Page 4 of Reflex

“Stop it.”

You’re a sadist, and you know it.I know you like looking at them.

Licking them.

Coming over them.

“I said, ‘Stop it’!”

His snarl echoed off the sides of the building and rippled away into the night.Spook peered about sheepishly, but there was no one around to witness his ridiculousness.He gave a sigh.Within his pocket, his phone was still vibrating against his thigh.Last July, he’d promised he’d try and make a go of it with Alle.Life had conspired against that, but it didn’t change what he’d said.He’d promised, and the fact that nine months later they were still furiously exchanging texts kind of clinched it.He might not be ready for this.It made far more sense to keep her at a distance, but he’d promised.He had to at least be honest with her that it just wasn’t going to work out.

Gingerly, he retrieved the torture device from his pocket.

What if he dropped the damn thing in a puddle?He didn’t do cloud back-ups, nor did he have her number written down.He could end the whole debacle.Conveniently, a dark stretch of murky water lay not a yard from his feet.All he needed to do was uncurl his fingers, and let the damn thing slip into the clogged up drain.He lifted the phone to his ear instead.

No taking the coward’s way out.

“Spook?”Her voice immediately knotted itself around his senses.“Thank God.I thought… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”

“You’re hitting on the wrong guy.”

Silence.Then, “Did the gig go well?”

Part of him wanted to howl with laughter at her attempt to right the balance between them with a bit of post-show analysis.The rest of him wanted her to stand her ground and keep on hitting him with the same stinging bullets she usually fired.

“Spook?”

“Yeah.”He managed to dredge up a reply from the bottom of his lungs.“It was good.A fitting end to the official tour.”

“Cool!That’s good that you went out on a high.I’m just sorry I couldn’t get out and see you guys.It’s been an eternity.”

There’s the gig in Monte Carlo.Could you get to that?

“Wailing guitars would certainly be an improvement on whining cats.‘Give me the food, hooman.’,” she said putting on a voice.“‘No, not that food, different food.Anything but this offensive muck you’ve dared serve up.How can you think I would lower myself to eat this shit?’”

A little of the tension in his neck and shoulders eased away.“Ever considered re-homing the ungrateful wretch?”

She laughed.“All the damn time, but Ewan would kill me, and Theo would use it as an excuse to acquire something significantly more terrible.”

Sounded to him like re-homing her brothers might be a sound plan.

“Is he still threatening you with eight legs?”

“Yup.The bastard even set up a tank the other day, and put one of those life-like plastic ones in it.I almost throttled him after I’d finished peeing my knickers.You don’t mind spiders, do you?Because, I have to tell you, His Magnificence Ronnie the Pretty is even more shit scared of them than I am.One crawled across the sound mixer and he nearly let off the fire extinguisher over it.”

“I’m cool with creepy things.”He stuck two imaginary fingers up at Ronnie the Pretty.

“Thank heavens for that.You don’t kill them though?You put them out?”

“Even the big, fat furry ones.”Actually, he normally just let them go about their business in the corner, or whatever, which wasn’t so different to how he treated his sex obsessed band mates, disregarding the occasional picture.“So, did you wait until it was just the two of you, corner him, and suggest he tan your arse?”

Shit!

“Wow!”she gasped.“Did I hit a nerve mentioning his bubble butt?”

“No.”

“Yeah, well it sure sounds like it.I did not, as a matter of fact.Should I have done?”