Chapter 20
Paul “Rock Giant” Reed
“What did I do wrong?” Ronnie Bush asked for the fifty-first—fifty-second time.
It wasn’t the repetition that was the issue, so much as the question that was grinding Paul’s gears.
Fact was he hadn’t been able to produce a suitable response at the time of the first asking—right after they’d come off stage at Equinox—and he still didn’t have one now.
Leastways, not one that Ronnie wanted to hear.
Another two hours until Jodi-ville. He was still sore that he’d never got to say a proper goodbye.
It was his own fault. He’d mentioned Elspeth being about, so of course Xane arranged for them all to make a swift departure.
He’d dressed it up and presented it as some extra hours of R&R so no one had protested.
But Paul had wanted a few moments. Time to say, ‘Bye for now’ and ‘See you again soon’, along with the chance to breathe in the scent of her, maybe wrap his woman up in a full body embrace, and maybe squeeze a phone number out of her.
“Fucking just tell him, please,” Ash muttered from across the other side of the table.
Paul would say one thing for the Norwegians, they’d put some serious effort into their hospitality.
The catering they’d arrived to was a major step up from pretty much everything else, and of course they were all famished, so here they still were, two hours later, filling up the corners after a truly impressive lunch.
“Nothing,” Paul said to Ronnie. It conveniently covered most of the things he was potentially being asked.
The blowjob, what he recalled of it, had been fine.
The issue was that Ronnie seemed to have got it into his head, that Paul had run off and got hitched to Jodi as a direct response to his own oral sex inadequacies.
Thing was, that was hard to debunk, when he was banned from talking about Jodi, after days of talking about Jodi, and they weren’t talking about the bro-job for the obvious reason that the guys didn’t know about it.
How they didn’t know was almost beyond comprehension, but he was clinging to that minor miracle like a life vest. He certainly wasn’t going to be the one to change that.
Yes, he’d almost had to smother Ronnie once already to make sure he didn’t blab.
Mind you, he’d also woken up earlier to find Ronnie arranging Haribo bears along his spine and on his butt cheeks.
That’d been slightly odd even by Ronnie standards.
“Bored,” he said, when Paul had protested.
“We’re ready for the sound check,” Alle announced. She lingered just long enough to give Spook a kiss, then was off again. She was taking her role as Ulf’s temporary replacement very seriously.
By the time they’d done the sound check, Jodi had arrived along with their support band.
She was looking slightly travel worn—a bit crumpled at the corners—blond hair caught in a messy knot from which most of the strands had escaped.
The shirt she had on, what he’d describe as a peasant girl top—skirted the very tops of her nipples, almost but not quite revealing too much.
She’d paired it with an oversized crocheted cardigan, which was only fabulous if you happened to love oversized crocheted cardigans of dubious origins, taste, and colour.
He was neutral to urgh on the subject. It was periwinkle blue.
It didn’t lessen the uptick of his heart rate, or stop him heading straight towards her, at least until Xane caught hold of the back of his waistband.
“Don’t fucking muck this up. The tour’s going to be the pits otherwise. And if you hurtle over there—”
He switched off, and hence didn’t absorb the rest, but he dutifully trooped to the dressing rooms with the rest of the band.
Didn’t mean he did it quietly, especially when the first thing Xane did when he got there was sweep his girlfriend up into his arms and kiss her senseless, which was precisely what he’d wanted to do with his wife.
“Are you glaring daggers at my partners for a reason?” Luthor asked, standing beside him and mirroring his crossed armed pose.
“It’s okay for him to snog his woman senseless, but I’m not even allowed to say hello.”
“Would you have just said hello?”
Obviously not.
“I’m not sure you’re cut out for polyamory, or at least the current incarnation of it you’re exploring,” Luthor observed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I can read your thoughts on the matter just by looking at you looking at my boyfriend and girlfriend making out. Here’s the thing.
The green-eyed monster doesn’t visit when I see them like this.
I’m just pleased they’re happy. You on the other hand, are contemplating ways in which to part Nash’s head from his shoulders. ”
“He’s not good for her.”
“That’s not for you to decide.”
Paul grouched. He was perfectly fucking aware of that. Otherwise, he’d be out there welcoming her with a full-body snog, not in here watching Xane turn Dani into a blancmange.
Spook clapped him on his other shoulder. “We’re on your side, despite what you might think.”
“That right. How are you?”
“Got an icebreaker lined up for tonight to get us all working as a big happy family.”
“’cause that’s not at all disturbing.” He still hadn’t got used to this new, more talkative, more proactive version of Spook.
The guy still had plenty of moody-git days, but there were phases of gregariousness between them that he found disorientating.
Also, Spook was a sadist, any activities he proposed required in-depth scrutiny before agreeing to participate in.
His idea of helping them all get along likely involved roping them all together for the next forty-eight hours.
Or worse, team sports. “Think I’ll pass, mate. ”
“Even if it gets you full body contact time with the lovely Jodi?”
“What?”
“Please don’t encourage him, Spook,” Xane muttered in between kisses.
“I thought we agreed a forty-eight-hour ban on mentioning her,” Ash said.
Spook shot him a grin. “Technically, only Paul’s banned from mentioning her. I can say Jodi as many times as I like. Jodi. Jodi. Oh, Jodi.”
“Stop it,” Xane said, smirking.
“Okay, let’s hear it,” Paul could feel his blood pressure spiking every time Spook said her name. Genuine time with her would make the inevitable bruises sustained in playing one of Spook’s games worth it.
“It involves socks,” Spook said cryptically. Then pushed ahead of them and disappeared into the bathroom before they could grill him further.
“Did he just propose a wanking game?” Paul asked.
Xane finally put Dani back on her feet and reinstated his shades. “Seems as likely as unlikely. I’m not sure how that involves you getting quality time with your missus mind—”
Xane was still talking about potential hurdles and difficulties, but Paul had stopped hearing him after the honorific—missus. He slapped their frontman on the back. “You can be all right, sometimes. Even likeable.”
“Oh-kay. I’m still gonna offer to hold you still while Nash pisses down your throat if you don’t stay away from her.”
He reckoned he’d missed the first part of the threat when his hearing stalled over missus. Still, he got a kick out of repeating the word that made his cock excitable.
“You know threating him is totally the wrong approach,” Dani said, from where she was now tucked beneath Xane’s arm. “It makes him sixty per cent more likely to do the opposite of what you want.”
More like a hundred and sixty, although, in this case, he was planning to show some restraint, but only because Jodi had requested it. Xane could swivel, even if he was all right sometimes.
As to Spook’s sock game, he guessed they’d find out post-gig.