All Fired Up (20 page)

‘Ash, I’m serious, are you listening? You need to deal with the guy before he ruins you all. You know, if I’d known what a prat he was when you asked me to join this tour, I doubt I’d have come along.’

‘Shut the fuck up, Iain. You did know. You’ve mouthed off about it plenty of times before. What? Did you think I hadn’t seen those interviews? Sally has alerts set up. We know everything anybody says about us, whether we like it or not. And, for the record, giving Xane ultimatums is a stupid idea. He’s the only member of this band that’s irreplaceable. The rest of us are nothing without him. He
is
the fucking band.’

‘Only because you let it be that way. It doesn’t have to be. Look at yourself. You’re wasted lurking in his shadow.’

Ash rose from his seat on the edge of the bed. ‘I don’t need to hear this. Not now.’ Not ever, in fact. A few months ago, back before things nearly went belly-up the first time and Steve died, maybe. Then he’d probably have agreed with at least half of what Iain had to say, but not now. Things had changed. The shift had been subtle but it was real. They were no longer poised on a razor edge. They needed each other, and he knew if he reached out the guys would be there for him.

‘Where are you going?’ Iain demanded, as Ash made for the door.

‘To swallow some dioralyte and a fuckload of fruit juice so I can give the punters the show they deserve. That all right with you?’

‘There’s no need to be snarly.’

‘Yeah.’ Except there was. There was every reason to be snarly. Ash gritted his teeth until he reached the kitchen area, then he head-butted the front of the fridge a few times, before mixing himself a cocktail of fruit and dehydration meds. If fucking Iain hadn’t tried to fucking fuck his girlfriend, he wouldn’t feel like hell right now.

Spook stopped him damaging himself by curling his fingers around Ash’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything, for which Ash was grateful, because he didn’t want to explain himself. They sat down at the table facing one another as Ash sipped his medicine.

‘Do you ever want to leave?’ Ash asked after a little while, his gaze focused on the world outside the steamed-up window. ‘Just walk out the door and keep on walking until you’re far, far away and there’s nothing familiar that matters any more?’

Spook clasped Ash’s fist where it lay against the table. ‘Ash, I’ve been running for years. I started running when I left Sweden, you know. I hate every minute when I’m forced to come back.’

‘Yet the rest of the time you’re so nostalgic about the place.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s me, a mass of contradictions. Now tell me about you. What’s going on?’

Ash reclaimed his hand from Spook’s hold, and shoved it into his hair. ‘Like you don’t already know.’ An awkward smile creased his face. ‘She called you, didn’t she?’

Spook sat there waiting, silent, his expression stripped of everything but empathy. Ash thought it would be the easiest thing in the world to get up and walk away. It wasn’t as if he wanted to discuss what had happened. It’d been bad enough having to rehash it with Iain as he simultaneously apologised and dug a bigger hole for Ginny to fall into. He had no reason to doubt Iain’s sincerity, but the whole situation seemed lodged like a pellet in his throat that he could neither cough up nor swallow.

‘I don’t really want to do this now. I feel like shit and I have to get through an hour and forty minutes of playing riffs that are going to shred my nerves.’

‘Then just tell me who.’

‘Iain,’ he croaked, just as the other man emerged from the bedroom.

‘We all set, guys?’

‘As set as I’ll ever be.’ Ash rose to follow Iain off the bus.

Spook caught his arm as he stepped past him. He peered up at Ash with his blond eyebrows raised. ‘Did what?’

‘He had his hand in her knickers and they were snogging.’

Spook pushed himself upright too, and leaned close enough to make their conversation private, though Iain had already left the bus. ‘Why haven’t you decked him yet, or better still, fired him?’

‘It wasn’t his fault, Spook. She lied. And we need a drummer. He might not be the best choice, but he’s the only one we’ve got.’

‘Yeah, but he still deserves a kicking.’

T
hat night, Xane took the audience to hell and left them there burning. As usual they lapped it up and revelled in their punishment. Ash was only bodily present – his spirit was off somewhere else, seeking answers to problems no one in the vast auditorium could help him with. Did he have doubts about how Iain portrayed things? Yes, he had doubts, but he couldn’t fathom why one of his oldest friends would lie to him, any more than he could figure out why Ginny had done something that had hurt him so badly, and then hadn’t even attempted to apologise.

Post-show, he skipped showering and followed Xane – who also didn’t seem to give a shit about what he smelled like – to the venue bar. Spook tagged along too, presumably intending to badger him for more details. He didn’t want to talk it over, or listen to other people’s opinions. He just wanted to whitewash the whole episode, or rewind time so that it had never occurred.

Half a bottle of vodka later, he had managed to warm his insides to something like normal body temperature, rather than the sub-zero chill he’d been afflicted with most of the day. It still didn’t make it easier when Spook insisted on probing him for further evidence.

‘Seriously, Ash, I can’t believe you’re taking him at his word. The guy’s a grade-A slimeball and I’m not one to lay down judgements unnecessarily. Fuck that nonsense he’s spinning you about not knowing you were serious. The rest of us sure as hell did, and he certainly knew you’d been with her all night.’

He was finding that part a little hard to buy. He hadn’t specifically told people that he and Ginny were an item. In fact, he’d avoided it. Spook and Xane were the only ones he’d confessed it to, and for this very reason. He hadn’t wanted to face the aftermath of tortuous conversations with well-meaning friends when it all went belly-up.

‘If he knew you were together enough to consider a threesome, he knew you were together enough that he should have kept his hands to himself until he’d asked you if you were OK with that.’

‘He said Ginny said –’

Spook cut him off. ‘“He said Ginny said.” Doesn’t she have a voice? And the way I’m hearing it, his hands were on her, not the other way around.’

‘I’d lay money on Iain being the one who was jonesing for a threesome,’ Xane ventured. He had relationship woes of his own, so he wasn’t saying much, just looking as maudlin and frustrated as Ash felt. ‘The only words I’ve heard out of him all tour besides “It’s not my fault” are “Ash, come and find some pussy with me.” It’s obvious he’s incapable of doing anything for himself so he’s determined to hang off your shirt-tails. What did Ginny actually say?’

‘She didn’t say anything,’ he snapped.

‘Leastways not last night,’ Spook elaborated. ‘And he hasn’t spoken to her since. Which is pretty dumb if you ask me.’

Ash slammed his glass down upon the table. ‘I didn’t ask you. I didn’t ask either of you for any opinion whatsoever. In fact, I specifically said I didn’t want to talk. Look, it’s over with. Done. I don’t want to spend my evening rehashing it any more.’ He rose and pushed past Spook.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To find some company that doesn’t want to talk to me about Iain fucking Willows or Ginny Walters.’

‘Ash!’

‘Let him go,’ Xane insisted, reaching for what was left in the vodka bottle. ‘If he needs to get shitfaced and drown his sorrows then let him.’

‘You mean just like you’re doing.’ Spook glared at Xane as he knocked back two measures of spirits neat and then waved at the bartender to bring over more.

Ash took a perch on a barstool.

‘The thing is, Spook,’ Xane continued, ‘I know how he’s feeling, and if he’d rather not know his own name right now, then will it really hurt if for tonight he forgets it? Fix him tomorrow.’

‘You mean besides the fact he’s been in pukesville all day and the last thing his digestive tract needs is alcohol poisoning? And I’m not trying to fix him. I just don’t want to see him fall back into old habits.’

Ash ordered another drink and pretended he couldn’t still hear their raised voices. Brilliant – just to top off a truly awesome day, his two best friends were now publicly rowing about his shit for everyone to hear.

‘Xane, we both know that emotionless sex isn’t the solution here.’

‘Sex is always the solution,’ Xane muttered grimly. ‘Except when it’s vodka. You should try both of them more often, maybe then you’d understand.’

‘Fuck you!’ Spook shot to his feet. ‘You know perfectly well that I understand, which is exactly why I’m going to leave you two idiots to bugger yourselves some more. You know, you really would benefit from a brain transplant some time.’ He angrily marched away.

‘Well done.’ Ash gave Xane a round of applause, because Spook almost never got mad, so it was some bloody achievement for Xane to have managed it with so few words. ‘That’s one babysitter gone. What are you planning to do with the rest?’ The security contingent their manager had assigned were still watching Xane from strategic points around the room.

The big guy shrugged, stirring the strands of his long black hair. ‘Don’t know. Fuck ’em.’

* * *

I honestly thought you had more taste and more integrity.

Ginny was not in a happy place when Spook’s text arrived, and it almost crippled her. Since her brief conversation with him, she’d spent the hours switching between trying to prop up Dani, after her falling out with Xane, and dancing herself into oblivion; anything to take her mind off her own situation. Breakups were hard, they always were. She might even accept his decision to end it if she understood his reasoning.

Don’t I get any more than that?
She texted back, but Spook didn’t respond.

Dammit! She dug her teeth into her lower lip until it stung. She needed more than that. All those missing hours required an explanation. Excessive drinking had led to a lost minute or two in the past, but it had never eradicated whole sections of her life. There were no grainy images slowly returning to her, no sounds, no traces of half-forgotten conversations, just one vast void, as though she’d sleepwalked through the whole night.

Part of her wondered if that was a godsend. Maybe there were things that she’d done, or that had happened, that were really best forgotten.

When Xane turned up at the Deanna Rädsla gig in search of Dani fifty minutes later, Ginny’s heart took another kicking. She searched the crowd, but Ash hadn’t arrived to reclaim her too. In fact, his absence drove home how very far apart they’d drifted in only a matter of hours.

Memories of what they’d done together flooded her mind: bodies entwined, lips and hips locked together in her little tent. It had all seemed so secure and wonderful, yet now she was standing with her fists clenched, fighting back tears.

She didn’t want to let go of Ash. He was hers. She could see him so clearly if she shut her eyes, his hair an unruly mess that he’d combed over his eyes, Danger Mouse T-shirt barely fit to be seen abroad in, and all his black leathers that made him so damned hot.

‘I need some air,’ she told Lykke. Walking always helped her to think clearly, and it wasn’t as if Dani needed her any more.

Outside the little student club, the sky was bitter orange, as if a war were being waged above. It made a perfect mirror for her emotions. A taxi sat by the kerb with its engine droning, while a blond man in shorts conversed with the driver.

‘Luthor?’ She guessed he’d arrived with Xane.

He turned his head. Yes, it was Luthor. For a moment, she wondered what new trouble his presence signified. Dani wouldn’t be pleased to know the two men were still involved. She shook her head, deciding not to get involved. It wasn’t her fight. Dani would learn to cope with Xane’s bisexuality or she wouldn’t. This was probably just the first of many such tests.

‘Are you going back to where you came from?’ she asked, her brain forming a plan while her emotions rocked back and forth between stewing and seeking out answers.

‘To Gothenburg? No, I don’t think so. Not in any hurry anyway. Xane asked me to get the driver to wait, but he’s not keen to sit with the engine idling indefinitely, and I’m not sure we’re going to be ready to leave for hours.’

‘Then may I steal your ride?’

‘You can, but he’s heading back north.’

‘That’s fine. Wherever you came from is where I want to go. I need to speak to Ash.’

Luthor spoke to the driver in Swedish and handed over a roll of cash to cover the fare. ‘He’ll drop you by the tour bus. I expect that’s where Ash is by now, given how late it is, and the fact he’s been ill all day.’

She’d have liked the time to ask him more about that, but the driver, eager to get going, had already put the car into first.

‘Tell Lykke where I’ve gone,’ she called out of the window. She’d pass on the information to Dani, and Ginny would text her later too, when she wasn’t likely to interrupt anything crucial between her and Xane.

‘Will do –’ he waved her off ‘– if you’ll let the rest of Black Halo know where we are. There wasn’t a chance to leave a message before we left.’

‘I’ll tell Ash,’ she promised. Then sat back as the taxi gathered speed.

Sometimes if you wanted something you had to go out and grab it with both hands. If Ash wasn’t prepared to come to her, then she’d just have to go to him in order to put things right. Because she wasn’t giving up on him. No way. Not ever.

* * *

Ginny’s resolution began to waver when the taxi dropped her by the tour bus. It was well into the small hours now, and though there were lights still glowing inside the bus, she didn’t want to walk in and have to face a barricade of Ash’s tattooed, muscular bandmates in order to reach him. Assuming he was even here.

As luck would have it her favourite roadie was hanging with a couple of other crew members by the back of the equipment van. Cave Troll smiled when he saw her approaching.

‘I didn’t think you were about tonight. Thought you’d maybe decided to stay at the festival for the rest of the weekend, rather than trailing after these sad bastards.’ He tipped his beer bottle towards the Black Halo logo sprayed across the backdoor of the van.