Chapter 18

 

Marcie and Killigan were surprised when Alex and I turned up on their doorstep unannounced, although not as surprised as I was when Alex informed them that I was there to stay. Killigan looked as though he wanted to argue and I couldn’t blame him. I remembered Stefan saying at the engagement party that the policeman had only recently moved in with Marcie. Another body around would be the last thing he wanted. On the other hand, Marcie seemed thrilled and was already planning what she should make for tea, and which sheets she would put on my bed.

She tried to persuade Alex to stay for a cup of tea and something to eat, but he was impatient to get back on the road and home to Stefan. I wished he had stayed for just a while longer rather than leaving me alone with two people I barely knew. Marcie was Alex’s surrogate mum, Killigan was Stefan’s self-appointed father figure. It was like meeting the parents, only I wasn’t actually dating either of their sons.

“Sorry,” I said to Killigan, meeting his stern gaze across the kitchen table. Marcie had left us to bond over mugs of tea while she went upstairs to make my room ready. “I’ll find my own place and be out of your hair before you know it, I swear.”

“I’m sure we can put up with you for a couple of weeks,” Killigan sighed, not exactly sounding enamoured by the idea. “Stick to the house rules, and we’ll get along just fine.”

“House rules?” I echoed faintly. If I wanted to live under parental rule I’d go home to my mother. “What are they?”

“No drugs.” Killigan counted them off on his fingers as he spoke. “No leaving your underwear on the bathroom floor. No taking Marcie for granted. You pull your weight. And no bringing men back here for…ahem…sexy time.”

“Sexy time?” I quickly smothered a laugh, realising he was deadly serious. “Okay, first of all…I’m a nurse. I know what drugs can do to you and I’ve never touched them in my life. Secondly, same goes for you with underwear thing, because I don’t ever want to have to see your baggy Y-fronts.” I counted on my fingers the way he had done. “I left home years ago and I am perfectly capable of looking after myself, so as far as I’m concerned, Marcie doesn’t need to lift a finger. And as for the men – let’s just say I’m off them right now, so definitely no sexy times. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Killigan regarded me with a bemused expression. Most likely, he was used to his comments being met with sullen silence from Alex, or over-the-top silliness from Stefan. Stating I could look after myself, however, reminded me that Marcie was currently upstairs putting clean sheets on my bed. Excusing myself from Killigan, I went up to help her finish off.

Afterward, alone in my room, I changed my jeans and put on a clean shirt. I couldn’t put it off any longer. I had to go to Keane’s and face Mason. On the car journey from Weymouth, I had tried texting and calling, but Mason had his phone switched off. I sent him a message to say I was on my way and wanted to talk to him, although I had no idea if he had seen it or not. Given that he hadn’t answered, I hoped he hadn’t.

When I told Marcie and Killigan I was going out for a while, Marcie gave me a spare door key in case I didn’t get home until after they had gone to bed. Killigan insisted on driving me to Keane’s. He offered to wait, thinking maybe that Mason would throw me out on my ear the moment he saw me. I thanked him, but told him to go home. If things went my way, I would hopefully be spending the night with Mason. Without asking, Killigan put his number in my phone in case I needed anything, and then took two twenty pound notes from his wallet. I accepted the money reluctantly, after Killigan said it was to pay for a taxi home should the night not go according to plan.

It was still early, but there was already a queue waiting to get into Keane’s. A lot of them didn’t really look like Keane’s usual brand of clientele. There were a few grungy looking rockers and more women in the queue than I had ever seen there before. Word must have spread that Mace White had bought the place and his adoring fans were flocking to the venue in the hopes of catching a glimpse of their hero.

Leaving the hopefuls to wait at the front of the building, I walked around the side. There was no sign of Mason’s bike or the Range Rover that had been parked there on my last visit. I knocked on the door and rang the doorbell to no avail. Stepping back, I looked up at the windows. The blinds were shut, not even a glimmer of light to be seen. A blind man could see the apartment above the club was empty.

Disheartened, I walked back around to the street. I hovered indecisively. Give up and go home or join the queue and hope Mason was inside, perhaps working the bar like he had been the night I met him?

“Hey, Azrael!”

I swallowed a sharp spike of irritation and plastered a smile on my face as I went over to Jonesey. He’d worked the door at the club for years and knew all of the regulars by name. It didn’t matter how many times I told him I didn’t go by Azrael anymore, he still insisted on calling me by my former alias. Whether it was down to bad memory or a perverse delight in embarrassing me, I didn’t know. Jonesey was generally harmless though, and if I was nice to him he would probably let me queue jump.

“Is that you all over the internet?” Jonesey asked. “It is, isn’t it? You shagging my boss now?”

Unfortunately, he had the kind of booming, deep voice that drew the attention of every living soul in a mile radius. The entire queue now gawked at me openly. I saw a few nods, people looking at me like they knew me…or rather knew something about me. I dreaded to think exactly what had been posted online about mine and Mason’s very public date the day night before.

“Is he here?”

My cheeks heated uncomfortably under the scrutiny of my unwanted audience. Mason and I were quite likely being billed as the love affair of the century and yet here I was, standing outside his club with everybody else and admitting I didn’t know where he was.

Not that Jonesey seemed to notice anything wrong with it. He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I didn’t see him when I came into work, but that doesn’t mean anything. He could have been upstairs or out the back.” He stepped back and waved me through. “Go and have a look if you want.” Instantly, there was a chorus of complaint from the disgruntled club goers at the front of the queue. Jonesey was unmoved. “Hey, are any of you fucking Mace White? No? That’s what I thought, so nobody else is getting in for free. Keep whining and you won’t get in at all.”

Inside, the club was less busy than I expected. Mostly, the crowd was made of the usual faces, and I nodded to some of them as I walked around the side of the dance floor to the bar. I had a sneaking suspicion that keeping the obvious Arcadia fans outside was a deliberate move on Jonesey’s part. There were a few straight couples already in there, but not enough to outnumber us gayboys in our own club.

“Hey, E. You want the usual?”

Ollie had worked behind the bar for the last twelve months or so. He hadn’t known me in my Azrael days, but he was another one who never called me by my proper name, claiming Eric was too old-fashioned and uptight for a guy my age.

“Just a coke, please.” I offered one of the notes Killigan had given me when he put my glass down in front of me, but Ollie waved it away.

“On the house, mate.” He hesitated, grabbing a cloth and pretending to wipe the bar. “So, are you really banging Mace White?”

I thanked him for the drink and turned away without giving him an answer. All of a sudden, every man and his dog knew my business and I hated it. Mason lived his life in the public eye – and if we were going to make a go of a relationship I would have to accept that – but we’d been on one date. How could that possibly be of any interest to anybody other than Mason and me?

There was a young man marching across the dance floor with a determined step. He looked vaguely familiar, although I was not able to place him until I noticed the look of pure fury on his face and I remembered our last encounter. Liam. Mason’s ex, and the guy who had tried to destroy my life in a fit of jealous rage.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded angrily. “You must be breaking your injunction by coming to the club.”

“Injunction? Oh, you mean the fake one your cousin nearly lost his job over?” Liam was not the only one to be angry. I was too after all the trouble he had caused me. I didn’t like confrontation, but I wasn’t going to be the one to back down this time. “Mason had it cancelled. Didn’t he tell you?”

From the look on his face, I guessed not. Liam glared at me, his lips forming the kind of sulky pout that I was used to seeing on Rufus. The malicious gleam in his eyes was also strangely familiar.

“I guess we didn’t have time for conversation with all the make-up sex we were having.” Liam shot me a smug look. “That’s where he is now…in bed sleeping it off. I think I wore him out.”

“You’re lying.” It wasn’t a question. I could see the truth written all over his face. “I bet you haven’t even seen him.”

“Have so!” Liam said churlishly.

“Bullshit. You don’t know where he is any more than I do.”

I laughed in his face, much to his annoyance, and turned my back on him. Ollie stood behind the bar, watching the little exchange with interest. I handed him back my full glass and managed to muster a faint smile. It wasn’t his fault Mason’s ex was a complete psycho.

“You okay, E?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, Ollie, but I think I’m going to call it a night.”

“You sure? Don’t let that jumped up little gobshite scare you away.”

“It’s not that.” I didn’t want to be rude, but I wished he would just let me go. The last thing I wanted was anyone making a fuss. I just wanted to go home, curl up in bed and feel sorry for myself. Even though I was ignoring Liam, I could still sense him hovering behind me, his hateful gaze shooting daggers into my back.

“Listen, E, don’t think I’m propositioning you or anything, but…” Ollie leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Come into the office. I want to show you something.”

“Ollie, I’m not sure…” I began doubtfully. It wasn’t as if I was Mason’s boyfriend. I didn’t know how he’d feel about me being in his office, especially with another guy, and I couldn’t imagine what it was Ollie wanted to show me that couldn’t be done in public.

“Guys, I’m taking a break,” Ollie said to the other bartenders. He came out from behind the counter and grabbed my hand. “Come on, E. This is important.”

“I’m telling Mace,” Liam threatened as Ollie pushed past him.

Telling him what, exactly? No doubt Liam thought my walking off hand in hand with a guy meant he had gained some kind of victory over me. Then I remembered that Mason’s phone was switched off so unless Liam had a different number for him that I wasn’t privy to, he had no more chance of reaching Mason than I did.

Ollie pulled me into the manager’s office and closed the door behind us. I waited patiently, while he went to the desk and began rifling through a pile of paperwork. It only took a few seconds before he made a triumphant sound in his throat and turned to me with a smile.

“Found it,” he said, handing me a piece of paper with an address written on it. “Boss said we were never to give it out to anyone, but I’m going out on a limb here, and thinking he meant that little gold-digger out there. Not you.”

“What is it?”

“That’s where Mace has gone. I heard the bar manager talking about it earlier. Apparently, that’s his sister’s address.” Ollie leaned back against the edge of the desk, his arms folded across his chest. He looked please with himself. “I remembered seeing the address when I was in here…well, never mind what I was doing, or who I was doing it with.”

I stared at the piece of paper in my hand. Obviously Mason had not gotten around to telling me his sister lived in France. Thankfully, I had packed my passport when I left Rufus, but I still had no transport and no money. She might as well have lived on the moon for all the hope I had of getting there.

Ollie let me leave through the staff entrance so that I didn’t have to go back through the club and risk running into Liam again. The piece of paper, now neatly folded, burned a hole in my pocket. I knew I couldn’t just leave it. Mason had come after me. Now it was my turn to go after him. All I had to do was figure out where to get the money I needed to get to France. I could borrow it from my mother, but then I’d have to tell her about splitting up with Rufus (which she’d be happy about), almost getting suspended from my job (which she would be furious about), and then I’d have to explain how I was taking off to France – on what could be a wild goose chase – to hunt down an internationally famous rock star. That was a conversation that would not go well. It would be pointless asking Stefan and Alex because they didn’t have the money any more than I did. Rufus might have money at that precise moment, but I didn’t kid myself he would part with any of it to help me out. That left one option.

I dialled the number Killigan had given me earlier and hoped he’d meant it when he’d said I could call him for anything.