Page 29 of The Interview

“Love you, baby,” I reply.

“You wanna go home?”

“Nah.” I shake my head before rinsing water around my mouth and standing to spit it down the sink. “I want this out there. Like Georgia said, I want the world to see the damage that can be done when lies are told, when people make up stories, and the impact it has on the lives of so-called celebs, or whatever the fuck the word they use is these days. You cut us, we bleed, Ash, just like everyone else. We fucking bleed.”

She steps forward, and I pull her into me, wrapping my arms around her as I breathe in her unique scent. She’s my world, my queen, my lifesaver, and I hold on to her like a drowning man.

CHAPTER

TEN

MARLEY

Everyone’s gathered around the kitchen island when I eventually walk back out to the studio, hand in hand with Ash.

“I’m good,” I say before anyone can ask.

“You sure?” Len questions anyway. “I’m sorry if any of… Ooof,” is the sound he makes when I walk to him and pull him for a blokey cuddle, slapping him on the back a few times like proper geezers do.

“Love you, bro. Nothing to be sorry for. It was my fuck up, and it’s about time I heard the truth and owned it.”

“There’s more,” Len says quietly. “I can’t hold onto it no more, stuff you need to know.”

“Yeah, I gathered. Is it bad?”

“Yeah,” Len replies with a slow nod. “We’ll talk about it later, then you can decide, you and George. You can decide what you want doing with it.”

My skin prickles. From my toes to my scalp, I tingle, and not in a good way.

“You want to call it for the day?” Daniel asks from behind me.

I look at Len.

“Let’s get Paris out of the way, then everyone can move on,” he tells Dan.

“Yeah,” I agree. “Let’s get Paris done and fuck it off.”

Fucking Paris.

“The drive from the hospital to the new Paris hotel was interesting,” Len starts once we’re all sitting back down.

“It wasterrifying. There was nothing, not asingleinteresting thing about it,” I tell him.

“Maca had gone ahead in a separate car because my dad had threatened to throttle him. He told Marley he was going to knock him the fuck out if he so much as breathed wrong, as well as have Haley White buried somewhere on Rainham Marshes, sue the label, the hotel, the tabloids. Spit was flying, and he was on one. We checked into the hotel—the band still had two sold-out gigs to play before they’d get any downtime—and when we walked into the room, Mac was lying on one of the beds. He flew off it, jumped up so fast, I literally didn’t see him move.”

I watch as my brother laughs lightly and shakes his head. My heart slows and warms as I recall the events Len’s about to retell.

“If you knew Mac…” My brother sighs. “He wasn’t a fighter. He could fight, don’t get me wrong. He could fight, but he wasn’t about that. He’d rather smoke a joint and chill, or write a song about what had pissed him off. That day, he flew off that bed screaming at Marley, ‘What the fuck did you get us into, you cunt?’ or words to that effect. Before he could swing a punch, my dad grabbed him, but Mac was so pissed off, he got out of my dad’s grip. In all fairness, I think the ol’ man let him go.”

“Yeah, cheers for that, Dad,” I add.

“So, I stepped between them, but the lanky fucker reached around me and somehow still managed to reach Marls and punch him right up the side of the head. Then my dad swung him around and was telling him to calm the fuck down, and that’s when he punched the ol’ man. He fucking punched Frank Layton.”

“Well, my opinion of Sean McCarthy just rose considerably knowing that,” Cam says from somewhere behind us, causing a ripple of laughter throughout the room.

“Dad said something like, ‘I’ll let you have that one, son,’ and he obviously forgave him because Maca asked him on the flight home for Georgia’s hand, and he said yes, so…”

We’re all silent, lost in our thoughts and recollections of that time of our lives.