Page 6 of Love Thief

I look at him incredulously. “Why would I want to? It's six months, Xan. That’s all. We love our son, it’s all she wants.” My heart sinks as I say those words.

He’s staring at me intently. “Is that all you want?”

“It’s irrelevant. She doesn’t even want to actually sleep with me. She’s practically running the other way.” I grab the back of my neck rubbing at my hair. So fucking gutted.

He continues to look at me. “Have you spoken to her about France? What happened? How she made you feel.”

“Fuck off, no way. Why would I do that? So she can tell me I’m the world’s biggest douche? Remind her of how much she can’t trust me and hates me? No, staying clear of that one. Why? Have you?” I lock eyes with him.

He nods vigorously. “Yes. I told her how she made me feel, when I saw her with you. That I definitely wanted her, but I knew you wouldn’t want to share her. She doesn’t believe you didn’t want to. She needs to hear it from you.”

I look away from him, sighing, feeling my fate is already sealed. “She won’t believe it, Xan. She thinks I have no boundaries, that everyone is fair game, so it’s pointless. I’ll just be hanging myself out there for no reason. She’s fixed in her opinion of me.” I shrug, dejectedly, my stomach in knots.

“I don’t think she is. If you’d just tell her, Marcus, it might be different,” he pleads with me.

“I fucked it up, I know that. I wanted something—something I couldn’t have. And to be honest, on reflection, she was right. I would have regretted fucking her in front of everyone. Hell, anyone. But I can’t take it back. I can hope for friends, which is as much as she’ll give me, if I’m lucky.”

I drop my head back onto the seat headrest. Will I get a chance to make things right? I just need one.

Iload up my boys and a list of instructions that I chuck onto the back seat as soon as we’re out of shouting distance of the house. With Mick driving us back to London, we talk about music, festivals, and even their exams. The lads have a schedule from Evie to follow. Not sure how she’ll know they’re sticking to it, but James assures me she will. Bucky is trying the old line of ‘A level geography is no use in a band.’

“Irrelevant as breathing, Bucky, I reckon, if you don’t sit it.”

He rolls his eyes at it all. “I bet you don’t have any qualifications,” he tries to jab at me.

“Cheeky fucker, I do. I have a degree from Oxford in Classics. Unlike your mother—who’s reasonable and realistic—mine made me go to university. You’ve two, maybe three weeks max, and then you’re done. Knuckle down and shut up.”

Fuck me, I actually sound like a parent.

I’ve got a bit of a sweat on by the time we get back to the apartment, and it only gets worse over the next few days when they’re both looking at me to make decisions about food, and logistics for school runs. I look at Mick, who is pissing himself with laughter at my lack of decision making. I’m sure James is doing it on purpose, as the boys suddenly seem unable to make any decisions, and are constantly asking me to make them.

“Have you got any other answer than, ‘Ring your mother?’” he asks at one point. “Because, to be fair, you’re a bit shit at this Dad thing at the minute, not gonna lie.”

“Well, I’m off back to Devon to use the new studio and re-record some stuff tomorrow, so you can go stay at your uncles’. I’m sure food, showers, and clean clothes will all magically appear.”

I’m knackered by the time I dump them at the Greystone house. James is laughing at me as I shove all their gear at Jonno.

“Dad’s glad we’re eighteen. If we’d have been eight, he’d have died. Look after him, Mick,” he tells the man, who is still enjoying this way too much.

They see me off, with lots of smirking, back to Devon. I look out the back window in time to see James and Bucky high fiving and then rolling with laughter. “Fucking kids,” I chuckle to myself.

Jesus, back to tranquillity. It’ll be really late by the time I get there, but I don’t give a shit. It’s hard work dealing with teenagers. I need the peace and quiet of the countryside.

It fleetingly crosses my mind that it’s her I need, but I can’t go there. I just need to get back into the studio to work on my distractions.

Chapter

Three

EVIE

It’s there again! Who the hell is parking the most stupid car in England right in the middle of my tractor run?

We’ve been working for the past few days, since Kell took the boys back to London, in the fields around Farm Cottage. The idiots who’ve rented it keep parking a Ferrari, bright red and flashy as all hell, in my way. I asked them yesterday to move it and it took them all day to do it. Lo and behold, here we are again, a new day and it’s back. Well they can get it moved.

I sit in my totally amazing, and rather large, Lamborghini tractor. Everyone knows a Lambo is way better than a Ferrari. Maybe that’s why I’m being a bit of a pain about it.

But I need them to move it. The team from Greystone Farm are already on their way, and I’ve tractors coming through carrying all the fertilisers. Not to mention a really busy day of spraying crops. I don’t have all day to wait again.

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