Chapter 33
Paul “Rock Giant” Reed
Paul kept waiting, expectantly listening for the tap of her knuckles against the door signalling Jodi’s return to him. It was long past dawn when his faith in that happening finally collapsed. She wasn’t coming. She was never coming.
He’d played his hand, given it everything, and he’d fucking lost. All that remained now was the lingering trace of her scent on his skin, and her fingerprints on the tabletop. The threads of fate hadn’t led them towards the happily ever after he’d seen written in the stars.
Now all that lay ahead for him were endless nights of loneliness, because getting it wrong didn’t undo anything.
He’d still made those vows. Sacred vows.
They didn’t unravel because she’d rejected him and set him free of his promises.
That wasn’t how it worked. Forever meant forever, not until you didn’t feel like it anymore or somebody gave you an excuse to fail.
In any case, his feelings hadn’t changed. They were constant. Nope, the swinging pendulum in this relationship was Jodi. He’d thought when she’d let him inside of her... Well, he’d thought that meant acceptance. Fool him.
Christ! Fuckduster couldn’t even get her there, and he sure as hell wasn’t interested in her as anything more than a trophy he’d won.
At some point Paul ended up out on the balcony.
There was his sea view, night sky meeting the equally dark ocean over the tops of the city’s roofs, and below, late-night traffic crawling through the near silent streets.
Easiest thing in the world to lean over a little too far.
Swan dive his way to a different ending.
Except, that wasn’t who he was. He could never do that to those he loved.
Black Halo didn’t need that sort of shit to deal with, and his parents didn’t deserve to have the remains of their only offspring scraped off a section of tarmac and shipped home to them in a box.
On the other hand, oblivion sounded like paradise right around now.
His phone beeped. Paul retrieved it and scrolled through the scores of unanswered messages.
His dad again, pestering for dates. When are you coming home?
When will we see you? We need to talk to you, son.
The D’Amon brothers: Sorry we missed you.
Hoped to catch up before we left town. Arrangements need to be made.
Eloise: What’s this shit about you getting hitched? What happened to my fucking invite?
Elspeth: WTF Paul?!! Who is this bitch?
Ginny: Is Jodi with you? Ghosties are looking for her. Hope you’re not doing anything naughty, Paul Reed.
Ginny: Scratch that. I hope you’re giving her the ride of her life.
Ginny: She’s cute. I like her.
Ginny: Approved for BH consumption.
Ginny: Alle says, J knows you’re ribbed for pleasure, right? Guess we’ll know if we see her sprinting through the foyer like a giant cock monster’s about to stab her in the pussy.
Ginny: And we’ll know about the riding part if she’s walking funny.
Ginny: Huh? No response. You must be busy. I sometimes think you must be as sadistic as Spook to have put all that metal in your knob. Anyways, happy shagging.
Allegra: The boyfriend’s heading your way.
Lee: What just went down? Nash went up to yours to get Jo, and now he’s back in the bar downing shots like he’s been shat on by the world’s fattest pigeon. All I can get out of him are grunts, and Jo’s not replying to calls or me hammering on her door. Is she still with you?
If she was, he wouldn’t be looking at his fucking messages.
Ronnie: Can I come to your room and hang?
Ronnie: Right, figured why you’re not replying.
Ronnie: Does she suck as good as me, man?
Ronnie: Are you fucking her tits while he’s in her cunt?
Ronnie: Ooh! What did you do? He just threatened to shove a metal straw up my urethra. Should I come up?
No. What he needed was for everyone to piss off and leave him alone!
He threw the phone, but instead of the satisfying fracturing of its screen and a final bleep before it succumbed to digital death, it bounced and landed on the carpet with not so much as a dent to show for his efforts.
Fucking thing! Fucking with him, same as everything sodding else.
He picked it up and bounced it off the floor another couple of times. Bastard thing evidently possessed forcefield technology, because nada when usually all you had to do was smile the wrong way and the fuckers cracked. He locked it in the mini fridge as punishment.
The two beers he removed to make space for the phone went down his throat smoothly enough. The following shots with a variety of grimaces. Then again, by the time he got to the peach schnapps, the fact that it tasted like fruity nail polish barely registered.
The whole cocktail came up again less than an hour later in one gloriously cinematic fountain, most of which hit the toilet bowl.
The rest he dropped a towel over, before crawling out of the bathroom and passing out on the floor in the aisle between the two beds, still stark naked, her knickers making for a pitiful pillow.
**
Paul didn’t make it down to breakfast, and he only got into the car meant to ferry them back to the tour bus because Samson nearly beat his door down after a stream of minions had failed to get Paul’s arse out of bed.
“Well, you look like shit,” Ash observed. Naturally, Ash looked like he’d been fanned by angels all flippin’ night. Hair perfect. Eyes all smiley. The bastard was even freshly shaved. Paul’s jaw felt like twenty-four grit sandpaper.
“Rough night?” Ginny asked, attempting to nudge Paul’s sunglasses off his nose for a closer look at his face, but he shied away from her attempt to expose him.
Bad enough he was sporting a nine o’clock shadow equally composed of burst capillaries as fuzz, he didn’t need the fact that his eyes were so bloodshot and swollen they’d work as an advert for the next big zombie game being observed and remarked upon. “Allergies kicking your butt?”
He gave a huff. Sure, he’d just developed a virulent bullshit intolerance.
Ronnie got in on the other side of him, meaning he was squashed into the middle seat, a position he never cared for, and the last position he wanted to be in right now.
What was worse than scrutiny from one ace interrogator?
How about two? One of whom had a 99.99% success rate.
And, here in the middle seat there wasn’t even a convenient place to rest his screaming head while they did a double act on him.
Gawd, he should have insisted on riding with Spook and Allegra.
At least they wouldn’t have pried while drawing conclusions.
When Samson climbed into the front passenger seat, and barked at him about holding them up, Paul almost insisted on being let out.
He was already leaning over Ronnie to reach the door handle when the Ghost Boys exited the hotel and started piling into the third of the waiting vehicles. And there she was.
His Jodi.
Or rather not his Jodi.
Not his anything, according to her.
He didn’t want to look.
He couldn’t not look.
Even when he closed his eyes she was imprinted onto the backs of his eyelids, and not just any version, nope, he was treated to the mouth wide, eyes molten, tears streaking her cheeks as she surrendered to bliss in his arms version. The version that his whole goddamned body remembered.
Well, tough shit, because that taster is all we’re ever getting, skin cells.
Apparently being a source of pleasure wasn’t enough.
Caring about her wasn’t enough.
Being ready to put her first and love her until death do us part wasn’t e-fucking-nuff.
Seemed those things were all a terrible inconvenience to her getting on with her painfully average romance with a self-centred prick. Not that he was bitter or owt.
Paul scratched under the lower edge of his glasses, which surreptitiously allowed him to smear another salt tear across his cheek.
That bullshit allergy was really doing a number on him.
“Feathers,” Ginny suggested. “I had a friend who was allergic to down. Did you notice all the pillows here were authentic goose down?”
He hadn’t, his head never having touched any of them. In any case, feathers weren’t the issue.
“Gin, babes, leave the man alone, he’s clearly hung over.”
Thank you, Ash.
Ronnie’s head came up. “But I didn’t even make vodka bears. How can you be hungover? You spent all night in your room.”
Ash spluttered, “Bushie, there’s more than one way to get smashed. Gummy bears aren’t a requisite for the activity. Don’t believe me, try drinking a couple of pints of Guinness through a straw.”
“Oh...Oh, is that good?”
The chatter moved on to various experiences of slurping alcoholic beverages through straws, and Ronnie recounting knobwhistle’s threat of the night before.
Paul tuned out to the best of his ability, eyes closing behind his dark glasses.
The minute they reached the tour bus, he was climbing into his bunk, and God help anyone who disturbed him for the next forty-eight hours.
**
The direct route to Trondheim equated to a ten-to-fourteen-hour drive, but since the next gig wasn’t until the following weekend, there was time to take the journey at a more leisurely pace, including a three-night stopover.
Or there would be if they got on the road with any sort of alacrity.
Five minutes pacing the tarmac the tour buses were parked up on rapidly turned into ten.
Seemed the roadies hadn’t got the departure memo.
He could have had another hour or two of floor time.
“What’s the fucking issue?”
The Ghosties’ driver turned up, and they got underway.
“Driver regs,” Samson informed them. “Your rotaed driver is sick, and Troels is on a scheduled break until twenty past.”
“So, we’re just supposed to twiddle our thumbs for fifty fucking minutes.” They couldn’t even get on the bus, because it was all locked up, and Cave Troll presumably had the keys.