Chapter 18 #3
“In the time Marley was away, George and Maca had bought a place in Hampstead. It was empty, so they did some kind of deal with the owner, letting them rent it while the sale went through. Maca moved out of Marley’s, and George moved out of her flat above the shop.
She also stepped down from her role there, and I was promoted to area manager.
Bern, being the best person in the world, decided G’s old flat would come as a perk with my new job title.
” I pause because I realise I may be rambling.
“You keeping up with me, Daniel, or is all this too much?”
“Girl, I’m invested! Don’t you dare stop now.”
I smile as warmth fills my belly. I may grow to like giving interviews, after all.
“Once I knew G and Mac were cosy in their little love nest, I was all moved into my new little flat, and I was sure Marley was still busy whoring his way around the US.”
My husband opens his mouth to say something, but I hold up my index finger to silence him.
“I go to Marley’s flat with a couple of packets of cress…”
“You didn’t?” Daniel gasps.
“She fucking did,” Marls confirms.
“There were timber floors in every room except the bedrooms, so I stripped his bed, watered the mattress, along with his carpet, and emptied the cress seeds over both. Then I went to the kitchen, emptied the contents of his freezer onto the benchtop, which included salmon and a couple of chickens, turned the heating up as high as it would go, and I left.”
“You forgot the key,” Marls reminds me. “And the note.”
“Oh, yeah. Silly me. When I let myself in, I snapped the key in the lock, and on the bottom of the note he’d left me, I wrote: welcome home fucker, and left it with the half of the key that wasn’t in the door. Then I left, making sure I shut the door behind me.”
I blow out another heavy breath.
“Every time I tell this story, it’s like therapy. It releases the trauma this fuck boy here caused me for those few weeks.”
“Ash, you’re my hero. What an absolute queen,” Tallulah calls out.
I grin until I realise Marley’s now slouched back on the sofa, his legs out in front of him and arms folded across his chest. I wonder if he’s pissed off with me, but when Daniel asks, “How long till you got home and found it?”
Marley says, “Two, maybe three weeks. I had to get a locksmith out just so I could get in, then a team of cleaners to clean the place, plus a carpet company in to remove and replace the carpet. Oh, and a new bed and mattress. When I found the note, I knew running away had been an absolutely pointless exercise and Ashley Morisson was the woman I was going to marry.”
Because my husband is so fucking sexy, I can’t help but lean across and give him a kiss.
When I turn back to face Daniel, he’s sitting forward in his chair, palms pressed together in front of him like he’s praying. His lips are trapped between his teeth as he appears to be fighting a smile.
“How did you come back from that?” he asks.
“We didn’t, not for a little while,” I start to explain before I’m cut off by my husband.
“I went to her flat.”
“He broke into my flat.”
“The handyman let me into your place. You broke into my flat.”
“I had a key!” I tease sharply.
“He broke into my flat. I came home, and he was there—scared the life out of me. Maca and George had been staying there, and I thought someone might have broken in. A stalker… someone dangerous!” I hold my hand against my heart, completely overacting what actually happened when I found rock star Marley Layton in my flat all those years ago.
“Bull! Shit!” Marley cries while grinning and shaking his head.
I ignore him and continue with my traumatic tale. “Bern had issued all of us girls with pepper spray for when we finished work in winter and it was dark, or for any time we might need it. I came through my front door, saw this strange geezer…”
“You didn’t recognise him?” Daniel jumps in.
“D’ya know what? I’d already forgotten what he looked like by then,” I lie.
“More bullshit,” Marley declares.
“Stop interrupting me,” I order. “Anyway, I walk through the door to this strange bloke in my place and scream at him to get out, and when he doesn’t move, I decide right then was one of those times I needed to use my pepper spray.
So, I whip it out and spray it in his direction.
When he can’t see and starts flailing around, screaming like a nanny goat, I kick him in the balls.
He goes down to his knees, exactly where he belonged, then rolled on the floor, complaining. ”
“I was literally fucking dying. My eyes were melting in their sockets, my skin was dissolving, and my balls were up around my shoulders,” Marley complains.
I hear a gasp, then another. When I look around the room, I realise everyone is laughing. George, Harry, and Cam are bent double, trying to catch their breaths, a bit like Marley was that day.
“Fucking hell, that gets funnier every time I hear it,” Len says as he wipes tears from under his eyes.
“It really doesn’t,” Marls argues.
“I’m sorry, Marls, but it definitely does,” Georgia adds while leaning into Jim, their foreheads pressed together as they laugh.
Daniel takes a swig from his bottle of water, wipes under his own eyes before Chastity, the makeup girl, appears and starts dabbing powder all over his face.
I can’t wipe the smile off my own face. I love making and seeing people laugh. Being loud and funny is how I survived the trauma of my childhood. Now, it just seems to come naturally.
“Continue, please,” Daniel says, gesturing with his hand for me to carry on.
“Like I said, he laid there, rolling around, hands between his legs where his balls used to be, grizzling and complaining. By that stage, I’d realised who it was and who’d broken into my flat, and thought I’d better help him. Before I had a chance, though, he threw up all over my floor.”
“Because I was still fucking dying. I probably received internal injuries as my nut sack flew from where it was supposed to be to my chest cavity,” my husband whines.
“Babe, we have three kids. That obviously didn’t happen. Anyway, I didn’t know if it was fact or just an old wives’ tale, but I’d heard there was a way to ease the burn of the pepper spray, so I went to the fridge, got out the milk, and poured it over his face.”
“Did it help?” Daniel asks.
“At first, it just made him scream louder.”
“I couldn’t see. I didn’t know what you were going to be assaulting me with next,” Marley moans.
“Did it help?” I repeat Daniel’s question.
“Well, yeah…”
“Shut up, then.”
We both look at Daniel. I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to do or say now, so I wait.
“Did you kiss and make up?” he eventually asks.
“Did we fuck,” Marley answers. “I attempted to apologise for my actions, but she wasn’t interested and told me never to talk to her again, and when I could walk, to get the fuck out. Then she went and had a shower, locking the bathroom door behind her and leaving me lying there.”
A loud whistle carries through the room as someone claps, and Lu shouts, “Yes, Ash! You legend!”
I hold my fingers up in a peace sign, lapping up the recognition I’m receiving on behalf of every woman ever wronged by a man.
“Did he leave?” Daniel asks.
“I laid there for a while contemplating my life choices before I recognised the fact that every one of them had led me to this moment, and Ashley Morrison was the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.”
I’m stunned into silence by my husband’s admission, which doesn’t happen often.
“Rock Star,” I eventually whisper around the huge ball of emotion currently filling my entire chest.
“Love you, baby,” he says as he turns to me, and I just can’t with this man leaving me with no choice but to lean in and kiss him again.
“I’m gonna suck and fuck you so hard when we get home,” I tell him with my mouth pressed against his ear.
“You’re mic’d, remember? I think we all got that,” the sound bloke, Tim or Tom, calls out. “Some of us are going home to a Pot Noodle and our right hand, so thanks for that.”
I press the top of my head into Marley’s chest as my cheeks burn.
“So, you stayed? Kissed and made up?” Daniel asks.
“Absolutely fucking not,” Marley replies as I turn and face forward.
“I literally had to crawl to the door. Went straight to my brother’s because my place was still trashed and smelt of decomposing chicken.
At the time, I had no idea where Georgia and Mac’s new place was, so, yeah, I went to Len’s. ”
“Then he spent the following week being an absolute pest. Kept buzzing at my front door, begging me to open it. I didn’t let him in. Jim and Len’s wedding was coming up on the Saturday, and I knew I’d see him there with my date,” I say, wearing a cheesy grin.
“Oh, yeah. Her date,” Marley says with a slow nod.
I roll and press my lips together tightly in an attempt not to laugh.
“Let me tell you about her date,” he continues.
“Eight feet tall, six feet wide. Looked like he ate whole cows in a pie for breakfast, then used their baby calves as a toothpick. In fact,” he adds dramatically, “I swear he had the remains of a hoof stuck between his teeth.”
I roll my eyes yet again at my husband’s overly exaggerated response.
“And get this, the bloke’s name was actually Dan. I kid you not: Dan the Cow Pie Eating Man.”
“It really was,” Jim confirms.
“Oh, my God, I’d forgotten all about him,” Georgia adds.
“I fucking haven’t. Bloke still haunts my dreams. Or should I say nightmares?”
“Marls,” Cam calls out, cutting him off. “How is it, right now, we have Georgia and Lu in the room, and yet you’re the most dramatic one here?”
That causes a collective ripple of laughter.
“Fuck off, big man. He would’ve made a snack out of you,” Marley tells him.
“Wait till Cam hears what he did. He won’t waste his time turning him into a snack. The geezer’ll be fish food at the bottom of the Thames,” Len adds.
“Okay, you’ve got my attention. What did he do?” Cam asks.