All Right Now

by Madelynne Ellis

  “I’d have helped.”

  “You were here with Xane, and if I’d left it, the house would have been uninhabitable by now.”

  “I see. So, what you’re saying is that I need to take a rain check on getting laid, as I wasn’t proactive enough on licking up my cream?”

  She gave him a second hard poke. “There’s no need to make it sound quite so dirty.”

  “Oh, Ginny,” he cuddled her closer, so that her nose was pressed to his chest. “Haven’t you realised it yet? I am a dirty man. My major goal in life is to do filthy things with amenable ladies.”

  “Knock the plural on the head, buster.”

  “Particularly, one very special lady who is standing not so very far away, and who—” He began planting kisses across her face and throat. “—I like nothing better than to worship.” He sucked, so that she shivered and melted against him.

  “Don’t leave a mark.”

  “Wanna claim you. Want to let all the other filthy buggers out there know that you’re mine, and that they need to keep their grubby paws off.”

  “Did I consent to being yours?” she teased him back, nipping the skin of his throat with her teeth.

  “I get off on the idea of you swearing it. All mine, nobody’s but mine, forever and always, through sickness and health, so help me God.”

  “That’s because you’re a soppy romantic.” She pushed him away to arm’s length, frowning a little.

  Maybe that was true, but what was so wrong with that? The world looked good through rose-tinted spectacles. Fuck cynical realism. He was dancing with fireflies. “There’s so much sobriety in the world, I’m sure my romanticism won’t skew things too much in one direction.” He intended to hold on to this precious sense that anything was possible for as long as he could. October would arrive swiftly enough, and then they’d all have to slip back into the real world—The world beyond Spook’s island hideaway—and contend with its woes, its wars, and its weddings.

  Okay, so that last bit, hadn’t been where that thought was headed at the beginning of it, but it worked well enough that he didn’t repeal it. Why shouldn’t he think of weddings? He certainly liked the idea of slipping a ring onto Ginny’s finger, and having her claim him by slotting a matching one onto his.

  He’d got hurt the last time he’d given his heart to a woman, but Ginny wasn’t like Connie. Ginny had stood by him. They talked. She didn’t keep things from him. She was open, and honest, not riddled with deceits. God, that old dream of a ramshackle home and a score of tiny voices yelling daddy ballooned in his mind into a genuine possible future again.

  His adoptive parents were good people. They loved him. They were proud of him, but he was forever conscious that they weren’t blood. All the people with whom he shared a genetic connection had abandoned him. The father he didn’t remember, the mother for whom he’d only been a burden, and the brother who’d walked away as fast as he could the minute there was no legal reason for him to stay. “You have what you wanted, Bash. There’s no reason for me to hang around anymore. They’ll keep you safe.”

  “But where are you going? You’ll be back, right?”

  “I don’t expect so.”

  “Auto… Daz?”

  He and Ginny, they’d be a stable unit, and their home a haven that their offspring could always return to.

  “Ash, you okay? You have the queerest look on your face.”

  “Huh?” He shook himself back to the reality of the studio and the beacon of hope in his universe staring at him so studiously. “I was just wondering—when do you think the best time is to start a family?”

  “Shit!” Her chin hit her chest. “You’re not seriously thinking we should… Oh my God, Ash!” She backed away from him a pace or two.

  “I’m not proposing we make one this instant. I was asking what you thought a good age was to consider it.”

  “Like ninety or something. I don’t know. When you have a stable existence and an excess of time and you’ve given up on yourself so you have to foist your dreams onto a younger, smarter version of yourself.” She shook her head at him. “What is up with you? Weren’t you just celebrating the fact you’re back with the band again, and there’s a real possibility you’ll be well enough to record and then tour come December? There’s no room for a kid on the tour bus.”

  People toured with their kids, there were ways of doing it. Paul’s parents had, and he’d had a wicked cool childhood. A bit weird admittedly, and his folks were kookie as all hell, but there was nothing wrong with having stars in your eyes.

  “Ash.” Ginny waggled her finger frantically between them. “We’re not making a baby.”

  “Not now, or not ever?” he caught hold of her again, and dipped his head to make another assault upon her neck. She felt so perfect in his arms. “Come on, admit you’d be super gooey eyed over a baby Ash.”

  “For your information, they come in two varieties. Also, while you’re adorable, I’m not obliged to clean up your shit.”

  “We’ll have one of each to begin with,” he proposed. The pongy part couldn’t be that bad or people wouldn’t do it more than once, and some did it five or six times. He didn’t think about his birth mother and how difficult children had been for her, because he wasn’t like her. He’d proven that to himself. He didn’t need a handful of pills in order to function.

  Ginny kept on shaking her head. “I don’t want to have this conversation. Can we stop talking about kids, and I don’t know, debate who the greatest super hero of all times is, or something?”

  “That isn’t something you can debate. There’s a clear winner. Heck, it’s in his theme tune. He’s the greatest. He’s fantastic. See, nothing to discuss.”

  “Yeah, but I’d rather fuck Deadpool, maybe even Ironman.”

  “No way. They’re like maniacs.”

  Somehow, he succeeded in making her laugh, though he wasn’t sure why.

  “You want to make babies with Ironman?”

  She slapped his forehead. “Did you miss the bit where I said I didn’t want to talk about this?”

  “But in the future, we totally are going to?”

  She pressed her lips firmly together.

  “For God’s sakes, Ginny, lighten up, can’t you tell I’m teasing you? You can un-hunch your shoulders, I’m not about to start jabbing holes in condoms or hiding your pills. I just want a family someday. You want that too, right?”

  She let out a long breath and relaxed her body. “Yeah, I guess, someday, but not now. We haven’t known one another six months yet. If we’re still a thing in six years, then you can talk to me about babies.”

  “Gah!” What did it matter how long they’d been together? It’d been obvious the night they met that they were meant for one another, and that wasn’t only his interpretation. They’d both felt it. That was why, despite all the crap they’d faced in the intervening months, they were still together. They’d be together until they were old and grey. He had no doubt about that. Still, it didn’t suit his mood to see her frowning. “Fine. I agree.” He shook her hand. “But I think we should work on the techniques involved, so that when the time is right, we’ll be total experts.”

  “At fucking?” She squinted at him.

  “Yeah.”

  “You think we need to practice fucking.”

  “Frequently. Like say maybe every sex—I mean six—hours.”

  “That’s an awful lot of sex. Have you been reading the Gospel according to Mr. Geist again?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m just a very, very shallow man, and you are a very, very sexy lady.”

  “You got that right, buster.”

  She wriggled out of his hold and sashayed away from him a few paces, stopping when she was right in the centre of the room. Then she unzipped her dress and let it fall around her feet.

  Lingerie—itty-bitty lace knickers that were cut away at the back, no stockings, alas, but her tie-on bra had naughty peek-a-boo slits.

  She had n
ot been wearing any of those things earlier today.

  Ginny performed a one-eighty degree turn in her stilettos. “You like?”

  The caveman inside him roared and beat his chest. Ash nodded his head dumbly, ’cause whoa, wasn’t she the most filthily beautiful thing he’d ever set eyes on.

  “Show me what you’ve got, Chief, and maybe we can discuss terms of engagement.”

  What he had was a fucking raging hard-on. It didn’t take any persuasion to convince him to drop his jeans.

  Ginny shimmied towards him. “Looks kind of red and angry. Oh, and hot to the touch. Stroke it for me.”

  “My hand’s fucked.”

  “Your hand’s not fucked. There’s just a few lazy synapses in your brain. You beat it fine earlier.”

  Yeah, he guessed he had, hadn’t he? “Then can we practice fucking?”

  “Like you even need to. You’ve never had any trouble pleasing me.”

  “I want to marry you,” he said. “What do you think about that?”

  Ginny shoved her knickers in his mouth.

  ***

  Shitindamnation! They were venturing into scary territory. Babies… Marriage… They weren’t ready to be discussing either of those things. She was definitely, definitely not ready. She wasn’t going to be ready, not for months, maybe years. If ever. She’d broken one promise she’d made herself when she got involved with him. That was creating dilemmas enough. As for taking it all a step further—she didn’t really want to hand that much control to another person.

  Did she really want to free herself from one bad decision in order to fall head long into what might be another?

  Only, he wasn’t. If there was one thing she was absolutely certain of, it was that Ash wasn’t a mistake.

  “I’m pretending I didn’t hear you say that,” she said. Their happily ever after couldn’t happen yet.

  Ash continued to grin at her as if she hadn’t spoken and hummed a wedding march around her underwear.

  -18-

  18th November, Rockfield Studios, Wales.

  “Tell me again why we spent the day playing golf?” Dani asked as she and Ginny got out of the taxi at Rockfield Studios. Black Halo were into their second week there, and as the guys were busy all day in the studios, Dani, and Ginny had taken to exploring the Wye valley area.

  “Because, m’dear, we’ve already been to the local towns, walked the forests and seen the butterfly farm—”

  “—I liked the butterflies.”

  “—and you refused to consider canoeing, caving or cider tasting.”

  “No one here needs any encouragement to drink. If we’d gone there, Xane would have given me a shopping list.”

  “I didn’t think cider was his tipple.”

  “Anything’s his tipple if it’s on hand at the end of the day.” They entered the central living space of their accommodation to find that morning’s dishes still on the table, and various notebooks and computer tablets scattered among them. “Do you think they’re all still in the studio?” Dani tipped her wrist to look at her watch, newly acquired four days ago during their outing to Monmouth.

  Ginny set her mouth in an irritable moue. She sincerely hoped not, as today was Ash’s turn in the hot seat—well, the guitar booth. They were supposed to be recording the lead guitar tracks for a couple of the new songs. Luthor had been beating his drums all the previous day, and had been knackered by the end of it. Ash didn’t have nearly the same degree of stamina. The doctors might have given him the all clear for the tour, but that didn’t mean he was fixed, any more than his release from hospital had. He was still fighting with fatigue, and sometimes he’d suffer from strange sensations in his arm, or fight back tears over the cramps in his fingers. The G-plan had only been able to accomplish so much, likewise the impact of his healthier state of mind, but neither could entirely fix him. In the end, time was the only thing that could entirely set him to rights, and time always seemed to be in ruddy short supply.

  “I’m going to check the bedroom, and put something slouchy on.” Dani gave her a wave.

  Ginny turned to the sink and the kettle. She now knew better than to attempt to set foot inside the live room while recording was taking place if she a) valued her hearing, and b) didn’t want some tech guru tearing a strip off her. Also, if they were still in the studio working, the last thing she wanted to do was cause the sort of disruption that meant Ash had to start all over again.

  Dani returned before the kettle had boiled, having changed into skull and crossbone leggings and a Black Halo T-shirt. She thumped a mug down on the counter alongside Ginny’s.

  “No sign of them?” Ginny asked in reference to her friend’s lovers.

  Dani drummed her fingers against the countertop. “They’re in bed. Apparently, they’re heading back to work in a minute or two, but I think the fact that the emphasis has been on Ash and Spook today has given them an excuse to slack off.”

  “Are you saying they’ve been there all day?”

  Her friend claimed her drink and wandered over to the sofa, where she tucked her feet up beneath her.

  “They’re in bed and you came back out here to drink tea?” Oh, how times had changed. Not so long ago that sort of discovery would have resulted in a total emotional breakdown.

  Dani tutted. “Honestly, Ginny, they’re just sleeping.”

  “Yeah, and I suppose afterwards, they’ll just be showering, and just brushing their teeth.”

  “Exactly, they don’t spend the whole time on other stuff.”

  Fucking was what Dani meant, and Ginny would lay money on a fair amount of that having taken place over the time they’d been out golfing.

  Ginny settled beside her friend and gave Dani’s thigh a friendly pat. “You know I think it’s epic that you’ve come to terms with the fact your boyfriend also loves someone else.”

  “Boyfriends,” Dani corrected her, only for a stomach deep moan to rise from her throat. “And I’m not sure I’ve come to terms with anything. It’s great when we’re together, but when we’re not… It’s difficult, Gin. I don’t think my heart’s as enormous as either Xane’s or Luthor’s. They don’t seem to have any problem finding enough love to go around. I sometimes feel like I’m so stretched out something’s going to snap.”

  “Are you sure the stretched feeling isn’t from being overfilled?”

  Dani’s mouth dropped open.

  Ginny clapped her hands over her own mouth. “Shit. Sorry. That was a really bad joke. I didn’t mean to imply anything.”

  “Yes, you did, and no, it’s not that. That bit’s fine. I just don’t know if I’ve enough love in me to keep two men happy.”

  “You seem to be doing an ace job so far. I haven’t heard either of them complaining.” Considering the traumatic start to their three-way relationship, it seemed remarkably stable, looking in from the outside. She guessed, the real test for them would come once they were all back on the road and under the scrutiny of the world press. Even supposing their polyamorous arrangement was accepted and not simply outright condemned as satanistic, they’d still end up subject to a heap of rubbernecking.

  “They do a lot of stuff just the two of them.”

  Ginny pushed the biscuit tin towards her. “Put a lid on that thought, Dani. The only person you’ll make miserable with it is yourself. Xane could fuck all day and still be up for it, I don’t think there’s any sense in reading any more into them doing one another than two off the charts libidos. You’d not be able to walk if you had to satisfy Xane all by yourself.”

  “Am I being talked about?” Xane joined them in the lounge. He was dressed in a pair of black jeans. His fly was buttoned incorrectly, and his arms were raised above his head as he battled his way into a T-shirt that didn’t appear to want to fit. He gave up the fight and flung it towards them. “I think this is one of yours, D.”

  His gaze swept across them and their drinks. “Is the kettle recently boiled?” He asked optimistically.

 
Dani got up. “I’ll make you one.”

  “Is Ash still in the studio?” Ginny asked him.

  Xane gave a nod. “Can’t pry him out of there. He’s insistent that he’s staying put until it’s exactly right. Don’t worry, Spook’s keeping an eye on him. There was some post that came for you earlier. The staff brought it across. They’re coming in to blitz the place tomorrow morning too, just so you’re warned.”

  “Post—for me or for Ash?”

  “Both.”

  Dani walked between them to deliver Xane his brew, which he wrapped his hands around and sipped, before setting it aside so he could wrap his lips around his girlfriend.

  Ginny frowned. Why was she receiving post here? Only one person outside of the band and their management knew where she was. While Dani snuggled up with her boyfriend, Ginny succumbed to curiosity. “Where is it?”

  Xane, distracted by kissing, vaguely waved towards one of the low cottage windows.

  Sure enough, there was a small stack of letters on the table beneath it. Ginny flicked through them. The majority of the items were addressed to Spook and Rock Giant, but there was a large Manilla envelope with her name on it, and an identical one addressed to Ash. Both bore UK franking marks and were stamped in red with the word DOCUMENTS and CONFIDENTIAL.

  Apprehension growing, Ginny tore open the end of the one addressed to her and dug out the sheaf of papers inside.

  Legal papers! Huh?

  Her gaze streaked over the words, picking out the important passages.

  Holy shit. This couldn’t be right. What was he doing? He couldn’t do this? Why was he doing this? She snatched up the set of documents addressed to Ash and tore them open too. The same, more or less. The rat bastard had named him. He’d fucking named him. How could he even know she and Ash were a thing?

  Because she’d screwed up at Roskilde, hadn’t she? What the fuck had she been thinking when she’d gate-crashed the band’s interview slot with Ava March of Bang! Magazine? She hadn’t been thinking clearly. She’d been too bloody focussed on getting Ash to admit to his mates that they were a thing. While the magazine hadn’t shown the part of the interview where she walked in, the footage had no doubt found its way online courtesy of the magazines resident bitch reporter, Ava March. That woman had been publishing crap about Ash’s physical state since his fall in Karlstad, saying he was hooked on opiates, and all because Ash had turned her down one time when she’d tried to climb into his pants.