Carmen Jenner - Welcome to Sugartown

Holly sighs and flops back down on the mattress. “How the hell am I going to live with that?” She gestures to the shared wall between my bedroom and the bathroom, where we can hear Jackson running the shower, and then she flings herself out of the bed and dashes for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to peeeeeeeee.” She switches her weight from foot to foot and crosses her legs, one in front of the other, her hand tucked between them like she’s a little kid. “How is it possible that this kid is the size of a jellybean—he’s not even a real jellybean yet, he’s like one of those overpriced Jelly Belly things—and he’s already pushing on my bladder?”

“You don’t know it’s a he,” I reply.

“Oh, it’s a he alright. Little punk arse bastard. Only a male would wake me up this early. He’s banging around in my vagina, Ana. Then he’s going to tear it up from the inside and stretch it all out of shape so no man will ever want to look at mummy’s pink bits again. Of course it’s a male.” She stalks over and bangs on the shared wall. “Only a male would be that inconsiderate.”

Jackson taps back in the same spot she had and then we hear his deep chuckle through the wall. Holly screams and lunges for the door.

“You can’t go in there, Hols. Jackson’s in the shower. Naked.”

“Thank you for pointing that out, Einstein. I’d wondered how people did this fancy pants showering thing. God, Ana, I so did not need that image in my head right now,” she snarks and stalks out of the room.

“I meant what I said,” I yell after her, “keep your horny pregnant vagina in your knickers!”

I hear the bathroom door open and then a long relieved groan, which I’m hoping is just Holly finding relief in the fact that she finally got to pee, and not something else. I climb out of bed and go in after her, just to be sure. She’s just standing up and arranging her pyjamas into place when Jackson pushes the shower curtain back. “Nice as it was to see your pink bits again, Holly, I don’t remember there being an open invitation on that door.”

“Well, if some jack-arse man-whore didn’t come striding in and waking up the whole goddamn town before sunrise and then hog the shower and steal all the hot water before anyone even has a chance to see some I wouldn’t have to barge in here to pee.”

“That what’s wrong here, Holly? You not seeing some?” Like a complete arsehole he waggles his eyebrows at her.

“Jackson, don’t be a dick,” I mutter but neither of them are listening to me; they’re both too absorbed in this sick little flirty power play they have going on, and I’m starting to think the three of us moving in together is going to be a colossally bad idea.

“Oh, I’m about to see some,” she declares with a snide smile and turns and flips the hot water on, causing the pipes to groan and complain and Jackson to leap out of the shower in all his naked glory to escape the cold water. I avert my eyes from his very obvious arousal, and Holly nearly doubles over with laughter. “Why, Jackson, I think you’re shrinking in your old age.”

Jackson grabs a towel from the rack and hastily wraps it around his waist as he grins down at Holly, whose face is so smug it looks like she swallowed a whole aviary full of canaries.

“I don’t recall you having any complaints sweet, sweet Holly,” Jackson muses, and his smile grows wider. “In fact, I recall you begging me for more, on your knees, on the bed, in the back of my mum’s car. And then there was that one time you let me stick it—”

“Shut up!” Holly snaps, and her smug smile is completely gone.

“Maybe the three of us moving in together isn’t such a good idea,” I say.

“Oh, we’re moving in together,” Holly says and strides defiantly from the room.

“Well, I, for one, can’t wait. Better make sure there’s a sturdy lock for the bathroom door, though. I’d hate to have my roomies walk in on me while I’m bludgeoning the beefsteak.”

“Gah! You’re such a pig!” Holly calls out.

“Oink,” he shouts back, and I hear my bedroom door slam.

“Why do you have to provoke her?”

“Because she’s so much fun to poke,” he laughs and then deadpans. “Oops, I mean provoke.”

I quietly close the bathroom door and lower my voice, “She’s in a vulnerable place right now, could you lay off for just five minutes? Please?”

“Why is she vulnerable? Don’t tell me some guy finally managed to locate her cold, black heart and break it in two?”

“Do you ever get tired of being such a complete tool, Jackson?”

He makes a show of thinking about that and then smirks down at me. “Nope. Never.”

“Lay off,” I say and walk back to the door. “I mean it. She’s not up for your stupid playboy power trip right now.”

Jackson’s brows knit together and he frowns. “Wait. You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

“As a heart attack.”

“What’s wrong with her?” he whispers, and I can see the worry behind his clear blue eyes. They can pretend to hate each other all they want, but Holly and Jackson don’t have anyone fooled. In their own weird, twisted way they actually care for one another. Which makes them moving in together the most horrendous idea I’ve ever had. “She’s not sick, is she?”

Both our mums died of cancer before they could see out their fiftieth birthday, so it’s not unexpected that he’d jump to that conclusion before anything else. Losing more loved ones to the big C was my biggest fear in life, too.

“She’s not sick, and it’s not my place to tell you. Just please, go easy on her.” I gesture to his half-naked body. “She doesn’t need to be distracted by all this.”

“Hey, I can’t help it if she’s gagging for—”

“Jackson Rowe, so help me god, if you finish that sentence I will tell every available woman in this town that you have the clap and you will never get laid again.”

“Okay, okay.” He holds his hands up in surrender. “Geez, when did you girls get so fucking uptight?”

“The moment we started trusting guys like you,” I retort and perform a little of my own slamming doors routine.

I press the plastic prison phone to my ear and listen for someone to pick up. I know it won’t be the voice I want to hear. She won’t pick up the phone and be excited to hear my voice, and she won’t whisper that she misses me into the receiver, probably ever again, but that doesn’t stop me from praying to whatever god, entity, or chasm of void space out there watching over us to let it be her.

The phone’s been ringing too long. If no-one picks up then I’ve officially wasted my six minutes, though it’s not like I have anyone else to call.

It’s a miracle the club haven’t found me on the inside, though most of our guys would have been sent to a Sydney lock up. The Bandidos chapter in Byron means there’s a few blokes from our rival MC stationed here at Grafton prison, and I’m thanking fuck right now that no one but the cops know I’m the son of a Hell’s Angels Sergeant-At-Arms. I have just one and a half months to make it through before parole. Just one and a half months and I’ll be able to see her face again.

Just when I think the phone’s about to cut out I hear someone snatch up the receiver and say hello. It’s the voice I wanted to hear, though she sounds annoyed and she’s breathing heavily, like she just ran for the phone. I get lost in the steady rhythm of her breath, remembering how she used to look when my hands and tongue were the cause of her breathlessness.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” I say and give myself a mental smack-down. Fucking wake up, man! “I didn’t think you’d pick up.”

“Expecting your boyfriend, huh?” she jokes.

I have no idea what to say. This is such a turnaround from the last time we spoke, I feel like I’ve just been bitch slapped. I laugh softly and smile bigger than I have in months.

“It’s good to hear that sound,” she whispers. And fuck me, if there isn’t a whole fucking world of longing in her voice. “It’s been a while.”

“Been a while since I had something to laugh at, baby girl.”

“Are you okay?”

Fucking hell! I feel like I’ve stepped into the twilight zone. Are we really having this conversation? Is she coming around? Has she already forgiven me for the things I did?

“Yeah, I’m alright. I got a parole hearing in a month’s time.”

“Dad told me.”

“Is he there?” I ask cautiously. I don’t want her to quit talking to me, but I hate to think she’s only talking to me because she feels has to.

“You’d really rather talk to my dad than me?”

“Hell no!” I say, too quickly. Fuck I sound desperate. I can’t help it though, it’s driving me crazy hearing her voice and not being able to see her, touch her. “How you been, baby?”

“I’m okay. Holly and Sammy are keeping me pretty busy. Jackson is driving me nuts, though. I’m kinda wishing he’d haul his arse back to Tenterfield. I don’t think the women of Sugartown have been acting this crazy since you rode into town.”

“Who’s Jackson?” I say, and try not to sound like a possessive dick. I have no right to do that, she doesn’t consider herself mine anymore, but no matter what she might think she’ll always belong to me. Fucked up logic, I know, but it is what it is.

“Would you relax? He’s my cousin. My aunt died last year, before you came, and he’s been living in that big old farmhouse by himself. He finally sold it and moved his big oafish butt in here and he’s been helping Dad at the shop ever since.”

“He a mechanic?”

“No. When you get out you’re going to have more cars to fix than you know what to do with. Assuming you want to come back to this backwards hellhole of a town, that is?”