-9-

 

25th September, Spook’s Island.

 

“Are you coming over to the studio?” Dani asked, breezing past Ginny in a floaty spider-print summer dress. Now that Dani, Xane, and Luthor had figured things out between them, Dani had started filling her days by eavesdropping on the creation of the new Black Halo album.

“Soon,” Ginny promised. “I just have a couple of things to do first.”

Operation Ann ought to have progressed by now, but instead the response to her near daily enquires was an unchanging “No news.”

“Okay, I’ll save you a spot.”

Dani meant on the stairs, as the guys didn’t allow anyone not directly involved in the production access to the inner sanctum of the recording studio while they were working.

“Thanks,” Ginny waved her friend off across the lawn, then headed out of the building via the side door. There was a little well she’d discovered not far from the northern tip of the building on the edge of the woods that had surprisingly good phone reception. It was from there she now made most of her phone calls.

“Any developments?” she enquired, expecting the usual response, and hence having only half an ear to the phone.

“Yes and no. We’re over the statutory time limits allocated for a response, even allowing for overseas residency.”

The butterflies she’d been watching, suddenly took flight, as flutters filled her gullet too. “What does that actually mean?”

“It means that as there’s no way of establishing whether the documents have been received, they’ll have to be re-sent.”

This was a delaying tactic on the part of the recipient, she had no doubt about that. Sure, post sometimes went astray, but she’d put money on hers having arrived just fine, and simply having been ignored. “So we sit for another thirty days, and then what happens, another copy and another thirty days? He could stretch this out for eternity, and would. This can’t be our only recourse.”

“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 Xane 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.

“Why not let them get on with things the way they’ve always done, and concentrate on making sure you’re ready to rock with them when the time comes? Have you actually played anything recently?” Ash often reassured her that he was trying hard when she asked him about his guitar skills, but Spook’s assertion that he hadn’t even picked up a guitar since July worried her. The way Ash’s gaze scuttled away from her confirmed her worst fears. He wasn’t practicing. “When was the last time you did any finger exercises?”

His shoulders curled giving him a defensive hunch.

Never, that’s when. She knew perfectly well the envelope containing the exercises from the physio was still in their room unopened. She’d let it go because she thought he was working his fingers by practicing his guitar skills. “Ash, you have to try. You promised when you stopped taking your pills.”

“I am trying,” he snapped.

“Are you?”

Was he?

“I’m doing my best. You’ve seen the hours I’ve been putting in with Xane and Spook on the new album.”

She had, but that wasn’t what she’d asked, and he knew it.

“Maybe the album shouldn’t be your priority. Maybe—”

“I should leave the song writing to the experts?” he cut in.

That was not what she was about to say. “Just because they have a certain way of working that produces the goods doesn’t mean you can’t write songs for the album too.”

Ash cawed like she’d told a particularly funny joke. “Like they’d be interested in anything I wrote.”

Jeezus, he was determined to see the gloomy side of everything. “I’m sure they would, actually.” And they were getting side-tracked from the important stuff here.

“No one is interested in me.”

No, no one at all. Besides her and a few thousand fangirls, some of whom wrote to him every single day, and sent him Danger Mouse socks and crocheted willy warmers and other unmentionables. However, Ash was too blinded by his own negativity to see that affection.

“I’m a dead weight. A waste of space.”

“Stop it,” she snapped. “You are not.”

“I should probably go and live amongst the rhubarb and eat worms.”

Okay, enough. Drastic measures were in order. Ginny gave him a shove that tipped him into the water. Yes, it was mean of her, but sometimes you had to be cruel in order to be kind, and he desperately needed shaking out of his self-pitying stupor. He wasn’t the only person with issues. Everybody had them. His problem was his refusal to deal with them.

Ash surfaced, spluttering water, and glared at her. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“I thought I’d give you a genuine reason to moan. Honestly, Ash, I know life sucks, but you need to move past all this woe is me stuff. Compared to millions out there, you’ve got it made. Okay, so you’ve work to do to fix yourself, but at least there’s the possibility that will happen. You’re not looking at a lifetime of endless therapies that are as likely to kill you as cure you. You have family, you have friends, and you have me. No cancer, no crippling debts, no non-verbal kid with special needs for whom you’re a punching bag. No one is determined to drag you through the courts as some kind of fuck you for wanting to love and be loved. Not to mention you’re still a member of an internationally best-selling band.”

“For now,” he grumbled, wading towards her.

She splashed him again. For heaven’s sake, why wasn’t he listening? “There you go again, bemoaning things that won’t even happen if you just listen to what they’re saying to you.” She slipped into the water beside him, and rested her hands on the tops of his arms. The water beaded on his skin, made him extra pretty, and the way his wet T-shirt clung to him, highlighted how sculpted he’d become thanks to a diet supplied by Spook and the limit on his alcohol consumption. “You’re pushing them away.”

“They’re flying to Australia without me.”

“What?”

Ash climbed out of the water, and shook himself like a wet dog. “You reckon they’re not trying to push me out, but the flights are booked to take them to the other side of the world for a promo push and I’m staying put.”

Okay, that did put a different spin on things.

“I don’t understand. When was this agreed? How come no one has said anything? Have they given any justification for leaving you behind?”

Ash offered her a hand out of the water. “There is none,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m fit to fly. I’m just not wanted. Seriously, they’re one step from sacking me.”

Ginny hooked her hands behind his neck and drew him close. “I’m sorry, Ash.” No wonder he was being so snippy. Although, “I’m sure it doesn’t mean what you fear. Maybe they thought you’d benefit from the additional rest. You’ve not really had many days off, what with all the stress of Elspeth’s departure from the band and all the hours you’ve put into the new album.”

“Gin, don’t pretend this is some sort of holiday concession. It’s not.”

Fearfully, she had to agree with him.

“I know you’re trying to make things better.” He pressed his lips briefly to her cheek. “But, it’s all going to shit, Gin. You’re right, I know I’ve got it a lot better than many people, but right now I wake up every morning and wonder what new piece of crap I’m going to have to face.” He buried his head in the crook of her neck. “At least I can rely on you.”

His faith in her made her feel like an absolute snake, but as she’d been telling herself for weeks now, today wasn’t a good day to open up. Shaking the foundations of their relationship might send him into a full-blown depression.

No, she’d just have to work through the legal process on her own and hope that the right time would come around eventually.

“Shall we go in,” she said. “It’s looking as though it might rain.”

“And do what? Hide in our room.”

“We could take a bath together. I could shave all this fuzz off your face.”

Ash scratched at what he pretended was designer stubble but was definitely a beard. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Or you could give me a trim.”

For a moment, a gleam of interest shone in his eyes only for it to blink out of existence a moment after its birth. “Sorry, I’m not feeling very…” He turned away from her with his head bowed, and began walking back along the jetty.

It was understandable, of course it was, considering everything that was on his mind that his libido would suffer. Their sex life wasn’t entirely barren. They still got intimate sometimes, maybe a couple of times a week…fortnight… Maybe it was actually closer to a month since they’d gone all the way. Him falling asleep on her with his mouth wrapped around one of her nipples didn’t really fulfil her expectations of sex. Maybe if there was a bonus to learning that the guys were going away and leaving them behind, it was that they’d have time to spend together uninterrupted by all things Black Halo.

That was it—her plan, for once they were gone, fishnets, corset, and a set of handcuffs so she could secure him to a chair. She knew his triggers. She could make him smile, and maybe once she had him smiling, she might persuade him to put some effort into some other vital activities too, like exercising his stiff joints, or sexercising them.

Hell, anything to make it the way things had been.

“Do you want me to talk to them? Maybe it would help to get them to see your side.”

“No! Leave it, Ginny. I mean it. Just leave it be.”

She raised her hands in surrender. Very well, she wouldn’t interfere directly, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to ask Spook what the ever loving heck was going on.

Ash gave another exasperated harrumph, and cast some serious side-eye at a nearby tree.

Ginny pulled her wet dress away from her skin. Wet was only fun while you were in the water. “I’ll bet it wasn’t even Xane or Spook who made the decision to go without you. It’ll have been your manager, or the label. Therefore, it’s pointless being pissed at them about it.”

“Whatever,” he drawled dismissively.

She balanced on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips. Sure, he was in a foul mood and he’d already brushed her off once, but lip to lip contact was different. And in any case, she meant the kiss to be assuring, not sexual. She kept it light, and gentle. He had tears in his eyes when they pulled apart, which he cursed over, blaming the pollen count, while he rubbed the moisture away. “Let’s go and dry off.”

He gave his head an emphatic shake. “You go. I just want to be left alone for a while.”

Ginny let him pull free of her hold, and didn’t attempt to stop him when he climbed over the low chain fence and crossed the lawn. Maybe a little solitude and a chance to walk off his mood were what he needed in order to process everything and figure out a path forward. After he’d vanished from view, despite her wet clothing, Ginny headed back towards the studio. Ash might not want her to interfere, but she wanted answers. Xane still hadn’t returned. Chances were, he was busy working off his anger with Dani and Luthor somewhere, and that could take a while. Spook opened the door to the sound booth in order to talk to her.

“Ash isn’t with you?”

She shook her head.

“What happened to you?” He inclined his head towards her dripping wet figure, then went into the little kitchen area at the back and returned with a hand towel.

“I thought an impromptu swim might help Ash to cool off.”

He smirked despite his grim demeanour. “Did it?”

“Ish. He wants some alone time.”

“Need a hug?” Spook asked, having instantly grasped the nuts and bolts of the situation.

Ginny waved him away. “I’ll just get you wet.”

Spook swaddled her in an embrace. “Better?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, resting her head against his shoulder. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on, Spook? Ash says you’re all off to Australia without him. Is that true?”

Spook led her over to the leather sofa in the main studio space. He made sure she was sitting comfortably, while he stayed on his feet. “It is.”

“Why?”

“For the same reason Xane and I have been pulling all-nighters for the last week.” He busied himself righting the toppled furniture, and returning discarded instruments to their rightful places.

They’d been pulling… Now that she looked closely at him, Spook definitely looked grey around the eyes, and the weary set of his jaw couldn’t entirely be attributed to the recent spat.

“You are trying to cut him out.”

“No.” He spun towards her quickly. “No. We’re just trying to get things done. We’re already way behind schedule. We were supposed to have the album recorded by now, not still be working on composing the tracks. Several of the people we had booked to work with us, we’ve had to cancel, because they’re booked solid with no wiggle room and we missed our deadlines. I’m not blaming Ash exclusively for that, but his current attitude really isn’t helping matters.”

She understood that. Absolutely, she did. “I don’t understand why that makes it necessary to cut him out of this promo thing.”

“It wasn’t exactly our decision. The suits at the label aren’t happy.”

“Do they want you to fire him?”

Spook paced, the soles of his baseball boots making soft whispers as he wore grooves in the carpet.

“You have to understand that none of us want that, but the aggression we’re seeing is making things really difficult. Ginny, I want him to stay involved. I want to hear him playing on this album and to be with us when we hit the road again, but in order for that to happen he has to be able to play. Have you heard him practise? ’Cause I haven’t.”

She bowed her head. She hadn’t, and Ash had more or less confessed to not doing anything to strengthen his fingers.

Spook’s tired gaze locked on hers. “That’s what I thought. Ginny, unless he does something really soon, he’s not going to play again. He has to stop mooching around, petting his guitar like there’s a healing genie inside it and knuckle down to some intensive practice, or he’s going to leave us with no alternative but to replace him. Let me make this clear, none of us want to replace him, but pushing the tour dates back again isn’t an option.”

“December is still a couple of months away.”

“Yes, but we need to make a decision on the line-up by mid-October. If Ash isn’t fit and well by then, we’ll have to put a contingency plan into place.”

“Meaning you’ll bring in someone else?”

His anguish wore grooves into his face. “We’re already down a keyboard player. We can’t tour without a lead guitarist.”

“Can’t Xane—”

“Xane can only do so much. I’m sure he’ll willingly double up for some of the set, if say Ash needed to ease himself back in slowly, but he can’t sing and play lead for the whole show. It’s too much. And he hates playing guitar on stage.”

God—did Ash know all of this. He had to, but then what did that say about his state of mind, that it apparently hadn’t sunk in? Actually, she wasn’t sure how much of anything had sunk in since his visit to Dr. Noren back in July.

“He’s frustrated, Spook. I think he’s having trouble coming to terms with what happened. He considered Iain to be his friend.”

Spook finally came over and sat beside her. “You don’t have to explain it to me, Ginny. I get it. I realise how chewed up he is, but he won’t consider counselling, he won’t do his exercises, he won’t even attempt to play guitar. None of that bodes well for him making a recovery.”

And he’s not taking his meds, she added silently.

“What’s that?”

Ginny shivered. Apparently, her thoughts were too loud, or Spook was psychic. “Do you have any ideas?”

“I’ve tried every damn thing I can think of to incentivise him. We all have. I don’t know what’s left to try. Maybe he needs the dosages of his medicines adjusting.”

Ginny covered her mouth. The guys still didn’t know. “Yeah, maybe,” she murmured, turning away and making a show out of pulling her wet dress away from her skin. Spook didn’t miss a thing. She was pretty certain he was looking at her now with those knowing eyes of his, slotting pieces of a puzzle together in his head. She hadn’t a clue whether he’d be furious or not.

“You know, you’d dry a lot quicker if you just took the wet things off,” he said surprising her with the change of topic.

“Yeah, but that would involve me having this conversation naked.”

Ginny snatched a look at him over her shoulder. “Are you trying to get me naked, Mr. Mortensen?”

“Pfft! It’s not as if I haven’t seen it all before. Lose the dress, Ginny. I’m not enjoying watching you shiver, or listening to your teeth chatter. I’m sure there’s a T-shirt or something around here you can put on. There’s Black Halo everything else.”

He made a sweep of the place, but returned empty-handed, while Ginny was shivering in her undies. “Here.” He stripped off his own tee and gave it to her.

Ginny gratefully pulled the warm cotton over her head. It smelled of him. Spook was a good bit taller than her, so the shirt fell to mid-thigh level.

“If Ash saw us now, he’d flip.”

Spook reeled back on his heels. “Seriously?”

More serious than she’d like. She hung her dress over the top of one of the stools. “He gets ideas stuck in his head sometimes. One of those is about us.”

Spook gave a scoffing little laugh that turned into a belly-aching howl when she assured him she was deadly serious. “He’s brought it up several times.”

Spook fell back onto the sofa. “That’s a good joke. Seriously, he’s worried about us? You’re living under the same roof as a sex addict and a man mountain who hasn’t got laid in weeks and he’s worried about us being intimate. Did he forget who I am?”

“I guess he figures that Luthor and Dani are keeping Xane busy, and Rock Giant hasn’t actually been around all that much.”

“Ginny, has Ash actually accused us of something?”

“Not outright.”

“He’s off his rocker.”

Yeah, yeah, he was, and it seemed it was down to her to change that. Ginny sucked her lower lip. She needed a plan, something a little outside the box, something that would pry Ash out of his rut and get him focussed when all else had failed. Too bad she didn’t have a single idea.

Okay, so the biggest priority was getting him to play guitar. That meant she needed him to do the physiotherapy exercises. How could she make those more palatable to him?

The answer came to her surprisingly quickly. Ash had been advocating the idea himself when they’d first arrived here. She needed to encourage him to do things with his fingers he took pride and pleasure in.

“How soon do you fly?” she asked Spook.

“Thursday.”

“Thursday, as in the day after tomorrow, or next week?”

“This week.”

That didn’t give her a whole lot of time to come up with a workable action plan.

“Do you have any paper?”

“Got an idea?”

“Maybe.” She bit her lip.

“There’s pens and paper in the top drawer to the right of the door.” He pointed through the internal window to where he meant. “Use whatever you want. I’m going to take a nap as Xane’s not showing any signs of reappearing. If he turns up, would you let him know it’s fine to come and wake me.”

“Sure,” she muttered, no longer really focussed on the handsome blond. If she was going to ensure Ash retained his position as Black Halo’s lead guitarist, then she had some serious planning to do.