Page 141 of Rock Giant

She shook her head, now wide awake, even if she was yawning into her sleeve.

Flugwhump jumped up and occupied his favourite spot by the window.

“I’m not sure I’m welcome back there.”

“They’re all comatose.”

“Still.”

He closed his eyes again.

Jodi dropped onto her butt, and leaned her back against the opposite bench, unable to tug her attention away from him.She’d been too worried about what was going to happen to the band earlier to think straight, but now it was imperative that she did.Whatever the outcome, she couldn’t continue along the trajectory she’d been travelling.Couldn’t keep making excuses for Nash to ensure her security.It’d been a false security anyway.

There were creases in Nash’s cheeks, and the remains of kohl smeared around his eyes.He looked so boyish, lying there.Harmless.An overgrown child, hardly a man at all.It made it all the harder for her to open her mouth and say what she needed to say, but they needed to talk, and now, in the dead of night, they at least had the privacy to do so.

How to begin was another matter.

Jodi imagined herself pulling off the engagement ring and not saying anything at all, simply placing it on his chest and walking away.Returning to the bunk room and delaying the consequences until daylight.Was she really that much of a coward?

Perhaps...

“There a reason you’re staring at me?”

“Why’d you do it?”

He peered across at her from under his dark fringe, eyes unfriendly, then pushed into a seated position, dislodging the jacket.It crumpled in his lap.The T-shirt he was wearing was torn at the collar, and face on, she could see that not all the shadows around his eyes were down to smeared kohl.

“I’d have thought you were the one person other than him I didn’t need to explain it to.”

“We’d agreed to put it behind us.”

“We had, yes.But then you planned a little rendezvous with him the moment I was busy.”

“That’s not true.”

“Fucking is.Krista told me.The second we were on stage; you were out back canoodling with him.”

“That’s not what happened.”

She’d kicked Rock Giant to the kerb.

“I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and you fucking betrayed me,” Nash said.“You didn’t mean any of what you said to me the other night.You must think I’m a fool.”

Jodi bit her fingernail, unsure how to defend herself, or even if it was worth the trouble.Nash obviously had his version of events all worked out, and no matter how much she argued to the contrary they wouldn’t change.All that would happen was that the thread of their conversation would gradually shift from the truth to him forgiving her, to him making her feel as if only he could save her from herself and all her bad decisions, when in reality, the one genuinely bad decision she kept on making was believing all the hogwash he fed her.

“And now the band’s screwed because of you and your inability to keep your knickers on.”

“That isn’t why the band’s screwed.”She got to her feet.“It’s screwed because you attacked a man in front of a huge flippin’ audience because some bitch who’s had it in for me since the tour began whispered a load of shit in your ear, and you believed it.Not only that, instead of asking me what happened, you decided I was guilty and that the answer was to take a pop at him.Why the fuck did you do that, Nash?You had to know there’d be consequences.”

He leaned forward, snarling.“Well maybe when it comes to my fiancée and the guy she keeps screwing behind my back, my brain doesn’t exactly fire on all cylinders.Jeezus, Jo, there are limits to what I can take, you know.Was it not enough that you got fucking high with him, then tied the knot with him, and came on his face and all over his monster fucking cock?Why say all that stuff to me the other night, if you were already planning to sneak off for a repeat the second my back was turned?”

“That is not what happened.I just told you that?”

Nash stood.“Bullshit!It’s exactly what fucking happened.”

“No, Nash, it isn’t.It’s just what you want to believe to justify your actions, but it’s not the truth, and even if it were, it still wouldn’t make what you did right.I was ready to give us another chance.I believed you when you said we could put it all behind us and move on, but we can’t, and we shouldn’t.Maybe the truth is that we don’t belong together.”

I felt like ripping off a limb to finally admit that fact aloud.