Page 106 of All Right No

“That’s the idea, fuckwit. Shall I hold him?”

“Why do we want to make him heave?” Dani asked. You could tell she’d never in her life been drunk. She’d never needed to purge herself of all the toxins she’d swallowed.

Holding Ash down had evidently become a reality judging by the sounds of water being splashed around and spluttered over things.

“Leave me a-fucking-lone. Without her I want to die, okay? I just want to fucking die.”

Ginny hit the end call button, Ash’s cries still ringing in her ears, and the sounds of him heaving into the oversized bucket as loud as if he were with her here in her room.

Aw, hell, there was some drunken dipstick heaving into the bushes outside her window. Ginny slammed it closed, returned to her bed-nest. It was entirely her fault that Ash was in this state. She shivered, but no matter how tightly she pulled the duvet around her shoulders, she couldn’t seem to stop shaking, or hold back the guttural sobs that gripped her for an indeterminate amount of time.

The thing was, once she’d cried herself out, she knew it was up to her to fix this. But, how the hell did you mend something so badly broken? If she were only free of Miles, at least she’d feel she had a future she could offer Ash. Maybe even a married future filled with all those kids he was so keen on having. He’d be a hopeless father—hopelessly indulgent, that is.

“Oh God, Ash… I miss you so much. I never meant to hurt you like this. I should have trusted you.”

It was easy to blame Miles for everything, but in truth, this was entirely her fault. What she ought to have done, and what any sensible, honest person would have done, was admit the truth the moment things became serious between them. It might not have been pleasant. It might have killed their relationship in its infancy, but the pain couldn’t possibly have been as bad as this.

You couldn’t pave over shit and not expect the smell to leak up through the cracks.

Her phone rang, the vibration function making it dance over the surface of the mattress. Dani again.

“Were you listening in?” her friend asked.

And, she’d been caught red-handed. “I didn’t mean to,” she blabbed.

“I meant you to. You need to get your butt out here and make things right again, Ginny, preferably before one of the trolls does more than pinch his arse and relieve him of his pants. You heard everything, right? It’s every bit as bad as it probably sounds.”

“If I had any clue how to do that—”

“You could start by fucking apologising.”

Ginny gasped. The Saint was swearing at her.

“How can I? He won’t speak to me. He’s blocking my calls.”

“In person, Ginny. You’ve seen the movies, you’ve read enough books. You need to do something big to fix things when you muck up this badly.”

Hollywood did so love its grand gestures, people chasing one another across town in the dead of the night, or taking long-haul flights halfway around the globe so that they turned up right when the other person needed them. Or else, they’d have to conquer their biggest fears, like a petrifying hatred of snakes, or an inability to take one foot off the ground let alone climb a ladder.

Well, she could board a flight to Riga, or to wherever the next gig was being held, but what fear was she supposed to overcome in order to convince him to give her a second chance? And even supposing he managed to forgive her, having broken his heart, why would he ever consider entrusting it to her again?

“Ginny, do something, I’m serious. Look, I have to go. Spook needs a reprieve from the bucket holding. Your man is spewing his guts up and he stinks like a sour grape. He’s also an ugly drunk, not to mention a decidedly soppy and pathetic one. I want to spend time withmymen, not have to routinely babysit yours. Call Troels if you need help organising anything. He has Xane’s credit card.”

Ginny let the phone slip from her hand. It fell between the bed and wall.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said aloud. “If I did, I wouldn’t be here in bed.”

Only, that wasn’t strictly true, she realised as she moved around the flat, looking for something to take her frustrations out on. What she needed to do first and foremost, was rid herself of Miles.