Goodbye Reckless

"Ryan, Papa wants to get married again."

"He does?" Ryan asked distractedly, paying more attention to the pretty brunette around about Ryan's age, who had just walked past the coffee shop window, than to this shock statement that I had just delivered.

Ryan was now a beautiful boy of seventeen years and apparently quite a hit with the girls in high school from what I gathered from his mother's calls. He was the kind of boy who ensured the bitch fights amongst the girls because each and every one of them wanted to go out with him.

However, he proved to be difficult to handle; from my ex step mother's point of view at least. He didn't quite suit the whole 'Hampton's' for summer thing, preferring to dye his hair black and red and getting has many piercings as he could, whilst still in his rebellious teenage phase where he wouldn't regret anything.

"Ryan!" I snapped my fingers in front of his dreamy face, and he pulled out of his reverie and looked at me innocently with a blush creeping onto his cheeks. "Focus please? Don't let the hormones get the best of you."

Despite the age gap of five years Ryan and I are incredibly close, it helped that Cecilia didn't move out of Chicago after the divorce, thus allowing me to keep close contact with my favourite step mother and my one and only half brother who meant to world to me.

"If he wants to get married then let me," Ryan said and shrugged nonchalantly biting into the strawberry tart that he had ordered.

"It'll be the sixth time." I reminded him, taking a drag from my cigarette before viciously stubbing it out in the ashtray in front of me.

Ryan blinked a couple times at me and then comprehension dawned on his face.

"I'd kinda lost count, I never really counted Elaine as one of Dad's wives," He said before taking a sip of his coffee.

"Well she sure left him with enough of a memory," I said bitterly, referring to Precious who was now five years old and quite a little Princess.

When I mean to say that Papa did not marry after Vera, the fifth and German wife, I do not mean that he cut off all ties with the female race.

In fact quite the opposite.

If at all the amount of female visitors in the penthouse that we lived in increased. I gave up learning the names of the various blondes, redheads, brunettes and even the odd woman with pink or blue hair who walked through the elevator doors of our dysfunctional home.

"Have you met this new woman that he is going to marry then?" Ryan asked, his big blue bush baby sized eyes straying out towards the window, hoping to see the pretty brunette girl walk past again.

"No."

That caught his attention and now the big blue eyes were riveted on me.

"You've not met her?" He asked in disbelief. "I thought you of all people would."

"That's the funny thing; either he's making it up letting his old age get to him, or she must be very strange."

"Dad isn’t that old yet you know. He's only 42."

I waved this remark aside and reached for my packet of Marlboro Lights again, but Ryan snatched the packet away before I could get a hold of it, and slipped it into the pocket of his tailored jeans.

"You've already had two," he said sticking his tongue out at me. "You know this woman's name then?"

"I know nothing about her, I don't know where she's from, what her name is, what her job is. Nichts. I know gar nichts."

It was the joys of being brought up speaking two languages. My dad had always laid down strong emphasis on me being able to speak German and it was a language that I could switch in and out of at a whim, without an accent. Ryan was also able to speak German, but after the divorce that force was not in his life anymore but despite this he visited German lessons and kept it up.

This allowed us to say whatever we wanted around anyone and not be understood.

"Well on a happier and less puzzling note, are you free tonight?" Ryan suddenly asked.

"I'm always free if you ask me," I said shooting him a grin.

"Good, because the brother of a friend of mine is in a band and they're playing a show tonight and I've heard some of their stuff; you'd like it. Fancy coming along?"

"I can't believe you even felt you had to ask me, of course I'll come. I'd love to." I said with a smile and then we exchanged the details of where to meet and when, and after a hug and kisses on the cheeks, which despite pretending to be embarrassed by Ryan secretly loved, we said out goodbye's, leaving me with the happy feeling of high expectancy of the show tonight.