“Of course not. This is why the best option at this point would be to have a court bailiff serve him the papers.”
Shit! Ginny clamped her phone tighter to her ear, curling her other arm across her body to support her elbow. That sounded more serious than she liked. “I don’t want this to blow up and turn into something.” Having him served was exactly the sort of provocation likely to escalate things, which was something she was desperately keen to avoid. “Is that really the only way?”
“It’s not a huge deal, Ginny. It won’t cause a big scene, if that’s what you’re imagining. The documents will simply be handed to him in person by an official.”
“He won’t like it.”
“Do you enjoy being messed about? Controlled in this fashion?”
“Of course not.”
“Then this is the way forward. Otherwise, you’re handing him control of the narrative, and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll still be in this same position a year from now.”
Damn. Talk about being trapped between a rock and a hard place. If she did nothing, nothing would change, there’d be no resolution down the line, and if she served him with those papers, the prospect of everything blowing up in her face increased dramatically.
“Ginny, are you still there?”
She sucked a breath in through her nose, the back of her hand pressed tight to her lips to stop them trembling. “I’m still here, yes. I get what you’re saying, absolutely.”
“But? What do you want to do? Shall I proceed?”
A lump formed in her throat that she struggled to swallow around. This might be the only way forward, but that didn’t make it a wise move. He’d retaliate. She knew it, could anticipate it. He’d make her suffer. “Okay, do it,” she croaked, and crossed her fingers on both hands, before repeating the instruction more firmly.
No matter the repercussions, she couldn’t exist in limbo forever, and backing down wasn’t an option. Therefore, the only thing to do was push for a resolution. Not for the first time, she wondered yet again why she hadn’t done this years ago. The answer was surprisingly straightforward. There’d been no call for it, no pressing need to do any more than put some distance between them, no one she loved enough for it to matter. Whereas now… She was doing this for Ash, for them both.
“I’ll get on this today. If he is genuinely abroad, it may take a little while, but be assured, the people who do this job are used to wily customers. I’ll let you know when it’s done. Meanwhile, sit tight, and don’t fret.”
Don’t fret! Yeah, that was easier said than done, they were talking about a tin pot dictator after all, and protecting her emotionally squishy boyfriend. The one ten weeks on, she was still keeping secrets from.
Ginny shook her head at herself. If anyone else had come to her with the current dilemma, she’d have been the first to tell them that growing some balls and ‘fessing up was the best option. But passing on that wisdom to someone else and enacting it were two different things. Apart from that one moment when she might have said something back in July, there’d never been a good opportunity to raise her dirt. In fact, the wisest option did seem to be to keep it entirely to herself given that Ash was a volatile mess. Handing him any sort of explosives would only result in a deafening bang, and she didn’t want to destroy their love.
Dani was sitting in her usual spot on the wrought iron staircase up to the studio five steps from the top of the spiral. It being the closest she could get to the studio without being visible to those in the room above.
Ginny was convinced the guys knew Dani was there—Hello Black Halo super fan!—but as they’d have to tie her to a tree on the other side of the island to stop her eavesdropping, they pretended otherwise.
“How are they getting on?” Good, hopefully. Ginny had her fingers crossed. The last few days had been more than usually fractious. Ash spent hours every evening griping about how rotten everything was, musically and with the band’s internal relationships. She heartily wished that consultant—Doctor Noren—hadn’t completely put him off the idea of counselling, because he’d likely benefit from it.
Dani scooted around to face her and settled her feet primly on the step below. “It’s hard to say exactly.” She waggled her head from side to side. “There’s been a lot of starting and stopping this morning. Way above the normal levels. I think earlier that’s because they were trying different things out, but then they seemed to settle on a particular version. Only…” She blew out a long sigh.
“Not good, eh?” Ginny settled herself a couple of steps down from Dani’s feet.
“What? Oh no, it’s good. The song’s great, but they’re arguing about it. I mean proper arguing, not just niggling.”
A heavy weight settled in Ginny’s stomach. “When you say they, who do you mean?” She didn’t really require an answer. Everyone knew who the disruptive element was.
“Well, Ash keeps complaining that the link between the verse and the chorus isn’t hanging together right. They use a bunch of technical jargon, so I don’t follow the exact gist of his problem, but he won’t let it go. Every time Xane plays it, he stops him, and they shout some more.” She winced as if Ash and Xane were bellowing at one another now.
“I’m guessing it sounds—”
Dani shook her head. “I can’t hear whatever fault Ash says there is. And while I’m not musically trained…”
“You think he’s making an issue out of nothing.”
“Maybe,” Dani admitted glumly.
To Ash, whatever it was would be a major fault, but everything was a mountain these days. There were no molehills in his life.
“What if we brought them some drinks and enforced a break?” Maybe she could even find a way to remove Ash from the studio for a while so that Xane and Spook could carry on without him.
Dani sucked her cheeks into a lemon sucking face. “You can if you want, but I’m not going up there. This is their fifth album. I’m sure they know what they’re doing. Maybe this is part of the process, and we haven’t realised that because we weren’t around to observe it.”
“It’s not usual,” Ginny asserted. Even she knew most of the writing and demo creating was done by Xane and Spook. Anyone who’d ever looked at the track listings on one of their songs knew where the credit was due. Things were only different this time around down to Ash’s insistence in getting involved. The friction they were experiencing was clearly the result.
“Luthor keeps telling me that some discord is good for creativity.” Dani dug a couple of sticks of gum from her pocket and shared them. “He says the music wouldn’t be half so brilliant if it was all smooth sailing.”
“And you believe that?”
She shrugged. “What I’ve heard so far is damn good.”
Yeah, well, she wasn’t convinced discord and fighting were good for any relationship.
Playing resumed above. Ginny clamped her hands over her ears. Did it really need to be that loud? “Shouldn’t we be wearing ear protectors, or something?” she yelled at Dani.
Dani plucked a set of ear plugs from her pocket and handed them over, having brushed back her hair to show she was already wearing some. “I started off with a big pair of noise mufflers, but they’re harder to explain away.”
“Babe, they know you’re here.”
Dani gave her a tight smile. “Not always.” She pointed downwards as the sound of an electric guitar being played at furious speed made the iron staircase vibrate. Ginny led the way into the shadowy stone sanctuary at the base. The music remained just as loud, but at least the vibrations were no longer making her bones rattle.
“Is that Xane or Spook playing?”
“Both, I think. There, those twinkly bits are Spook. Here’s the chorus coming up.”
A couple more bars and sure enough, the wailing guitar was cut off abruptly, and replaced with a lot of argumentative yelling.
Ginny waggled her fingers in her ears to right her hearing, but she still couldn’t make out what
was being said. “I don’t get it, which bit was the problem?”
Dani lifted her hands, palms up. “The last three or four bars I think.”
“Your goddamned boyfriend is the problem.” Xane bellowed from the top of the metal staircase. “He’s a fucking, goddamned fuckwit, and he needs to get over his fucking self and pick up a fucking guitar if he thinks he can fucking well do better.” He pounded down the twisted metal spiral and out of the main door leaving both Ginny and Dani gaping like two goldfish.
“That was a lot of F-bombs, Saint. You sure downplayed that one. That’s not an argument, it’s a full-on crisis, band on the edge, KABOOM! situation.”
“Then do something. He’s your boyfriend.” She chased after Xane.
Ginny set her foot on the stairs. There were still angry rumblings coming from above, though they ceased as she climbed. When she reached the top, she found her needy, frustrated boyfriend sitting on a stool holding one half of a pair of maracas. Its twin lay on the floor by the drum kit. His new guitar, a sort of birthday gift in reverse from Xane, was on the floor beside a toppled chair and a microphone stand.
Shoot! So much for hoping this might be the day to sort her shit out. It looked as if Ash’s issues were far more pressing, again.
Ginny mooched over to him. “Hey, what’s doing?”
She ruffled his hair and pressed a kiss to his wrinkled brow.
“This and that,” he muttered.
“Artistic differences?” she asked, letting him know that she’d seen Xane’s stormy exit.
“He can’t get it right.”
“Oh!”
“He’s nailed it every fucking time,” Spook muttered, causing her to realise he was inside the sound suite and that she and Ash weren’t alone. “Xane isn’t the problem.”
“Fucking is. You must be as deaf as he is.” A nasty scowl contorted Ash’s otherwise handsome face. “He fluffs it every bloody time. Either he dawdles into the bridge or takes it so fast the whole chorus ends up rushed.”
Spook moved so that he stood in the doorway between the two rooms, his hand raised so that he clasped the edge of the door frame. “Bullshit! There’s not a damn thing wrong with Xane’s playing and you know it. The problem is your insistence on butting in every forty seconds to nit-pick over non-existent faults because you can’t deal with the fact he’s standing in for you.”
“That’s not true.” Ash turned to her, stretched out his hands beseechingly. “Seriously Ginny, this isn’t my fault. Xane keeps on ballsing it up.”
Ginny folded her hand around the fingertips of his left hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Spook rolled his eyes. “I know you’re a thing, but please don’t pander to his nonsense. We’ve lost the whole morning to this shit, and God knows when Xane’s going to be ready to return to it, and this, let’s face it, is merely the latest in a long, long line of crap you’ve slowed us down with. We could have had this demo done and dusted weeks ago if you didn’t insist on picking fault with everything.”
“Excuse me if I don’t want to put out shoddy recordings.”
Spook’s blond hair swayed against his shoulders as he bowed his head. “That’s not what this is about. This is your inability to deal with shit. Fact is, if you don’t like the way Xane’s playing it, you need to pick up that guitar and do it yourself.”
Ash kicked back his stool, and took several knee jerk steps in Spook’s direction. Quick as she followed, Ginny couldn’t move fast enough to get between them. They squared off, face to face.
“You know fine well that’s not an option. I can’t play, remember. My fingers are fucked. Iain fucked me.”
Spook shoved him backward to an arm’s length. “The only one fucking things up for you at the moment is yourself. You’re not making any effort to fix yourself. You’re just whiny and resentful. When was the last time you even tried to play anything?”
“He’s practicing,” Ginny leapt to Ash’s defence. He’d told her so, often.
Spook snorted. “No, he really isn’t. In fact, he’s not contributing in any beneficial way to the album. All he’s doing is making the whole process one gigantic nightmare. You need to butt out and leave Xane and me to do things the way we always have; the way it’s worked for four triple platinum albums.”
“You can’t stop me from being involved.”
“Ash.” Ginny threw him a warning look, fearful of how Spook might respond. “Let’s just all calm down a bit. What do you say to you and me taking a breather? I know you’re in a difficult place, and I think everyone knows that all you want is the best for them all, but this isn’t going to secure that for anyone. You’ve all been working hard, tempers are frayed. You need to step back and regain some perspective. You too, Spook.”
The blond man’s eyes glittered. “What he needs to do is put a fucking lid on his ego, and maybe do some of the exercises he’s been given instead of using his disability as a crutch to excuse behaving like an arsehole.” He kicked aside the wooden wedge holding the sound room door open and stepped backward so that it slammed between them.
Ash banged his fist against the wood, whereupon Spook stuck two fingers up at him. Rather than watch them wage a silent fight, Ginny tugged Ash towards the stairs. “Did you hear, did you see that?” he grumbled as they descended. “This is what I have to deal with day in day out. I’m working my butt off to contribute to Black Halo’s future, but the fact is they’re all desperate to be done with me.”
“Let’s get some fresh air and daylight. I’m not sure it’s good for you all, being cooped up in there without any natural light.”
Unexpectedly, Ash didn’t dig his heels in over their tactical withdrawal, and to her relief, there was no sign of Xane and Dani outside the building, just an azure sky peppered with clouds and a strong breeze rolling in off the lake. She led Ash down to the stone jetty, where he took a perch at the very end, and dangled his feet into the water. The cold water seemed to dampen some of his fury.
“Is this really the time to be pissing off your two best mates?” she asked after a few minutes had passed.
He turned his head, hand raised in order to shield his eyes from the sun. “So you think it’s my fault too. Gee, thanks for your support, Ginny.”
“That isn’t what I said.” She sagged onto her bottom and took off her sandals. Hell, she needed cooling off too now. “I simply meant that maybe considering the circumstances it would be in your own interests to be a little less critical.”
He snorted. “All I’ve done is tell the truth. Is it my fault that neither of them can take a bit of constructive criticism? That bridge is shoddy, and they both know it.”
“It has nothing to do with the fact Xane’s standing in for you?”
Hurt flashed through the blue of his eyes. A nervous pulse throbbed in the side of his jaw.
“Ash?” she prompted.
“Whose fucking side are you on?” He gave another snort. “As if I need to bloody well ask. Xane can never do any wrong, and you think the sun shines out of Mister Perfect’s arse. Well, he ain’t perfect, Ginny. But, you know, if you’d prefer to be with him, go ahead.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the studio.
Ginny refused to rise to his goading. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time in recent weeks that Ash had implied she was hankering after Spook. Silly sod was clueless. She and Spook were wholly incompatible, and not because he was celibate. She’d managed to piece together a decent enough picture of Spook’s kinks and preferences from talking to him and being around the band. Allowing anyone—particularly a man—control over her… Yeah—wasn’t happening.
“Is your self-esteem really that crushingly low?”
Ash huffed again.
Dear God, Iain Willows hadn’t just snatched Ash’s ability to play guitar from him, he’d hogtied him with anxiety and taught him to believe the worst of everybody and everything.
“I’m on your side, Ash. I hope that you realise that. As for Xane and Spook, I know Xan
e can be volatile, but Spook isn’t. Not from my experience, so when he’s upset, I figure there’s a reason for it. Are you sure you’re not being a teeny bit over critical? Can you swear that?”
“They’re looking for ways to push me out. Xane hasn’t even tried to correct what I’ve been pointing out. He’s just played it in the same substandard way over and over. They say it’s my fault, but he’s equally unwilling to bend.”
“However, you’re not usually involved in the process at this point, are you? Black Halo’s music is normally attributed to Geist and Mortensen, not to A. Gore.”
“Sometimes I have been,” he snarled defensively. “I’ve always given my opinions and spiced things up a bit when we’ve worked on the guitars.”
“And is this spice what you feel is missing from Xane’s playing?”
He squinted vexatiously at her.
“I’m just saying that he’s not you. Expecting him to mimic you exactly is asking too much. He plays one way, and you play another. When you play this track when you’re back on tour, you can add that magic.”
“When,” he scoffed. “Don’t you mean if? I’m not going to magically mend come December, am I? There’s no guarantee I’ll ever recover.” He rubbed at his fingers as though the joints ached. “And you’re wrong about Xane. He could easily duplicate my sound, but he’s choosing not to, because he knows I won’t be touring with them. It’s going to be him playing lead guitar, and he’d rather keep it simple so that he doesn’t have to bend his mind around singing and strumming at the same time.”
“Ash, you can’t be snippy about the fact they’re making contingency plans. What do you expect them to do? They can’t put the tour off indefinitely, and if you’re not fit to perform, then someone else has to stand in for you. Surely it’s better that it’s Xane than some random other person?”
“Maybe,” he grouched, failing to convince.
Oh boy was Spook right about Ash’s ego being bruised.
All Right Now Page 9
