All Fired Up (21 page)

‘I’m looking for Ash,’ she said, avoiding answering questions about her decisions and whereabouts. She still wasn’t sure how much the crew knew. Obviously they’d seen her with Ash, but given Ash’s reluctance to tell even his closest friends that they were serious, she doubted he’d said anything to the guys who merely schlepped and strung his guitars.

‘You’re looking for Ash,’ Troels repeated with a laugh. ‘You and half the world, lady. He’s in there.’ He nodded his shaved head towards the back end of the tour bus.

‘Along with a few guests,’ the guy with the sandy-blond hair, whose name she believed was Liam, chortled. ‘Although the peep show is pretty shoddy tonight.’ She realised that they were all facing the window onto the bus’s one proper bedroom.

‘He’s with somebody?’ she asked, bile worming its way up her throat.

The dark-haired guy, Tony, drew his thumb along his right eyebrow. ‘More like several someones, not that we’ve been counting silhouettes or anything.’

‘No, of course not,’ she agreed. Had Ash really reverted to type so immediately? She thought he’d discovered more self-worth and moved on from pointless masochism, but what did she really know? Maybe he’d been partying this way the whole tour, or at least while she’d been home in the UK. Certainly the crew didn’t seem to think him entertaining a bus load of women was anything unusual.

‘Is it open? Can I get on?’ she asked Troels.

‘Sure thing, sugar lips. You know the way.’ He pointed regardless. ‘Do you have a special treat for him tonight?’

A smack in the face was her first uncensored thought, for being so stupid. She didn’t know what had gone wrong to make him think this sort of behaviour was all right, but she was going to find out.

A thread of music spilled into the night air as she approached the front of the bus. The bass was cranked so loud she could feel the vibrations through the soles of her feet as she ventured inside. At least being forewarned helped her to master her emotions before seeing a lot of girls prancing about in little more than thongs, heels and body glitter.
Oh, God, Ash. What are you doing?

Her gut wrenched as she pushed her way along the central aisle into the main living area. This was going to be far worse than facing down his bandmates. At least she could reason with them, or try to. Extracting the man she loved from the clutches of succubi was going to require very different tactics.

Following the clues dropped by the guys outside, Ginny headed for the back bedroom, confident she’d discover Ash there. He was lying in the centre of the double bed, shirt and shoes missing, eyes closed. A spray of fairy lights wrapped around the headboard bathed his worn expression in soft orange light. There were no other lamps lit, which at least helped soften the reality.

He wasn’t fucking, which she guessed was a major relief. She wasn’t sure what she’d have done if he had been. Turned tail and headed home to England, perhaps. No, not really, not without putting up at least some fight. She wanted what they had too much to let it slip away so easily. Ash might be a tattooed bad boy on the surface, but beneath that was a decent, honest man, one she could have fun with and then happily grow old and settle down with. She even believed that’s what he wanted too, some day, just as long as he could stay wild on the side.

There were three women on the bed with him, one on either side rubbing grubby hands over his bare chest, and a third sitting astride him testing the boundaries of his unzipped fly. Ginny automatically clenched a fist. Ash was hers; how dare they? She’d pick every goddamned leech off him by hand if she had to, and throw them onto the gravel outside so hard they’d have scabs on their pretty arses for weeks. She started forward, only to pull herself up sharp. She had more sense than to start a cat fight. If she really wanted to get rid of them, there were better ways to go about it.

Two strides took her to the main light switch. ‘Cops! Clear out,’ she yelled, as she flicked on the overhead lights, dazzling everyone with harsh white light.

Instantly, all hell broke loose. Women shoving other women, people snatching up purses and bickering over possessions, and a hell of a lot of things she didn’t want to know about being shoved into places she didn’t want to think about. At any rate the bus cleared in less than two minutes, with the exception of the girl straddled across Ash’s lap, who clearly didn’t feel she needed to run from the police.

Ginny grabbed her hair just as her teeth teased the edge of Ash’s zipper. ‘You too, pussycat. Time to be on your way.’

‘Ash wants me to stay. Don’t you?’ she oozed, her voice all sickly sweet and buttery.

If he did, he gave no indication of it. Ginny wasn’t sure he even realised the girl was there. His eyes were vacant, like his mind had temporarily checked out. For a moment she feared he was high on something, but the whiff of alcohol from him seemed to suggest a more legal form of intoxication.

‘Out.’ Ginny dragged the skinny bitch off the bed and led her kicking and screaming to the door. She shoved her into the corridor, then slid the bolt to prevent her getting back in. She heard vicious thumps and plentiful curses, but thankfully the lock held.

‘Ash?’ Ginny whispered, gingerly approaching the bed. He hadn’t moved a muscle, perhaps hadn’t even blinked. His skin was pale and grey with exhaustion, except around his jawline, where the skin was speckled by the signs of burst capillaries. ‘Ash, I came to talk.’ He didn’t respond until she attempted to smooth the hair back from his brow, then he rolled off the bed on the far side from her and slouched against the back wall of the bus. His rumpled clothing made him seem gaunt, and whereas normally seeing him in a state of undress made her want to jump him, her only thought now was that he’d benefit from a nice cup of tea and a decent night’s kip.

‘Fuck off,’ he snarled, jerking up his jeans so that they covered his hips. ‘I don’t know why you’re here after what you did to me. Just fuck off.’

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Not until you explain why you’ve ended it.’

‘As if you don’t know,’ he snarled.

That was just the problem, she didn’t know. She hadn’t the faintest idea, and hadn’t been able to find anyone else who could tell her either.

‘You’re like all the rest. I should have seen it. The evidence was there all along. I mean, we only met because you wanted to screw a rock star. Congrats on having accomplished that. Ash Gore –’ he nodded ‘– done him.’ He mimicked her drawing an oversized tick upon a giant scorecard. ‘I’ll just move right on and do his friend next.’

‘What are you talking about?’ She hadn’t fucked any of his friends. The closest she’d come was on the night they’d met, and Ash had been there and both witnessed and participated in everything. Throwing a wobbly about that now was ridiculously unfair. They hadn’t even been dating at the time. ‘I’ve no interest in any of your friends, only in you.’

‘Guess I must have imagined what I saw then.’ He snatched up a T-shirt and tugged it over his head, hiding the ridges and dips of his upper body from her view. ‘Must have been some other bitch called Ginny I caught with her knickers off and her tongue down another man’s throat.’

‘You what?’ She was still trying to get her head around the accusation when he stalked over to the bedroom door and nearly wrenched it off its hinges attempting to open it. The bus, cleared of revellers, looked a sorry mess. Elspeth stood in the middle of the detritus, nose wrinkled, scowling at the discarded beer bottles and cigarette butts. Seeing them in the doorway, she gave a disgruntled snort and padded up the stairs.

‘Ash, I don’t know what you think I did –’

‘I don’t think anything,’ he snapped, slashing the air with his hand. ‘I know. I saw you. You didn’t even care that I saw you. You just smiled and tootled off like the utterly despicable cow I’ve realised you are.’

‘No,’ she insisted. She refused to believe it of herself. She wasn’t always the most moral of individuals, and sexually, sure, she was adventurous and refused to let anyone make her feel bad about that, but she was not a cheat.

She never cheated.

‘Get out.’

Fuck, no! Up close she could see through the fringe of hair covering half his face to his eyes. Even the smudges of kohl around them couldn’t entirely mask their red rims, or the tears forming at their edges.

‘Just go away. I don’t want to see you again.’

‘No,’ she replied. None of this made sense. It didn’t tally with her feelings. She hadn’t gone home and set things in motion back there in order to come to Scandinavia and blow the future she hoped they were creating by doing something so moronic as quitting now. ‘I’m not leaving, Ash. We’re going to talk this out. There’s been a mistake somewhere. I didn’t … I wouldn’t … I love you.’

‘Damn funny way you have of demonstrating it. We’re over, Ginny. I can’t date a woman who thinks it’s OK to feel up my mate and to suggest we all bed down together for a threesome without consulting me.’

‘I did that?’ She swallowed slowly, sickened by the possibility that might be the truth. No wonder he was hurting. She’d feel exactly the same way if their situations were reversed.

Ash stared at her, mouth agape, the blue of his eyes so intense she could see it through his fringe. ‘Do you expect me to believe you don’t remember?’ Outraged laughter burst from his throat, which changed into a rattling cough that almost bent him double and had him dry retching.

Concerned, Ginny patted him between his shoulder blades. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course I’m not all right.’ He jerked away from her touch as if he’d been scalded. ‘I thought we had something. I trusted you. How could you do that?’

‘If I actually knew what I’d done then maybe I’d have an answer.’ She gritted her teeth, determined not to raise her voice. Yelling at one another wasn’t going to help. Her jaw soon ached from the strain. ‘Ash, I’m sorry for whatever it was I did, but I honestly don’t know what it is, beyond the few hints you’ve dropped. The whole of last night is missing from my head, like someone sliced it out. I’ve got nothing. Not a single detail.’

His lips peeled back from his teeth to form a nasty smile. ‘You know denial doesn’t really make up for it. Christ, Ginny, I go for a slash and come back and you’re all over Iain. I thought you said he was a prick. Obviously I misheard you, and what you really said was that you wanted his prick. He’s in the bar. If you trot over I’m sure he’ll take great delight in banging you senseless.’

Not waiting to see her response, Ash marched into the kitchen, where he snatched a bottle from the fridge and started pouring the contents down his throat.

It was Ginny’s turn to gape, because not for an instant had she imagined the name Ash would spit at her would be Iain’s. One of the others, maybe – they were hot guys. Even Elspeth at a push, given that she’d obviously been out of her friggin’ mind to start with. But
Iain
? Not even the thickest beer goggles would do that. Even the thought of kissing him made her feel sick.

No way. No fucking way.

Outrage rapidly transformed into a deep unsettling cold. Ash claimed he’d witnessed it. She had no reason to doubt his account, which, combined with her memory loss, made Lykke’s assessment of the situation startlingly likely. What if someone had slipped something into her drink that had left her with no inhibitions and no sense of restraint? Then she might have done all manner of things she would never have normally done, and would have been ripe for being taken advantage of. Then she might have let Iain that close to her.

Ginny’s stomach lifted, sending a wave of nausea up into her throat. ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she croaked.

‘Bucket’s right there.’ Ash went so far as to kick it towards her. ‘I’ve given it plenty of use today myself.’

She hunched, no longer sure her trembling legs would support her, and clenched the sides of the bucket.

‘How – how far did it go?’ she asked tremulously, not sure she really wanted to know the answer.

‘He had his fingers in your cunt.’

Suddenly, clutching the bucket wasn’t enough. She hugged herself tight, determined not to succumb to the hysteria lurking just beneath her skin. This was much worse than she’d anticipated – but then she had tried to ignore the possibility she’d been drugged, because, if she accepted it, she had to accept other things too, like the possibility she’d been taken advantage of.

She’d clearly been taken advantage of.

Iain had touched her in a way that made her feel dirty inside and out.

The soft patter of bare feet upon the lino alerted her to Ash’s approach. She could barely lift her head to look at him. He stood leaning against the fridge, holding something that looked suspiciously like water. ‘Can you really not remember anything?’ he asked, his tone surprisingly gentle.

She very gingerly shook her head, half-wishing that he’d say he’d exaggerated the situation or he’d interrupted the encounter before it got that far. ‘The last clear memory I have from last night is of you coming off stage and Tony speculating that those lights hadn’t come down by accident. After that it’s blank until Dani dragged me into the sunlight this morning.’

‘Where did you wake up?’

‘In my tent. Alone,’ she added before he suggested otherwise. ‘With the absolute hangover from hell. Guess I drank way too much?’

Ash swept his head side to side once to indicate otherwise. ‘You wanted to go down to the lake, so you were determined to stay sober. You had a glass of Southern Comfort early on and a beer while we were watching Drunk Alien Fuck.’

‘Drunk Alien who?’

‘You don’t recall the inflatable many-breasted alien?’

She bit her lip. ‘Did I do something embarrassing with it?’ Like that was her major worry. It was easier to focus on embarrassment rather than the potentially more sinister aspects of the night.

Ash scrubbed his face and sat down beside her on the floor. ‘What about Spin the Bottle? You remember that, I’m sure.’

‘Nope.’

‘Betting me forty quid I wouldn’t snog Xane?’

‘You didn’t, did you?’ She kind of knew he had, because Dani had mentioned it, but she’d assumed it’d been no more than a peck on the cheek. The way Ash said it made it sound rather more full-on.