Page 31 of The First Chord

“No, I’m going to have a bath.”

“You said you’d wait so we could… you know.”

The way Beau pouted like a little kid made me burst out laughing. He was so bloody soppy over her it was ridiculous. Simone’s face on the other was flushed red with embarrassment.

“Beau!”

“What? Ronnie knows that we have sex, Sim.”

“I didn’t know that you liked to share a bath, though.”

Beau glared at me. “Shut the fuck up. You’re making it worse.”

Simone rolled her eyes. “I’m going for a bath. Ronnie, do you want to stay for dinner?”

Normally I’d have jumped at the chance, but…

“He’s got his new girlfriend waiting for him,” Beau responded, smirking. “Plus, we were supposed to be having a romantic meal for two, seeing as Ethan crashed early.”

“How is Amber?” Simone asked, ignoring Beau’s sulking. “I always did think Jimmy was awful.”

“She’ll be fine. Thanks for asking.”

Shewouldbe fine, I’d make sure of it.

Once Simone left the room, Beau turned back to me and raised his eyebrows in question.

“What?”

“The press? What are you going to do about the press when they find out Amber is staying with you?”

The thought didn’t faze me, which was odd because I was a worrier. Consequences would be my favourite game if it wasn’t for Lego, if that really counted as a game. It needed a high level of concentration and a huge amount of talent. You couldn’t stick any old bricks together, you know.

The point being, every single thing that I or anyone I knew did, often kept me awake at night. If the guys argued, I worried that we were going to split up. When Beau’s wife Cassie died, I was petrified he was going to kill himself. Joey on drugs scared me to the point that I could barely eat. Yet the thing with Amber, her leaving her husband and staying with me, didn’t worry me one little bit. The part where he’d hurt her did, but not the fact that I’d left her cross-legged on my sofa searching for flats that I would no doubt talk her out of renting.

“If the press get wind of it, Ali will deal with it. We’ve already talked about what we’ll say. I mean, I don’t give a shit, but Amber might, so Ali agreed we should say Amber is a friend of the band and needed a place to stay. As the band member with the most room, it was obvious that she should stay at mine while we are on tour. Let’s face it,” I said with a shrug, “who’d want to stay at Joey’s stinking man pad of an apartment. You’ve seen how he leaves his dirty undies lying about.”

“It’s a bit of a lame response, mate. Have you seen how much room me and El have in our houses?”

“Room and families, so mine is more obvious. Anyway, it’s only until she gets somewhere to live, so we should be able to keep it quiet until then.”

Beau let out a laugh. “You and I both know that it won’t be kept quiet if Jimmy finds out. Oh, and don’t forget we’re not actually going on tour now for a few more weeks so that’ll give you more sharing and caring time.” He winked. “Besides, we also know that she won’t be moving into any flat.”

God, I hated it when he was right. “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

“I’m sure we will,” he replied adding a smirk. “But I’m alsosureI’ll be better off by a ton in two weeks.”

“What?” Then it struck me. “Have you been betting on me again? You fuckers.”

“Don’t worry, Ronald, I’ll treat you to a few beers with my winnings.”

Dick head. Funny though, I kind of wanted him to win because that would mean everything he said about Amber not moving out would be right.

CHAPTER16

AMBER

Looking at the shiny black car outside which had been delivered the day before, I had a feeling that Ronnie had something to do with me owning it. It seemed like a deal too good to be true. I’d barely paid anything for the year-old car, hardly making a dent in my savings. Maisie, the saleswoman, claimed I was some special customer or something, but I wasn’t totally convinced. Her boss was Ronnie’s friend, so it stood to reason that some sort of deal had been made. I questioned Ronnie, but he shook his head and said he had nothing to do with it. The paperwork was all filled out and looked real so there wasn’t much more I could do, other than force a load of cash on Maisie, or Ronnie.

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