Unplugged (Blue Phoenix, #3)(4)

“I want to watch something different,” I inform Ella.

Ella ignores me or is so transfixed on her show she doesn’t hear. I flick onto a different channel and she twists around. The expression on her face matches the sour one her mum gave me several minutes before.

“Switch it back!” she says, and then adds, “Please?”

“No.” I turn back to the TV and keep flicking through the channels.

I expect Ella to scream like the kids in the shops who don’t get what they want. Instead, her face crumples and she stands, eyes brimming with tears. In her hand Ella grips a ragged piece of cloth I expect was once brightly striped, but is now dull and dirty. A tear crawls down her cheek and the quiet sadness cuts through my determination to do what I want in my parents’ house.

My hatred of women crying extends to tiny girls, and I hold out the TV controller to the rainy faced child. Ella takes it and perches onto the sofa besides me, dropping her piece of blanket as she does. The pigs reappear on the screen and I stand to leave, no way am I staying round to watch this.

Ella’s fixated on the programme again but patting the cushions on the chair around as if looking for something. The blanket rag lies on the floor and I pick it up, handing the item to her. Ella’s face lights up and she sniffs loudly.

“Thank you,” she says.

I can’t help but grin at the little girl, guilt over making her cry wiped away. “You’re welcome, little lady.”

She giggles at my phrase and I wink at her. I catch sight of Cerys standing in the kitchen doorway with a cup of juice in her hand, staring at me. Embarrassed at being seen giving in to Ella, I straighten and drop the grin. Cerys’s brown eyes tear up too, confusing the hell out of me. Is crying over nothing a family thing?

I walk toward the doorway, ensuring I look at her face and not her tits this time.

Cerys steps to one side to allow me to pass. “Thank you,” she says softly.

“‘S’okay, don’t want her having a meltdown.” I pause, wishing for some crazy reason she’d look at me the way she’s looking at her daughter.

“She’s not that kind of child,” says Cerys. “She’s having a hard time, so I appreciate you being nice to her.”

Goldie trots past me, and climbs onto the sofa next to Ella, resting his head on her leg. Cerys goes over and hands her daughter the bright blue cup before perching on the seat next to her. The little girl snuggles up to her mum, and Cerys strokes Ella’s hair as they watch the god-awful TV show together.

I hover in the doorway, looking around the room that’s adorned with the same gold and red garlands we had as a kid. The scent of pine from the Christmas tree, which is already dropping needles onto the gifts beneath, pulls me to my own childhood, a stable, happy one.

Poor kid, not in her own house and without her dad at Christmas. I hope some of the brightly wrapped presents beneath the tree are Ella’s.

CHAPTER 3



LIAM



The house fills with the smell of perfume and the sounds of girlish laughter. A pyjamaed Ella drinks milk in the kitchen, watching my every move as I walk across to the huge, white fridge and pull out a beer.

“Are you going out with Mummy?” she asks.

I wrinkle my nose at her. “No, I don’t think your mummy and Lou would want me there. I don’t wear enough perfume.”

She chuckles. “You’re funny. Men don’t wear perfume.”

“I do. I like to wear really, smelly perfume,” I whisper.

“Like Mummy’s? My mummy smells nice.”

“I’m sure your mummy smells nice, too,” I say and I have no idea why.

“Whose mummy smells nice?” asks Louise as she walks in carrying her shoes.

“Liam says Mummy smells nice.”

“What? No! We were talking about how people smell!”

Louise arches an eyebrow. “When did you start sniffing my friends, Liam?”

“I didn’t. For fu...” Louise throws me a look and I glance at Ella. “The house stinks of perfume! It’s like being in a house with teenage girls again.”

“Better than your teenage boy feet!” retorts Louise. “I see Mum put your boots outside. Nothing changes, huh?”

I glower at her and Ella watches our sibling argument attempting to hide her amusement. Yeah, nothing changes; I’m no rock star in this house.

Louise is dressed for a Christmas night out, short, tight, black dress, tinsel in her hair and flashing Christmas tree earrings. I suspect she’s going further afield than the local pub.

“Is Connor going with you?” I ask her.

“No, girls’ night, leaving the men at home.” She smirks. “It’s been a long time since me and Cerys had a girls’ night together.”

“Cardiff, two years ago,” says Cerys as she joins us in the kitchen.

“Yeah, you would move to bloody Cardiff so I never see you anymore.”

Cerys shifts her look to the floor. Her and Ella live in Cardiff now? Why the hell is she here? As Cerys isn’t looking at me, I check her out. Same as when I came home a few years ago, there’s something inappropriate about imagining my little sister’s friend naked. So I try not to. And fail. Her dress isn’t as tight or revealing as Louise’s, a dark blue and a bit floatier or however a chick would describe it. I will not look at her tits. I fail at the exact moment Cerys lifts her head and looks at me. I pull my mouth down into a ‘sorry’ face.