Page 86 of Rock Giant

His gaze slid away from hers, so that he was looking into the middle distance.

“I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends.”

But not close enough friends that he’d make her that promise.A fact that hurt more than she liked, and cemented the precariousness of her position.

“I don’t get involved in other people’s relationships,” he reiterated.“It’s up to you two to make the rules of your relationship.”He sat for a couple more seconds, no longer with his arm comfortably around her shoulder, then rose.“I’m gonna go see if Nash needs a hand with those drinks.”And off he went, probably to report everything she’d just said straight to Nash.Well, there was a truly smashing conversation to look forward to later.

It wasn’t much fun stewing in the semi-dark alone, and while she didn’t doubt there was a queue for the bar, she also couldn’t tolerate waiting for them.Jodi relinquished the table to a bunch of thirtysomethings and crossed the plaza to join Jez by the water’s edge.He was standing, gazing out to sea, his wavy hair lifted by the night breeze, hands in his pockets.

They stood in silence for several minutes.

“Do you ever wonder if you’ve made the right choices?”

Jez glanced at her from beneath half-shuttered lids, but didn’t answer.After a moment, she rested her head against him.He yielded, and put his arm around her shoulders.“Sometimes.”

“Do you miss Rune?”Stupid question, she knew he did.She’d watched him grieving, but she hadn’t taken the time to ask him about it.She’d never dealt with a guy friend going through a breakup.All the lads she’d known growing up bounced from one lass to the next without standing still long enough to figure out if it hurt, and she’d never had a female bestie to nurse through a breakup with rom coms and ice-cream.Did Jez need rom coms and ice-cream?He’d probably prefer some psychological horror film that’d give her nightmares for months.

“Can’t you fix it?”

“I’m the one who broke it off, Jodi.”

“Right.Earlier, you implied Nash was involved.”

“He wasn’t uninvolved.”

“But he didn’t cause the...It wasn’t because of anything he did that made you break up?”

He remained silent, a faraway look on his face.After a moment or two, his sullen scowl transformed, and a smile kissed his cheeks.

“What?”she asked.

“Nothing.”

“I haven’t seen you smile in like forever.It’s something.”

“I was just thinking maybe I should have a T-shirt made, or I could doctor one of the merch shirts.Or a Team GB one, graffiti on an R.No, wait, a Pokémon one.Instead of Team Rocket, I could be Team Rock—”

“Giant,” she finished for him.“Please don’t do that.Just because I’m mildly pissed off at Nash at the moment doesn’t mean I want you to start trolling him.”

He flashed her a look of those pointy teeth of his again.“I’m making no promises.”

CHAPTER 25

Paul “Rock Giant” Reed

Paul had nothing against Bergen.Matter of fact, he quite liked Bergen, or at least its surroundings.He wasn’t much of a city person, even if this was a comparatively tiddly one at about the size of Blackpool.What he didn’t like about Bergen was that they’d arrived two hours ago to find Toys in the Attic had played a gig there the previous night and were hanging around the venue hoping for a chinwag before or after the Black Halo sound check.Paul promptly took himself off to the nearest bathroom, allowing the rest of the band to drop stuff off in the dressing rooms without him.Some days, you just didn’t want to do the whole sociable thing and today happened to be that day.As luck would have it, his guitar tech came into the bogs right as Paul was washing his hands.

“Gonna take off for a few hours.You can handle the sound check, right?”

“Sure.”

He liked Jake.Jake was always agreeable.

“The guys know?”

He mumbled something that might be construed as an affirmative but was really random noises.“I need to stretch my legs.”