Page 139 of Replay
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“What I don’t understand is why the hell you’re not freaked out by this?”Ash roared into Xane’s face, finger frantically waggling.The band’s planned meet and greet session with their fans had been cancelled when it became apparent that not everyone gathered was waiting for a signature.The huge press presence was unexpected too.
Ash couldn’t keep still.He was bouncing on the balls of his feet when he wasn’t pacing, and he’d picked up and put down at least a dozen things in the last five minutes.The other guys were jittery too, which meant the tour bus kitchen felt even more cramped than usual.
“I would have thought it was pretty obvious myself,” Luthor answered on Xane’s behalf.“He already knew, that’s why.”
Ash jerked his head back stiffly.“You knew?”
That instantly silenced everyone else.Rock Giant had his hands steepled before his mouth.Everyone seemed on the verge of saying something, but couldn’t quite figure out how to phrase it.Sally Kettering made the first attempt.She opened her mouth but then clamped it closed again.Graham Callahan, who’d arrived just moments before, huffed and resettled himself on the leather banquette.Ronnie had his eyes on the floor and was assiduously winding strawberry laces around his fingertips in the way another person might wind a long strand of hair.He wasn’t an official member, but no one had thought to exclude him from the meeting.In any case, his rep had quit five minutes ago when Ronnie had refused to “get into a taxi and leave these fucking losers to their downfall.”
Ash rounded on Xane again, trapping him in the space by the sink.“Is that true?You’ve known all along that he’s got a rap sheet for sexual assault?”
“What if I did?”Xane said.
“You didn’t think it was perhaps worth mentioning?”
Xane shrugged.“One; he doesn’t have a rap sheet.Like I’ve already explained, the case got dismissed, so stop harping on as ifBang!have printed the gospel truth.And two; it wasn’t my story to share.I don’t spill shit about other people’s private lives without permission.”
“You swore him to secrecy, I suppose,” Paul postulated, throwing a glance in Spook’s direction.
He shook his head.He hadn’t.Rather it had been an unspoken rule between them that the confidence not be broken.
“This is shit,” Ash continued.“For fuck’s sake, we’re a band.We’ve all known one another for years.I know everything about you buggers.At least I thought I did.What the hell am I supposed to believe, eh?”Ash wiped his hands down the sides of his Danger Mouse T-shirt.“Look, I get that this is an awkward topic, but it’s also the type of shit we need to know about each other.”He too shot a glance in Spook’s direction.“Any time in the last decade would have done.Hell, any time in the last two weeks.You knew this was coming.The previousBang!article made the threat perfectly apparent.”
“There’s not exactly been an opportunity to sit down and talk,” Spook said in his defence.It was true.It wasn’t a conversation he ever wanted to have—and definitely not in a group.He’d have had to have done it one on one.That translated to a minimum of three conversations on top of the one with Alle.Three rounds of putting himself through an emotional cheese grater.Yes, goddammit, he had stuck his head in the sand and hoped.
“I thought you two met at university,” Sally remarked.“In fact, didn’t you all?”She’d been agitated as hell when the news had first reached them.Now her expression had lost some of its slackness and her steeliness was remerging.It was almost possible to see the gears of her mind working.Cogs reengaging.“I’m just trying to figure out the timeline of events here.”
“It all happened in Sweden, before Xane and I met.”Spook said.“Before I met any of you.”
“And we did meet at uni,” Xane added.
“Sort of.”Probably he ought not to have attempted to elaborate.“That is, we were enrolled at the same place, but that’s not precisely how Xane and I met.”
Ash sighed.Rock Giant too.“Spit,” barked the latter.
“I was having counselling.We met outside—”
“Wait,” Ash stopped him, and planted a palm on Xane’s chest.“You were having therapy?”
“For your sex addiction?”Luthor asked.
That set them all off speculating and bombarding one another with questions.
“I wasn’t having counselling,” Xane hollered over the top of them.“All of you, quit fucking yapping.This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“I want answers,” Ash insisted.
“If you shut up for long enough you might get them.”Xane cracked his knuckles.“I was there supporting Ric.It was right after his wife died.Ric’s my cousin,” he elaborated, for Ronnie’s benefit.“Spook and I ran into each other outside one time and got talking.”
“Why were you there?”Ronnie asked Spook.Of them all, he was the voice of calm and reason amongst them.His head was down, and he smelled strongly of sugar and artificial flavourings, but his words weren’t riddled with raw emotion or an accusatory tone.
Spook sighed from his belly.“Because I’d slit my wrists.”Spook pushed up his sleeves and held out his arms for inspection, though they’d all seen the scars on his arms hundreds of times over, with the exception of Ronnie.“It was a low point.”
Somehow, from there, they progressed into the downstairs bunk space and perched upon the two lowest beds.Him, Xane, Luthor, Ash, Rock Giant, and Ronnie, while Graham and Sally fielded calls from various agencies.Reliving it all again wasn’t easy, just as it hadn’t been easy when he’d told Alle a day and a half ago, but he got through it.In the end, having had all the questions they could think of answered, the mood was contemplative rather than panicked.
Some sort of statement would have to be given, and the internet fallout would last for weeks if not years, but he could almost believe that Xane was right, and that they could weather this.He wasn’t guilty of any crime.Therefore, he didn’t owe anyone any sort of apology.
