‘The wedding – it was the only way I could get him and be sure I could hold onto him,’ she began to babble. ‘He was so loyal to you. It made me so jealous when you were together. I wanted him for myself, Xane. You understand, don’t you?’ She tugged on his arms trying to engage his attention, but his mind was drifting elsewhere. ‘That was the only way I could ensure I got that.’
‘You had him anyway. All that fooling around with me was only for your benefit.’ Tears were starting to fill his eyes. He blinked them away carefully, refusing to cry until he was alone. ‘You were just too blinkered to see it.’
Elspeth stepped back, her lips pressed tightly together. ‘I know that’s not true. He jumped every time you asked him to.’
‘We all know your history, Xane,’ Ash interjected.
‘Then you know it’s no more intimate than the one we have.’ He held Ash’s gaze to make his point. They’d goofed around plenty together, but it had never been in any way serious, and the same had been true of him and Steve until Elspeth shook things up.
‘Xane,’ Paul said insistently. ‘You have to admit this changes things. You can’t kick her out now. We need to be united.’
‘I ought to have stayed in Monte Carlo and insisted he went to a hospital,’ he said. The details of the fight began playing out in his head. He’d known right away that Steve’s nose was broken. He’d heard the impact, seen the damage.
‘Dwelling on that won’t bring him back,’ Ash said. ‘Paul’s right. We need to be a team. It’s what Steve would have wanted.’
Black Halo, for ever. That’s what their last communication had been. He buried his face in his hands. ‘Please, can we not do this now?’
‘When do you suggest? When the press are in our faces rather than hovering overhead? They’re out for blood, especially yours, Xane. You might not have thrown the punch, but they’re busy creating myths about the band bust-up and the tragedy it’s all become. You might not want to think about this now, but now’s when the decision needs to be made. It’s your choice. We can reunite over this, pull together and show a strong front, or we can genuinely call it a day. That’s it. No more. Completely done.’
Elspeth clasped Paul’s hand. ‘For Christ’s sake, give him a minute. It’s barely sunk in.’
Xane shook his head, not sure whether to cry or laugh. ‘You’re ready to stand by me now, but you couldn’t even ask me if I was OK a few days ago.’
‘We’re arseholes,’ said Ash. ‘You’re always telling us that we’re full of crap. We say and do crass things, and we didn’t actually know the full details. I mean, I knew you were screwing both of them, but I didn’t know you’d gone sappy over Matlock. I thought you were throwing a wobbly because nobody had given you a ring.’
‘Save it, eh?’ remarked Spook. He curled his fingers around Ash’s shoulders. ‘Let’s give him some time alone.’
Grateful to Mortensen, Xane turned away. Instead of returning to the fort, he trekked down to the shore on the south of the island, out of view of the mainland. It was all on him. They could carry on, evolve, or they could give in. All he wanted to do was stick his head in the sand.
The crunch of someone approaching across the shingle made him turn his head. ‘Xane?’ Dani fell to her knees beside where he sat, and wrapped her arms around him. ‘Xane, I’m so, so sorry.’ She squeezed him tight, which reminded him he still had injuries of his own to heal. ‘I thought you might need a hug. I know how special he was to you.’
‘You’re special too.’ He saw that she was red around the eyes, and the tip of her nose was pink and puffy. Seeing evidence of her grief seemed to release his own emotions.
Dani wiped away the tears that rolled over his cheeks. ‘Talk to me about him if you like.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t. Not yet. It’s not sunk in.’
Dani stroked his head, letting the dark strands fall between her fingers. ‘I meant to ask you, when you told me before, which songs were about him.’
A lump stuck in Xane’s throat. Try as he did, he couldn’t seem to swallow it, but a thread of music played inside his head, and he remembered everything he’d felt while he wrote it. After a while, a new melody started to dominate. That was often how new songs were born to him, one rising from out of another.
Dani clasped his hand, squeezing maybe a fraction too hard, but he liked the pressure, liked the fact that she was there. ‘Will you hold me?’ he asked. ‘I just need to be held. And let me hold you too.’
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Copyright
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Mischief
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Copyright © Madelynne Ellis 2013
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