Trinity (Moonstone Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter Six

Trinity

As luck would have it, Kent’s car was gone from out the front of our house. I could go home.

Quietly I parked my car and tiptoed into the house, bringing my overnight bag with me. A light was on in the kitchen but my mother would be asleep. She didn’t normally wake until nearly lunch. Her shift at the diner didn’t start until mid-afternoon.

Taffy, the orange cat that had adopted us, hissed as I walked past but that turned into soft, contented purrs when I stroked him. It felt a little unfair that I was cast out when Kent came to visit but the stray, hostile cat could stay. When I was little and Kent came I was sent to my grandparents’ house. They lived in the next street over and were more than happy to have me. I had liked going to stay with them. Grandma made dinner every night that we ate sitting around the table, and then afterwards we would go into the lounge room and watch television. Grandpa knew all the answers to the gameshows. He was like my own living, breathing, genius. They didn’t talk about my mom and they certainly never mentioned Kent. They just let me stay. I even had my own bedroom there, and grandma had made me a pink floral duvet cover that was now faded and crumpled in the back seat of my car. Then it hadn’t been so bad, and mom hadn’t been so angry with me all the time because she had somewhere to send me when he came around.

But then Kent had stopped coming. And mom had gotten angrier and more depressed and the blame for her failed relationship was settled in my direction. At the same time my grandad had gotten sick and passed away and then grandma developed Alzheimer’s and couldn’t look after herself anymore. Or me. She moved away to a neighboring town to a hostel and I didn’t see her for ages. I’d had to work out how to catch the buses to the town and then navigate my way to the hostel to see her. And then it was a fifty-fifty chance whether she recognized me or not. Sometimes she did and I enjoyed those visits, other times she got me confused with my mother and said some pretty horrible stuff.

I didn’t like those visits that much. And I didn’t like that in her delirious state she could find anything remotely similar between my mother and me. I was nothing like my mother.

Dumping my bag on my bed I crossed the hall to the bathroom and switched on the shower. Hot.
Nice
. I stepped under the water and let it clean me, before lathering my hair and shampooing it. Twice. And then adding conditioner. It felt so good. I remembered my date tonight and shaved my legs, even using some of my mom’s expensive exfoliating stuff to clean my skin.
The simple things in life
, I thought as I switched off the tap and stepped out.

Suddenly the bathroom door swung open and a loud slap filled the air. As I hit the cold tiles I realized that the slap came from the contact between my arm and my mother’s hand. My skin burned and my butt hurt from where I’d landed. More bruising. At least this time it was in a more inconspicuous place.

“Oh so you’re back are you, you little trollop?” she said, her voice calm and low.

I didn’t say anything. Instead I hugged the towel tighter around me, and stared at a spot on the tiles. If I didn’t say anything to antagonize her then she would go away in a few minutes. She just needed to vent.

“And so
who
exactly are you screwing now?” I could see her foot tapping impatiently on the chipped bathroom tiles out of the corner of my eye.

I didn’t speak.

“Answer me!” she screamed.

“Nobody,” I spoke low, almost a whisper, “I haven’t been screwing anyone.”

“That is such a lie,” she taunted, “I know what you are. And I know what people say about you. You’re the groupie chic who’s an easy lay. You are getting a reputation around town you know that?”

I wasn’t. This I knew. I wasn’t getting a reputation but now was not the time to defend myself.

“I can’t live like this!” she suddenly declared, and my head snapped up. “I can’t live with you vanishing for days on end with whatever guy has taken your fancy. I can’t live with the stigma of being your mom. Kent is so ashamed of you, you know.”

I snapped my head up but sucked in my bottom lip. I had so much to say, so much I wanted to say to her, but didn’t dare. The pain of my cowardice hit me square between the chest. I was a coward. Always in the face of my mother and her anger and her disappointment I was a coward.

“You know he would’ve left his wife you know, if it wasn’t for you,” she said quietly, her eyes going round, “but how can he leave a marriage to an upstanding community role model, how can he leave his other children who are all so moral, and so honest, to come and be a father to a slut like you? Can you imagine the disgrace? He would have done it, would’ve done it years ago if it wasn’t for the shame of being your father.”

I lowered my eyes again. Her words stung, but I’d heard worse.

“So,” she began with a steadying breathe, she sounded as if she were making a declaration, “I have decided something. I have decided that it is time you left. You’re eighteen now. Old enough to be on your own. I’ve supported you for long enough, poor Kent has supported you long enough and I don’t think I can handle the disgrace of being your mother anymore. Maybe without you here then Kent and I will finally stand a chance.”

Kent was never going to leave his wife, but even after twenty years my stupid, pathetic mother was still clutching at straws doing anything and everything to make him come to her. Including it seemed, finally getting rid of me.

I swallowed down the bile that was threatening to rise. “I—um—I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Oh really? Well can’t you go back to where you’ve been? Or doesn’t he want you anymore?”

“I haven’t been anywhere,” I told her, “I haven’t been with any guys.”

She laughed. “Such a lie. You are a slut of Tony Hurst’s. Oh? You look surprised. Didn’t think that I knew that did you? Oh yes, I’ve heard all about your relationship.”

I didn’t dare ask what she was talking about. “Tony is just a friend. We play in his bar.”

“You can go live with him,” she snapped, “or someone else. Or maybe now that they’ve had you they don’t want you. I always warned you that would be the case.”

I bit my tongue. “Please. I have nowhere to go. Just give me a few more weeks to work something out.”

She was silent and for a moment I thought that she was about to back down. That her motherly instincts had kicked in and she would find some compassion, some love for me even. Hopefully I raised my eyes to hers only to be met with the cold, clear blue of her eyes.

“You have until the end of the week. And then I want you gone.”

She turned and stalked out, leaving me cold on the floor in the bathroom, the hot tears only now beginning to squeeze their way out of my eyes.

What was I going to do now?

****

Luke

I was meeting Trinity at The Bean. It was in between both our places she had assured me, although I had no idea where her place was. I got a flash of all that stuff piled up in her car and a hard knot formed in my gut but I pushed the thoughts out of my head. I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t even want to think it.

“Hot date?” Toby glanced up from the sofa where he was perched watching a repeated football game with a bunch of our mates. I knew these guys, these were my guys, my friends from primary school. Troy, Harry, Jake, and Dylan. They too glanced up at me and I noted a few raised eyebrows.

“Melissa?” asked Troy.

I shook my head. “No.” I didn’t want to tell them about Trinity. Not yet.

Jake pursed his lips. “Melissa is going to be gutted.”

I seriously did not want to be talking about Melissa right now. “We’re over. She needs to move it on.”

“Best tell her that mate,” Jake informed me, “because Heidi tells me she is still prattling on about you guys just taking a break. Slowing things down a little.”

“We’ve slowed it down so that it’s almost in reverse,” I informed him, “and in saying that it does not mean we are going to be rehashing what’s been.”

I sometimes felt a little weird about the fact that I was with Melissa for five years, that I had devoted so much of myself to her, that she had been my first everything and yet … I felt nothing. It had taken me six months to work up the courage to end things with her and then when I had, all I’d felt was relief. No sadness. No remorse. Just relief that it was over.

Was I that cold and heartless that someone that I loved—that I’d said I love you to on countless occasions—that I could discard them so easily.

I guess it probably meant I hadn’t really loved her in the first place. She just fit in. With me, my family, and friends, my life. With everything. But in the end, it wasn’t a life I wanted to continue. I didn’t like the direction it was headed in.

“So if not Melissa then…?” Dylan prodded.

“Someone.”

“Oh right.” Troy laughed. “Someone. As opposed to no one.”

“A girl,” I gave in.

Jake laughed. “That’s a relief. I mean I didn’t think it was a dude but you know, stranger things have happened.”

I punched him on the arm. “Fuck off.”

“Oh shit,” said Toby suddenly, his face changing, “you’re going out with Trinity!”

“Trinity?” Troy snapped his head round to me, “lead singer of that chick band?”

He knew that?
I wanted to ask him how but I didn’t get a chance because the other guys were all asking me a hundred more questions.

But what caught my attention was Toby who was slowly shaking his head. “Hey man, you
don’t
wanna tap that. I promise you.”

I frowned. I didn’t like hearing him talk like that. Not about Trinity. “Leave off.”

“No man, I’m serious,” he continued soberly, “that girl has some serious issues. I mean some stuff going on. Stuff you can’t probably imagine.”

I thought of the bruise. The shit piled up in her car. I didn’t want to imagine but it wasn’t hard.

“Leave off, Toby,” I warned.

He shook his head. “I’m not saying this for your benefit dude,” he said quietly, “it’s for hers. She might strut her shit on stage like she’s as tough as nails and in some ways she is, but dude… She’s not for you. She’d never fit in your world and you’ll make her feel like shit if you make her try.”

Toby was annoying me now. “It’s a date. Lighten up. I’m taking her out to dinner—alone—not inviting her over to meet my mom.”

“Whatever dude. But I just thought you should know. Leave her alone. She’s not the one for you.”

No
. Melissa was supposedly the one for me, but Melissa was not what I wanted at all.

****

Luke

Trinity was seated at the counter when I arrived, chatting to the staff. She was dressed in a navy dress with thin straps and had heels on. Her short, blonde hair was tucked behind her ears and she had only the slightest hint of makeup on.

Her tattoos were gone. Interesting.

The door tinkled when I walked in and she looked over, her face lighting up in such a smile when she saw me that I wanted to spend the rest of my life walking in and out of that door if she would smile at me like that.

Fuck
. I had it bad.

Returning her smile I made my way over to her. “Hey.” I let my gaze wash over her. “You look pretty.”

She beamed. “Thanks. You look okay yourself. Not so sweaty this time.”

I blinked at her and then remembered the run that morning and yesterday.
Shit
, when she’d mentioned sweaty my mind had gone straight to other things.

I swallowed hard. “Ready to go?”

She nodded and bounced down from the stool, waving a quick goodbye as we walked out of the coffee shop. I led her down the street to my car and opened the door for her before running around to the other side.

“Where are your tats?” I asked when we were buckled in.

“My what? Oh. They’re fake.”

“Fake?”

“Yeah, I get them done on Saturdays when we have a gig. They’re temporary and generally only last a few days before they wash or wear off.”

I stared at her. Then I burst out laughing.

She frowned. “What’s so funny?”

I shook my head. “Fake tattoos. You are such a surprise Trinity. Such a surprise.”

I drove through town toward the Italian restaurant I’d booked. I knew this one, the food was great and the ambience was quiet but not too intimate. I didn’t want her to feel awkward on our first date, although I couldn’t say that wasn’t how I felt. I felt like a fifteen-year-old boy going on my first date.

I wondered if she would let me kiss her at the end.

We made small talk on the way, I talked about college, told her about my family, and she talked about the band and the girls. She didn’t mention her family.

I pulled into a space outside the restaurant and turned to her.

She smelled like roses. I remembered the rose she’d dropped down her pants at the gig and felt my insides harden. She’d smell like roses down there too, I was sure of it.