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?”