Andromeda 'Romey' Dixon had spent a little over year on her own. She'd snapped right after her sixteenth birthday and just left in the middle of the night much as her mother had years earlier, she'd gone with nothing but the few basic things that Romey had managed to shove into her messenger bag. That time didn't make drifting any easier though. She worked odd jobs here and there that gave her a little income but they didn't pay much and Romey knew she'd never be able to afford more than the tiny, piece of shit motel room she had lived in for almost six months.
With a sigh Romey fell down onto the bed and flicked on the television; not like she had anything better to do. As the seventeen flicked through channels she found her stomach rumbling, sometimes she just forgot to eat, always lost in one of her poetry books or wandering around in the dark aimlessly; she'd always been a night person.
Slowly her mind shifted back to Parnassus and Charlie Manx. She'd always been a good judge of character and knew evil men when she saw them, Manx certainly wasn't a good person – at least not any longer – but Romey didn't think him evil. No, to Andromeda he was a gray area. In short the dark-haired teen was curious about him, wanted to know what made a man like Manx tick. He'd cautioned her about going back to Parnassus but she'd liked it there and her Couplets hadn't ever been wrong before; then there was the possibility of stumbling across the Wraith owner again. Still, that was something for another day.
When yelling echoed through the wall of Andromeda's ground floor motel room she sighed, the slut and the drug dealer next door had started fighting again. If the past fights were anything to go by then it wouldn't go on very long before the woman stormed out in favour of seeking out the closest bar. From what Romey had gathered – simply from the volume of past screaming matches – the woman had a tendency to fuck any dick with a pulse when the man went out. Most people never would have sided with a drug dealer but Romey had, he was the only one who seemed to care about their daughter who lived in the motel room with them.
Still, Romey didn't wish to hear the argument all over again so she turned the television volume up until she'd drowned them out. Not like anyone would call the cops or management would check on them; the motel staff didn't care about anything unless you'd not paid your bill or started a fire.
The raven-haired teenager finally settled on a piece of crap crime show to watch but she paid little attention, her mind still found itself focused on Charlie Manx and his handsome brown eyes. He'd warned her off Parnassus and she didn't doubt for a second that the dangers he'd mentioned truly did linger there, but, as Romey had told Manx, she was used to pain. Her poems and couplets hadn't ever gotten it wrong before so maybe they were right on the money and she did belong at Parnassus.
"Worth a shot." Andromeda said to herself.
That and she had liked Abe. What precisely had changed her mind Romey didn't quite know but she supposed it was down to the fact she'd not given the place a chance … and Manx told her to stay away; what sort of teenager would she have been if she didn't run head first into danger?
Suddenly the door to the next room along slammed shut, a harsh sound that bounced around the courtyard like parking lot.
"She's stormed out then." Sighed the seventeen year old before she turned her attention back to the show.
~X~
A few days went by before Romey Dixon made her returned to Parnassus. Those few days had been unseasonably hot and frankly the green-eyed Strong Creative wasn't a fan, she'd never been a fan of heat; would have rather been too cold than too hot since she could do something about being too cold. The sky was a bold blue with fluffy clouds that seemed like something out of a cartoon, the sun peeked from behind them every now and again.
The Parnassus sign looked odd in the daylight, didn't have the same luminosity as during the night time hours but at least the place was open. The raven-haired beauty pulled open the door and stepped inside out of the harsh sun. Inside she found only one patron who'd hunched himself over his drink like someone would attempt to steal it from him any second. No one else seemed to be about though, then again that might have been down to the fact it was eleven in the morning on a too hot Wednesday.
"Came back I see."
Romey spun around to see Abe who cleaned off his glasses on his sleeve, he looked as though he'd been doing something labour intensive like changing a keg.
"Well, the place is a delight to be in." Came her quick response.
Abe laughed. "It's a crap hole and we all know it." His glasses were slipped back on. "Why you here, Little Lady?"
She shrugged. "Not really sure. Okay, so my Inscape takes me to things I need and it brought me here."
Abe raised an eyebrow. "You think you need this place? You're nuttier than Manx."
Romey did her best to hide her smile and instead speak nonchalantly. "He's here?"
The overall clad man shook his head. "Nah, he's been having a few problems lately. And answer my question. You think you need this place?"
She stared off at the floor for a moment in an attempt to get her sentence straight.
"No, but my notebook does."
Abe's head tilted to the side, his mouth hung open ever so slightly; clearly trying to figure out what was going on.
"And what am I supposed to do? Just let you loiter around Parnassus?"
She breathed out a laugh. "Got a better plan?"
The elder man thought for a moment. "You never did tell me your name, Little Lady."
"Oh, yeah, completely forgot about that. My name is Andromeda."
He raised an unkempt eyebrow. "You got a nickname?"
That got a smirk out of the teenager as she straightened the strap of her messenger bag.
"Romey."
"Cute." He cleared his throat. "And how old are you really, Romey?"
"Seventeen. Just turned."
Much to Andromeda's surprise Abe seemed pleased with her answer and rested his hands on his hips as he looked her over. The older man was planning something, that much was obvious.
"Alright, I can work with that. You see, Little Lady, I've been meaning to get myself a new bartender, I know the place don't look that busy right now but it's early. You want to hang around here then you're gonna make yourself useful. That ID you showed me says you're twenty-two and twenty-two year olds can be bartenders."
Andromeda was hesitant. "Seriously? A bartender?"
"Ah, ah, ah, Junior bartender."
Abe thrust his slightly greasy hand out towards her to shake. "Deal?"
Romey thought a moment or two. Couldn't hurt and it would be nice to have a regular wage coming in, even if he did pay her in peanuts as she suspected he would.
"Deal." She shook his hand.
Abe grinned like the Cheshire Cat; wide, somewhat disturbing and possibly dangerous. Romey wasn't dumb, she knew Abe was far more minacious than people first thought.
"Perfect. Get to work then, shall we? Come on, Little Lady."
She and Abe spent the next several hours trying to turn her into a half decent bartender. This wasn't what Romey had imagined when she'd decided to return to Parnassus, but it wasn't a bad outcome. The bar was a place for Strong Creatives like her so maybe that was all she had needed, people with the same secret as herself. People who knew what it was like to pull imagination into the real world.
At the end of the night Abe had kicked Romey out into the parking lot with orders to be there at ten sharp the next morning. Romey could handle that, maybe she'd be able to save up enough to move to a better place.
She took out her notebook as she began the walk back to her motel room; she'd been mightily surprised when she'd learnt that Parnassus was within walking distance of her motel, no more than two blocks actually. Looks she wasn't going back Kansas any time soon, and wasn't Romey pleased about that.
"So, it looks like you didn't lie to me." She said to the notebook. "Sorry."
The sky had long ago gone dark and for the first time since she'd run away from home Romey felt as though things were looking up.
