Part 20 (2/2)

”I miss you, too. We'll be there as soon as we can. I love you, Bri,

more than anything.”

”I love you. Talk to you soon.”

Moody and restless, Brian reached for the brandy bottle the moment he'd

hung up. He wanted her with him now, not a day from now, not an hour

from now. Just listening to her voice had him hard and hurting.

She had sounded just as she had on the night he'd met her, shy, a little

hesitant. She'd been so sweetly out of place in the smoky pub where his

band had been playing. Yet even with the shyness, there had been

something so solid, so true about her. He hadn't been able to get her

out of his mind, not that night, not any night since.

He lifted the brandy and drank deeply. It seemed as though the brunette

and Stevie weren't going to bother to move to the privacy of one of the

bedrooms to have s.e.x. The blonde had given up on Johnno and was rubbing

her long, limber body against P.M., their drummer.

Half amused, half envious, Brian drank again. P.M. was barely

twenty-one, his face still round and youthful with its sprinkle of acne

on the chin. He looked both appalled and delighted as the blonde slid

down to bury her face in his lap.

Brian closed his eyes, and with music filling his head, fell asleep.

He dreamed of Bev, and the first night they had spent together. Sitting

cross-legged on the floor of his flat, talking earnestly, about music,

about poetry. Yeats and Byron and Browning. Dreamily pa.s.sing a joint

back and forth. He'd had no idea it had been her first encounter with

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