were was far more deep-rooted than that. He could no longer work with these people. He didn’t want to be on the same continent as two of them. ‘Gig’s off.’ It wasn’t even a case of artistic differences. Those they could have worked out. This they’d never make right.
‘What the fuck!’ Jan ‘Spook’ Mortensen, who rarely muttered more than five sentences a week, launched into a string of Swedish expletives. Curiously, the dozen or so Swedish words that Xane knew.
‘You know he has a point, Xane.’ Ash tried to lead him off into a corner for a quiet chat, but the rest of the group followed. ‘There’s a stadium full of mad bastards out there. Do you really want to tell them the show’s over? They’re not going to slope off quietly to their homes and hotel rooms.’
He understood that. They’d come for a piece of him, and they’d insist on getting it. He, however, was damn sure they weren’t getting any more of him tonight, regardless of how many people insisted on staring at him as though he’d grown an extra head.
‘Xane, it’ll cost us millions.’
Hardly. This was one gig, and there was only one other date left on the tour. It might piss off a few people, but they’d get over it. Bands sometimes had to cancel shows at short notice. It happened. It rarely crippled anyone.
The guys parted to let Elspeth float to the fore. She looked as insubstantial as a wraith, but she had a banshee’s backbone and a scold’s tongue. Her lips were slicked red, and curved into a perfect pout around two sets of vampire fangs.
Xane’s hackles rose the moment her jasmine perfume wafted to his nostrils. He refused to look at her, focusing instead on the top of her head. She and Spook were the only blondes in the band, but Spook’s white-blond mane didn’t come out of a bottle. Elspeth was showing a quarter-inch of mousy brown roots.
When she curled her hand over his arm, he mentally pulled himself inwards. Xane stared at her black polished nails and fought the urge to physically recoil too.
‘Look, honey, I know you’re upset, but for crap’s sake think about this. You’re not just going to shaft us over this gig if you walk out. The press will hammer us into an early grave. We’ll all lose out. All of us.’
The problem was that ‘all’ didn’t seem to include him in any capacity other than as a cash cow. He knew for a fact that she didn’t give a damn about him as a person. She’d proved that resoundingly, five minutes before they’d walked out on stage.
‘Black Halo’s dead.’
He hadn’t planned to say it, to make it so final, but as soon as the words were spoken he knew it was the right decision. They were over in their current format anyway, because he couldn’t continue to work with either her or Steve. This was his band. Without him, Black Halo were nothing. He was their lyricist, their main composer, the motivating force behind it all. Their whole image had been created by him. Without his drive, nothing would ever happen. Maybe now they’d start to appreciate that.
Despite his bitterness, the shock reflected in their eyes gave him a moment’s pause, but only until he realised that the relief the announcement brought him had given his foul mood a strange little upswing. Oh, yeah, screeched the bit inside him that hurt. Chew on that, lady.
When he jerked away from Elspeth’s grasp, to his relief she didn’t attempt to touch him again.
‘No,’ Rock Giant groaned. ‘We are not done over a fucking lovers’ tiff.’ He stared at them as if he expected them to lay aside their quarrel and to kiss and make up.
It wasn’t happening.
Rock Giant held his head in his hands, which crushed several of the deranged spikes he’d moulded his hair into. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this, Xane. The band’s more important than one individual relationship within it. Seriously, you’re throwing in the towel because she’s not warming your bed any more?’
‘Paul’s right, Xane. You’re acting way out of proportion.’ Graham Callahan, the band’s manager, had arrived, his twenty-stone frame squeezed into a corporate suit.
He was not overreacting. This wasn’t only about him and Elspeth. It was about him and Steve, and the rest of the band too, and all their shitty attitudes, which were apparently about to see another airing.
‘You need to get back on stage.’
Not bloody likely. Xane gave a swift shake of his head.
Several of the roadies formed up around him like a squad of Marines. As if marching him back onto the stage was going to achieve anything.
‘Seriously, I’m done.’
‘Xane.’
‘Really, Graham.’
Would it have hurt any of them to ask him if he was OK? It wasn’t as if they hadn’t figured out the basics of what was going on. But no, all they were concerned about was what was best for them and their wallets.
Graham raised his hand. ‘OK, let’s talk.’
He didn’t fucking want to talk. He didn’t want to explain. He just wanted out. If any of them actually wanted to know what had caused this rift then they could yap amongst themselves and figure it out. That’s if the platinum band next to the ruddy enormous diamond on Elspeth’s finger didn’t clue them in.
He wasn’t the one responsible for this. He was just the shmuck who’d been taken for granted and then unceremoniously dumped by someone he’d loved and trusted.
It was probably a good thing there were no windows backstage, because he felt like punching glass.
‘Xane, I’m sorry,’ Steve mumbled at him as Xane shouldered his way towards the greenroom. He wasn’t sticking around for a debate, and he sure as hell wasn’t singing, even if they dragged him back on stage trussed up like a Christmas turkey.
Right now, he couldn’t sing. He was too fucking choked with anger.
Steve tailed him as far as the water fountain. ‘You know it wasn’t our intention to hurt you. It doesn’t have to change things between us. It can still be like before, if you want.’
If he wanted. Nice of Steve to think of him at last. Except, of course, it was bollocks. No way could things be the same. Marriage changed things irrevocably. It involved commitment. It imposed limits. It stank of exclusivity. And Steve and Elspeth were hitched.
‘We’re for ever, man.’ Steve lifted his hand as though he intended them to brush knuckles. Instead, Xane snapped the chain he wore around his neck and dumped the contents into the callused hands of his drummer.
‘Not any more. I don’t want to see either of you again.’
Steve’s brow furrowed. ‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Weren’t you listening?’ God, it hurt his throat to speak. ‘The band’s done.’
Steve stroked his hand over his chin and his devilish goatee. ‘I didn’t think you actually meant it.’
‘We’re done.’ Xane repeated to emphasise the point.
Steve crossed his arms over his chest. ‘What would you have us do, Xane? I love her. You know I do. Was I supposed to turn her down?’
Xane’s eyes narrowed. The sting in his nose had become almost intolerable. It made him physically ill to look at this man who had been his closest friend for years. ‘Did you think for a second how I’d feel?’
Steve stretched out his arm, but Xane stepped back out of reach to avoid the contact, leaving his former friend shaking his head.
‘I’m sorry it’s happened this way. I really am. It’s not how I wanted it. I thought we were good, Xane. I thought you understood. I hope when you’ve calmed down we can –’
‘Fuck off!’ Xane snarled, tightening his fists. ‘Seriously,