“No one knows where the hell he is. Not his family, his band mates… He could be fucking dead. So no, I’m not going to be appeased. I’m not going to forget it all and forgive you.” She threw the phone at him, which he failed to catch. It struck him across the cheekbone, leaving a red welt before it clattered to the floor and skated towards the kitty litter tray.
Flynn jerked to his feet, hand rising to his injury. “What the fuck, Alle!”
“You ruined my fucking life!” she screeched. “Do you have any notion at all what you’ve done?”
“What the hell was I supposed to think?” He flailed. “You were covered in bruises. The deck crew had seen you running away from him.”
“That was a game. I wanted to be chased and caught. Do you not understand that concept? And as for what you ought to have done, well, how about speaking to me, like an adult, instead of going off like some second-rate Batman?”
“Right, so what you’re saying is the fact you’ve been dumped is my fault.”
“Dick,” Rock Giant muttered.
“I haven’t been dumped.”
“Ghosted,” he huffed. “Same thing.”
She stared at him gobsmacked.
“I notice you’re not givinghimany of this shit,” Flynn jerked a thumb in Ewan’s direction.
“Well, unlike you, he’s been here for me.” Also, unlike him, Ewan had listened to reason. He’d only ever been an accessory because Flynn had only given him half the story.
He’d cancelled trips to Madagascar and New Zealand so she wasn’t left floundering alone. Ewan had been every bit the big brother a girl could wish for, lending his ear and his broad shoulders, dragging her from bed and out the door to work when all she’d wanted to do was hide under the duvet and cry.
Even now, he was providing rock solid support. He left his seat and planted himself between his two younger siblings. “I’m sorry, Flynn, but Alle’s right. You are being a dick. You were that day on the docks, and you are now. Her messages, her call log, they didn’t magically disappear. So, either you did it, or handed it to someone else who did.”
“Who the hell did you give my phone to?” Alle demanded, leaning around Ewan to spit at Flynn.
“I didn’t give it to anyone. I met Marshall, okay. He just thought… Jeez, quit with the death glare.”
“Mate, you’re lucky she hasn’t gouged your eyes out with a teaspoon yet.” Rock Giant remarked. He picked the teaspoon out of the sugar bowl and offered it to Alle.
Flynn paled a fraction and some of the puff left his posture. He slumped back onto his chair, prompting Ewan to warily do the same. Seeing an opening, Alle leaned over Flynn, planting her hands either side of him, one on the tabletop, the other on the radiator. “What was that?” she prompted. “You met Marshall, and he said… What did he say?”
“Safer…”
“Safer?” Ewan echoed, brows furrowed almost into his beard.
It made no sense to her either.
“How does erasing my call history and my photographs make me safer, Flynn?”
Lord, she was so fucking angry with him. A horrid fizzy sensation was filling her nose. It felt like the blood vessels were about to rupture. “What sort of sociopath are you that you think the best course of action when my boyfriend goes missing is to hand over my phone to the journalist responsible for making his life unbearable?”
“Marsh is our brother,” Flynn replied, as if that were a perfectly reasonable answer, and filial connection trumped everything. At one time, maybe she’d believed that. No longer. “Marsh has been looking out for you all along, despite what you think.”
Laughter spluttered from her throat. “The hell he has. You do know all that shit he published was bollocks, right? It’s been debunked. A high court judge ruled on it. And even if it were all true, you still didn’t have the right to take my phone. Those messages were private, Flynn. You’ve deprived me of them, though no doubt I’ll be able to read them online and in next Sunday’s tabloid supplement.”
“It wasn’t like that, Alle. It was about family…you, not business.”
Maybe for him that was true, but Marshall had proved time and again that the only person he gave a shit about was himself. He’d sell them all out if it served him.
“He just advised—. I was fucking shitting myself, okay.”
“Not okay,” she yelled back.
“Back off a minute, Alle.” Ewan swiped his arm wide, as if to push her aside. “I know you’re angry, but I think you’re missing the main point here.” He dug his teeth into his lower lip. “Flynn? Care to explain?”
