Page 55 of All Summer Long

‘He will. He was always going to, Niamh. Just not so soon.’

‘And you’re all right with that, the idea that he’s going to have to go at some point?’

Alice nodded, then shrugged and half shook her head. ‘I’ll miss him, of course I will. He was … unexpected in my life, and he’s turned my worst times into some of my best. We both knew it was only ever going to be temporary.’ She put the toast down uneaten, butter glistening on her fingertips.

‘Right,’ Niamh said softly, standing up to adjust the umbrella so that the sun wasn’t in Alice’s eyes. ‘Only I think you might love him.’

Alice looked up, startled. ‘You’re seeing romance that isn’t there, Niamh. I enjoy his company, and he makes me laugh. We stop each other being lonely. I’ve probably let myself like him too much, but it’s not love.’

‘And you know this because you loved Brad,’ Niamh reasoned, watching her friend closely.

Alice nodded, frowning, because she knew she’d loved Brad but somehow comparing her feelings for Robinson against her feelings for her soon to be ex-husband was confusing and not as clean cut as it should have been. Robinson filled parts of her life she hadn’t even realised were empty, and he built her up where Brad had been so needy himself that he hadn’t had enough left over to support Alice too. Robinson just felt like a broader, safer foundation to rest on.

‘He has an easy way about him, Niamh. He makes me feel beautiful when he looks at me.’

‘I see that when he looks at you too,’ Niamh said.

‘You’re not helping. You know that, right?’

Niamh smiled, but her eyes were serious. ‘Be careful, Alice.’

‘I will. I am. I knew this wasn’t going to last for ever, that was kind of the point. If he goes home tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll be okay. I’ll be sad for a while, but I’ll be okay in the end. Honestly, I will.’

Alice stood up and scooped up her keys. ‘I better get back. Hazel mentioned she needed to drop something around this morning.’

‘Probably Rambo.’

‘It better not be. That bird’s been given fair warning about coming anywhere near the Airstream,’ Alice laughed as they made their way through the cottage and out onto the front path.

‘Hey, Alice,’ Niamh called out as Alice walked away down the lane. ‘I meant be careful not to give up too easy.’

Alice backtracked to Niamh’s gate and hugged her friend, then set off back home ready to face whatever came her way.

‘I’ve packed your bags for you. Get your ass in the shower, Duff, we leave in three hours.’

Robinson opened the cupboard in search of those headache tablets. ‘I’m sorry, Marsh,’ he laughed, sarcasm rolling off him. ‘I don’t remember signing anything that put you in charge of my whole goddamn life. I’ll go home when I’m good and ready, and when I do I’ll pack my own suitcases.’

He shook a couple of pills from the pack and then a third for good measure. Two for the headache, one for the additional ball ache of having to deal with Marsh. The fact that his manager was here was wrong on every level. Marsh didn’t travel easy; he was pathologically terrified of flying. It would have cost him dearly to get on that plane, so Robinson could only assume that it was going to costhimdearly too. More than that. Marsh’s arrival had stuck a needle into the bubble he’d been living in in Borne. He was part of his other life, and having him here overlapping with this life muddied all the waters. Going home wasn’t part of his plan yet. The problem was he didn’t actuallyhavea plan, something to produce with a flourish and present to Marsh as a fait accompli, and it left him vulnerable, like a petulant teenager whose dad had turned up to fetch him home from a party early.

‘Need I remind you about the concert? The tickets that thousands of fans have paid for?’

‘It’s not for weeks,’ Robinson said.

‘They put you where you are, son, and they’ll turn on you just as fast if you don’t show up for your own goddamn party.’

It was true and Robinson knew it, and somewhere in the back of his brain he knew he wasn’t a guy who could sleep easy at night if he let his fans down. Maybe he did have a plan of sorts, after all.

‘I’ll do the concert, Marsh.’

The other man puffed up his chest like a turkey. ‘Too dang right you will! What the hell are you doing here, spinning your wheels and makin’ out with blondie when you’ve got a wife keepin’ the bed warm at home and a job to do? Goddamn you, Duff. You’re too young for a midlife crisis, and I’m too old to nursemaid you.’ Marsh thumped his fist down hard on the table. ‘We leave. Today.’

‘Whoa, back on up there one second, Marsh.’ Robinson really wanted to keep a lid on his temper, but his manager sure was testing his limits. He could feel the hot, sickly burn of injustice in his gut.

‘I am not, as you so kindly put it, “spinning my wheels”, and I think we both know that my soon to be ex-wife is keeping someone else’s bed good ’n’ warm these days – a fact you knew long before I did and decided to keep to yourself, I might add.’

Marsh wasn’t a man who cared what people thought of him. He’d earned his tough-as-nails reputation in the business by having very few ethics and a lot of ruthless ambition, and he made his decisions based on how to get the best out of his artists rather than how to do the best for them. He’d known Lena was cheating for months before the shit hit the fan, and he’d kept his mouth shut and hoped she’d tire of it before Robinson found out. His only regret on the matter was not turning up with his chequebook and paying off the dufus who’d been banging Robinson’s wife, because it didn’t look as if the woman Robinson had tangled himself up with here was going to take the bait.

‘Cab’s booked for midday.’

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