A loud burp escapes his mouth and he laughs. “You said it.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever, asshole.”
Frog shuffles me across the hall. He opens the door and I’m pushed inside. I don’t offer much resistance. To be honest, I’m not sure I can keep away. It’s only been a few minutes, and I already want to see Mac again.
But she’s not here. All I see are Henry, Evie, and Cooper. The three of them are yelling over the top of each other as Cooper struts in front of the television. He has heels on his feet and boobs underneath the white tee shirt. It’s stretched tight from the new additions, revealing a hint of the orange balloons with black skulls underneath. They’re leftover from our Halloween party last year. I know because I’m the putz who got stuck blowing them up. I gave up halfway through when it left me gasping like an asthmatic. I made the resolve to ditch the cigarettes, which I still plan to do. Soon.
I walk over and cup Cooper’s chesty balloons. I’ve no doubt they’ve been playing Truth or Dare and he’s chosen the latter. It’s what we do when we drink.
I give his new additions an amorous squeeze and wink. “Show us ya tits, love.”
Cooper smacks at my groping hands.
“Nice.” Mac’s comment is sharp and biting, like a rubber band flicking my skin. I turn around.
“I thought so,” I reply in a mocking tone.
There’s nothing more either of us can say without revealing our past connection, so I stare. Mac’s hair has grown. It’s piled in a messy topknot leaving her slender neck bare. She’s wearing a baggy shirt and sweatpants. I can’t remember her ever looking so good.
“See something you like?” she asks, folding her arms. “Because I don’t.”
“Burn,” Cooper says from behind me and sniggers. It makes me feel ten years old. Frog pays no notice to either of us. He jabs at Cooper’s chest like a punching bag. Popping sounds render the air and a loud argument ensues.
Fuck it. Mac and I can’t be at each other’s throats every day. No one can live like that. I walk toward the hall, holding her eyes until I pass. I know Mac will follow. She sees the intent on my face and is never one to back down from a challenge.
Knowing the guest room will be hers, I walk inside, turn around, and fold my arms as I wait. Mac doesn’t disappoint. She joins me moments later and closes the door behind her with a discreet click.
It encloses us together and the battle to keep my emotions in check begins. I can already feel my jaw ticking as we glare at each other. I’m angry. She’s not supposed to be here. I can’t keep my promise to her brothers like this. “What the hell are you doing in Melbourne, Mac?”
She mirrors my actions and folds her arms, creating a standoff. “How dare you! I’m attending university here just like every other student.” Her nostrils flare. “I’m not following you, if that’s what you think. I’m not that pathetic to chase after a guy who doesn’t want me.”
A protest climbs my throat. I choke it back down.
I want her. God, do I want her. My hunger is palpable. It rages through my blood like an inferno, savage and hot. It’s all I can do not to reach out and grab her.
I fist my hands by my side in a fight for control, but my voice is hoarse. It betrays me. “You think I don’t want you?”
She cocks her head, entirely too calm and in control. I know it’s an act. The colder Mac becomes, the deeper her agitation runs below the surface. “I used to think that, but I’m watching you now, Jake …” She steps toward me. Lifting a finger, she rakes a nail slowly down my chest, never taking her eyes from mine. I suck in a breath. Her lips curve coolly. She heard it. “… and I’m thinking you do. You want me. I see it in your eyes.” Her finger trails down until she’s cupping my rapidly filling cock. She squeezes and my pulse ignites. “And I feel it here.”
I take her hand and move it away. “You think you can toy with me now?”
Mac smirks, tugging her hand free from my grip. “I don’t think I can. I know it.”
My chest expands with anger. “I’m not your plaything.”
“I don’t plan on playing with you. I plan on reminding you that we always want what we can’t have. And you,” she says, taking a step backward as she holds my eyes, “will never have me.”
My restraint snaps. I hate her coldness. I hate that it’s directed toward me.
I grab Mac’s arm and turn her, twisting it behind her back. She struggles as I push her against the bedroom wall, face-first. She turns her head sideways, growling curses. I take immense satisfaction in her loss of composure. “You’re wrong,” I hiss in her ear. “I’ve already had you.” The familiar scent of her fills my nostrils, and I completely lose my mind. I forget every promise I made, both to the Valentines and myself. That’s what she does to me. “I’ll continue to have you whenever I damn well please. In fact, no one will ever have you the way I have you. Got that?”
“Fuck you,” she spits out.
My cock is harder than an iron pipe, and I grind it up against the sweet, round cheeks of her ass. “Anytime, Princess.”
“No,” Mac says with force. My hold goes lax and she turns. Sparks shoot from her eyes. “No, damn you. I don’t want you. Being in the same room as you makes me want to puke. I never belonged to you, Jake. And you never belonged to me. I just thought we did. I thought I had an idea of what love was, but I was young and stupid, and you … well, you were just stupid.”
The venom she spews is like little jabbing darts to the chest. It hurts. “Mac, what I did was the right thing to do. You know it is.”
“You don’t get to speak,” she hisses, her hate so strong I can barely stand beneath the weight of it. “And you don’t get to wrap up what you did with a self-righteous little bow to make yourself feel better. You’re just some loser who had the chance at something great and didn’t have the balls to take it.”
With that Mac walks to the door, flings it open, and leaves.
She’s right. She’s so very right that it eats away at me every single day. I had the chance at something great. But I couldn’t take it. And now it’s too late.
MAC
Three months later I’m happily settled in what we refer to as the party apartment. I fit neatly into the new dynamic and I have friends. Evie, Henry, and I balance each other out. If yin and yang were a triangle, that would be us.
Jake has made himself scarce wherever possible. When we get stuck in the same room together, he sits far enough away that my laser death stares don’t scorch giant holes in his head. It’s the smartest thing he’s done since our unfortunate reunion.
With my dominant personality, it’s natural for me to take on management of the band. The vote had been unanimous (and by unanimous I mean all but Jake). I have a knack for telling people what to do, and they need someone to tell them what to do. It’s a match made in heaven. The first thing I do is change the name from The Futons to Jamieson.
Management of a band is not as easy as one would think, though. It’s a nightmare. And stressful. My initial idea had been to upload videos of them playing their songs onto YouTube. In theory, it’s an effective plan to help build an audience and a following. In reality, it’s more complex than long division. The band members are like little kids thrown inside a play centre. I had moved to Melbourne and literally inherited four giant babies. And Jake. The biggest asshead that ever lived.
Cooper tried calling me “Momma Mac” once. I shot him down faster than a fly lands on shit. He avoided me for a whole week, slinking his way around like a whipped puppy.
Eventually I get them all together to record, sober, body parts intact, clothes void of food and alcohol stains, and they knock it out of the park.
Evie’s smoky voice gives me chills, the boys’ guitar playing sets the strings alight, and Jake, well … it’s good he sits at the back. I can watch him uninterrupted. My eyes travel the length of his straight nose, along the stubbled line of his jaw and down where his massive biceps flex and release, over and over. His
hands fist the wooden sticks, and he pounds the drums like the beat is alive inside him. He’s fantastic. My vagina thinks he’s fantastic too, throbbing away to the same beat like it’s a siren song. I literally have to clench my pelvic floor muscles and drag my eyeballs away.
After uploading the videos and spreading the word, Jamieson gets five bookings. They played their first on the Friday night just gone. They were a huge success. An epic bout of drinking followed. I could barely remember my own name when we stumbled home at five a.m.
It’s later that day, near lunchtime on the Saturday, when a little bit of hell breaks loose.
Henry, Evie, and I are lying prone in the living area. Evie is splayed on the couch. Henry is on his back, calves resting on the arm of the couch and head tilted so he can watch music videos. I’m a starfish on the floor. We’re hung over, starving, and incoherent so when the knock comes, the several feet it takes to get up and answer the door is the equivalent of a journey to Middle Earth.
Our arms shoot out simultaneously, fists closed. A quick rock, paper, scissors commences. Evie loses like she always does. She staggers off the couch and hobbles her way to the door. Each step is no doubt setting off little explosions in her head.
She flings the door wide open. Losing control, it flies back and hits the doorstop with a clank. She’s so hung over her body has forgotten how to function. We wince at the noise. Henry mutters a quiet, “Fuck.”
But then I see who’s standing on the other side of the door. My heart thumps in excitement. Jared is here. My brother has changed since the accident. It brought us closer. We still have our fights, but they’re good-natured. He also defends me to our parents. I have a suspicion he talked them into my move here. I’m thankful. We message each other daily now, but his visit is a surprise.
“You must be Evie,” he says to my roommate as I roll to my belly in a pathetic attempt to stand.
Evie doesn’t speak.
“Can I come in?”
No answer.
I push up on my hands and knees.
“I’m Mac’s brother Jared,” he offers as I get to my feet.
Evie is clearly unhinged as she guides him to the living area. Her body is moving but her synapses are not firing. I tuck that interesting bit of information away for later and run at my brother with a squeal. Henry mutters another quiet “Fuck” as I leap into my brother’s arms.
Jared catches me. The last time I did that, our timing was painfully off. He’d spread his arms wide at the same time I leaped. Scrambling to catch me, he came away with a fistful of my hair and I came away with bruised butt cheeks.
Jared sets me carefully on my feet and palms my face with both hands. He smushes my cheeks together. “How’s my little Mactard?”
I smack his hands away. “Fuck off, shit lips.” Grinning, I turn. Evie has disappeared, but Henry remains. “This is my brother Jared,” I tell him. “Jared, my roommate Henry.”
Jared walks over and Henry partially stands to shake my brother’s hand. Then he falls back on the couch with a pained groan.
“Wait.” Jared looks between us both. “Are you two hungover?”
“No,” I say quickly.
“Yes and we’re dying,” Henry gasps at the same time.
Thankfully, Evie catches everyone’s attention, diverting Jared from his questioning. She races by in a flurry of bags, scarves, and jingling bracelets. Reaching the door, she hops about putting one shoe on after the other.
It’s an embarrassing spectacle of the like I’ve never seen from her before. Her smile is bright. Knowing her insides are curled up in the foetal position like mine currently are, it’s clearly false. The smile takes in all of us, though with Jared her eyes skim vaguely above his head. She offers a vigorous wave before disappearing out the door. All without a word.
We remain silent for a long moment, processing what has just occurred. Then I realise I have to explain what that was. I can’t have Jared thinking I room with drunken oddballs or he’ll rat me out. We might be getting along, but it doesn’t mean his protective instincts died. He will happily ruin this for me if he thinks shitty roommates are compromising my living situation.
I open my mouth to explain when he beats me to it.
“Pears.”
“What?” I whip out. Has the whole world gone mad?
Jared is staring at the door Evie flew out of, one hand on his hip, the other scratching the back of his neck.
“Pears,” he repeats with impatience as if I know what it’s supposed to mean.
“What about them?”
“Good for a hangover,” he mutters. His tone is vague as he drags his gaze from the door and finally looks at both of us.
It’s clear he’s distracted, and by Evie no less. This is fantastic. He hasn’t even mentioned the fact that for me to be hungover, I had to be blind drunk the night before. The possibilities of this unexpected development have me giddy.
Of my three brothers, Jared would be the perfect one for Evie. Not Mitch. He’s too responsible. And not Travis, he has a level of sweet that would be lost on Evie. But Jared … he has just the right amount of wild to appeal to her dark side, mixed with enough forcefulness to rein her in when she gets too out of control.
I almost beam but don’t want to freak Jared out, so I pull my lips into a thin line.
“Nothing cures hangovers better than a bacon and egg McMuffin,” Henry argues with careless disregard for the consequences.
It earns him a withering look from Jared. My brother suffers a health-food affliction. A potentially life-threatening one because he pushes this affliction onto everyone he meets. He’s trying to change the world, one bunch of kale at a time. Soon enough it will get him killed.
God knows I’ve imagined shanking him in his sleep several times after going to bed hungry. His turn at cooking dinner is the stuff of nightmares. Take his open lentil burgers … it’s basically a lentil patty with a side of salad. The “open” part means there’s no bun. I remember smushing that patty so hard in his face he had lentils coming out his nose for days.
“A McMuffin?” Jared folds his arms. I brace, aware that a lecture is imminent. Henry sits there clueless. A babe in the woods. “Do you even know what’s in one of those?”
“Sure I do.” My poor oblivious friend reclines back on the couch and pats his belly, his expression dreamy. He’s picturing one in his head right now. “Bacon,” he states first, because it’s the most important ingredient. “Cheese.” I risk a glance at my brother. His nostrils have begun to flare. “Egg,” Henry continues.
The apartment door opens and the Rice Bubbles enter the room. All three of them. Holy mother of shit. Jake’s gaze hits Jared and his eyes widen swiftly. Without missing a beat, he backs straight out the door, his steps soundless.
“Keep going,” I say to Henry before Jared can give the new arrivals his attention. Unfortunately, it means throwing my friend under a bus. I have no other choice.
“Errr …” Henry’s gaze flicks to Jake, brows drawing together with confusion.
“Focus!” I snap my fingers in his face. His cloudy gaze comes back to me. “Egg …” I prompt.
Poor Henry. I feel guilty enough to consider doing his laundry for a whole week. Not that I would, but I considered it.
“Uh, a muffin.”
With Jake blindly stepping backwards, he stumbles into a pair of shoes by the door. Jared starts to turn.
“What else?” I yell, and Jared’s attention is back on us.
Henry’s eyes shift from me to my brother and back again. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
Cooper and Frog stand there mute, clearly trying to follow what’s happening. They look between the three of us and mostly settle on Jared because they don’t know who he is. That’s too bad. There’s no time for introductions right now. Jake is almost out the door.
“No!” I’m looming over Henry now, panicked. I have a sweet set up here. All will be lost if Jared finds out about Jake. My friends. My indep
endence. My management of the band. It’s brought me back to life. I need this. I need them. “That’s not it!”
Henry looks up at me from the couch. “It’s not?”
“Love, dude,” Cooper interjects, saving me.
I point at Cooper. “He’s right. How could you forget that, Henry?” Oh my god, this conversation is ludicrous, but I’m all in now. There’s no going back. “In every single McMuffin there’s a sprinkle of love.”
“Mac!” Jared’s face pales in horror.
Jake’s palm is wrapped around the handle and he’s slowly closing the door as he backs out. Forget the damn door, you twat, I try telling him with my eyes. Just run. I turn on my brother, widening my eyes with feigned nonchalance. “What?”
He huffs and levels his gaze on Henry. “That McMuffin,” he spits the word as Jake is almost out, “contains liquid margarine, which has genetically modified ingredients like hydrogenated soybean oil.”
We all stare at my brother. His folded arms convey both tension and enthusiasm for the subject matter. Even Jake stares for a moment. I glare sideways. Get out already, asshole.
“It’s basically a trans fat,” Jared continues. “Which is linked to cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, asthma, and more. Then there’s the muffin. At least eight genetically modified ingredients there, including some which are banned in certain countries. They’re linked to issues like heart disease and IBS.”
“IBS?” Cooper and Frog mouth silently to each other.
“The cheese, eggs, and bacon?” Jared shakes his head. Right then I know he’s about to ruin McDonalds. Not just for me, but for my friends. “That highly processed cheese comes from unhappy cows injected with synthetic hormones.”
“Aww, man, not unhappy cows,” Frog comments, his shoulders slumping.
“Unhappy chickens too. The eggs don’t come from little hens that frolic happily in grassy fields. These ones are kept in cages with no room to spread their wings, their little eyes never having seen sunlight. The pigs? They—”
“Dude,” Cooper rasps as the door closes behind Jake with a soft click. “You gotta stop. My poor heart.” He rubs his chest. “I can’t take it.”