“Neala!” I called out, and quickly began to follow her. “Where are you going?”
“To the bathroom. I’ve been in your bleeding makeshift prison all night; I need to wee,” Neala snapped.
Oh, my God.
“Uh, Neala, I wouldn’t go in there if—”
“I’m not listening to your bullshit anymore, Darcy. Just tell me which door is for the bathroom and I won’t murder you!” Neala snapped, her voice close to a growl.
I leaned against the living room doorway and eyed the she-devil.
Feck it, she didn’t deserve my warning; what she deserved was to inhale a lungful of toxic gas, since she was the cause of the stench in the first place.
“The first door on the left, before you near the last door along the hallway,” I said, smiling.
Neala didn’t thank me; instead she turned, walked a few paces down the hall, and stood before the bathroom door. She opened it and stepped inside, slamming the door after her.
Three seconds passed before she screamed.
“DARCY!” she bellowed.
I burst into a fit of laughter. “That’s what you get for giving me the shits – smell what you caused!”
She screamed and cursed for twenty solid seconds; then the toilet flushed and she all but sprinted out of the room, her fingers plugging her nose.
“That is fucking vile!” she hollered in my direction. “What the fuck? It smelt like something crawled up inside your arse and died!”
I continued to laugh as Neala stormed down the hallway by me and into the kitchen. I followed her and watched as she took off her blazer and threw it onto my kitchen table, then picked up the tea towel she had thrown at me a few minutes before. I grinned as she moved to the kitchen sink and scrubbed her hands and up her arms with water and hand wash. She washed her face with water and then soaked the tea towel in water and rubbed it under her arms, then leaned down and rubbed it up and down her legs.
I reached over and shut the door then so she could have some privacy and clean her lady parts. I shook my head as she continued to curse up a storm in the kitchen.
“I can’t believe I’ve to freshen up in your kitchen with your pervy parrot looking at me vagina like it’s a foreign object!”
I laughed out loud and shook my head.
She was brilliant.
After a few minutes passed by, Neala opened the kitchen door and glared at me with a plastic bag in her hand.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
“The tea towel I used to clean myself, and me knickers,” Neala snippily replied.
Her knickers were in that bag?
I swallowed as filthy thoughts surged through my mind.
“You’re going commando?” I asked, shocked.
Neala continued to glare at me. “I could hardly leave me underwear on; I wore them all day yesterday and all of last night . . . I need a fresh pair, but since I don’t have any I have to go commando. Is that okay with you?” she snapped.
I shrugged. “I don’t care what you do with your knickers,” I replied, then cleared my suddenly dry throat.
“Good,” Neala grumbled as she turned and walked over to the bin in the kitchen and thrust the plastic bag into it. I was silent as she did the task and turned back to face me.
She huffed as she walked out of the kitchen and passed by me to go down my hallway.
I sighed. “Where are you going now?”
“Where do you think? I’m going in search of the doll that you stole from me!”
Thank God, something to take my mind off her bloody knickers.
Or lack of knickers.
“I was only taking back an item that belonged to me in the first place,” I replied.
Neala froze just as she reached for the handle of my bedroom door. “What do you mean, ‘belonged to you in the first place’?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I own the doll.”
Neala looked like she’d swallowed something sour – her face scrunched up and her mouth dropped open. She lifted her hands to her temples and massaged them.
I was hurting her head.
Good.
“I don’t even know what to say to that.”
I snickered. “I’m not going crazy. I really do own the doll. You used my debit card to pay for it. I have yours inside me bedside locker.”
Neala blinked her wary eyes at me, then narrowed them to slits.
“Show me!” she snapped.
I gestured for her to open the door she stood facing, and with a glare my way she stepped inside. I walked right by her and headed straight to my bedside locker. Opening the top drawer, I took out Neala’s debit card, then turned and extended it to her.
Neala stared at me for a moment, then hesitantly stepped forward and snatched the card from my hand. She looked at the name and number on the card, then flipped it over to the back where her signature was. She flipped the card back and forth a few times, as if to make sure it was real and not a fake.
When she looked at me I saw hate and anger in her eyes, but that was a normal thing.
“I’m not lying to you,” I said, just to clarify I wasn’t messing around.
She swallowed. “I don’t care. So you technically own the doll – big deal. I asked the lad in the shop for it first. He went and got it for me and then you took it away.”
I blinked when Neala sniffled. She quickly wiped under her nose and brushed her hand over her eyes, but it wasn’t quick enough. I caught the light build-up of water that gathered in the corners before she brushed away the evidence. I felt like I was suddenly going to walk over to her and do something crazy like hug her, so I had to take a step back.
I felt . . . bad, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
I had never felt bad over Neala, but seeing her genuinely confused and upset did nothing except make my chest hurt and my stomach feel sick.
What the hell was that about?
“Neala Girl—”
“Stop calling me that, Darcy.” She cut me off and wiped at her eyes again.
I frowned. “I can’t. It’s your name.”
Neala shook her head. “It hasn’t been me name for a long time.”
I smiled lightly. “Of course it has. It always will be. You’re my Neala Girl, after all.”
Neala widened her eyes, and so did I.
I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
Or at all.
“I don’t mean my Neala Girl. I just meant that you will always be known as Neala Girl to me. That’s all.”
Neala raised an eyebrow, and I could tell she wanted to say something but she didn’t.
Not a single word, which wasn’t like the big mouth at all.
Silence filled the room, and I momentarily wished she would shout or curse at me, just to take the sudden awkwardness away, but she didn’t; she just stared at me.
“You aren’t getting the doll, Neala,” I said firmly.
It was the only thing I could think to say that would put some fight back into her and make her stop looking at me like I was an alien from outer space. It would also kick the silence and sudden awkwardness out of the room.
As predicted, the statement worked like a charm.
Neala’s left eye twitched. “I’m leaving here with that doll whether you like it or not, Darcy.”
Was that so?
I snorted. “Good luck finding it.”
I walked out of my bedroom and headed back into my living room, where I sat down on my couch and placed my hands behind my head. I heard Neala mutter curse words as she searched for the doll, and it made me smile, because all she would find in my room was clean clothes, dirty clothes, condoms, and possibly even a used condom if she looked in the rubbish bin.
“You dirty bastard! Ever heard of emptying your bin every so often?” Neala screeched.
I smiled broadly.
“I swear, Darcy, you’re a dog!”
Ruff, ruff.
I sighed as I relaxed into my couch. I glanc
ed around the room and noticed how shit the Christmas decorations looked. I had my tree up, but the ornaments to go on the branches were in a box on the floor next to the base of the tree. The light-up Santas, snowmen, and other Christmas characters were all over in a corner of the room. I’d bought them because they were battery operated, which meant no wires and no high electric bills, but I was too lazy to even sort them around in various places in the room. I liked Christmas – it was my favourite holiday – but decorating everything was not my scene at all.
I guess you could say I was a lazy bastard.
I sighed to myself, closed my eyes, and chuckled lightly when Neala stomped out of my bedroom and went down the hallway and into the kitchen.
“Darcy!” Einstein squawked.
“Shut up, you stupid animal.”
I opened my mouth to tell Neala to leave Einstein alone, but it turned out my bird could hold her own.
“Fuck you, Neala.”
I burst out laughing.
“I hate this bloody bird!” Neala screeched.
I loved that bird.
I had a big smile on my face when Neala stormed back into the living room. She stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips.
“Tell her to shut up!”
I chuckled. “I can’t. She doesn’t know what the words mean. She is only repeating things she has memorised, that’s all.”
“That’s all? You taught a parrot to tell me to fuck off!”
I burst out laughing, “Yeah, I know.”
Neala scowled at me. “You’re unreal; do you know that? I thought you couldn’t surprise me anymore with your stupid pranks, but yet again you’ve proved me wrong.”
Yeah, the way she was looking from my eyes to my stomach showed how much she couldn’t stand me.
“Then leave. The door is right there. I don’t want you here anyway.”
Neala snorted. “I don’t wanna be here either, sweetheart. As soon as I find the doll I’ll be on my merry way and you can get back to semi-naked Saturdays with your parrot.”
Oh, feisty.
“I can get fully naked right now if you want a more full-on naked Saturday?”
“Spare me,” Neala said with her hand held up. “I don’t want the sight of your bare body to make me sicker than I already am.”
My body made her sick?
“Oh, is that what that look on your face is?” I mused.
Neala straightened. “What look?”
“You keep staring at me stomach, me trousers, and me chest. I must be very repulsive for you to keep looking at me the way you do,” I said sarcastically.
Neala swallowed. “I wasn’t looking—”
“It’s not nice to lie, Neala Girl. You of all people should know that.”
The jab about lying brought me right back to when we were kids. Anytime I pulled a prank on Neala and got caught, I would make up a lie and blame it on her, and ever since those times she had hated liars and lying in general. I always enjoyed pointing out when she was lying, or trying to lie.
The look on her face was priceless.
Neala closed her mouth, blew a large amount of air out through her nostrils, and shook with anger as she glared at me. “I’m not lying, and stop calling me that!”
Never.
I grinned. “Weren’t you leaving?”
Neala snarled, “I will after I find the doll.”
I winked. “Good hunting.”
It was just after two in the afternoon when Neala started what would turn out to be a two-hour hunt in the house in search of the Fire Princess doll. We had woken up very late, but I usually slept to the afternoon after I had had a few drinks.
After an hour or so of listening to her complain and curse me, I went into the kitchen and made some breakfast. I asked Neala if she wanted me to make her some food, but she just told me to fuck off, so I did just that and had my own meal. She eventually came into the kitchen when she was hungry, though; she stopped long enough to have some cereal, but it was only a mini break she was taking, she said, and then she would get back to her search – her words, not mine.
After breakfast I was stuffed and felt drowsy. A large meal always made me sleepy, but I was mainly tired from not getting much sleep during the night, so when I went back into my living room and settled down on my couch I closed my eyes and dozed off within seconds.
I opened them when I heard a loud bang, then Einstein’s squawks. I sat upright and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I wasn’t sure how long I’d slept, so I glanced to the clock on my living room wall and shook my head. It was after half six in the evening.
Was sleeping for three hours considered a nap, or a coma?
I wanted to go back asleep, but Neala’s cursing in annoyance and shouting at Einstein kept me up. I didn’t stand up from the couch, though; I was comfortable, and when the house fell into silence again I closed my eyes. Moments later, I snapped them open once more when I heard Neala gasp, then squeal in delight.
She had the doll.
I don’t know how I knew she had it; I just did.
How the fuck had she found it? I didn’t have it out in the open like she did at her house – it was tucked away in my goddamn attic, for crying out loud.
Wait.
“Are you up in the bleeding attic?” I shouted.
Silence.
Neala was dangerous when she made noise, but she was lethal when she was silent.
I stood up from my couch and slowly walked over toward the sitting room. When I reached the doorway, I was about to call out Neala’s name when she suddenly sprinted by me with a pink box tucked under her arm. She was running for my front door. Her escape was in motion, but I wouldn’t let her get away.
Not on my watch.
I ran after Neala and collided into the back of her just as she opened the front door. I grunted as she fell back and took us both to the ground. She wasn’t a big girl, but she wasn’t as light as a feather either, so when her weight slammed down onto my stomach, I dry-heaved with the force of it.
I moved Neala off me and groaned in pain. I hissed as I felt an ice-cold ache stab my bare feet. I pushed myself back away from my front door and looked up to see what cold and painful thing was touching me. What I saw caused me to widen my eyes and stare in horror.
“Jesus, Darcy! You didn’t have to jump on me— Omigod!”
Yeah. Omigod.
“Darcy, what is that?” Neala whispered.
I stared at the six-foot-tall wall of thick snow in front of me and licked my lips.
I blinked, then swallowed. “It looks like snow, Neala Girl.”
Neala gasped. “Does . . . does this mean what I think it means?”
I groaned as a slight pulsing pain formed in the base of my head.
“Yeah, Sherlock, it does.” I sighed and looked at my unwelcome houseguest. “We’re snowed in.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
No.
No. Bloody. Way.
I was not snowed in with Darcy inside his house.
I was not trapped here alone with him.
Just . . . no!
I scrambled back away from Darcy and the wall of snow and pushed myself to my feet. I turned and ran down the hall and into the sitting room. Rushing to the window, I opened up the blinds and gasped.
The snow was built up and completely covered the glass. If the living room lights hadn’t been on the room would be shrouded in darkness. I’d noticed it was unusually dark even with the lights on inside, but it never occurred to me that it was because snow was blocking out the sunlight.
“What are you doing?” I heard Darcy ask from behind me.
Trying to find a way out of here.
“The window is blocked too,” I said, and turned to face him.
I looked to his hands and growled.
He had the doll box.
“Give that to me,” I said.
Darcy rolled his eyes, leaned over, and put the doll box on a table next to a lamp. I was momentarily confuse
d; he had sort of complied with me, but why? I found my answer when I looked at his face and found his eyes almost popping out of his head.
He was about to lose it.
“We can’t be trapped in here. No way . . . Check all the windows and doors. There has to be a way out of here!”
I blinked as he took off running down the hall in the direction of the kitchen, then jumped when I heard him spew out a number of foul curse words. I guessed the kitchen door and windows were blocked with snow, too.
I picked up the doll box and hid it behind the couch; then I walked out of the living room and headed down to the dining room. I frowned when I realized I didn’t even have to go to the window to know it was blocked by snow as well. The blinds were open, and the snow was pressed against the glass plain as day.
I stared at the glass as my stomach churned.
This could not be happening.
“Please, Jesus, don’t do this to me!” Darcy shouted from the kitchen. “Trap me with anyone else but her, please!”
I rolled my eyes.
He was such a dickhead.
I walked out of the dining room and down the hall back into the living room at the same time as Darcy.
“What have I done to deserve this?” he asked me as I sat down on his couch.
I blinked. “You were born.”
“I didn’t ask to be born,” he hissed. “I had no say in the matter!”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed.
“You’re laughing?” Darcy snapped. “You think us being snowed in together is funny?”
I continued to laugh as I shook my head and said, “No, but if I don’t laugh, I’ll scream or cry . . . Is that what you want?”
Einstein shouted from the kitchen, “Fuck off, Neala!”
I glared at Darcy.
He winced. “No, I don’t want you to scream or cry. Panicking is the last thing we need to do.”
I nodded. “Exactly. So sit down and shut up. We’ll think better in silence.”
Surprisingly, Darcy did as he was told and sat down on the other end of the couch.
I looked at him, and quickly looked away. “Darcy, put some clothes on . . . You’ll get sick.”
It sounded like I cared about his well-being, but I didn’t. I just didn’t want to stare at his body any longer, because he was surprisingly very well built and I was definitely noticing.