’t want to think about that.
“We don’t need to worry about him,” Sam said. “He’s only here for a visit. He, uh, just broke up with his girlfriend.”
She shouldn’t have said that, should have remembered how attuned her sister’s romance radar was. Nicole made an excited mooing noise. “Is he good-looking now?”
“He was always good-looking, in a virginal blonde kind of way.”
“God, you never gave him a rest with the virgin stuff. Where did you talk to him about his dad’s proposal? The courtyard? The office?”
“We…went out for a drink.”
There was more excited mooing.
“Nicole,” Sam warned. “We just went out for one awkward drink and that’s it.”
Sam wasn’t being entirely honest. Not about the quantity of drinks she and Scott Sanderson had shared or her interest levels. Though she had no intention of sleeping with her ex-neighbour, she thought about him all day and dreamt of him at night. The day thoughts ran the gauntlet from nostalgic to resentful, but the dreams were always the same.
They were sex dreams. She was kissing a blank-faced stranger on her bed when Scott appeared and lifted her from the stranger’s arms. He’d climbed through her window like he did when they were kids, only this time his intent was far from innocent. Shoving the stranger aside, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply. “No more games, Samantha. You’re mine now.”
And instead of telling him to fuck himself, Sam would press against him. “Yes. I’m yours.”
He’d tear at her clothes, which in the dream-state slipped off like baking paper.
“What are you doing?” she’d ask as he arranged her on all fours on her bed.
“Something I should have done a long time ago,” he’d say as he ran his hands over her bare backside, squeezing her flesh.
“Please,” the blank-faced man begged from somewhere. “Please, stop?”
Dream-Scott would laugh. “Not a chance. You can watch if you’d like, though.”
And he did watch, he watched as Scott Sanderson made her come. Sam could never remember how he managed this, but it didn’t matter. The way she kept waking up disturbed and aroused mattered. The fact that she was having them at all mattered. She persisted in telling herself it was a coincidence even though she’d had the same dream three nights in a row. She couldn’t tell Nicole about the sex dreams. Her sister wasn’t a prude—no one who’d been taught the birds and bees by their dad and his extensive collection of sex-positive literature could have been—but she’d stiffened over the four years she’d been dating Aaron, grown a little more conservative about everything, including sex. She never wanted to hear details about Sam’s flings and would regard a recurring fuck-dream about Scott Sanderson as a moral failing.
Besides, it didn’t mean anything that she was fantasizing about Scott Sanderson, did it? She’d used to dream about him when she was a teenager, after all. Not that often but, still, enough that she remembered it. He’d always been spanking her in those dreams too and she’d put it down to internalized angst about the ways he taunted her.
“Okay, my tickets are booked,” Nicole announced. “Have you spoken to Tabby lately? Do you know what she’s up to?”
“Nope. I called her last week and she said something about squatting in an abandoned post office—”
“What? I thought she was house-sitting for that model?”
“That was last month. From what I could gather, she’s a bit tight on cash.”
“Surprise, surprise. I’ll call her right after this and work out her schedule. What has she been doing for money? Like, how does she have any at all?”
“Umm, she said something about hosting a few gigs and I think she’s still tattooing out of her mate’s shed…”
“Oh my God, she’s hopeless. I swear to god, if she keeps acting the way she does, she’s going to end up in jail.”
Sam would have bet a hundred bucks the phrase had come straight from Aaron’s mouth. He liked their neon-haired, septum-piercing having sister even less than he liked their sex-advice giving dad.
“Don’t freak out about Tabby, she’s only twenty-three, she’ll straighten out. Besides, everyone at school said I’d go to jail and I never did.”
Nicole sighed. “Look, we need Tabby here. She’s got a huge fanbase and she’s great with social media stuff. I’ll just send her the money to come down to Melbourne.”
“Ah, Nix…?”
Her twin clicked her tongue. “I forgot, sending Tabitha DaSilva money is asking to have it converted into pink hair dye and pills.”
“I think her hair’s blue now.”
Another, even heavier sigh. “I’ll book the tickets and send her the boarding pass.”
“Great. That way we know she won’t hitchhike.”
“She’s been—you know what, don’t tell me.”
“Probably for the best.”
Her sister made a huffy bossy noise. “Maybe we can make this family reunion a two-for-one business trip and intervention?”
Sam gritted her teeth in anticipation of the ‘what are you doing with your life, Tabby?’ arguments she knew were coming. Yet she was still so, so excited to see her sisters. “Maybe. So you’ll be here Sunday afternoon?”
“Yes. We should be landing within an hour of one another. Please don’t forget to come and get me from the airport.”
“I’ll remember. I’ll even pick up a forty-pack of nuggets for you.”
“I don’t eat processed chicken anymore, you know that. Anyway, I should go, Aaron will be home soon and I’ve got work to do.”
Explaining to do, more like.
As soon as they ended their call, Sam dialed Tabby’s number and left a message outlining their plans and reminding her not to tell Nicole she did backyard tattoos for rent. By the time she was done the bathwater was lukewarm, but Sam reclined in it like a queen. Nothing had changed since she’d called Nicole, but knowing that her sisters were coming home was like knowing everything was going to be okay.
Now, if she could just stop having sex dreams about Scott Sanderson, her whole life would be perfect. It had been years since he left, and he meant less than nothing to her. She didn’t need to be having these stupid dreams. She needed to extend some serious willpower toward not thinking about him.
Despite this declaration, her hands wandered down her bare skin, stroking and squeezing her breasts before dipping lower. She’d never done the bath-solo sex thing. She couldn’t help thinking that water was going up her and would stay there, sloshing around like the inside of a snow globe. Yet, now that some of her tension had been relieved, she was feeling decidedly sexy. She ran her hand along her labia, testing her arousal. She was swollen and slightly slippery in spite of the water. Closing her eyes, she imagined Scott gazing sternly down at her. “Have you m
issed me, Samantha?”
“Not particularly,” she’d say. “What are you going to do about it?”
Without a word he’d reach down and pull her out of the bath. Completely unconcerned about getting water on his clothes, he’d carry her to her bedroom. “You’ve been such a bad girl, but I know how to make you good again.”
He’d take his time placing her on the bed, positioning her exactly how he wanted her, her back arched, her ass exposed. “Are you ready, darling?”
“No,” she’d whimper, but his hand would come down just the same. The slaps would be sharp and hard, sending painful shocks through her skin. Shocks that shouldn’t have been pleasurable, but were. Scott wouldn’t make a sound as he spanked her. He’d just watch, enjoying the way her ass blossomed red marks and her cunt grew slippery before his eyes. He knew she loved the pain and he loved giving it because when he was done spanking her he’d be able to—
“Nope.” Sam pulled her hand away from herself. This was a bad, terrible, no good idea. She stood up, letting the bathwater pearl and drip from her body. Things were starting to look like they weren’t completely fucked. She did not need to masturbate to thoughts of her childhood enemy. Not at all. Not ever. Besides, Galahad had returned to the posho lands from whence he came, and good riddance. She never wanted to see him again.
Probably.
Chapter 6
There was a heavy end-of-weekend crowd pouring out of the arrivals terminal at the airport, but Sam instantly spotted her twin. Among the yawning, Ugg boots and tracksuit pants crowd, Nicole was crisp and alert, walking with the kind of straight-backed confidence they taught in leadership seminars. She’d dressed for an imaginary job interview; her cream silk shirt tucked into a narrow grey pencil skirt. Her black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and Sam could see diamond chips glinting in her ears. The daisy chain wrist tattoo she and the rest of the DaSilva family shared was hidden under her silver Cartier watch—a twenty-seventh birthday present from Aaron. The symbolism of that wasn’t lost on Sam in the slightest.
Nicole was beautiful. Heads turned all around her as she walked, but Sam found herself thinking the same thing she always thought when she saw her sister these days—she looked painfully, terminally, uptight. There had been a time when Nicole wore football shorts and hot pink nail polish, but for the past five years, she’d been doing her best to become a carbon copy of the Duchess of Cambridge. Now everything from her chemically straightened hair to the tips of her tasteful black pumps was so stylishly neutral, she looked like a sex robot designed by a Christian pastor. Sam pictured a half-metal, half-flesh Nicole lying on a medical examiner’s table. We can rebuild this working class girl from the shitty part of Brunners, we have the technology.
“Hey!” she called. “Nix! Over here!”
Nicole’s cheeks turned slightly pink, but when Sam ran over and pulled her into a hug, she hugged her back tightly. Sam felt the click, the familiar sense that she was exactly where she needed to be. She knew Nicole felt the same way. They were home. The hug went on for a long time and it wasn’t until a passerby bumped them that Nicole squeezed and released, stepping back with a bemused smile. “So…?”
“So,” Sam repeated, irritated with the ‘are we still doing this?’ quality to Nicole’s smile.
Sorry, Nix. You can live in Adelaide and get engaged to a fuckwit and cover your tatts and try to control every conceivable aspect of your life, but you can’t change the fact that you’re me and I’m you. Science says so.
“So.” Nicole tossed her ponytail like an anxious horse. “You’ve gotten another tattoo.”
“I have,” Sam said, touching the lacework lock and key on the right side of her neck. She’d had Noah do it the day before, a reminder of her father’s gift and an assurance she would do everything she could not to fuck it up. A promise made permanent, as her dad often said of tattoos. “Do you like it?”
Nicole pursed her lips. “It’s very…visible.”
Sam knew what she was thinking, that if she ever wanted to go into another, more conventional line of work, she’d be fucked. Nicole could never let go of the idea that everyone secretly longed to do nine-to-five in a skyscraper and wear boring skirts and make small talk about real estate.
“I like it,” Sam said, hoping to side-step her twin’s judgments. “How was your flight?”
“Pretty good.” Nicole checked her watch. “Tabby should be here soon. Get a coffee and wait?”
“Sounds good.”
As she and Nicole walked toward the baggage carousel, Sam could feel people looking at her. The ostentatiousness of her tattoos—and tits—meant people usually did, but this was different. This was twin-staring. Passersby were spotting her and Nicole’s similar height, hair and coloring, then realising everything else was the same, too. The novelty of seeing human doubles always outweighed societal politeness.
“God, I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to be a twin,” Nicole whispered as a couple passed with their mouths hanging open. “It’s relentless.”
Sam smiled. “Should we hold hands and do the whole ‘come and play with us’ thing? I have a feeling that would help.”
Nicole nudged her, self-conscious as always, but she was smiling. They collected her neat brown-leather suitcase and Sam did the gentlemanly thing and wheeled it toward a nearby café. Her twin’s luggage was the subtle kind of fancy that cost hundreds if not thousands. More money spent in the service of being both boring and intimidating. Aaron had definitely bought it for her. Nicole had moved to Adelaide with hot pink snakeskin luggage, exactly the sort of thing that class-jumping cheesedick would sneer at. Sam wondered what Scott Sanderson would think of Aaron, genuine posho that he was, but that was an incredibly stupid and irrelevant thing to wonder. Now that they weren’t selling the business to Greg, her need to speak to, or think about Scott Sanderson, was over.
Tell that to your dreams, a snide voice remarked, but she ignored it. You couldn’t control your dreams. That was a widely acknowledged fact. The dreams were not her fault.
“How’s Aaron doing?” she asked as she and her sister took their seats.
Nicole didn’t meet her eyes. “Fine.”
“Is he pissed you’ve come home?”
“This isn’t home,” Nicole snapped. “Adelaide is my home. When are you and dad and everyone else going to figure that out?”
Sam bit her tongue to stop herself from responding. She’d only be giving Nicole the anger outlet she should be directing at her arsehole fiancé. Several tense seconds passed and Nicole looked down at her hands. “Sorry, that was…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“That’s okay. You’ve come all the way out here to help me, I’m not gonna forget that.”
They smiled at each other as the waitress arrived and took their order. Nicole got a mint tea and Sam ordered a caramel frappuccino with whipped cream. She hadn’t eaten all day and she needed sugar and fat and caffeine if she had any hope of driving home without ramming a stop sign.
“How are things around the shop?” Nicole asked once the waitress left. “Did you look at the two-week plan I sent you?”
“I glanced at it,” Sam lied. She’d spent most of her pre-Nicole time cleaning the house and the studio. Both had gotten fairly gross in their dad’s absence and she didn’t want to give Nicole another job to do. “What’s the plan about?”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “I’m glad I spent so long working on it.”
“Sorry, I had a lot of other stuff to do. Besides, I was hoping we could go through it together.”
Her twin looked slightly mollified. “Okay, we can do that. Have you told anyone Tabby and I are coming in to help you?”
“Yeah, I’ve told a couple of clients and they seem keen. I mean, they follow Tabby on Insta, anyway. I don’t know if that means anything.”
“Our sister, the celebrity.”
Sam noted the jealousy undercutting the sarcasm. She was the only one who’d inherited
their dad’s qualms about modern technology. Nicole and Tabby both owned phones and loved social media, but while Nicole’s Instagram followers stood at a humble six hundred, Tabby had close to a hundred thousand.
That made sense, considering Tabby’s photos showed her travelling the world in low-cut tops and tattooing minor celebrities, but Nicole was still bitter. She believed in working hard and paying your dues and Tabby just rolled around drunk, tattooing Pokémon onto the bellies of the girls from Camp Cope and being retweeted by Ruby Rose. She was lucky and she took her luck for granted. That gave Nicole the shits.
Before they reunited, Sam had considered updating Nix about some of Tabby’s more stressful dramas—the ex-boyfriend who’d almost convinced her to marry him, the malfunctioning pregnancy test, the rainbow unicorn tattooed on her butt cheek saying ‘Get Woke, Cunt’—but she decided it wasn’t worth the stress. Tabby could tell her herself if she showed up. With Tabby, it was always an if.
“Ooh, our drinks!” Nicole held out her hands and took her mint tea from the waitress’ hands.
Control freak, Sam thought. You should have been a tattooist, Nix. Shame you can’t draw for crap.
Sam let the waitress plunk her huge, frothy drink in front of her and leaned forward to gulp through the straw without using her hands. She could feel Nicole’s disapproving stare but she kept going—a form of social protest. When half her drink was gone, she straightened up and wiped her mouth. “Anyway, you were asking if the staff were pissed about you coming—Noah, our main guy, is fine with it.”
“Is he the big man dad loved?”
“Yup. I should tell you, Gil, the other full timer doesn’t seem happy.”
Nicole narrowed her eyes. “Why not?”
“He thinks Tabby’s gonna take customers away from him and you’re going to rake him over the coals.”
“How can Tabby take customers if you’re barely getting customers?”
“I dunno, he’s got an ex-wife and three kids to support so maybe he’s just being sleep deprived and paranoid.”
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