The bastard completely overcooked it and ought to have crashed and burned; instead he managed to raise a smile out of Ginny.
‘Seriously, though,’ Iain said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. ‘You do realise he’s been everywhere?’
‘Which beats having been nowhere,’ Elspeth Shriik, Black Halo’s diminutive keyboardist, remarked, interrupting Ash’s mental picture of Iain being bloodily beheaded. ‘At least Ash comes with a satisfaction guarantee. What do you come with?’
‘Minimal effort,’ someone quipped, instantly freezing Iain’s smile.
‘God, yeah. Very droll,’ he complained. ‘You’re all so funny. That’s right, pick on the new guy.’
‘Have another beer, Iain.’ Ash thrust the bottle Iain had given him back at him again, hoping to prevent an argument. He might be somewhat pissed at Iain at the minute, but if possible he wanted to avoid another feud brewing within the band. It was bad enough that Xane and Elspeth were barely speaking to one another, without a third war zone being drawn up.
He got it. He understood why Elspeth didn’t want Iain on board. For the same reason that Xane didn’t, because the vacancy only existed because of Steve Matlock’s death and neither of them was ready to move on yet.
‘At least you’re drinking something less girly now,’ Rock Giant, Black Halo’s bassist, remarked of the beer, ‘and not that pink nonsense you had earlier.’
‘Cosmo?’ the bartender enquired.
‘Dirty Shirley,’ Iain corrected him. ‘And I’ll take another now.’
Ash shook his head. ‘You’re supposed to be a badass rock star. Don’t you think cocktails are a little bit fluffy?’
‘What can I say?’ Iain raised his hands and shrugged. ‘I happen to love cherries.’
‘First-timers only,’ Elspeth mocked. ‘Is that so they don’t realise how rubbish you are?’
Ash watched Iain’s skin turn purple beneath his artfully constructed five o’clock shadow, and prayed he managed to inure himself to Elspeth’s jibes fast, else he was going to be doing a lot of mediating on this tour, and, if there was one thing he truly sucked at, it was calming situations. Creating them – now that was a different matter.
Xane came over looking for his girlfriend Dani and drifted off again when he realised she wasn’t present, which in turn prompted Ash to make a second attempt at escaping.
‘Where are you going?’ Iain asked.
Ash cuddled Ginny closer. ‘I’ve something I need to attend to.’ He saw a particular thought burst through Iain’s expression and deliberately turned away before his friend chose to express it. If the word ‘threesome’ left Iain’s mouth, or in fact anything else suggestive involving him and Ginny, then Elspeth wouldn’t be Iain’s major problem, because he’d have two broken legs and a bust nose to deal with. The only reason Ash was considering leaving his arms intact was that they needed a drummer.
‘Catch you later,’ he said pointedly. Then he led Ginny calmly to the exit, just as he’d led hundreds of women before her. ‘Nothing’s changed, nothing’s different,’ he recited mantra-like beneath his breath for the benefit of anyone watching. ‘I’m just doing the same thing I always do, going to enjoy a little post-show wind-down with a pretty lady I recently met.’
His audience seemed to buy it. Leastways, no one appeared to be taking any notice of them, not even the snoops from the Daily Sleaze.
Ginny hadn’t anticipated that seeing Ash on stage would leave her feeling quite so supercharged. She’d seen Black Halo play before and never felt like this. Of course, back then she hadn’t been intimately involved with one of them. Right now, there were riotous bubbles fizzing through her insides. She just prayed she didn’t go ‘pop’ at any moment and embarrass herself.
Fact: watching Ash, being near him, made her want to scream and sing and leap about. Maybe all three together. She wanted to tear off his clothes and fuck him naked right on the stage for everyone to see, which she guessed made her just the same as any other fan girl. The difference of course was that if she put her hands all over him and said the right words, he might just make all her fantasies reality, rather than have her removed or arrested by his posse of security guards.
‘Where are we headed?’ she asked, when he led her away from the backstage area.
‘Dressing room.’
The deserted stage might have proved to be a better option, given that his dressing room and the corridor leading to it were both full of people.
Ash immediately about-turned. ‘Why the fuck is it so difficult to find a bit of solitude around here?’ he groaned, and muttered a string of curses under his breath.
‘Who are they all?’ Ginny asked, peeping backwards over her shoulder to see them. ‘Is your dressing room normally this crowded?’
‘No … Maybe … I guess.’ Rather than attempt an eviction, he crossed the corridor and barged straight into the dressing room opposite. ‘Thank you, God.’ He raised his hands in praise as the lights around the mirror flickered into life and bathed the space in a gentle orange glow. ‘Spook, you’re the best.’
‘Won’t he mind us being in here?’ Ginny wondered about the band’s rhythm guitarist.
‘Nope.’
Actually, besides a camera and a few magazines there wasn’t a whole lot in here that identified the room as Spook’s. His trademark purple Washburn guitar was obviously in the care of the roadies, and was probably being loaded onto the tour bus right now, ready for departure. She found a good-luck card from a woman wedged between two magazines, and read the message. It was kind of sweet, and not nearly as crude or suggestive as the stuff that was delivered to Ash. His fanmail was enough to make the average porn star cross their legs.
Ash pushed the door to and locked it. ‘On the other hand, he might object to you going through his stuff.’
‘What stuff?’ She replaced the card where she’d found it. ‘How did you know he wasn’t in here entertaining someone?’
‘Because –’ Ash grabbed her hands and pulled her towards him ‘– Spook doesn’t bring ladies back to his room … or men,’ he added, anticipating her next question. ‘Didn’t we have this conversation already?’
‘Yeah, you tried to convince me he’s celibate.’ Like she was genuinely going to believe that. Spook Mortensen was far too sensual a package to not be a seething mass of warring passions beneath his cool exterior. She figured he was just a lot more circumspect about things than the rest of the band.
Ash rubbed the line of piercings in his ear. ‘It’s the truth. You’re the only person I’ve known him to get even vaguely intimate with, and we’ve spent a lot of time together. He just doesn’t …’
‘Doesn’t what? Fuck? Get turned on? Everyone gets turned on by something.’ She perched on the sofa arm. ‘You said he likes taking photographs, right? So, maybe he, you know … gets off that way.’ She made an up-and-down motion with her loosely closed fist. ‘While he’s looking through them.’
Ash just shook his head. ‘Trust me. He sticks them in a scrapbook and shows about as much interest in them as you would in a stamp collection. If there’s something that does it for Spook, I dunno what it is, because he’s keeping really quiet about it.’
Given they were best mates, that statement ought to have been more convincing. Except she knew what blokes were like. ‘Ever asked him why he doesn’t?’
‘Why would I?’
Whether