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Jude was standing over the bed.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
Sienna sat up. “I could ask you the same question.”
It was at that moment, oddly, that Jude exploded with delayed rage. “I was looking for you! And so I found you cosied up here with him.”
“Jude, this isn’t – we’re not sleeping together, this isn’t sexual –“ Jonny didn’t have time to complete his garbled sentence before a fist smashed into his face.
Sienna screamed, and Jude, for once, looked thoroughly ashamed of himself.
When Jonny had got his breath back, he piped up “I know you’re not going to believe me, but I really didn’t deserve that one.”
“Fuck it. I’m going back to bed.” And so as quickly as he had arrived, Jude left again.
+++
He didn’t go straight back to bed, though. First, he woke Ewan up.. And although Ewan wasn’t a fan of his beauty-sleep getting interrupted, it was worth it to know that in a crisis, Jude would come to him.
He sat up in bed, his hair sticking up in all directions, whilst Jude perched on the edge. “So let me get this straight: you went to find Sienna, she wasn’t in her room or the living room, so you went looking in the gite. And you found them in bed together.”
“Yeah. I mean, can you believe – in my parents’ house!”
Ewan sat up a little straighter. The sheets curved over one bare hip. “What made you look there?”
“Well, where else could she be? And he’s been all over since he showed up, they’re thick as thieves.”
“Mate, look, don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid?”
“You’re shitting me. I’ve just found them in bed together! How much more evidence do you need!”
“Yes. Good point. Sorry, I’m still half-asleep. It just...it seems a bit weird, you know? Not quite right.”
“I’ll say!” Jude flexed his hand and winced. His knuckles were sore from where he’d grazed Jonny’s stubble.
Ewan noticed. He always noticed when something was wrong with Jude. “You hit him?”
“Yeah, and he bloody deserved it. He was in bed with my girlfriend! Under my own roof!”
“I know. Clearly he’s a wanker. But this does seem really strange. We should get some sleep and deal with it in the morning. Do you want to stay here?”
Jude looked up at him. “Hmm? No. I’ll go to my own bed.”
Well, thought Ewan. There was no harm in trying.
+++
Ewan strode into the kitchen, where everyone was studiously ignoring each other. He chucked his mobile down onto the table. “Portia is coming tomorrow” he announced.
Sienna looked up, askance. “Portia?”
“Yep, and she sounded pissed off. Who told her, anyway?”
Everyone went back to being silent. Great, Ewan thought. They could all keep their secret little game. He didn’t need any of this. He went out for a smoke, and slammed the door behind him.
+++
The noise of the car in the driveway alerted them to Portia’s arrival. Ewan glanced at the clock. She was an hour early.
Jonny was already answering the door. Ewan watched Sienna get up and put the kettle on. He and Jude stayed seated at the table, not looking at each other. He tried to lighten the mood.
“It sort of feels like waiting for your mum to get home, when you know you’re going to be in trouble, doesn’t it?”
Jude gave him a glance, and left the room.
Well, at least he had tried.
When Portia walked into the kitchen, he had the usual shock that she wasn’t taller. He guessed they had built her up in their minds over the morning. They thought she was the boogie-man come to discipline them.
Actually, she was five feet four of tired, thirsty brunette, and she was going to die if she didn’t get a cup of tea.
“Nice to see you, Ewan.” She ran a hand through her messy hair and reached for the proffered mug like a drowning man reaching for help.
“Portia. How was your journey?”
“I should’ve taken the Eurostar. Got stuck next a screaming kid for the entire flight. Which granted, wasn’t very long, but still. Can I smoke in here?”
Jude’s refusal was as frantic - “No! I mean, its my parents’ house and they would rather we didn’t.” - as Portia’s response was nonchalant.
“No problem. Now, I really can’t believe that I’ve had to come all the way across the Channel to sort out a squabble between you lot, but I was intending to come over soon anyway, and if it takes me here to defuse the tension, so be it.”
Her tension-defusing tactics seemed, to Ewan, to involve getting each member of the band on their on the pretext of a walk, a cigarette, or a cup of tea together, and then telling them to get the hell over the spat. At least, that was what she started to do with him, until he pointed out that he didn’t really care who was bedding who, and just wanted to know what the fuck was going on.
“Bit hard to say, mate. To me, it just looks like Sienna is acting up to get Jude to pay some attention to her. Just a lovers’ tiff, nothing to get so wound up about.”
Ewan looked at the floor. “So you really don’t think that Jonny and Sienna are sleeping together?”
“Well, they both swear blind that it’s not true. And look at it this way – Jonny idolised you guys before he got the job. He doesn’t want to lose this chance, so he wouldn’t be looking to do anything to piss off the frontman, would he?”
Ewan said “wouldn’t he?” but what he was thinking was he used to idolise us?
“I have complete faith in Jonny. He’s a good guy.”
Ewan got the impression that Portia’s trust was a hard-won thing. Which begged the question, what had Jonny done to earn it? He brushed the thought aside. If he let himself get into that paranoid mode of thinking, he’d turn into Jude.
They headed back to the house, where Portia called everyone into the living room.
There was a hangdog atmosphere, as if they all thought that she was about to give them a ticking off. Jude was literally dragging his feet as he walked in.
Instead, it was all business. In a matter-of-fact way, she demanded to know how much writing they had done, and how much of it they actually thought was good. No mention of the bed-hopping incident. She was all business.
“You’re coming back to the mother-country, kids. I’ve got you a studio booked for Monday, and tickets home for tomorrow. I’ll send a van to collect you and your gear.” Portia glanced at her watch. “I’ve gotta go – need to be in Berlin for a gig tonight. But I’ll come visit you guys while you’re recording next week. Be good.”
Ewan could barely believe it. They were expected to just forget about last night’s debacle, and go back to business as usual?
But as Portia left, that seemed to be exactly what everyone was doing. Sienna was carefully dismantling her drums in the drama studio, and Jude was chucking his clothes into a suitcase. Jude, a man who was angry at the best of times, lately, and who should, by rights, be fucking livid that he just found that he had just found his girlfriend in bed with another man, was calmly packing. What on earth could Portia have said to him to make that anger dissipate?
But he didn’t have much time to ponder. He started to wander through the house, collecting the detritus of their month-long stay. It would be good to go home.