So much blood poured from Luthor’s nose that Dani was convinced it was broken. Despite the ice-pack she had clamped across the bridge, bruising was already appearing around his pretty eyes. The right eyelid was swollen in the corner, and the whites of both eyes were bright pink. They were in the bathroom, perched on the edge of the bathtub. A large red-brown stain marked the front of Luthor’s sadly not black T-shirt, and she’d fastened his long hair back off his face in a sort of topknot.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to go to the accident unit?’ she asked, thinking of Steve Matlock. She’d only known Black Halo’s original drummer for a couple of minutes, and unfortunately her abiding memory of him was of him clasping his nose trying to stem the torrent of blood that was gushing from it. The poor guy had passed away not long after. Dani had no desire to see Luthor suffer a similar fate. ‘I’m sure Spook would take you, or one of the guards that came over with Elspeth.’
‘Spook’s busy, and he already sent the security guards back to Mariefred with that Malachi bloke. I’m all right, Dani. It’s not like I’ve never been punched before. I’ll be fine. In any case, I’d rather stick around in case Xane needs us. I think once the business is done next door he might like a cuddle.’
Xane was holed up in the bedroom with Ash and Spook. The three of them were currently holding a conference call with Graham Callahan, who was back in England.
‘How long do you think they’re going to be? They seem to have been talking for ages. And what do you think Rock Giant and Elspeth are doing?’
‘How about you ask one question at a time? I expect it’s taking a while because it’s not as easy as just firing her. It’s not like with Iain. Elspeth’s been part of the Black Halo lineup since they were first signed. There are probably legal knots to unravel, and possibly there’ll be a severance settlement of some description to agree. As for where she and Rock Giant currently are, my guess is the Little House, out of the way of everyone else.’
‘It doesn’t seem right to me that they should have to compensate her for being a bitch.’ She shook her head. ‘Will Rock Giant leave too?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I’m just hoping there’s still a band to belong to by tomorrow morning.’ He nudged her hands aside and took hold of the ice-pack. ‘The bleeding seems to have finally stopped. Let me go and assess the damage.’ He crossed to the sink, rinsed out the flannel and gave his face a wipe before squinting at his reflection in the mirror.
‘You’re still beautiful,’ Dani called, hoping it might make him feel better.
Nevertheless, his squint turned into a grimace. ‘Urgh! I don’t think I’m going to be entering any beauty pageants for a while.’ He had two black eyes and a bloodied nose, and a split lip from the first punch Rock Giant had thrown, back during the ruckus in the woods. ‘I ought to have demanded danger money as part of my contract.’
‘Maybe Rock Giant’s jealous of your looks.’
‘Don’t think so.’ He turned his head so he could review one profile followed by the other. ‘I’m just an easy target.’ He turned away from the mirror and smiled at her. ‘Was that your way of saying you like how I look?’
Dani laughed. ‘You have some pleasing aspects. Though not so much at the minute.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, chuckling along with her, until it made him wince. He pinched the bridge of his nose again. ‘Ow!’ He stuck out his bottom lip.
‘Oh, dear. Do you need me to kiss it better?’ Dani offered.
‘Yes, actually. It stings.’
‘Come here then and bend down. Why are all the men in this band so tall?’
Luthor settled before her, softening the pressure on his knees with the aid of the bathmat. Dani gently cupped his face. She kissed the space between his eyebrows first, then the most swollen part of his nose, followed by one eyelid then the other and finally the split in his lip. ‘There, all better.’
‘Mmm, nice.’ He smiled at her, eyes still closed, and face tilted towards her. ‘Can I get another?’
‘I’ve covered all the sore bits.’
He opened his eyes then. Damn, he had pretty eyes. Even bloodshot and bruised they were bright and engaging and full of warmth.
‘You think? My heart’s sore,’ he claimed, and drew an X over his breastbone. ‘Dani doesn’t love me. She only loves Xane.’
Dani’s heart did a sort of hiccup. ‘Xane’s my boyfriend.’
Luthor clasped her hand and leaned forward so their heads were more on a level. ‘I could be your other boyfriend.’
‘Isn’t it enough to be my boyfriend’s boyfriend?’
‘You already know the answer to that. We could have a lot of fun together, Dani.’
‘Yeah.’ The problem wasn’t so much that she was against that idea any more, but that she wasn’t brave enough to face his questions.
Luthor reached up and stroked his fingers through the front of her hair. ‘Do we need to talk over what happened last night again?’
‘It feels like that happened aeons ago. I’ve let Xane off the hook. I can hardly go on holding a grudge against you. Not when he was the instigator. It’s not an issue now. I told Xane it was all right. I didn’t need to be around for you two to have sex. It was a kind of unrealistic expectation anyway. I thought it’d make things easier. That if I insisted you couldn’t do anything, I wouldn’t have to worry so much about you sneaking him away from me. I know now that’s not what you’re trying to do. It didn’t work anyway. I spent all my time wondering if you were doing things behind my back.’
‘There hasn’t been a whole lot of time for us to do anything in.’
‘Have you today?’ she asked. ‘While I was asleep?’
‘No, Dani. Xane doesn’t actually have limitless stamina, believe it or not. We hung out, talked a bit, jammed in the studio with Spook and then sat in the sauna keeping Ash company. Ginny decided he should try and sweat out whatever toxins are still inside him. Sadly, I don’t think toxins are the problem any more.’
‘There’s a sauna?’
‘This is Sweden. Of course there’s a sauna. I’d offer to show you, but I know there’s no chance of getting you in it.’
She turned away from his scrutiny. She couldn’t. ‘I don’t think I’d like being that hot.’
‘You could sweat all your impure thoughts out.’
She mock-punched him in the shoulder. ‘Don’t you want me to hang on to those, considering what you and Xane want me to agree to?’
‘What’s that?’ A distinct twinkle lit inside his eyes.
‘Sex with both of you at once.’
Luthor gave a deep purring sigh. ‘I can’t deny I’m on board with that idea. I reckon you would be too after the first thirty seconds. Not that I’m pushing for any such thing. I’d be good with the occasional touch.’ He rose to his feet and gave his nose another once-over in the mirror. ‘I can see why you’d not be tempted at the moment. I’m going to look as if I’m wearing a Zorro mask by tomorrow.’
‘At least Zorro’s cool.’
He grabbed hold of a towel – a fluffy black one – and held it around his shoulders like a cape, while striking a heroic pose. He brandished a toothbrush as a sword. ‘What do you think?’
Damn him. He made her laugh at a time when the world felt horribly serious. ‘You look ridiculous. In any case, Zorro wears all black and has a cute little moustache.’
He grabbed an eyeliner pencil from the massive array of toiletries Spook owned, and drew a curly line above his top lip. ‘There.’
Dani bent double with laughter. ‘You’re crazy.’
‘Hmpf!’ He rubbed the line away with his thumb and discarded his cloak. Then he poked at his cheekbones while looking in the mirror, and explored the cut in his lip with his tongue.
‘Luthor, do you not think it’s weird that we’re both in love with the same man and sharing him?’ Dani asked, after a minute or so of silence had passed.
‘No.’ He pulled off his bloodstained shirt and dropped it on the floor beside the towel. ‘There are plenty of polyamorous people in the world. Just because convention dictates we should adhere to one man, one woman partnerships, doesn’t mean that’s right for everyone, or even the most sensible choice.’
‘I guess,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. She still found the concept alien. It was the antithesis of everything she’d ever been taught. Homosexuality in any form was a sin, according to the Sisterhood of St Agatha. Then again, so was sex in any form. Intercourse was only to be endured with procreation in mind, and never to be actually enjoyed. Enjoying it made you a whore, and bought you a one-way ticket to hell, where you’d have to burn in Satan’s fiery pits for eternity. The thought released a memory of her younger self stuck in one of the endless sermons on decorum she’d had to endure, praying that Satan looked a lot like Xane Geist. ‘I’d never met anyone who practised anything like an alternative lifestyle before I met Xane.’
‘Does Ginny not count?’ he asked.
‘She slept around a bit. That’s hardly the same. It’s funny. She always said she didn’t want a serious relationship because they were too much trouble. Now look at her. She’s giddy about Ash.’
Luthor had toed off his shoes and dropped his shorts. He paused, thumbs tucked under the band of his underwear, head tilted in contemplation. ‘Sometimes, you’re just waiting for the right soul to come along.’ He smiled dreamily, then shook himself and slipped off his briefs.
‘What are you doing?’ Dani squeaked, realising he was now naked.
‘Getting undressed. I’m going to take a shower, and wash all this muck off.’ The blood from his nose had soaked through his T-shirt and dried on the skin of his chest. There were smears of it around his jaw still too, nor had he quite removed the eyeliner from above his lip. ‘I don’t know about you, but I normally do that naked.’ He turned around, treating her to a glorious view of his arse.
Damn, he was nicely made.
Then he stepped inside the glass-walled cubicle and turned on the water jets. ‘Want to get in and wash my back?’
Yeah, she totally would. If she wasn’t the biggest scaredy-cat in the history of the universe, and most likely without any good reason. It wasn’t as if Xane had freaked over the sight of her marks. He hadn’t declared her hideous, and she had no reason to suppose Luthor would either. She’d have covered her scars up if she’d had the means, but the camouflage makeup she’d owned had long since run out and she hadn’t bothered to replace it. Maybe that in itself ought to tell her something. She had nothing to be ashamed of, and it wasn’t as if she needed to explain their history in detail.
‘Shall I leave you to it and see if they’re done in the bedroom, so I can find you something clean to wear?’ She really was a coward. ‘I’m sure Xane won’t mind loaning you something.’ She couldn’t get to Luthor’s stuff as it was in the Little House, along with Rock Giant and Elspeth.
‘No need. I can wear a towel.’
He was as bad as Xane in not caring who he was flashing.
‘Stay and keep an eye on me, in case I suddenly pass out.’
And end up like Steve Matlock. Good point. She’d never forgive herself if that happened. ‘It feels vaguely pornographic watching you shower.’
He briefly stuck his head out of the cubicle. ‘I can make it totally pornographic if you like.’