All Fired Up (12 page)

‘Yeah,’ she drawled, cutting him off. ‘That argument would be just fine if that’s what this was about, but it’s not. Come on, Ash, explain it to me. How is it OK for some grubby little tart to massage your dick and lick your tonsils in front of everybody, but I’m not even allowed to be seen with you, let alone touch you in public?’

‘There was plenty touching happening in public earlier today.’

‘Not the same thing and you know it.’

‘Fine. People expect certain things from me. If I stop doing them entirely, they’re going to notice. You pretty much forced my hand, Ginny. If you’d gone to the dressing room as we’d discussed, that needn’t have happened. All I was planning on doing was talking to her for a couple of minutes, but you turned it into a catfight.’

‘So it’s my fault?’ She slapped his hands away when he reached out to her.

‘You made everyone suspicious, the way you were bristling. I had to allow her some liberties, otherwise they’d have known. Everyone would have known.’

She laughed into his face. ‘I don’t give a fuck about their suspicions. I don’t give a fuck if they know. Why can’t they know, Ash? Why does it have to be so hush-hush?’

‘You know why. I told you why.’

‘No, you gave me a reason. Now tell me the goddamned truth.’

Ash opened his mouth but failed to find the words to express himself. If this had been an essay and she’d given him a pen, then he might have been able to reason it out, but on the spot, when his heart was in his mouth and his guts were knotted at the prospect of her actually walking away, he knew he didn’t stand a chance of making her understand. Discomfort swaddled them both. The stiletto heels of her boots scraped against the tarmac as she shuffled uneasily. They’d been so damn happy this afternoon. He ought to have recognised that as a major warning sign. You’d think he’d learn from his mistakes. Apparently he’d learned nothing.

When she began to turn, he knew this was his last chance to make things right. He reached for her, but his fingers clawed empty air. ‘It’s too soon,’ he confessed. ‘I’m so sorry, but it’s too soon. I’ve been immolated before. I can’t open myself up to that again, not yet.’

She stopped, turned on the spot. There was no mercy in her face, but at least they’d moved forward, and she was listening. There was a chance he could make her understand.

‘By a girl or by the press?’

As if she didn’t already know. The inevitable press involvement would make everything worse, but that wasn’t the heart of the problem.

‘We’ve all been burned, Ash. Do you think you’re the only one who’s ever sustained an emotional scar the size of the Mariana Trench? Ash, I’ve had more than my share of fucked-up relationships. The only way to get over them is to keep moving forward. Shutting yourself down isn’t the answer. You have to let other people in, other possibilities arise.’

‘That’s what I’m doing.’

‘It’s not,’ she insisted. ‘You say you love me, claim we’re a couple, but that’s not how you treat me. You’re using me in the same way you did all the groupies you’ve been screwing for years, like I’m a plaything you can get out when you fancy, keep happy with an orgasm and then lock away when it’s inconvenient. It’s bollocks, Ash. That’s not the sort of relationship I want with you. Look at Xane and Dani – when they’re together you know exactly how goddamn right they are for one another because it’s written all over their faces. It’s welded into their body language.’

Gaze lowered to the wet tarmac underfoot, he slowly shook his head. ‘I can’t do that. Maybe in time, but not yet.’

She crossed her arms as her lips pinched together. Hurt screamed at him from the centres of her whisky-gold eyes, but he refused to pretend. In time he’d absolutely offer her everything, every single part of himself, but he couldn’t do it all at once, right now. At least, not while on tour, when the consequences if it went nuclear would be so catastrophic.

‘If we could lock ourselves away in a cabin for six months and be normal, then I’d do my best to give you what you want, but I can’t open myself to such risk right now. The situation with the band is too volatile already. I need to stay sane. A few of us have to be, and it’s pretty much down to me and Paul at the moment.’

Steve Matlock was gone, Elspeth suicidal. Iain wasn’t the lifesaver they needed. Instead he was displaying piranha-like qualities, ready to skin the flesh off their bones if the opportunity arose. He’d forgotten how fucking mercenary the man could be. Then there was Xane’s perpetual melodrama. Even the normally resilient Spook wasn’t quite himself at the moment. He’d been mooching around looking constipated ever since they’d remastered their first track as a tour anthem and tribute to Steve. Not that Ash thought grief was the issue. Basically, the bus was a big kettle of mess.

‘Please understand that I want you every minute of every day, but I need you to be separate from the circle of band politics and screw-ups. I need you to be my rock, my anchor. The safe harbour when everything gets screwy.’ In the same way that the band would be if things went wrong with her.

The night breeze ruffled her hair as she shook her head, blowing the long strands across her face. ‘I’m not cut out to be anyone’s anchor. I like things wild and rocky, at least then I know I’m living. I don’t want to passively sail through life, Ash. Give me storms and great waves, and I’ll give you the loyalty you need, combined with intense passion.’

‘I can’t.’ He reached for her hand, so that he could clasp and hold it close to his chest. ‘I swear, Ginny, you’re everything I want, but you need to respect my boundaries.’

‘What about what I want? It’s damn lonely traipsing about Europe on my own, knowing I could be travelling with you, being with you, sleeping late and making long, glorious love to you. Instead, I’m constantly one step behind, wedged onto another bit of public transport, and if I want to see you more than once every few days, I have to stand among the crowd at one of your gigs and watch you suck face with every little tart who wants a piece of you.’

‘One. It was only one girl.’

‘It still stinks, and I’ve only your word for that. What’s to say you’re not doing that every night? It’s routine, isn’t it? It’s what Ash Gore does on tour. It’s your role, isn’t it? Lead guitarist and chief fluffer.’

‘
Was
my role, maybe?’ Although it was pretty damned insulting for her to say it, and he didn’t warm them up for anyone. He saw things through to the bitter end. Wasn’t he demonstrating that right now?

A sudden wave of intense weariness gripped hold of him. ‘Why are we fighting, Ginny?’ he asked softly.

To his astonishment she replied, ‘Because we’re both pissed off and scared.’

‘Yeah,’ he sighed. He was both those things, and Ginny was the one who saw it most clearly. ‘Please, you’re not really going to leave, are you?’ He dragged his thumb down her cheek to her lips, where he rubbed a path back and forth over their soft surface. ‘I had such plans for this evening.’

‘Sorry I screwed them up.’

‘Don’t.’ He quietened her by covering her lips with his fingers. ‘Can’t we work this out? I swear I’ll stay away from the fans and we could meet more often, talk more often. You know you can call me any time, day or night.’

‘Just as long as nobody knows about it, and I don’t step on the bus,’ she finished for him. ‘Mustn’t trespass on that holy ground.’

‘Unholy,’ he corrected her, briefly provoking a smile. He seized the opportunity to move in closer and brush his lips against her temple.

‘Give me a reason to stay.’

Ash kissed her, pouring his hopes and apologies into the soft brush of their lips.

‘Nice, but not enough.’

He couldn’t give her what she wanted – to head back onto the bus and get cosy in his bed. The band was too volatile. It might turn into a fuck-off great monster at any moment, and explode or sprout tentacles. If that happened he didn’t want his relationship with her to be the first casualty. He’d rather they were still standing together after the fallout, because he’d need someone like her in his life.

‘You don’t have to give me everything, Ash. Just give me something.’

That’d be fine if he had the faintest clue what to give, which he didn’t.

‘Show me what I mean to you. Give me a little piece of yourself.’

The only way he knew how to show her was to worship her, and their location wasn’t exactly ideal for that purpose. It was dingy and dark. Trash swirled about on the breeze and there were weeds growing through the cracks in the uneven tarmac. As for giving up something of himself – she already had his heart. ‘Ginny,’ he muttered, anguished by the dilemma.

She stretched up on tiptoe and brushed a kiss against his jaw. ‘Tell me something that no one else knows about you.’

He looked around, concerned there was someone else here, someone listening in. ‘The first single I ever bought was “Tonight” by New Kids on the Block.’

‘Ooh! Bad.’ She made a lemon-sucking face. ‘Now try again.’ Evidently embarrassing himself wasn’t enough. ‘And actually I bought that too.’

‘My mum still buys me my underwear.’

‘Seriously? How old are you?’

‘She’s concerned I’ll embarrass myself if I get run over or something.’

‘Deflections,’ she said tapping him in the centre of his chest. ‘Fluff. Give me something real. Tell me something that matters.’ Her hand dropped to where his belt buckle lay against his stomach, sparking a thought.

‘I got the snake tattoo done to cover a scar.’

She nodded. ‘I figured as much. Go on.’

He didn’t know what else to say so he raised the hem of his shirt, and inched down his waistband, exposing the little pattern of ink. Ginny traced her finger across it from tail to head. ‘Constance,’ he said. In his mind there were still letters, though in fact there was a simple black band.

‘Pretty dumb to get a girl’s name inked onto your skin.’

He was the king of dumb decisions. ‘I loved her, Ginny. I thought we’d be together for ever. We had our lives mapped out until we were a hundred. We were going to travel and then have kids and a dog, and flock of sheep and a goat, and a little house in Cumbria, where we could write books and grow old.’ His nose stung as he thought about it, prompting him to sniff. Old memories, buried so deep that time had failed to wear away the jagged edges.

Soft warmth filled Ginny’s eyes as he spilled each detail, until they shone honey-gold. ‘How far did you get?’

The lump in his throat made it almost impossible to speak. ‘Not far enough,’ he croaked, and turned away so that she couldn’t see his face. There was a dark corner, not far from where they were standing, that he felt drawn towards. Ginny tottered along behind him into the gloom. ‘I was nineteen. I spent a fortune on a ring I couldn’t afford and got down on one knee. I never got up.’

‘Ash, what do you mean you never got up?’ The warmth of her palm seeped through his clothing and into his skin. ‘What do you mean?’

Her concern bled into her words. With a few short sentences everything that had just happened between them had been chopped away. All that was the snapping of twigs compared with the timber fall he’d just delivered.

‘She turned me down. She broke up with me. I asked if she’d make me the happiest man alive, and she squashed me like a cockroach.’

‘Oh, God!’

‘I’m only here because of Spook. He dragged me off a bridge.’

Her response was evidently too strong for words. Her mouth hung open. Clearly, she hadn’t anticipated him spilling his guts so completely. He hadn’t planned to either. He never talked about this stuff. Curiously, though, now that he’d started talking he didn’t want to stop. It felt like a weight off his chest, as if admitting his past to her made space for the future. A future he did desperately want to share with her.

‘He stopped you jumping?’ she asked.

It was too dark here to see more than the whites of her eyes, but he didn’t need to be able to see to envisage the horror creeping over her, bleaching her skin.

‘He told me that I’d probably just give myself concussion and smash my pretty face up.’

‘Spook did?’

‘He’s not the person most people think he is.’

‘Are any of us ever that?’ She slipped her hand into his and squeezed his fingers. She was trembling. ‘Thank God he was there.’

Spook was always there. He’d been his guardian angel ever since that day. He never said anything about it to Spook, but he knew that’s what the photographs his friend took were all about. They weren’t lascivious; they were protection against repercussions.

‘I … should I … I probably ought to tell you something about me too,’ Ginny whispered.

‘Don’t tell me you got that piercing to hide the scar left behind by a previous lover.’

‘No,’ she chuckled, seeming to appreciate his attempt to lighten the air a little. ‘I got that piercing because it gives me pleasure.’

She gave his hand another vicious tight squeeze. ‘There’s someone I felt that strongly about in my past too. We weren’t going to live in Cumbria, but in a penthouse suite at the top of a glittering glass tower.’

‘What happened?’ Ash asked gently. He already wanted to beat the guy senseless for whatever wrong he’d done.

‘We moved in. He worked. I stayed home, and he forgot about me.’

‘I won’t ever forget about you,’ he promised, drawing her close. ‘I never stop thinking about you, even when I’m on stage. You’re even there in my dreams. Won’t you stay, Ginny? I’m sorry for everything that’s happened tonight, and I know it’s hard, but we can work something out. I don’t mean to keep things this way for ever. I just need time to adjust. If I felt as though the band were stable it would help, but we’re not.’

She rested her head against his chest. Ash smoothed her hair.

‘I can’t. Not because I don’t think you mean to try, because I know you do. I just …’ She peeped up at him. ‘There’s something I need to do. I’ve put it off too long already. Also, it might be nice to sleep in my own bed for a while and get some laundry done. I never thought I’d say it, but I’m sick of staying in hotels.’

‘Laundry,’ he huffed. ‘You’re leaving me for a washing machine.’

‘Yes, Danger Mouse, that’s right.’