Carmen Jenner - Welcome to Sugartown

“Hellth yeah,” Sammy replies while he smashes his little fist into Elijah’s, and I can’t help but laugh.

Elijah’s gaze meets mine and a silent greeting is exchanged between us. His is possibly a little more friendly than mine.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I say, though I’m really, really not sorry at all, and if my tone didn’t convey as much, the look I give him sure does. I hold the pie out for him to take. “I thought you might appreciate this after a hard day’s work.”

“Oh my god, you actually made him a pie. That’s so cute,” Nicole says, and I swear I hear a hint of jealousy in her patronising tone.

Elijah gives her an odd look and then turns his attention back to me before yanking me toward him and taking the pie out of my hands. His other hand slides down my arse and cups my cheeks.

“Ana makes me all kinds of things,” he says, squeezing my bottom for emphasis and my heart swells so much in that moment that I kinda love him for putting Nicole in her place. In fact, I’m not even sure that line was for her benefit at all.

“Oh, I didn’t realise the two of you were together,” Nicole snipes.

I throw her a look over my shoulder. “Would it matter if you did?”

“Oh come on, Ana. Surely that nasty Scott business is in the past?”

“Oh, it is.” I turn and smile at Nicole and Elijah pulls me back against him. I press my hand to his cheek as he tucks himself against my neck. My grin grows to proportions that could only be called psychotic. “Absolutely.”

Sammy runs in from the courtyard out the back, drops a handful of toy cars at Elijah’s feet and adds his two cents. “Scotth’s a arthface with a sthinky weiner.”

“No arguments there, little man,” Elijah says, and mock punches Sammy’s shoulder before setting his pie down on the workbench. “We’ll still need to do some more work on the Mazda, Nicole. So, if you leave me your number, I’ll call you tomorrow when it’s done.”

Elijah fishes out a piece of paper and a permanent marker and puts them down on the bench in front of her but instead of using them, the way any normal person would, Nicole picks up the marker and sidles up to him. She takes his hand and scrawls her name and number across his palm. I’m about to go ten rounds with this bitch right there in front of Sammy, and something tells me Elijah knows it, because he shoots her an annoyed look and says, “Right, well, I’m about to close up shop. Ana and I are babysitting the kid tonight.

“Ooh, romantic,” she quips.

I swear to god, if she doesn’t shut up I will club her with a monkey wrench.

“I’m noth a baby,” Sammy protests.

“Of course you’re not, little dude. I don’t know why they call it that. It’s kinda stupid really.” Elijah turns back to Nicole. “Anyway, I’ll have Bob call you tomorrow when the car is done.”

“Oh. Okay, sure,” she mumbles and then turns to me and smiles with one of the fakest smiles I’ve ever seen. “Ana, we should totally hang out one day.”

“Yeah,” I say then mumble under my breath, “so not going to happen.”

“Well, thanks, Elijah,” she says, and she just can’t resist touching his arm one last time before she walks away, deliberately swaying her hips as she leaves.

I stare daggers into her back until she disappears from view, but the sound of Elijah’s laughter has me whipping my head around so fast I think I may have actually pulled something. “What’s so funny, Cade?”

“Nothing, just never picked you for the jealous type.”

“Yeah well, I am. So bite me.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” He lifts me up and sets me back down on the workbench, edging his way between my legs.

“Are you gonna kith my thister again, cauth dude, thath tho grossth.”

“Hey Sammy, do me a favour?” Elijah asks. “You know how the whole courtyard is covered in stones?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, earlier I dropped a dollar coin out there and I really, really need that dollar, but I just can’t see it because I don’t have awesome x-ray vision like you do. You think maybe you could find it for me? It’s really important that I get that money back.”

Sammy folds his little arms over his chest and gives Elijah his best discerning stare. “Whath in it for me, Cade?”

“I’ll split it with you.”

“Pleath. I get more than that for getting out of bed in the morning.”

“God, you Belles’ drive a hard bargain.”

I shrug. “He learned from the best.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Alright, you find me my dollar and I’ll give you this shiny ten dollar note.”

“Are you serious?” I baulk. “For ten bucks, I’ll go and find your dollar.”

“Uh, uh, uh!” He gently pushes my shoulders back to get me to stay put. “You will be otherwise indisposed.”

“Sammy, I’ll throw in ten, too.”

“Alright, I’ll do it,” Sammy says and hightails it outside.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you had experience blackmailing small children, Cade. You don’t have one of your own stashed away somewhere, do you?”

Elijah’s still watching Sammy’s hasty retreat, but I swear I see pain mar his features before he turns his warm chocolate eyes back on me. “Nah, not exactly father material.”

Okay. Is it just me, or did he totally just turn fifty shades of guilty?

It occurs to me then that, despite all the time we’ve spent together lately, I still know nothing about him or his past. And there’s a million and one things I’ve wanted to ask him from day one, but I haven’t, at the risk of sounding like some overenthusiastic creeper. Like, where he grew up? What do his parents do? Does he have any brothers and sisters? Is he close to them? And then there’s the most nagging question of all—why does he have the name Lilly tattooed over his heart? It’s not like it’s emblazoned across his chest in neon pink or anything, it’s very cleverly and very artfully worked in amongst black and grey thorns and what looks like a gothic graveyard scene, but the fact that another girl’s name is permanently inked on his skin still makes my insides churn in that oh-my-god-what-if-he’s-still-in-love-with-someone-else kinda way.

Still, it’s not like I can ask him outright. Not only would it make me seem totally insecure—which I am by the way, I’m aware of my downfalls and I’m completely okay with this—but it’d just be so insensitive to come out with, “Hey, Elijah, that girl’s name tattooed on your chest along with a graveyard? Is it because she’s actually buried in the ground, or is she just figuratively dead to you?”

No. I definitely can’t ask him. Not yet, anyway, although at this rate, we’ll both be buried in the ground before I even pluck up the courage to ask him his favourite colour.

Elijah’s snaps me out of my mini meltdown by saying, “By the way, what’s this about me being a big kinky giant?”

“Urgh! Holly doesn’t know how to keep her big mouth shut around my little brother. She’s pounding me for information.”

“As long as I’m the only one pounding you for … other things. Actually, scratch that. Two hot chicks pounding into one another is a sight I’d like to see.”

I pull away from his embrace to stare him down. “You think my best friend is hot?”

“I think your best friend is psychotic, but come on, you can’t say something like ‘she’s pounding me’—” His voice goes all high-pitched and, what I assume is supposed to be girly, but really makes him sound like a baby-voiced nymphomaniac, which is just wrong on so many levels. “—and not have a man go to his happy place.”

“Hey, for your information, I do not sound like a sexed-up Teletubbie.”

“Okay, so you don’t sound like that, but baby girl, when you come, there isn’t a sound in the world to rival it,” he whispers in my ear before pressing his lips into my neck. “It’s pure fucking magic. Making me hard just thinking about it.”

“You’re always hard.” I playfully shove at his chest and he slides my hips closer to the edge of the bench so that I can feel just how true that statement really is.

“Exactly,” he says, and nips my ear lobe. “How long you think we have before Sammy finds—”

The sound of whooping comes from the courtyard and Sammy races in shouting, “Eat it thuckerth, you owe me twenty buckth.”

“Hey Sammy?” Elijah says. “I’ll give you twenty more if you leave us alone for ten minutes.”

“For real?”

“For real, brother.” Elijah takes out his wallet and hands Sammy a twenty. He slaps another on the bench and says, “That bad boy is all yours, once you’ve served your time.”

“Cool.” He’s out the door quicker than I’ve ever seen him move and Elijah wastes no time in pulling me to him.

“Just ten minutes, huh?”

“Baby girl, there’s a whole lot of orgasms you can fit into ten minutes.”

And what do you know? He was right.

“Where the hell are we going?” I scream, though I know it’s likely he won’t hear me, given that we’re going 110 km on the highway and in the process of overtaking a Mack truck.

I feel Elijah’s waist shudder beneath my fingers and realise he’s laughing at me. He’s not going to tell me. I knew that much before opening my mouth. I’ve been pestering him since he busted into my room this morning and demanded I get dressed because he was kidnapping me for the day, and he still hasn’t budged. Then he’d started rifling through my underwear drawer, picked up a pair of frilly pink knickers and inspected them, as if they held the answers to all life’s questions.

“Okay, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but I really don’t think those are your size, Cade,” I’d mumbled as I’d tried to tame my bedhead without appearing obvious.