Page 122 of Rock Giant

“What’s the deal, Ronnie?”

“There is no deal.”Paul flipped onto his feet before Ronnie had a chance to launch into a spy cam blow-by-blow account of all the shit Paul didn’t need sharing.“Nothing fucking happened.”Leastways, nothing that anyone had any right to know.It wasn’t like he needed every bugger on the tour to know he’d been rejected in favour of lazy dick.“I emptied the minibar, end of.Not a story.Fucking move on and give me some fucking space.”

Of course, Xane did precisely the opposite.“Why’d you need to empty the minibar, Paul?”

“Felt like it.”

“Why’d you feel like it?”

“I just did.You never just feel like that?”He knew for a fact Xane did.That sex addiction of his wasn’t borne out of nothing.

“Sure,” Xane agreed.“We all have down days.What worries me is what I’m hearing about you having taken another man’s fiancée up to your room last night.We don’t need any shit with the Ghost Boys.”

“Fuck off, Xane.I never crawled up your arse when you were busy screwing us over with your bedroom antics—”

Xane made the sort of noise that sounded like a laugh track had got stuck in his voice box.“Oh, no.No, you never had any opinions over any of my ‘antics’.”He made inverted commas with his fingers.“You were nothing but opinions.You weren’t happy when I was with Elspeth and Steve, and you weren’t happy when I told them to fuck off after they screwed me over, and you still weren’t fucking happy when Elspeth screwed us all over with that shit she fed to Bang!.‘Aw, she’s just misunderstood.’Christ, you still think she’s the injured party because we decided against putting up with any more of that shit.”

Where the fuck was this coming from?

“She lost her—”

“I lost my best friend.”

Right, so that’s what this was about.Not him.

Xane was wobbling because their former band mate’s birthday was a couple of days away.No doubt Elspeth would remind him of that, too.Maybe she’d already dropped that into his inbox, alongside the scores of other messages he was planning on deleting unread.

“Are you fucking her, Paul?”The question came from Allegra, not Xane.

Jeezus, all he’d wanted was a bit of peace and a pillow to settle his thumping head on.Instead, he was apparently both the celebrity guest and topic of conversation on Question Time.

“I hope to God the answer to that isn’t an affirmative,” Xane muttered.

“Why, because it’d kill you to know I was having some fun for once?It’s not as if we’re not both grown adults capable of independent thought and reasoning.Whatever decision we make about our relationship has fuck all to do with any bugger else.We got hitched, maybe you forgot that bit.I’ve as much right to shag her as beetlebreath.”

“He shagged her,” Ash announced, raising his hands in a display of defeat.

“And is her fiancé aware of that?”

“They had a threesome,” Ronnie said.

Paul lurched towards Ronnie intent on wrapping his hands around his mouth to make sure he didn’t contribute any more dumb remarks that would magically transform into gospel if he didn’t supply all the actual ruddy facts.“Will you shut the fuck up?That is not what happened.”

“Jeezus, Paul!”Xane started trying to pry his hands free from Ronnie’s mouth.“I don’t know what your game plan is, but if you screw up this tour, so help me God, I will bury you six feet under.”

“Right.”He nodded, still determinedly muffling Ronnie.“What happened to being on my side, guys?What happened to it’s your call; we’re behind you whatever you decide?”

“Will you stop trying to fucking smother him?”

“Will you all get off my fucking back?”

“Let Ronnie speak.”

Nope.Capital nope, he was not going to do that.“There.Was.No.Threesome!”

“But there was something.”That contribution arrived courtesy of Spook who until this moment had been obligingly staying out of the fracas.“If there wasn’t, you wouldn’t be rattled by the hint that there might have been.So maybe simmer down with the theatrics and spit it out and get it over with.Whatever it is, we’re gonna find out soon enough.”

Not likely.He wasn’t blabbing, and he didn’t see Jodi doing that.Nash would likely enough relish the opportunity to act all wronged, but did he really want it advertised that he couldn’t get his woman off?Did he even know what had happened when Jodi came back?Would she have blabbed?Paul wasn’t sure.Sometimes there was a line you had to draw between honesty and self-preservation.