And he’d been sure they had screeched past icy tundra on the way to volcanic.
He thought he had the basics of Mena figured out. She had a professional self that was business first, efficient and focused and not up to his nonsense, and she had a not suitable for work self that was ready to cut out and have a good time. The serious and the sunshiny beats. She didn’t let that fun side have enough rope but he seemed to have found the end of it and given it a good tug and she’d tumbled into his arms.
And now he was the one staggering because maybe he’d gotten all that wrong. He hadn’t expected to wake alone in a stranger’s house.
It was like one of those times you did a massive billion-piece jigsaw only to find there was a piece missing and the whole thing was wrecked by it.
He hadn’t bothered to make coffee, just borrowed her shower, bath gel, a towel, some toothpaste on his finger and got out of there. She’d probably been in a rush, sleep deprived, didn’t have time for anything but the facts. And he was a surefire distraction. She’d message. They’d talk. Get it together. But phones were outlawed in band meetings because Oscar would play on his the whole time and since Grip didn’t have a private number for Mena, he couldn’t take the initiative without calling her office anyway. Which he’d do, if he thought he could keep the smug satisfaction out of his voice and not give the game away.
Mena had rocked his world and he rocked hers right back.
Isaac leaned into his field of vision. “Dude, you party last night? Where was the invite?”
“No party.” Not exactly a lie, even if he’d had the time of his life on his unexpected joy ride with Mena.
“Then what’s the deal with you? You’ve been MIA all morning,” Abel said.
“The big three. Tired. Hungry. Bored.”
Abel shot out of his chair. “Well, fuck. Sorry that planning our future is distracting you from wanking, you limp dick.”
He gave Abel a scathing look, secretly pleased he’d been the one to resort to the tactics of a high-schooler. “What issues of great and weighty importance did I miss?”
Abel paced the cement floor of the meeting space. “Why do I bother? I should just make all the decisions and not give a fuck about the rest of you.”
“Hey,” said Isaac.
Oscar’s phone, hidden somewhere on him, played a tone and Abel snapped. “Don’t you look at that.”
Jesus, Abel was tense. Grip didn’t know why but it was headlock time. He tackled Abel when his back was turned. A low move, who cares, wasn’t like he was after a best and fairest award, he just wanted to work out why everything had gone to shit here so fast.
With Abel’s head tucked under his arm and the guy bent forward and swinging at him, he said, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Abel let go a blistering sequence of swear words and landed a kidney punch, making Grip grunt and release him. Maybe his kidneys had been following along because he did know what was going on. “You’re blocked.”
“I’m not blocked,” Abel shouted in what was the ideal demonstration that he bloody was.
“You only ever get like this when you can’t write or when something Jay has done crawls up your arse.”
“Unless he got Evie pregnant against her will, who cares what Jay’s done,” Isaac said.
Grip rolled his eyes. He couldn’t imagine Evie doing anything against her will or Jay trying to force her to. But even though Abel and Jay had resolved their differences, the thing Abel hadn’t been able to get past was that Jay was the best songwriter they knew, next to Evie of course.
“Spit it out, Abel. Nothing we can’t figure out,” he said.
Abel slumped in a chair. He looked defeated from his battered boots up. “I heard his new single.”
Ah. That’d be what all of this was about then. “It’s good.” Grip sat beside Abel. It’d shock the hair off him if Jay had written a clunker.
“It’s golden. It’s a sure hit,” Abel said.
“And now you’re blocked.”
“I’m not blocked.”
“You’re blocked,” said Isaac.
“Constipated,” said Oscar.