You’re on your own. Do you want a night cap?
How about I offer you some advice for your next venture?
Take your advice and shove it up your arse as far as your fat little fingers will let you and put your night cap with it too.
Jacob, as obviously gay as he was in private, was the consummate date in the wider world. He knew how to talk to people, which fork to use and how to put his hand on the small of my back and direct me away from whichever twat was about to get his eyeball stabbed with a cheese knife.
In private, he could talk handbags and contouring, the benefits of microdermabrasion and fillers, without ever breaking a sweat. And he was great for a discussion on blow job techniques.
“You interfere all the time. I’m pretty sure you’re one of the reasons why Victoria and Max are actually getting married.” I gave him a smile. I knew he was one of the reasons. Back when Max and Vic had started dating, Jackson had been bending Vanessa’s ear about how grumpy Max was when things weren’t going his way. Some intervention from Jacob had helped. Possibly still did as the couple were a shade up from feisty.
Jacob didn’t respond. Instead his stare was fixed on Lainey. “So you’re single?”
She nodded. “Very. No boyfriend for let’s see, three years?”
He frowned, Botox going some way to stop his skin creasing. “Three years? Tell me you’ve been getting some from some secret source on the regular, because that’s a long time.”
Lainey shook her head. “Celibate.” She sighed. Hard. “And I actually like being single. It’s a lot less hassle.” There was something in her words that made it sound like she was trying to persuade herself.
Jacob shook his head. “You sound as bad as Sophie. Sworn off men and anything resembling stress relief.”
I didn’t respond.
When I found something that interested me, I’d be game.
2
Liam
“It’s a good offer, but you could do better.”
I tipped my head back and stifled a yawn. This wasn’t a conversation I was anywhere near interested in. We’d agreed on a fee for the song writing, more than what I thought I’d get, given the debacle when I tried to step away from public life. That debacle, it seemed, had actually helped me out, given critics something to talk about, something that made my music seem real and me seem less of a teenage girl’s naughty fantasy.
“I’m not recording again.”
My agent, Wes, lounged back in his seat, the Icelandic landscape behind him far more attractive than his overly round and slightly reddened face. Wes needed to cut back on the whisky. I recognised that nose.
“One more album – solo – your choice of musicians and you’d be made for life. The industry’s still in shock that you’ve quit.” Wes toyed with the cigar he couldn’t smoke in here and I eyed him painfully.
“Not happening.”
“Why?”
“Because it was too much. You know this.”
He shook his head, dropped the cigar onto the table and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “It’s the lifestyle. Too many drugs. Too much booze. Too much sex. Everything’s too much about it and that’s why every kid that can play guitar wants what you had. Only you had the talent to go with what everyone saw on stage. Come back. Do one more. The press will speculate about your father, but let them do that. Neither of you are going to discuss it so it will die away. We both know you weren’t at the point of becoming an addict.”
I looked out of the window and ignored Wes. The scenery was why I’d come here. I liked Iceland. It was different. Remote. And there was something about nature here that made it feel more dominant than man, which was why my next project was going to be put here. A recording studio. Privacy. Thermal pools you could float in. Skies clear enough to see yourself in, and the lights.
“Gave them something to talk about other than me being a foster care kid who was abandoned by one of the more prominent politicians.” I actually had no issue with the man who had fathered me. He hadn’t known at the time, or after. Not until a couple of years ago when I’d worked out myself who he was and had gotten in touch to give him the head’s up that the media might be coming his way.
He was decent. Just supported the wrong football team. Hadn’t known anything about me, a product of a one night stand with a girl whose name he barely knew and he’d never got her number. We weren’t going to have any form of father-son relationship at any point soon, and that wasn’t what either of us wanted anyway.
Wes didn’t look away from me. He was someone else who wasn’t a bad guy and I knew he had my best monetary interests at heart, as well as his. He was right: if I recorded and released a solo EP right now, it would bring in a shit ton of cash. But I didn’t have it in me to write for me.
“You planning on staying here indefinitely?”
I shrugged. “There are worse places to be.”
