Unplugged (Blue Phoenix, #3)(2)

She points with the fork. “Your hair.”

“I’d say your hair was more the colour of the spaghetti,” says my sister from the hallway. Louise wasn’t blessed with my colouring; her hair is brown like Mum’s, although currently it’s almost blonde.

I drop the dog and my sister comes over, wrapping me in a huge hug. She smells of the same floral perfume that she wore as a teen, one that used to fill the air in the upstairs of our small house. Louise’s perfume, Mum’s cooking, and the smell of oil on Dad’s clothes when he came home from working at the car garage; these are the scents that pull me back in time. Mix in the Christmas smell of tinsel and already I’m pulled away from the crazy shit in the States and back to a comfortable normality.

Louise grabs my face and squeezes my cheeks. “So, big brother, what’re you doing sneaking home? Where’s Barbie?” She looks past me and I give her a warning look.

“You haven’t met her, don’t judge.”

“Is she here?” asks Louise.

“No.”

“Did you split?”

“Leave him alone, Lou.” Thankfully, Mum interrupts with a mug of tea. I take it automatically although I can’t remember the last time I drank tea. Over-priced coffee, yes; tea from a teapot? Only here.

Through the whole exchange, the little girl has stared; mouth open and spaghetti sliding off her fork. I imagine myself in her eyes: tall man, bright red hair (call me ginger and I’ve been known to punch) pulled back in a ponytail, tattoos spreading from under my sleeves and across my wrists. I probably look like shit, too. The girl doesn’t look frightened, just amazed.

“What about you, Lou?” I ask. “I only saw you a year ago and you have a three year old?”

“I’m four!” protests the girl.

Now I’m confused. “You babysitting? Or have you started adopting strange children?”

“Ella and her mum are staying with us,” Mum says, passing me a chocolate biscuit, which I automatically shove in my mouth.

“For Christmas?”

They glance at each other. “For a few weeks.”

Some kind of woman code thing passes between them, I think. Whatever, none of my business.

“Sorry about that, is she behaving?” A woman’s voice with a Welsh lilt to match the others carries into the room from behind my sister.

Louise steps to one side. “She’s fine, Cerys.”

“Oh, good...” Cerys halts as she notices me and my hearts stutters.

I thought I recognised the name.

Cerys, my sister’s best friend all grown up. They were fifteen when I left town with Blue Phoenix at eighteen so they’re twenty-two now. I remember her as a teen — shy, a little awed by the scruffy rock band making a name for themselves around Wales. Anyone and anything to do with my little, teen sister annoyed me, and half the time I was drunk or high on weed so I ignored them both.

I saw Cerys again one summer, a few years ago, amazed at how much she’d grown up. Like f-ucking beautiful, curvy woman grown up and no longer the baby faced girl who used to peer at me from under her long brown hair with a look that stoked my ego. The guys teased me about her, but she was too young and an amusement.

A couple of summers later, I came back as Liam Oliver, bass player of the international Blue Phoenix, and she was Cerys Edwards, hometown girl with hometown boyfriend. One night me and the guys went out with our old friends from school and her and Lou tagged along. Suddenly our three-year age gap narrowed. We both got drunk, I rambled on about how f-ucking gorgeous she was now she’d grown up. Then I kissed her. I shouldn’t have, she was young and star struck and had a boyfriend, but at least kissing her is all I did. I look back to the little girl who’s tucking into her spaghetti. If I wasn’t a hundred percent sure we’d stopped at the kiss, I’d panic whether this kid was mine.

Looks like Cerys grew up pretty fast if the kid is hers.

Today I’m sober and can see Cerys has changed again. She’s still little, not much taller than my mum’s five feet. Is petite the word the chicks use? Her hair is shorter now, huge brown eyes staring into mine as if she can see the Liam Oliver who left town seven years ago. Not the rock star, but her friend’s scruffy big brother.

Cerys nervously tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and my gaze is drawn to the full lips she parts as she catches my eye again. Her pale skin flushes and I blink. I didn’t expect this reaction. Thank f-uck she’s wearing a sloppy blue jumper over those tight black leggings because I really don’t want to see what her body looks like when her eyes and mouth are turning me on.

What is with this reaction to her? One kiss and I can barely remember the night it happened. I push away the flaring desire. She’s got a kid, which means the dad can’t be far.

“Hey, Cerys,” I say and offer her a friendly smile.

The pink grows. “Oh. Liam. Hey.” She turns to Louise. “I’m so sorry; I didn’t know he was coming home.”

“Nobody did, don’t worry about it,” says Mum. “We’ll organise something.”

Cerys’s hair shines in a glossy, natural way that makes me want to stroke it. What the hell? I summon images of Honey, memories of my hands in her hair and lips on mine, but the image of her lips on Mason in the blurred photos also jumps in.