Page 93 of Love You Like That (Excess All Areas 4)

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As Alex descended the stairs of the tour bus two days later, he found Ben stretched out on the sofa, an ice pack on his shoulder and a can of beer in his hand.

“What happened?”

Ben shrugged. “Nothing really. Overuse, maybe. Perhaps I twinged something while playing. But something in my shoulder feels pretty fucked right now. What’s the schedule for tomorrow? I’ve forgotten. Do we play?”

“No, there’s no gig tomorrow. But there is that TV appearance.”

“Thank fuck,” Ben said, easing the beer can to his lips.

“Why don’t we find you a physio or a massage therapist or both for tomorrow to meet you at the hotel.”

“Genius idea. Shit, where’s my phone?” Ben tried to sit up but flopped back down on the couch.

“Don’t worry, I’ll book it.”

Alex grabbed his phone from the pocket of his sweats and switched it on.

I’m sorry I upset you in London. I’ve been thinking of you. What if I said I’d be happy to share?

Ollie’s profile picture frustrated him. Had he known the guy was going to turn into a clinger, he would have kept his distance.

Ollie. It’s over. I meant that. I won’t be responding again after this text. Do us both a favour and move on.

“Who pissed in your Wheaties?” Ben asked.

“Ollie. He won’t take a hint and fuck off.”

“Have you told him that?”

“I try not to stamp on the petals of the flowers I pick.”

Ben grinned. “Nan?”

“Yeah, Nan.”

“What about Nan?” Jase said, lumbering down the stairs, knackered after his high energy performance.

“When she used to tell us about girls and how we should treat them as flowers… you know, make sure we could feed and water them, make sure they felt rooted, take care not to damage their petals while they were ours, and leave them unbruised if we decided we didn’t want to date them anymore.”

Jase grabbed a beer. “Yeah. She gave me that speech a time or two after I got Alex to dump Vanessa Harrison for me.”

Alex grinned as Matt and Luke walked down the stairs. “Vanessa slapped me and told me that if I was dumb enough to pass messages from Jase to her, then I could take that message back to him.”

Jase rubbed his jaw. “I think you hit me a lot harder than she hit you.”

“I definitely did.”

Matt and Luke grabbed drinks from the tour bus fridge, passing cans around to those who needed them.

“Where are Cerys and Willow?” Alex asked.

“Cerys is in bed,” Jase replied.

“Willow is watching some fuck-fest series about some period in history where they all went to balls and fought duels and shit. And there’s some mystery woman writing newspaper articles about it all.”

Matt looked at Luke. “She’s writing anonymous articles about the fuck-fests?”

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