Chapter Fourteen Say Hello, Wave Goodbye #2
She’d asked, quite innocently -- what had happened between them to make them as stilted and awkward around each other as they were now.
Julian had become oddly defensive and mulish, insisting there was nothing wrong with how they were; it was just them getting used to being around each other again.
Aisling had never been one to back gracefully out of a fight, so when Julian became argumentative, she became downright combative.
The fight ended up spiralling out of the subject into every wrong they’d ever committed against one another, starting with Julian never remembering her birthday and ending with Aisling never replacing his hairspray when she finished it up.
Things only became worse after he and Rahul finally reconciled.
They were thick as thieves again, those two.
They spoke each other’s daft little language, making up songs together and laughing over jokes Aisling couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
On the few occasions when the three of them had been together, it had been clear there was a third wheel and it wasn’t Rahul.
Aisling began to feel as though she had been a substitute all these years, a diversion, a placeholder for when Rahul returned.
It was a nasty feeling. And she’d taken her frustration out on the person nearest her -- Julian.
She would have taken it out on Rahul if she could have, but the bugger wasn’t around her often enough.
Their dislike had always been mutual. The second Rahul had met her, it had been obvious he’d seen her as the usurper.
She’d stolen away his best friend. Boo bloody hoo.
If he’d bothered to stay in Julian’s life, he wouldn’t have had to be replaced.
Not that Aisling was a replacement for Rahul…
Sod it. She was. She was man enough to admit it now.
She’d always been an interim-Rahul. That was why their relationship had begun to crumble as soon as Julian had him back.
Well, they could keep each other.
“Have you seen Julian?” Aisling asked, trying to keep her voice politely neutral.
“Downstairs. Holding court at the bar,” Rahul replied, sounding as bitter and cast-aside as Aisling had when Julian had thrown her over to spend time with Rahul.
She could sympathise with that. Julian was a vain and fair-weather friend, just as likely to stand by you as go prancing off after the latest shiny object.
Aisling nodded and was about to turn to go back the way she’d come when she hesitated. Would Julian normally have thrown Rahul over? Hadn’t the two of them been inseparable since Rahul’s return? Could what have come between them be the same as what had come between her and Julian?
And then there was the nagging good part of her that wanted Julian to be safe and well and happy. Because she’d loved him. God help her, she had. And if anyone cared as deeply for Julian’s well-being as she did, it was Rahul.
She tucked a stray curl behind her ear and paused a moment as she gathered herself. Being vulnerable around the enemy was never something one wanted to do. But you know what they say. My enemy’s enemy and all that.
“Rahul?”
His heavy eyebrows quirked in surprise. Or suspicion. She couldn’t tell.
“Do you know one of Julian’s friends? A tall bloke, blond, wears glasses?”
Rahul’s lip curled as if tasting something sour and Aisling knew even before he spoke that he’d recognized the description. “What about him?”
“He was hanging around outside of Julian’s flat the other day. I went round to pick up some of my things and he was there. He was… weird. In a not good sort of way. I think he might’ve followed me, too. I don’t know. Only I thought for sure I saw him again when I was leaving for work.”
Rahul was sitting up straighter, his attention clearly piqued. Aisling’s “my enemy’s enemy” assessment had been right after all.
“I also got the impression,” she hazarded on, trusting in Rahul more than ever before. “That he might be more to Julian than just strictly ‘friends,’ if you catch my meaning. Or, at least, he thought so.”
Rahul hissed something under his breath that sounded rather a lot like “bastard.”
“There’s something wrong about him. I don’t think it’s a good idea for Julian to be hanging around him. I know it’s none of my business anymore but --”
“No. No, no, you’re right,” Rahul cut in, agreeing with her for the first time since they’d known each other.
His eyes were distant, moving back and forth as if reading something only he could see.
“I’ll, uh… I’ll look into it. Thanks for coming to me about it.
” His eyes refocused, and they seemed to carry a great deal more warmth than they ever had before.
“I mean it, Aisling. Thank you. And, uh… And I’m sorry. For what it’s worth.”
“Not a great deal.” Aisling smiled crookedly. “But I appreciate it. You take care, all right? And you take care of Julian.”
“I will.” And he said it with such earnestness that Aisling knew she’d been right. About all of it.
* * *
Aisling found Julian just as Rahul had said.
Holding court at the bar. The Ghostly Unknown Octopus fans Aisling had not believed existed were all crowded around him and the box of demo tapes he was slinging for twenty-five p a pop.
He wasn’t doing so much selling as he was gesticulating with one of the little plastic rectangles, all kitted out in rainbow stickers and jagged felt-tip pen lettering labelling them as Hustle Butter’s (last year’s band name) cassette.
The gaggle that encircled him was comprised of goggle-eyed Goth girls and spotty pubescent punk chaps, all as utterly enraptured by Julian’s nonsensical musings as Aisling had been at their age. The sight of them made her want to be sick.
“That’s the thing with tarantulas,” Julian was saying, mouth working a mile a minute, tape in one hand and pint in the other.
He had that wide-eyed, sweaty quality he got when he’d done too much coke.
“You can never hear them coming. Is there one under your pillow? Is there one in your boot? Is there one in the toilet wearing your mum’s knickers and smoking an Embassy Gold?
You won’t know till you open the door and it says ‘Don’t you knock?
’ and blows smoke in your face. And that’s why I’m never going back to Sydney. ”
“Julian,” Aisling said in a voice loud enough to carry and firm enough to brook no argument.
He and his entire teenage cult turned to look at her as one.
Pathetic little Camden clones, every one of them.
The only solace was how Julian seemed to blanch and sober considerably at the sight of her. “A word please. Outside.”
She strode out through the windowless double doors without waiting to see if he was following.
The night was bitter cold and the street mostly dark in the wake of the knackered streetlamps.
Drifts of rubbish crowded the gutters. A bottle glinted in the light from the club’s marquee and she kicked it into the street with a satisfying explosion of glass.
It only took seconds for her to hear the click of Julian’s Chelsea boots behind her.
She turned to face him, already feeling the tears stinging the corners of her eyes.
Julian looked sheepish and unsure, a rare sight for him indeed.
He’d left his coat behind in his haste and he wrapped his skinny arms around his thin middle to ward off the chill that his faux-leather jacket couldn’t protect him from.
The overall effect was that of a bashful teenager getting ready for a scolding by his mother.
The sickness that had been welling in Aisling’s throat solidified into something hard that was difficult to swallow around.
“Don’t worry,” she said, a hot cloud of steam escaping her lips and making her words visible in the air. “I’m not here to beg you to take me back. I’ve got standards. Even if it might not look that way.”
Julian looked down at his boots and his hair fell into his face, obscuring it from view.
“Out of all the ways I thought we’d end, you having it off with somebody else didn’t even make it to the top of my list. Proves what a right twat I’ve been, eh?
And don’t pretend you haven’t.” She cut him off when she saw him look up, the protests forming on his lips.
“I’d hope you’d have at least enough respect for me left not to treat me like a fucking idiot. ”
He bit back whatever he was going to say, a sad resignation forming in his eyes as he dropped his gaze to the pavement.
The lump of sick in her throat was suffocating.
It was one thing to have a guess that someone had fooled around behind your back; it was a whole other thing to have it confirmed.
So Julian really had got off with the Australian model stalker.
“You know, I thought it’d feel good finding out I was right,” she mused aloud, disgusted by the tearful strangle in her own voice. “But it doesn’t feel good. It feels like shit.”
He flinched but otherwise remained motionless, eyes trained on an empty packet of crisps in the gutter.