Too lazy to have a shower tonight, I crawl beneath the dark grey cotton comforter and flop my head on the soft pillow. The sheets smell a bit stale, as if they’ve been on the bed for a while, but I really don’t care. I have a bed. I have a room, even. I’ll wash the linen tomorrow.
To someone else, someone like Bonnie, this wouldn’t be anything to be excited about. To me, it means so much. Something so simple has given me a little bit of hope.
I can do this. I can pull myself out of this shitty place.
I just have to find the faith in myself, which I know is buried down deep inside me somewhere.
****
After the best night’s sleep I’ve had in months, I have no trouble getting up. I take a towel and my purple bag of toiletries into the modern black and white bathroom, which houses the only loo in this place. The toilet seat is up, much to my disgust. It’s been an age since I’ve had to deal with that problem.
I unpack my toiletries into the second drawer, which had nothing but an empty razor packet in it, and take a shower. When I exit the bathroom the place is quiet, so I creep back into my room so I don’t wake Rocco. I waste no time dressing, and am ready as I’ll ever be to take on another busy day in the café.
When I pass the lounge room on my way to the front door, a grumble—well, more of a muffled snore comes from the couch.
Rocco is dead to the world. He’s lying on his stomach with one arm and one leg limp over the side, each resting against the timber floor. He’s polished off the tequila, and a shot glass has rolled not far from his inked hand. There are corn chip crumbs everywhere.
Boy, he hadn’t been lying when he’d said he needed a drink. I wonder what he’s got to be so stressed about. From what April tells me, he has a dream mechanic job on one of the most sought-out teams in Australia. I suppose we all have our shitty days.
I stride across the lounge room, wary as I approach. There’s barely any movement, apart from the slight shallow rise of his upper back as he seemingly takes breath.
If I poke him, will it be like waking an angry bear? I’m tempted, but I won’t. That’d be a bitchy thing to do. We might be living under the same roof, but we lead separate lives. And that’s how I want it. Completely separate. Removed. His business is his, and mine is mine.
I take a step backward and step on something metal. I crouch down and pick up a spoon. I look around underneath the coffee table, and find an empty glass bowl with remnants of green an inch below the rim.
Snatching up the bowl, the cruel absence of what I was planning to eat when I got home tonight mocks me.
The motherfucker ate my jelly.
“Hey,” I bark out with a hard shove to his shoulder.
Rocco grumbles and swings his head back violently, one eye open as he searches me out. “Who the … what the fuck?” he hisses. Rolling onto his side, he props himself up and falls back into the couch cushions and runs his fingers down his face. His dark brown, almost-black eyes drill me, as he runs his tongue over his bottom teeth. The whites of his eyes are scattered with red, and beads of sweat lace his brow and down the sides of his face. He looks like shit. More accurately, he looks like someone who greedily smashed a bottle of primo tequila last night.
“You ate my jelly,” I say, shoving the bowl towards him.
He shrugs and his lip curls to the side. “I was hungry,” he says with a challenging gaze.
“You were fucking hungry? I haven’t been here even twenty-four hours and you’re helping yourself to my food?”
He scoffs, and I want to punch him in the face.
“It’s jelly,” he says, with a roll of his eyes. “It’s like a dollar or some shit. I’ll buy a packet. Bloody hell, I’ll buy two. No need to get your fuckin’ panties in a bunch.”
He sits up and rakes his fingers back through the longer strands of dark hair on the top of his head. He slouches farther into the couch, one hand scratching at the faded black T-shirt adorning his chest, the other hand sliding between his legs and adjusting himself.
Fucking men.
“I’m not pissed about the fact it costs bugger all. I don’t touch your shit and you don’t touch mine. Got it?”
I turn on my heel, flicking my ponytail over my shoulder. I couldn’t be arsed waiting for his response. I can’t imagine I’ll like it anyway.
“Fine,” he grumbles.
“And would it kill you to put the bloody toilet seat down?” I throw at him as I walk out the door.
His laughter echoes into the stairwell, right before the door slams shut.
Arsehole.
****
I park my car out the back of the Wild and Free Range café and walk in through the back screen door. The heat from the kitchen instantly warms my cheeks, as I walk past the cookers, and dump my satchel in the small staff room.
Tarsh, a uni student who started with us a few weeks ago, is chowing down on a bowl of fries with aioli and reading a Cosmo magazine.
“Hey,” I throw in her direction. It’s casual, because really, we haven’t worked together that much. I’m not one to gush over the new girl. I find it hard making friends. It’s easier keeping personal shit out of it. Most people think I’m a bitch, but I do it to protect myself. I don’t need to be judged by someone I barely know. The minute you start getting cosy with people, the more they wanna know. Besides, I have April. Best friend in the world.
“Hey,” she says, smiling brightly at me. “The new roster is up,” she says, nodding in the direction of the corkboard on the far wall.
“Cool,” I say, as I wander over to the wall.
I scan over the spreadsheet that details the shifts over the next two weeks. Motherfucker. They’ve dropped my regular Saturday shift next week, and I’m off on the upcoming public holiday. I was fucking relying on that double time for a little breathing room in my wallet.
“Fuck,” I groan under my breath. That’s gonna drop my pay by at least two hundred bucks.
“What’s up?” Tarsh says. I turn to see her light blue eyes regarding me. She tucks her short brown hair behind one ear.
I look back to the roster to find out who is working those particular days.
Tarsh.
No point bitching to the girl that’s taken the shifts from me. Took the money from my pocket.
She smiles sweetly at me. Shit. It’s not her fault. I’ll have to have a word to Tony, though. I’ve been working for the arsehole for nearly four years and he didn’t have the decency to give me a heads up? He knows I’m hard up for money. I’m the one he always rings when he needs staff, and I never say no.
“Nothing,” I mutter, offering no other explanation as I grab a black apron from the folded pile on the shelf and exit the room.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ROCCO
Mid-morning, I finally drag my hungover arse off the couch. When I get to the bathroom, I have another chuckle when I see the toilet seat down—lid and all. Of course, I leave it up when I’m done. After standing under the hot water for the best part of half an hour, I drive my truck down to the mall.
After an expensive trip to the grog shop, I get a few groceries. I need a man’s size steak and a hit of carbs. When I get to the dessert aisle of the supermarket, I pull every box of green jelly off the shelves and shoot them basketball penalty–style into the trolley. About twenty dollars’ worth to be precise. I know I wasn’t in the best form, but I’m pretty sure I was reading the situation right. The way she held that spoon and shot daggers at me with her vivid green eyes, I reckon I was about a millisecond away from being spooned to death. I guess she has a thing for jelly.
Ooh, I wonder if she’s ever wrestled in it. Lesbians do that shit, right? Pillow fights and jelly wrestling. At least that’s how they get started in pornos.
When I get home, I stack the small green boxes in piles on the kitchen bench, so she won’t miss them when she gets in.