Sweet Little Sister

It was fucking freezing, I had to admit. The mattress had no sheets or blankets and all I had to keep myself warm was Joe and a jacket. Not that I was complaining, it felt extremely good to be held by him, his arms had locked around me, keeping me cozy. His chest went up and down in a pattern I had memorized because I couldn’t get any sleep.

A few moments later, I pretended to shift side and he let go. I stumbled in the darkness to the living room, trying to find the phone I had seen earlier this day hanging loosely from the wall.

My palms searched the flat surface until I found the cheap plastic phone. I dialed the number and crossed my fingers. The time difference meant that they’d surely be sleeping, no matter how hard they had partied or whatever.

“Hello?” I heard on the other side of the line. It was very grumpy and sounding as if I’d just woken him up, which was the case.

“Hey, its Anna… who’s this?”

“Scotti,” he yawned into the mouthpiece, almost breaking my ear drum. “Wassup?”

“Uh, not much, I couldn’t sleep…”

There was no answer from his side of the line.

“Scotti! For fuck’s sake!” I shouted. I heard a surprised little noise and he was alive again.

“Yeah, yeah. So everything’s fine here. Rachel’s sleeping, Snake brought some girls over and stuff, I need sleep so-”

“Girls? Oh so you all had a great time?”

“No, not really, just two girls. One for Snake and the other eventually hooked up with Sebastian,” he said simply. I would have snapped the phone in two but kept my composure.

“Nice… so anyway, tell Rachel to not forget to get me my… hairbrush,” I added, making up shit in my head.

“Okay, bye then,” said Scotti and before I could even answer, he had hung up. I held onto the phone for a while, until I placed it back quietly.

I was sitting on the floor, thinking hard. Of course Sebastian would have gotten over the fact that I was no longer there to fuck with him, he had other girls in line, probably a whole parade of skanks waiting for him to get bored of his current lover.

What was it with him and his damn good looks? Why did he have the ability to make me think only of him? Because he’s a dick. I think… Holy shit why had my life become so complicated?

I staggered back to the bedroom, finding comfort into Joe’s waiting arms. Impressive, I hated myself even more now, not even knowing why. Oh wait, probably because I was a two-faced bitch… and I was trying my best to hide how angry I was this very moment.
He had slept with some girl in a matter of just two days since my departure. If I were flexible enough, I would have jammed my foot so far up my ass because I deserved it all. How could I ever believe that Sebastian would settle down with me of all people? I had no extraordinary traits on me. I was no plastic blonde whore with huge tits or a swimsuit model. I was nothing but a plain girl who enjoyed her rock n’ roll.

And I also had him.

I looked at Joe, sleeping. It infuriated me that he knew nothing about what was going on in my head. I would have loved to call him a motherfucker and scream obscenities to him just to get it out of me.

It would have been a perfect revenge outburst for all the right reasons. My brother shipping me off like some useless trash, Sebastian for being who he was. Me being an ass-wipe.
I sighed deeply and decided to go back to sleep, it was pointless to stay up anyway.

The next time I opened my eyes, I was all alone in an empty house.

I staggered up, rubbing my face and stretching my limp legs that had stayed in fetal position for too long.
There was a tiny note on the kitchen counter, from Joe. It didn’t say much other than he’s gone to work and motivating me to go out and amuse myself only if I promise to be careful and don’t get into trouble.

I rolled my eyes; he already knew me well enough.

Well, it wasn’t my fault, I was taught stuff by Rachel, I looked up to him until I was 12 and learned how to defend myself if I ever needed to. He taught me how to give the best punch and introduced me to a guy’s weakest spot, an area between his waist and knees.
I remember that day distinctively, we were all pretty young but Rachel had decided to elaborate further by kicking poor Scotti right in the balls. I’m sure Scotti still remembers… correction, everybody must remember, it was traumatizing yet hilarious for some.

After a moment in the bathroom, I found an AC/DC shirt in my stuff and threw it over my head. It was old and baggy, sliding on my right shoulder. My jeans were dirty but I was as well, so everything balanced out perfectly.

New Year’s was literally just around the corner my first without any family member what-so-ever. My grandma better not expect a card from me this year, if it wasn’t for her, I’d be sleeping in my own bed or something along the lines of that.
I took the extra pair of keys and locked after closing the door behind me. It was wonderful, the weather was perfect for me here. I only needed a little jacket to go out and it was December for fuck’s sake.

Once again, Sunset Strip was loaded with people. It was only 3 pm but people were sitting on the curb and drinking beers. I crossed the street carefully so I could walk in the shade.
I had stolen a pack of Marlboro's from Joe when he hadn’t been paying attention, so I lit one baby up and strolled around, doing nothing but watching everything intently, so nothing surprising would happen.

There was a shop with a really beautiful leather jacket and I stared at it through the glass that separated us. Oh it was destiny. It had short sleeves that ended around the elbows, it was the most extravagant piece of clothing I had ever seen. It was rough but royal-looking in a way.
I imagined it on me and it made me want it even more. Knowing I would never afford it, I sighed and kept walking, holding onto my cigarette as if it were my only possession.

I was in a confused state of mind, thinking, breathing and walking all at the same time seemed to be to much to handle. I needed to get out of this situation and just relax.

A coffee shop looked like a good idea right now, so I decided to turn around the corner and find myself a good strong beverage to wake me up.

I curved my footsteps around the brick building around the corner and squinted as the sun rays fell straight into my eyes. As I covered my eyes, I must have collided on some poor innocent passerby.

I stumbled backwards because the pedestrian held onto me and kind of tried to throw me around.

“Son of a bitch!” I shouted and tried not to fall and kill myself. When my eyes returned to their normal sight, I took a good hard look at the motherfucker who thought was being funny.

“Motherfucker!” My fist went straight to his gut and he kneeled slightly, laughing but clearly in some form of pain as well. A while later, he regained composure and returned to his normal butt-wipe mode.

“That’s not a way to great your brother!”

I growled at him, a normal answer was not what he deserved. “Why are you here so early, I called just yesterday and Scotti-”

“Scotti lied, we came here yesterday, he’s pissed that he didn’t wake up in time. He’s probably flying here tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Countless questions were running through my head. How he found me wandering around, why had Scotti lied, where was Sebastian… but before I could even utter a word, he spoke instead.

“So… how are things with what’s-his-face..-”

“Joe,” I added.

“Yeah, him. You two aren’t… well, what I’m…”

“No, we’re not fucking,” I said.

“You don’t have to be so straightforward baby.” He rolled his eyes and seemed to be in an awkward position about this whole conversation.

We walked a bit until we found a coffee place with tables outside. He saw me light another cigarette but didn’t say anything. That’s when I took a better look of his face.

“Holy fuck! What did you do?” I screeched, covering my mouth with my hand.

“What? Its my signature now, once we become well-known they’ll know me by this. You know, they’ll be all like ‘Rachel Bolan wow’ and stuff.”

“Rachel Bolan? You will always be James Southworth to me. It was hard enough to get used to Rachel…” I said sarcastically while sipping on my coffee.

“I have to have a rock persona sis.”

So, a rock persona is established by a fake name and some extreme trait, in Rachel’s case, a nose ring that had a chain hanging from it that ended up somewhere on an ear-ring. Okay…
It sure as hell was unique, I had never seen something so idiotic. Sure it suited him but…

“What if it gets caught?” I asked.

“Like where?”

“In your eyelashes, on your shirt, while you’re licking a girl’s-”

He cut in. “Since when did you become so out-spoken about sex stuff?”

“Since when did you become a little poser bassist with a punk attitude? I am guessing you don’t want me mentioning your Leonard Cohen phase.”

He shut his mouth but decided to speak after a couple of angry glares. “Just so you know, Hallelujah is one of the most beautiful songs ever.”

I laughed and almost squirted my coffee out of my nose and he joined in to, filling in with his own laughter. It was too good to be true, this bonding session.

“What are your plans?” I asked him, curious to what they were up to.

“A lot of gigs and recording… god thank Snake for all of it. Just small places around here but great nonetheless.”

“Awesome, I’m really happy for you,” I honestly told him. I could tell he was very excited by all of this and he had the right to be, he had dedicated much of his time writing the majority of the lyrics.

“Are you going to come with us, stay at the place we’ll be renting? I’m not that… keen of you staying with Joe…” he tried to say in a diplomatic way.

“Why?” I shot back.

“Its just that… I don’t know, I feel there’s something fishy about him.”

I gave him a strange look. “He doesn’t seem fishy to me.”

“Its because you’re not so streetwise,” he whispered, leaning closer to me and lowering his voice even more. “Have you ever wondered how he afforded to have that motorcycle of his. Or trips back to Los Angeles…? Did he tell you what his job here was?”

My mind concentrated on thinking about Joe’s job but he had never mentioned anything at all. Then we also had that suspicious stranger-at-the-door incident, which was very weird.

“No, he’s been vague,” I finally said.

Rachel clicked his tongue against his teeth and seemed to be in deep thought. “You better stay with us, we’ll just send some dude to pick your bag up and if Josh-”

“Joe,” I corrected.

“Whatever, Joe isn’t happy about that we’ll come up with some shit.”

Rachel must have been surprised that I cooperated through all this, because just some weeks ago, I was protesting about my dating rights… and now we were coming up with ways to ditch him. I would have blamed the L.A climate but I knew the true reason…

“So, let’s go get ready for tonight okay? We’re going to see a gig.”

I nodded in agreement and walked along with Rachel to the most-surely disgusting apartment they were staying/crashing in.