The first train to Karlstad wasn’t for another two hours. Ash bought the tickets, and then they had the pick of the benches in the old station’s vast, echoing central plaza. The café wasn’t open yet, nor was anywhere else, so they couldn’t grab a couple of mega-coffees to ward off the cold. Ash snuggled Ginny inside his leather jacket. He realised it wasn’t exactly cosy, but it was something, and she kind of looked sweet in it.
‘I’m wishing I hadn’t drunk quite so much vodka earlier,’ he muttered, as he stretched out along their chosen wooden bench and rested his head in her lap. ‘Remind me to drink a shitload of water before I go to sleep or I’m going to be good for nothing again tomorrow, and I’m going to need to be able to think straight.’
She didn’t quibble with him over the change of date. He operated on the principle that time stopped at two o’clock, and after that it wasn’t the next day until you’d had some kip. The fact that the first fingers of sunlight were creeping over the glass arch above their heads was irrelevant.
‘Can I ask you something?’ She enquired a short while later, as she stroked the long strands of dark hair back from his face and explored the stubble that was starting to work its way through the skin over his jaw and upper lip. ‘What made you believe me? And what makes you so certain that Iain was the one to spike me, not just take advantage?’
He sighed, raised a hand and skimmed it through his black hair. ‘A couple of things, I guess. A horrid sense of déjà vu being one of them.’
‘You mean he’s done this before?’
‘Spiked someone? Not that I’m aware of, but I guess I wouldn’t put it past him. No, I meant tried to destroy my life. I just didn’t see it, or didn’t want to admit it, at the time.’
She rested a hand on the flat of his stomach as he spoke. Ginny seemed to have a thing about his abs, exploring their contours and laying her hand flat against the hard muscle there. She went so far as to wriggle her palm under his T-shirt. ‘Explain.’
Ash licked his dry lips. ‘Connie,’ he said so quietly she probably had to strain to hear him. Dredging up those memories still punched holes in his heart.
Ginny shifted her bottom uncomfortably. ‘Your ex,’ she said. ‘Did Iain try it on with her too?’
Ash crunched into a sitting position, unable to discuss this lying down. He swung his legs and planted his feet on the ground so that he was facing the tracks. Ginny scrambled over and sat astride his lap. She jogged up his chin when he refused to make eye contact.
‘I don’t know what he did, just that he did something. There’s no other sensible reason why it went so horribly wrong. The two of them never exactly got on. Iain wanted me to be one hundred per cent dedicated to the band we were part of back then, and Connie wanted a life beyond watching me put calluses on my fingertips.’
Ginny caught hold of his hand and rubbed her fingertips over the hard ridges she found there, then lifted them to her lips and kissed each one.
‘It was serious, Ginny. I told you, I proposed and she turned me down and ended our relationship there and then with some garbled explanation that never made sense.’ He grasped Ginny’s hand tight. ‘It wasn’t as if I’d sprung it on her out of the blue. We were settled, we had plans, we were fully committed.’
‘Your houseful of books and children. I remember.’ He’d told her that back in Antwerp. ‘So why do you think now that Iain was involved in her change of heart?’
‘I don’t know. Just little things I can’t pinpoint. Some things she said when she broke it off that I never really understood, and I was too bowled over to unravel at the time. And other stuff, like how he acted as if it was no big deal we’d broken up, yet he knew how besotted I was with her. Hell, he was with me when I bought the ring.’
‘That’s just evidence of him being a narcissistic wanker, not proof that he had a hand in it.’
‘I know.’ He scratched the back of his head. ‘As I said, it’s all instinct, not concrete evidence.’
Ginny gently cupped his face and kissed both his cheeks before seeking his mouth and teasing his lower lip. He kissed her back, sliding his arms inside the leather jacket to embrace her and pull her closer, needing the reassurance of her presence and the more solid contact.
‘Is the breakup what led to you meeting Spook?’ she asked, when a whistle from a passing drunk pulled them apart.
‘Yeah. I ended up hooked on depression meds.’ She was learning all his secrets tonight. ‘The campus doctor used to dish them out like Smarties. They switched off my brain but did fuck-all for my heart. Took a while to realise I was better off without them.’
‘Let me guess. Spook helped get you clean after he talked you off that bridge?’
‘You’ve an unreasonably high opinion of him, you know,’ he said, smoothing a stray wisp of her hair behind her ear. ‘Actually, it was the Liddell boys that got me clean.’
Ginny frowned at him, obviously not knowing who he meant.
‘Xane and his cousin Ric,’ he explained. ‘I’m not sure their methods were really of benefit long term, but I guess they achieved the required goal.’
‘Xane’s responsible for you substituting pill-popping for sex?’
‘That’s not quite how it was … I don’t know … I guess.’
‘I’m guessing cousin Ric is another total floozy, then,’ she said.
The description startled yet another laugh from him. Oh, dear, exhaustion was setting in. Next thing he’d be rolling around hysterical because she’d belched or something.
‘Is he as hot as Xane?’
‘I guess. They have certain similarities. Your mate Dani’s met him, maybe you should ask her. I don’t make a point checking out guys.’
‘If we all end up together in the same place again, I will.’ She gave him a penetrating stare, right into the centres of his eyes, getting him to focus and sober up. ‘I still don’t understand why Iain would want to destroy your happiness. I mean, you’ve given him a huge break. He’s drumming for a band at the top of their game, and it’s thanks to you.’
‘But it’s not his band, Ginny. He’s not the top dog, and his position is far from secure.’
‘If he was nicer it might have been.’
‘It’s not what he wants.’ He slashed the air with his hand. ‘Iain would rather see Black Halo fail. He’s got it into his head that I’m the key to his success and that he can only achieve what he wants if I’m fully committed. The only way to ensure that is to break up the band. We’re already shaky, it wouldn’t take much, and if Xane flipped and went AWOL for any reason, that would be it. As for why he’d try to break us up: simple, you’re an unacceptable distraction, the same as Connie was.’
‘I won’t let Iain scare me away. I won’t let him take you from me either.’
‘I keep seeing his hands all over you,’ he confessed.
Ginny grabbed his hands and placed them against her body. ‘Then chase him off. Put your mark all over me.’
‘I might get us arrested if I do that here.’
‘Danger Mouse would do it,’ she coaxed.
‘Danger Mouse never had sex.’
‘Not on screen, maybe. Wasn’t he based on James Bond? I bet he was at it constantly when he wasn’t being watched.’ She leaned in and teased the line of studs in his ear. ‘Ash, we’re not being watched.’