Page 129 of Rock Giant
“I guess.”That was the only way to make things right and not fuck up the band.
On the other hand, spending forever with Nash seemed less and less like a comfortable plan, and more and more like a recipe for heartache.
CHAPTER 36
Jodi Castle
The cabins were a curious mix of chintz and old-world charm.The outsides blended into the surrounding farmland, the verdant roofs housing the same meadow flowers as the grass underfoot.Inside the wood was brightly painted in earthenwear colours, but the furnishings were all plain wood, benches, tables, and chairs of the kind Victorian children sat on at school.A large grandfather clock stood in one corner, and a rustic shelf hung between two windows housed a row of delicate china teacups and saucers.It looked like the sort of abode a spinster hippy aunt would occupy, alongside her two lesbian lovers and their pet cockatiel.
“Three rooms,” Jez said, lowering his overnight bag from his shoulder.Jodi dropped her bag too, and released the cats from their carrier, while the rest of the guys raced ahead to claim rooms.She didn’t feel she had a right to stake a claim on any of the spaces.Obviously, she’d be expected to bunk in with Nash.They were a couple.The booking had been made on that assumption.Except with everything so fraught, she was tempted to about turn and get back on the bus.Stay there for the night.Heck, if that’d been an actual option, she wouldn’t be standing here.
Jez curled a hand around her shoulder.“I don’t mind sharing if you need a—”
Nash swaggered into the lounge.“There’s no bathroom.Only shared facilities in a bathhouse in the main house somewhere.”
“Sauna time,” Balin yelled from inside one of the rooms where a lot of creaking and groaning of the wood seemed to be taking place.Lee stuck his head out of a doorway, “Yo, Curtains,” he addressed Nash, who was regarding her with his lips pursed.“Are you joining us, or sparing us the sight of your twig-like physique?”
Jez gave her shoulder another squeeze, then brushed past her fiancé and claimed the last unoccupied room.
Jodi wasn’t good with silences.She didn’t know what to do with silences.Silences in her life were indicative of solitude, not discord.Arguments resolved themselves into slammed doors and revved car engines, and hurtling along roads at speed, the car stereo volume turned up loud enough to batter even the most egregious hurts into submission.They weren’t prolonged measures of time, demarked by the ticking of clocks, nor tallies of offences.They weren’t a familiar part of the relationship she and Nash had.
Usually, he blew hot and loud, stormed off and came back sweeter.Eager to paper over the issue and move on.Based on that schema, things ought to have been right again between them the morning they’d left Bergen.
“You can take the bed, if you like,” he said.
She peered at him awkwardly, “What will you do?”
He shrugged.“I don’t know.”His voice remained soft, conciliatory.“Pitch a tent on the roof.”
She had a tent.Maybe she ought to do that.Pitch it, that is, not necessarily on the roof.Why hadn’t she thought to retrieve it before the tour bus left?
“I’m not serious, Jo.God, you take everything so literally.I’ll be sleeping next to you, obviously.”
Obviously, like they were the same couple they’d been this time three days ago.
He cocked an eyebrow, turning his statement into a question.He’d extended the olive branch, now it was up to her to accept it.
“It’s a nice big bed.We won’t have to squish up like in the bunk.”
Like he hadn’t spent the last two nights on the banquette, and the one before it in Balin’s hotel room bathtub.
Her call.All she had to do was agree, and everything would be right again.She wouldn’t have to worry about breaking up with her boys or losing her home and overwintering on the streets with three cats again.So why was it so difficult to say yes?Why did it feel as if she was throwing herself off a ledge by doing so?
Reconciliation meant she got to keep her life intact.That was good.For fuck’s sake, that was good.This was exactly the outcome she’d been praying for.
“Great,” she croaked, forcing the word out around the boulder in her throat.Then said it again, attempting to inject positivity into her tone.It was the right thing to do.The only sensible choice.“Which room is it?”
“Straight down the hall.The door facing you.”She bent to pick up her bag, but Nash caught the carry strap and swung it over his shoulder.He stuck out his free hand, indicating she should go ahead.
The room was painted an odd shade of pink, somewhere between cinder rose and salmon.In contrast, the insets of the shutters and all the cabinet doors were shamrock green and stencilled with traditional rosemaling.The bed was made up with a patchwork quilt.An iron stove sat centrally along the wall that housed the door they’d entered through, and a rocking chair occupied the corner by the window.Eerily, it began to rock itself as they moved into the room.
“Good, eh?”
“Yes.”She thought she’d rather be camped on the roof right now.
Nash made to lower her bag to the bed but paused with it still dangling an inch above.“Where do you want this?”
“Anywhere, I guess.”
