Chapter 22
Paul “Rock Giant” Reed
“This is an invasion. Prepare to be boarded. We demand to see pussies.” Ronnie yelled, as he mounted the steps onto the Ghost Boys tour bus.
They were parked at a service station somewhere between last night’s venue in Kristiansand and tomorrow’s venue in Stavanger. “Also, we bring the gift of breakfast.”
Breakfast, despite it being late afternoon.
Grumbles from towards the rear were succeeded by combinations of “gimme” and “please tell me you have bacon” and “take as many ruddy cats as you like, this one’s just farted on my head. Get off, you fucking moggy.”
Balin stumbled out first, beaten to the stash of breakfast offerings by their driver. “That’s not bacon.”
Paul shrugged. “We’re in Norway. If you want hot food on the move, it’s Bratwurst in potato bread or lump it. Seriously, man, they have like fifty-eight types of hotdog but not one of them contains British bacon. Get over yourself.”
“This is so good,” their driver groaned with delight between mouthfuls. “Honey mustard… That’s what it is, right?”
Jez wandered through evidently fresh from the shower, sporting a towel around his narrow hips. Ronnie shoved food offerings in his direction, prompting a juggling feat involving hotdogs and towels and a lot of unnecessary touching.
“Someone mentioned pussies,” Jodi leaned against the doorway, one such feline beast in her arms. Ronnie was thankfully still tangled up with Jez, leaving the pathway open for Paul to move in. “Flugwhump,” she mouthed at him.
“I remember. And the girls?”
“Hiding. They’re not so social.”
“Breakfast?” She passed him the cat so he could give her one of the p?lse i lompe.
“Dude, stop trying to slide my fiancée your sausage,” Nash remarked, forcing his way between them, and snatching the food out of Paul’s hand before Jodi could accept it.
“Wanker.”
Jodi shrugged like it was no big deal. “There’s plenty more, right?” Jodi curled her hand around his wrist, which got his attention immediately. It was like an electric current passed through him. It made all his hairs stand on end and other less hairy bits get perky too.
Right. He released the cat to wind its way around various legs and got her another sausage before shitbag ate them all.
He’d already claimed another two. Jodi accepted the second offering with a smile, before ducking back through the curtained doorway to where the bunks were.
He’d have liked to have followed, but there was etiquette to be followed regarding tour bus bedrooms. You did not enter unless invited.
“Hope you’re not peeking,” she said, when he lingered on the other side of the curtain.
“How naked are you?” He figured she was taking the opportunity for some privacy to get dressed.
Couldn’t be easy for her living with four male slobs.
Elspeth had never much liked touring with a bunch of guys, and she’d been part of the band, not just tagging along for the ride as someone’s bunk buddy.
“Bra and knickers at the minute, but don’t get excited. They’re my ancient granny pants. Need to do some laundry, and my bra’s seen better days too.”
“Yeah, what’s it like?”
“Grey. T-shirty. I think once upon a time it might have had pink spots.”
“Comfortable?” he asked.
She chuckled. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” She emerged maybe a minute later dressed in a familiar jumper over a pair of jeans. It brought a score of memories rushing back all at once. Paul raked his teeth across his lower lip. “Your fiancé know you’re wearing my clothes?”
She pursed her lips and looked at him primly. “Not if you don’t snitch. Please don’t snitch. This is the warmest jumper I own, and it’s soft and snuggly.”
He liked seeing her in it far too much to risk a scene, even if he would’ve got a kick out of seeing douche canoe’s expression when he learned how close to her skin Jodi was keeping him. “Wearing my stolen boxers too?”
“They weren’t stolen. They were loaned. And nope, not today.”
Which suggested she wore them some days. God, the visuals that conjured.
“Granny pants, remember. What’s that face for? Are you planning on calling in the loan?”
There was a thought, for a day when she was actually wearing them. Then he could remove them from her with his teeth, after he’d sufficiently proved they needed laundering by making them thoroughly wet.
“Hey, can I have one of those coffees?” She darted past him, but the box Ronnie had arrived with was now sadly empty. “Damn.”
“I was going to stretch my legs. I don’t mind wandering over to the shop to get you one,” Paul offered. Anything for his missus. Plus, he needed a few to clean up his thoughts.
“Really? Thanks.”
“Not a problem.” It really wasn’t, and honestly, why weren’t the twerps that inhabited this bus leaping up to right the issue? One of them had obviously snaffled two beverages. He suspected the douche canoe.
“Why are we being honoured with breakfast?” Nash asked, right as Paul reached the top of the bus steps.
Because they were making an effort, that’s why. Xane had suggested it, and he’d liked the idea of bringing his lady breakfast so much, he’d volunteered. Ronnie had accompanied him, because, as he’d rightly pointed out, he was still owed a pussy visit. “Should we not have bothered?”
He was trying, he really was, but he just plain didn’t like the tosser.
The rest of them were all right, but Nash, he just…
It was hard to put his finger on it. The guy just rubbed him the wrong way, and not just because he insisted on hanging onto Jodi like a fucking limpet and stealing her food.
As he watched, turd brain stole multiple bits of her sausage, even though he still had the remains of the first one he’d nicked right there in his hand.
Paul took his irritation off the bus before he rammed his fist in the imbecile’s face. Only most of them followed. At least they stayed beside the bus to eat and swig their takeaway coffees, while he did a temper cooling lap of the car park.
The service station was little more than a garage with basic amenities attached, but it was surrounded by breathtaking landscape.
Rolling green hills, thick with trees, and that scent in the air, a unique mix of salt and pine.
They’d driven up a stretch of coastline not long before they’d stopped.
In places the road was right by the water’s edge.
Not here, mind. Here it was trees and rocks and winding, looping road.
Troll country in his mind, but he knew that was really considered to be further north.
He’d have to check the schedule again. See if they could find some time after the Bergen gig so he could take her to see one of the amazing waterfalls and stretch his legs with a decent hike.
They were stopping within the Magma Geopark later, but it’d be too dark to take in the sights.
Best they’d get was a nice view while they ate breakfast.
Having done his lap, Paul headed into the shop and picked up a coffee for his lady, along with some nibbles and another troll to add to his mum’s collection.
She had a thing about mythical creatures.
They inhabited all the nooks and crannies of his parent’s place.
Hung their washing across the stairs, had doorways in the skirting boards and on mantlepieces.
He’d found a three-legged crow lurking behind the washing machine the last time he’d visited, and a tomte peering at him from inside a jar of lentils in the pantry.
It made it hard to believe they weren’t living breathing entities, who just froze when you passed them by so as not to give the game away. The troll would fit right in.
Speaking of living, breathing entities. Jodi froze before him when she emerged from the ladies as he headed out of the shop door by the rear exit.
It’d have made more sense to use the front door, but his brain logic adhered to the service station rule of same way out as in, else you could wind up who knew where.
Maybe a whole different country, or a parallel universe, and while it might be nice to land in one where he and Jodi weren’t engaged in the whole arm’s length thing, other stuff might be different in that world too, and he was kind of invested in his current timeline.
“Coffee.”
She accepted it gratefully, and he watched her as she pried off the lid and blew on the steaming liquid before taking a swallow and groaning in contentment. Cute. Plus, she still looked endearingly sleep tousled. Enough to want to push her up against the convenient wall and ravage her senseless.
“Did you eat breakfast, because you’re looking at me like you’re contemplating swallowing me whole,” she asked.
“I ate. I could happily indulge in seconds, though.” He licked his lips.
“Stop it,” she warned, but she was grinning.
“Says the woman who undid my fly the other night.”
The remark only made her grin wider. “That was a strategic move. It might have even worked in my favour if—” She frowned. “How are your abs?”
Paul lifted his shirt to flash her the damage. The scrape had bruised, leaving his skin mottled in shades of yellow, browns, and purples between the lines of his ink.
“Fuck. Ouch!” She reached out to touch but stopped shy of doing so. “Guess kissing it better didn’t do the trick.”
“You can give it another go, if you like.”
“I think you’d like.”
He absolutely wasn’t denying that.
“You’re thinking something. Not sure I want to hear it, but I kinda simultaneously do.”
He considered the wisdom of speaking his mind, but ultimately figured, what the heck. “Just, how this could play out if there weren’t certain barriers in the way.”
“Ah! Oh!” She took another draw of her coffee, as heat flooded her cheeks giving her a rosy glow. “That sounds like something we definitely shouldn’t discuss.”
“You sure you don’t want to hear? It involves tongues, and your leg going over my shoulder.”
“What are you, six foot ten? Not sure I can get my leg that high. Not sure I can get it to half that height.”
“Six six, and you could if I was kneeling.”
“Oh,” she said, hopefully picturing exactly what he was picturing. Her cunt open to him. His tongue exploring the contours of her slit. The taste of her thick on his tongue, and her towering over him. That coffee cup still clutched in her fist, and scores of bite marks around the rim of it.
“Well, this is a public place, Mr Reed, so that would be highly inappropriate.” She waggled a finger at him as if she was giving him a stern ticking off, but there was merriment in her eyes, and he didn’t think it was just down to her being flattered by his interest. The skin of her neck was pinkening too.
“I could carry you off into the woodlands, if you don’t fancy security footage of the whole encounter making someone’s evening.”
“Hmm, think I’d better be getting back to my bus and away from your flirting. Normally I don’t worry about anyone picking me up and carrying me anywhere, but…”
But he’d proved how easily he could lift her off her feet.
“Find me later,” he called after her, letting her return alone to the Ghost Boys bus. “I want to know all about how you wound up touring with that lot.”
Over by the picnic tables, Lee was bouncing an empty cup off the top of Nash’s head, while the rest of them lobbed bits of bread at him.
“It’s not an interesting story.”
“Reckon it is.”
“Then maybe it’s just not one I fancy sharing. I’m sure you have a few of those too.”
“Aye. Maybe.” Mind you, he’d tell her whatever she wanted to know. He’d given her his heart. His loyalty. His everything, really. Besides, openness was the key to a long and happy relationship. His parents had taught him that.
The phone in his pocket bleeped. Paul took a glance at it.
Dad: When are you coming home, son?
RG: I don’t know when. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.