Xane refused to be riled. “She temporarily omitted some details of her background in order to avoid creating an issue. We’ve all done that.”
No—they really hadn’t.
“You know what? If you’re just going to sit and defend her, you can fuck right off.”
Xane shoved him with his booted foot. “I’m just saying that instead of wallowing you might like to think things through, and use some actual reasoning while you do it.”
“Why don’t you just fuck off like everybody else?”
Xane sighed again. He curled his fingers around the support beam above his head and settled his arse more comfortably. “That’s the thing, Ash. Unlike the ‘everybody else’ you keep referring to—” He made air quotes around his emphasis. “—Ginny didn’t abandon you. You sent her away. Otherwise, she’d still be here, and you’d both be planning your wedding.”
“She’s married, lugwit.”
Xane ignored the insult. “Do you ever consider that it might have been wise to talk things over with her properly before you flounced off? Ash, she didn’t tell you about Miles because their relationship was already over in her eyes, and she was terrified you’d react in exactly the way you did. Bravo for being predictable. Also, you were ill, and she thought you had enough to deal with.”
“I’ve never been so ill and fragile that I required the truth hiding from me.”
“Jeezus, Ash! We were all keeping things from you last summer. You were a bloody mess. Have you any concept of how close everything came to unravelling? Really, do you actually know how close it got? After Elspeth tried to end it, I wasn’t sure we could ever bounce back. We were all going through the motions because we didn’t know what the hell else to do, and even then the label and management were only a step away from cutting us adrift. Do you think we all wanted to jet off to Australia? We weren’t given a choice. It was a case of show willing or call it quits.”
“Great, so you were all lying to me. That makes me feel so much better.”
“Because we all cared enough to want to protect you, that’s why.”
This was unbelievable. There was no justification for lying. There really wasn’t
“Ash, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m going to say it anyway. That woman loves you. I know, because no one who didn’t love you with every ounce of their being would have stuck around and put up with all your crap post poisoning. Have you any idea how much of a friggin’ nightmare you were? Ash, there were times when I was ready to bray you around the head with your guitar and bury you six feet under. Ginny saved your arse, believe me. She probably deserves the credit for saving us as a band too. Like I just said, they were already sprinkling soil over our heads, and all you did was mope around and accuse everyone else of slacking off, while you failed to do a damn thing to try to get yourself back into shape. I don’t know what Ginny did to turn you around, but the transformation was astonishing. She saved us.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
Xane huffed. “Listen to yourself. It proves her absolute dedication to you. Ash, I’m telling you, that while she may have omitted to mention she was married, that woman never once lied about loving you. What’s more, she still loves you.”
“Lovers don’t lie to one another.”
“Lovers lie to each other all the time. The same as we lie to ourselves.” Xane scratched at his scalp in irritation. “Please, try to set your hurt aside for a second and listen to me. I’m not trying to belittle your disappointment. I know how deep that gash in your chest is. Ash, you’ve never been good at hiding your emotions, and you’re leaving goddamned arterial spray everywhere you wander at the minute. What I’m trying to explain is that you don’t have to be miserable if you don’t want to be. And if you don’t have to be, why would you choose to be miserable? What purpose does it serve?” He paused a moment and gave a sniff while a passing thought raised a brief smile. “Well, I suppose the band might get a few decent songs out of it, but I’ll trade our whole catalogue and future catalogue for the chance of you being happy instead.”
“Please, don’t give me that pseudo-scientific twaddle about people choosing to be happy. People don’t choose to be depressed.”
“In general, no. In this case, you absolutely can choose to attempt to mend things.”
A lone tear trickled over Ash’s cheek, and he quickly brushed it away, but another replaced it. His head and his heart were in two different places, he knew that. “She allowed me to believe things about her that simply weren’t true. The woman I fell in love with is a myth. She doesn’t exist.”
Xane sighed and bowed his head. “I think if you went looking, you’d find that she does.”
“Her name isn’t even Ginny Walters.”
“And mine’s not Xane Geist. There are plenty of people we deal with on a daily basis who don’t know that fact. Am I a big fat liar as I don’t set them straight? She’s Ginny as much as I’m Xane, and Spook is Spook. As much as you’re Ash Gore. We’re all composites of different parts of ourselves.”
“You don’t understand,” Ash sniffed, rubbing at the stream of tears he loathed spilling, but couldn’t seem to prevent from falling. “I told her everything… Everything, Xane. There’s nothing she doesn’t know about me.” He’d told Ginny more than he’d ever told anyone else about anything. He’d trusted her, opened his heart and let every goddamned thing pour out. “Connie. My birth mother. My brother taking off. Everything. She knew I’d stopped taking my medication when the rest of you didn’t. She knows everything, and I know nothing.”
Xane considered this for a moment with his eyes narrowed, and his chin pressed against the centre of his palm. “Us?” he asked.
“What?”
“You said everything. Did you tell her about us?”
Ash swallowed and nodded. “All of it.”
Xane’s eyes widened in genuine surprise. “You’ve never even spoken to Spook about that night. I know as he’s never attempted to rip my balls off for it. So, colour me stunned. I’m assuming it was an abridged version?”
