Marley (Carnage #3)

by Lesley Jones

  Georgia, George, G, or to Maca, Gia, is my little sister and the bravest person I’ve ever met. How she has held her shit together and clawed her way back to becoming a functioning human being again, I will never know. I couldn’t have done it, but she did, and with the help of Cam, she’s in a good place. She still has her moments. I still get the odd call from her in the middle of the night when she can’t sleep, or because she’s had a bad dream, but they are few and far between now and I’m glad—glad that she’s found her place in the world. Her family and this charity, pretty much take up all of her time, and despite the fact that her job is to promote a charity that was set up to honour her dead husband, Cameron King has been on board and one hundred percent supportive since the very beginning.

  Despite my doubts about their relationship when it first began, he has been a bigger man than I ever could have been, and I’m not just talking about the size of the man’s dick here—which is apparently legendary. No, Im talking about his capacity to love my sister the way that he does. I might even go as far as to say he loves her more than Maca did. Don’t get me wrong, Sean loved George, but their relationship was borderline obsessive of each other.

  I let out another long sigh as I pull Ashley back into my front and she grinds her arse against me.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asks me quietly.

  “Anal mostly—Hmph,” Is the noise I sorta make as Ash elbows me in the ribs.

  “We were being serious, Marls.” I kiss the top of her head and give her nipple a squeeze.

  “I’ve got a hard on now. I don’t wanna talk, I wanna fuck.”

  “Don’t try and deflect. I wanna know what’s going on in that head of yours right now.”

  “I just told you and it earned me a crack up the ribs,” I complain.

  “You either talk to me, Marley Joseph Layton, or I go and find another bed to sleep in. Don’t shut me out, I’m being serious.”

  “George,” I tell her honestly.

  “Well that’s disturbing ... anal and your sister in the same convo. I’ve always thought you two were overly close.” I bite her shoulder.

  “Ow! I’m joking, you arsehole. What about her?”

  I shrug my shoulders, “How far she’s come.”

  I feel Ash nod her head. “She’s in a good place, possibly the happiest I’ve ever known her to be.”

  We’re both silent for a few moments before Ash asks, “Have you thought any more about the book?”

  My stomach does a few backflips and I instantly feel too warm.

  “I can’t do it to her, Ash. She’s been through too much already. Fuck, I’ve caused her enough shit in her life ... I can’t do it.”

  She wriggles around and faces me, reaching out to stroke the stubble on my cheek with the palm of her hand. Her soft fingers rubbing over my whiskers calms me down a little.

  “Will you still not tell me what’s so bad? Is there stuff about you? You scare me when you won’t even discuss it with me. We’ve been together a long fucking time, babe. What’s past is past.”

  I raise my eyebrows as I look at her. We both know full well that she’s full of shit.

  “So, if you read something about me shagging someone way back when and we just happen to bump into that person, you’re gonna be fine with it?”

  She pulls her head back so she can look me in the eyes. I notice that hers are shining, like she’s about to cry.

  “Did it happen since we’ve been together?” She asks me quietly and my fucking heart breaks for her.

  “What? No, babe. You know everything that you need to. You knew about it back then, when shit happened.” I sit up in bed and pull her up to straddle my lap. I feel ashamed. I treated Ash like shit when we were first together, mostly because I was terrified of what I was feeling for her, but partly because I’m a complete dickhead.

  “See? This is why I can’t do it, not even for charity. If I write it, I want to be honest, I want to tell the truth and if I do that...” I trail off as I think about the damage it would do. “If I do that, then I’m gonna hurt a lot of people, including my sister. I’ve fucked up her life enough, and I’m not gonna be responsible for doing it again.”

  Ash looks up at me from under her lashes. “But you’re not gonna tell me what it is that might upset G?”

  “No,” I reply without hesitation. “I don’t want you having to keep things from her. I don’t want you knowing shit about Sean and worrying that she needs to know the truth because she doesn’t.” I press my forehead against hers. “We were young. We fucked up and then, even when we got a bit older, we still sometimes fucked up.” I meet her gaze and continue. “I’m still here, Ash. I can justify and explain my actions, but Maca’s not and I’ll never do that to him. I won’t hurt my sister and I won’t ruin Maca’s reputation. It’s just better for everyone involved if the book doesn’t get written.”

  This whole argument has been going on between us since a publisher asked me to write my life’s story. They would cover the costs involved in editing, promotion, and whatever else needing to be done to bring a book to print and digital. All the proceeds would go to Maca’s, Music & More charity. It would probably bring in a lot of coin, but I can’t lie—if I’m gonna put it out there and publish the fucker, then I’m gonna want to be honest and tell the world the truth. And if I do that, people are gonna get hurt, especially my wife and sister, and I can’t do that to them.

  “What if you just wrote it and made the decision after you finished it? Write it all down and then decide if it’s really as bad as you think it is.”

  I smile at her. “You only want me to write it down so that you can read it. I’m not fuckin’ stupid, Ash.”

  Her brown eyes sparkle as she smiles back at me. “I’d never do anything to hurt you, baby,” I tell her, “and if I was to write this book with honesty and from the heart, I can’t guarantee that I won’t do just that. There’s things that I’m not proud of—things that I don’t want you and the kids to read about.”

  “Well that fuckin hurts in itself,” she says, her smile now replaced with a frown. “The fact that you’re keeping secrets from me fucking hurts, Marls.”

  I can’t win. “Fine, have it your fuckin’ way. I’ll write the book so you can read about my life— the good, the bad, and the fuckin’ ugly, but don’t you dare complain to me that you’re not happy with some of the life choices I’ve made. I don’t wanna hear you complain about how ugly things have been for me.

  I expect her to climb off my lap and storm off, but instead she surprises me by wrapping her arms around my neck and kissing me. “Shut the fuck up and stop behaving like a martyr. It’s all in the past, but if it’s gonna help you, write it. If it’s gonna leave you miserable and depressed, walk away, babe, walk away.”

  If only she knew that it’s already too late. The book has already been written. The second the publishers came to me with the suggestion, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I laid awake every night for weeks, going over past events in my head: the good, the sad, the bad, and the bits that are so fucked up, I don’t think I want anyone to know about ... ever. In the end, I decided to write down all of it—the truth about my life, Sean’s, my sister’s, and Carnage. I’ve been brutally honest throughout the whole process to the point where I’ve actually began to see things in a different light. I’ve finally accepted the part I played in fucking up and fucking with the lives of my little sister and of my best mate. Now, I just need to decide what the fuck to do with all these words that have the potential to break hearts, maybe even minds. Do I leave it as it is and tell the truth, or do the kind thing and leave bits out? I’ve hated lying to Ash, but I know that if she knew it’s already been written, she’ll force my hand either way and want to read it. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that. I’m not even sure if I’m ready for anyone to know the ugly truth, especially Ashley.

  Later, after making love to my wife, I abandon her sexy sleeping arse and slide out of bed and head sile
ntly down the stairs to my office. I fire up my laptop, pour myself a glass of my favourite single malt and sit back on the leather sofa. I begin to read what I’ve spent the last six months writing behind my wife’s back.

  I skim through the prologue, which covers the early years, and jump straight into the part where things take off for us, and at the same time, fall apart...

  CARNAGED

  BY

  MARLEY LAYTON

  CHAPTER ONE

  1985

  I tilted my head back to let the ice-cold beer slide down my throat.

  Fuck Len and his rules.

  I wasn’t a fucking child and I wouldn’t be treated like one. Yeah, we played like shit the other night ... one night out of the whole tour so far. We didn’t sound our best and Lennon kicked off like a fucking lunatic, trying to keep us locked in our rooms and banning phone calls. This is Paris, and I’m gonna enjoy myself. We’ve worked bloody hard on this tour and we’ve more than earned the chance to have a bit of fun, so yeah, fuck him.

  I turned around on my stool at the swim-up bar and watched as Rocco waded through the water towards me, waving a little plastic bag in the air.

  “Big bro let you out to play today, Layton? Where’s your buddy? He too pussy-whipped by your sister to be allowed to join us?”

  He wafted the bag of cocaine in front of my nose as he spoke. I was eighteen and stupid, and I thought Rocco Taylor was a god.

  “My ‘big bro’ could go fuck himself, and I had no idea where Maca was—probably loitering around the nearest payphone so he could ring George.”

  He shook his head. “Dude, I know she’s your sister and all, but seriously, that shit could end your careers. You need to show him that single is the way to go. Just look at what Yoko did to the Beatles.”

  I’d never thought of that before. Maca had not stopped complaining about how much he missed G. He even mentioned that he was gonna ask her to marry him as soon as she left school so that my mum and Dad would have no objection to her touring with us.

  She was sixteen, for fuck’s sake. Who got married at sixteen? I loved my sister, and Maca was like a brother to me, but they were far too young to be thinking about all that shit.

  “You wanna line? This is good shit. I’ve got an Algerian contact who gets me whatever I like at a moment’s notice.

  He had one of those waterproof, plastic coin storage tubes hanging from a cord around his neck, containing the contents of a small chemist’s shop.

  “Try one of these. When the girls get here, you will be able to fuck for hours.”

  He handed me a small white pill and without even thinking, I swallowed it down with the last of my beer, then snorted a line of coke up each nostril from the bar.

  I wanted to obliterate my thought process—I was sick of thinking and feeling. I just wanted to be numb. I’d just endured three days of watching my brother and my best friend behave like they were in fucking heaven, just because their birds had flown out to see them.

  I wasn’t jealous as such ... fuck ... yeah, actually I was. I was jealous because Maca always chose George over me and I was jealous because Jimmie had chosen Len over me. I didn’t even really fancy her that much, but I’d always assumed that one day, me and Jim would get it on. We’d always flirted around. Even as kids, there’d been a little something between us, and I think I just felt like I was entitled to claim Jimmie as mine. I never for a minute considered that she would be interested in someone else. Then when she was just fourteen, it all came out that she was seeing my eighteen-year-old brother. Everyone but me, seemed to know about it and it hurt. It hurt a fucking lot. I felt stupid, like Jimmie had led me on, just to get to my brother, but of course she hadn’t. We’d been mates, Jimmie and I, and nothing more. What I saw as flirting, she saw as teasing. It was no different to what Maca did with her, but back then, my head needed a bit of a wobble, so instead, I sulked like a little kid and allowed Rocco and his poison to get under my skin.

  “He’s talking about proposing to her,” I stated after a few minutes of silence.

  “Maca ... to your sister? How fucking old is she?”

  “Sixteen. She’s still at school,” I told him.

  “Seriously? Why the fuck would he wanna do that?”

  “Because it’s the only way my mum and Dad will let her come on tour with us.”

  “What about her education? College? Do your parents not want all of that for her? I mean no disrespect, dude, but they’re both so young. What if in a few years from now they split up? What’s your sister gonna be left with then?” he asks with a serious, concerned tone to his voice. And me being the idiot that I was, I took it at face value. He was, after all, my friend, and was just showing concern for my sister.

  Yeah, right.

  “Relationships are hard to hold down in this industry. You guys are just on the verge of making it big. There’s gonna be tours, worldwide TV appearances, long hours in the studio, and women. Fuck, there’s gonna be women throwing themselves at you every which way you turn. How long till he can’t resist? After a month, or even a few weeks away from home, he’ll start feeling lonely, and there will be warm, wet pussy available everywhere he goes, willing to keep him company. How many times will he be able to say no, especially once the babies come along and your sister can’t travel with him all the time? I’m telling ya, man, he’ll either cave, cheating on your sister, or he’ll wanna quit the band and stay home with her and the kids. Either way, it will bad news for you—bad, bad news.”

  I hung on his every word, absorbing them all like a sponge. I let them soak into my bloodstream like the coke he fed me for the rest of the afternoon. They settled like poison in my chest, my belly, and my brain.

  A few hours later, I was a mess. High as a kite from the coke, horny as fuck, and loving anything and everything, all from the little white pill that Rocco had given me. I’d never experienced anything like it. I felt euphoric, like I could take on the world. I wanted everyone to try one of those little white pills so that they could feel as amazing as I did.

  I looked up as a crowd of girls started to make their way towards us. Haley White was at the front of a group I recognised to be band slags that had been following us around from gig to gig.

  I had to hand it to Haley, she was a resourceful little thing. From following us around the pubs and venues of Essex and East London, she was always there, sucking and fucking her way through the members of each band we played with, just so they’d keep her around.

  At the time, she was Rocco’s favourite plaything, but I’d watched her and I knew she had her sights set on Maca, who she’d always been obsessed with. It was something we joked about and took the piss out of him for. However, none of us had any idea of the lengths she would go through to split him and Georgia apart.

  I watched as the group of about twelve girls threw down their towels and bags on the sun loungers. Some of them started to remove their tops before jumping into the pool to join myself, Rocco, Wayne Allen, Kombat Rock’s drummer, and Riff Reynolds, their guitarist. I slid off my stool at the swim-up bar and dipped farther down into the water to hide my hard on. I was eighteen, snorting cocaine, popping what I later found out was ecstasy, and drinking beer with three members of one of the biggest bands of the time. In addition to that, I was in a pool with a swim-up bar, surrounded by a dozen women wearing little more than a smile and a ‘come fuck me’ look. Of course I had a fucking hard on.

  Things slowly began to spiral out of control from there. A few minutes later, I watched all heads turn as Maca walked out to the pool area, looking thoroughly pissed off. He pulled his T-shirt over his head, threw it on a chair and dived in. He swam almost the length of the pool, underwater, surfacing in front of me a few moments later. The water was just below his hips as he stood up and you could almost hear the collective sighs of every woman, and some of the blokes, as he pushed his hair back off his face.

  Even I had to admit he was a good-looking fucker, almost verging on the side
of too beautiful for a bloke. He was always a bit skinnier than me, but we had both been hitting the hotel gyms hard while on tour and even had a set of weights we used regularly on the bus, so we were both looking pretty ripped for a couple of eighteen-year-old kids.

  I don’t know exactly what happened in those few moments I spent watching him wade through the water towards me—the drugs and alcohol I’m pretty sure played a big part—but I’d readily admit there was something else. I don’t know if it was his presence, or the effect he had on everyone around him, but something made my dick stir as I watched him.

  I’m not gay. I’ve never fancied blokes or had any desire to fuck or be fucked by another man, but for the first time ever, as I watched Sean McCarthy walk through water towards me, I got hard for a man. It fucked with my head big time, making me feel angry and that, combined with Rocco’s words from earlier about Sean splitting up the band to be with Georgia, made me resentful. He was my bandmate, best mate, and like a brother to me, but at that moment, I was confused about exactly what it was I was feeling for him.

  “Maca, glad you escaped the chains that being in love have wrapped around you and decided to break free to come and join us.” Rocco called out from the bar stool he was sitting on, Haley straddling his lap with her bare tits pressed against his chest. Despite being in that position, I’d noticed she hadn’t taken her eyes off Maca since he’d walked out to the pool.

  “Fuck off, Rocco.” Maca replied as I passed him a beer.

  “Cheers.” He nodded towards me as he spoke.

  “You need to chill the fuck out. What’s up?” I asked him.

  “Your fucking brother, that’s what’s up. G’s gonna be going mental that I haven’t phoned and it’s all because he suddenly thinks he’s God and can tell us when we can make fucking phone calls. I’m not a fucking child and I won’t be treated like one. Between him and the label saying she can’t come backstage, I’m just about ready to fuck off home and fuck the lot of them.”