Now-I’m-just-screwed … completely-fucking-screwed.’ He darted for the stairs with Spook still on his tail. Xane caught the back of Spook’s shirt, dragging him to a sudden halt.
‘Let him go. It’ll do him good to yell at the universe.’
‘You can do a lap of this island in less than five minutes. What happens when he’s done two and he still can’t deal with shit? Last thing any of us need is him taking a dip in the lake. I’m not going to interfere, if he needs to let rip. I’m just going to make sure he doesn’t do himself any additional damage.’
Xane let him go. Rock Giant followed Spook down the stairs, leaving Luthor and Xane alone.
‘Sorry,’ Luthor apologised. ‘I should have just kept my mouth shut.’
‘Maybe,’ Xane responded, still facing the stairs. He turned as Luthor emerged from behind the drumkit. ‘We ought to have realised it was too early to have him in the studio. I just … He seemed OK when I was talking to him on the way over here. Sure, he’s still a bit ashen, but the slur was gone and he seemed glad to be back in the land of the living.’
As he hadn’t heard Ash speak more than a couple of simple phrases before he’d started ranting, Luthor didn’t feel qualified to comment, but Xane clearly needed some kind of reassurance that his friend was going to be fine. ‘He only started slurring once he got upset. Maybe it’s the stress that made him relapse?’
Xane chewed the notion over, while agitating the ring piercing in his lower lip. ‘No,’ he eventually concluded. ‘He was just working really hard to make sure he pronounced everything carefully before. I should have realised. Fucking Willows! Prison’s too good for him. He deserves a battering with a baseball bat, preferably one with six-inch rusty nails hammered through it.’
‘Pounding him into snot won’t make Ash better.’
‘It’d make me feel fucking good though, like I was doing something, instead of having to just sit and watch Ash suffer.’
‘He’ll get better, Xane.’ Luthor gently laid his hand upon the other man’s shoulder.
‘Will he? He’s right, you know. We’ve no contingencies in place if he doesn’t.’
‘It’ll come right. It will. Stop worrying about it. If you all get too focused on his recovery then you’re going to make things harder for him. Expectation can be a real bugger. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t need any more pressure on him than he’s putting on himself.’
‘Yeah … yeah.’ Xane sighed. ‘You’re right.’ He brushed a hand through the front of his long hair. ‘We’ll keep clear of the studio for a few days, and then Spook and I can sit down together and talk lyrics and such. There’s no need for us all to be in here until we have some actual tracks to fine-tune.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
He was still squeezing Xane’s shoulder, and the other man seemed to notice that. Xane looked at Luthor’s hand and then up at his face.
‘So, how were you envisaging filling the next few days?’ Luthor asked.
Xane gently brushed away his hold. ‘I need to keep Dani happy, Luthor. She got upset about earlier.’
‘Is that why I got sanctioned and sent to live in the chicken coop?’
Xane smiled at the description. ‘I don’t think so. She didn’t have anything to do with the arrangements. Spook might have stuck you out there as a tactic for maintaining the peace. He’s concerned about how our relationship is going to impact the band.’
‘Are you?’
‘I think Black Halo have bigger problems to worry about. Not just Ash.’
‘You mean the fact that Elspeth didn’t show.’
‘It’s not like her to bail without giving a specific reason. Elspeth might be a bitchy pain in the arse, but she’s not flaky. But I guess she can explain herself at my party, if she shows.’
Luthor nodded. He didn’t really want to dwell on Elspeth. Whenever he’d interacted with her, she’d been an outright cow.
‘What did Dani actually say about us?’ he asked, turning the thrust of the conversation back to their relationship.
‘She just reminded me that we’d agreed not to make out when she wasn’t around to grant her consent or witness it.’
‘Exchanging one kiss is hardly the same as making out.’
‘To her it is.’
Well, that was going to make things awkward very quickly. It was bad enough that they had to get her to green-light the possibility of them getting physical, without her ruling out even minor exchanges of affection. Luthor loved her to bits as both a friend and someone he’d like to be far more than that to, but expecting him and Xane to conduct a non-physical relationship was not only bollocks, it was setting them up to fail, and he could just imagine how she’d react to that.
‘There’s no way this is going to work.’ It was akin to her saying they could love one another, but only on Tuesdays, and if it was a full moon. ‘Maybe you haven’t realised it yet, but all that’s going to happen is we’re both going to end up frustrated.’
Actually, he was frustrated already. Having spent the last three weeks surviving on fantasies about what his reunion with this man would entail, Luthor wanted Xane in his bed with the desperation of a drunk shaking the last drop from a bottle of vodka. Xane remained the one man whose presence knotted him up in a truly delicious way, who raised his pulse and made his whole body hum with arousal. He’d had sex with other men, and plenty of women, but none of those times had felt nearly as right as either of the occasions on which he and Xane had made love.
‘We agreed to her terms, Luthor.’
‘Terms that seem to keep on changing.’
Xane touched his face, but the caress wasn’t enough to even begin to soothe his sudden irritation.
‘So you’re not up for christening one of these sofas, then?’
Xane swiftly withdrew his hand and shook his head, making the long strands of his hair sway. ‘Not funny.’
‘It wasn’t a joke. I want you, and there’s no one around right now for us to disturb, and it’s not like we can save it until we’re alone in our room because we don’t have a room. You and Dani have a room, and I have a berth in a shed that I have to share with Rock Giant, who appears to have decided I’m the new punch bag.’
‘Luthor, I’m not going to go back on my word.’
Luthor grasped the decorative belt that was looped obliquely around Xane’s hips, and jerked him forward so there was barely an inch of space between them. ‘I never asked you to. You’ve a mobile phone, don’t you? Call her. Ask her permission.’
‘That’s not such a good plan.’
‘Isn’t it?’
The man wanted him. Desire burned in the black hearts of Xane’s surprisingly contact-lens-free eyes. His muscles were tensed, but tellingly, despite his protest, Xane didn’t attempt to widen the gap between them, or dislodge Luthor’s hold on his belt.
‘Why isn’t it, Xane? You’re not going to be asking for anything she didn’t agree to, and if she feels the need to watch, then she has only to sprint across the grass and she can drink down her fill of us.’
‘Don’t press me to do this.’
The way Xane was staring at his mouth almost moved him to throw caution and promises to the wind and kiss him as if his life depended on it. Xane Geist wanted him. And being wanted by him … it was something. More than a few people had fainted over the mere possibility of catching this man’s attention.
‘You don’t want this? You’re not interested