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a day makes anyway,’ Tom said, continuing to push. He wanted her; badly. Ever since he’d noticed the swelling beneath her t-shirt, how her hips had become rounder and smoother, he couldn’t get her out of his head. His little Eleanor had grown into a woman right before his eyes and he wanted to be the first to sample the goods. ‘It’s just a day; just another number,’ he gave a casual shrug. ‘You’ll not feel any different tomorrow, birthday or otherwise.’ He sat up on the edge of the bed, his back still towards her, and she noticed a freckle on his shoulder that she’d not seen before.

      ‘It makes a difference to me,’ she replied, sharply jabbing him in between the shoulder blades. ‘And that, Tom Black, is all you need to know.’

      He was smiling, she sensed it.

      ‘Tomorrow you could get run over by a truck,’ he turned his body to face her then, grinning. ‘Then you’d be up there,’ he pointed to the ceiling, ‘kicking yourself in heaven, thinking “if only I’d done it with Tom!” You could die a virgin, Eleanor. Imagine that, going to your grave never having known the pleasures of the flesh.’

      Ellie gave an uneasy laugh. He could love her and destroy her in the same breath.

      ‘Yeah, or I do it with you, get hit by a truck and end up down there,’ she pointed to the floor, ‘burning in hell for my sins!’

      ‘Hell sounds like my kinda place,’ Tom snapped the ring pull from a can of Colt 45, discarding it on the threadbare carpet with a sniff, ‘more fun.’ He got up from the bed and made his way over towards the stereo, stopping to open the small window a little wider, a wall of cloying Nevada heat smothering his face like a blanket.

      ‘Anyway, it’s hardly romantic is it?’ Ellie threw him a look, ‘what with your dad and my mum tearing lumps out of each other downstairs.’

      The muffled voices from the room below, they had both noted, were getting progressively louder and Ellie knew it wouldn’t be long before it reached a messy, bloody crescendo. She knew the drill only too well.

      ‘They’ll kiss and make up in a minute, they always do,’ Tom said, sensing the despair in her voice and wanting to say something to make it better. He pressed a button on the stereo and Simply Red’s A New Flame began to play as he flopped back down on the bed next to her. She really was quite something to look at now, all bright green eyes that sparkled when the light hit them, pillow lips and long, honey-coloured hair that felt as soft as cashmere to stroke. He certainly wanted to fuck her, but it was more than that. They’d been thrown together through circumstance and it was something unspoken between them, a silent understanding.

      Ellie was distracted by the almighty row taking place between their beloved ma and pa downstairs. She was sensitive underneath all the streetwise swagger and he knew the fighting really got to her. It got to him too, only he was much better at hiding it.

      ‘Sweet sixteen and never been kissed,’ he teased, wrapping his arm around her as the bloodcurdling screams downstairs reached new heights.

      ‘I have been kissed, I’ll have you know. Plenty of times, actually,’ she bristled.

      Tom sighed as he stared up at the peeling artex ceiling above them; it was a depressing grey colour, matching the grubby net curtains that gently lifted from the sticky breeze outside.

      ‘I remember my sixteenth birthday,’ he said, a little wistfully. ‘I got drunk on 20/20 and screwed Chasey Grey in the parking lot behind the Walmart.’

      ‘Wow, a regular romantic.’

      ‘Well, she seemed to enjoy it,’ he retorted, placing his hand on her belly, the feel of her naked skin beneath her crop top giving him an instant hard-on inside his battered Levi 501s.

      They were silent for a moment, the sound of their respective breathing barely audible above the music and muffled cries below.

      ‘I wanna get out of here, Tom,’ Ellie said suddenly, her voice cracking slightly. ‘I don’t just mean this shitty room, I mean this life. I feel like I’m dying a slow death here.’ She sat up with purpose, stretched her long, slim legs out in front of her. ‘I wanna do something with my life. My dance teacher thinks I’ve got what it takes to make it big, you know, the ballet, Broadway! Be someone.’

      Tom watched her intently as she made her speech. He wanted so much to be able to say something to make it better but as always, something stopped him; at the end of the day, kindness felt just too much like weakness.

      ‘Face it, kiddo,’ he snorted, ‘this time next year you’ll be in the clubs shaking it for men like my dear old dad downstairs.’

      Ellie pulled her knees into her chest and hugged them. She vehemently resented this remark, if only for the fact that she feared it might be true.

      ‘You know nothing, wanker!’ she spat back.

      Tom laughed, amused by her outburst. He liked that she was feisty. They were similar that way. He pulled her back down onto the bed next to him. ‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I believe you’ll be someone, someday,’ he said, keen to get her back on side. ‘Though whether you’ll ever be as successful as me … now that’s debatable.’

      ‘Oh really?’ she raised a sarcastic eyebrow.

      ‘In ten years’ time I’ll be a multi-millionaire.’ He propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her with an arrogance that she found irresistible. ‘The boats, the jets, the houses and cars, the jewellery …’ he raised his hands in demonstration. ‘The whole fucking enchilada … I’ll have it all. I’ll call them Black’s. Have hot girls dancing for me, on my payroll … king of the fucking clubs.’ He jabbed his chest with his thumb.

      ‘What, like your old man, you mean?’ She grinned facetiously.

      ‘Watch me, you’ll see. Actually, me and Jack are onto something as we speak,’ he tapped his nose with a conspiratorial finger. ‘I might even give you a job if you ask me nicely. Pay you to shake your little ass in my club.’

      Ellie hit him with a pillow. ‘You’re disgusting,’ she made to turn away from him, but he was too quick for her and held her there, her strength no match for his.

      ‘So easy to wind up …’

      Ellie had grown used to Tom’s unpredictability over the years they had lived together. In fact, as far as she was concerned, it was all part of his appeal. The proverbial sunshine and showers; that was Tom. You never knew what you were going to get.

      A sickening thud from downstairs stopped their conversation mid-track and Ellie winced.

      ‘Sounds like they’re really going for it tonight,’ Tom remarked after a long moment.

      He held her then and she felt a genuine tenderness in his touch.

      ‘I mean it, Tom,’ she said, fighting back tears as she buried her face into his warm chest. He smelt of cheap aftershave and fags. ‘I’m going to get out of here and make a good life for myself one day; be rich and successful; be happy …’

      ‘We’re gonna be winners. I know it.’

      Ellie loved Tom when he said things like this. Things that gave her hope for the future, a future she could not envisage without him. ‘We’ll make it together. You’ll get out of this festering shit pit and make something of your life, fulfil your dreams, because that’s the kind of woman you are.’ He paused for a moment, allowing his carefully chosen words to resonate.

      Ellie was floored. He had never referred to her as a ‘woman’ before.

      ‘I love you, Tom,’ she whispered the words just loud enough for him to hear them.

      She would marry Tom Black and they would make a life together. Her, a famous ballerina, him a lauded entrepreneur, the kind of couple that women envied and men wanted to be. It was their destiny, she felt sure of it.

      Tom’s hand

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