Chapter 3 #3
“So, when were you going to tell me that Sebastian Jacobs – the Sebastian Jacobs – is ass over elbow in love with you?” Abbey demanded pretty much as soon as I walked through the door .
I froze in the doorway, my backpack slipping down from my tired shoulder as I tried to process what she just said.
“What?”
She waved frantically at me so I kicked off my shoes, swung my guitar case onto the couch, and joined her in the kitchen. Her phone was on the counter, screen unlocked. I glanced down at it, noting with a frown that she was on Sebastian’s Instagram.
“Max, the internet is losing its collective mind. Look what he posted!” She scooped up her phone and thrust it in my face. I actually took a step back; she wasn’t known for her hand-eye co-ordination and the last thing I needed was to show up at our photoshoot the next day with a black eye.
Sebastian had indeed posted on his Instagram account a half hour before, while I’d been sweating in traffic on my way home.
He must’ve been bored out of his mind at that fancy dinner.
I didn’t recognize the photo Abbey was waving in my face, but it had definitely been taken at the warehouse earlier in the day.
It must’ve been when he’d come over to talk to me about the melody I’d been playing around with.
He had his hands on his hips – my eyes flickered over his small waist, remembering exactly how it felt to wrap my hands around him, lifting him into the air as he squealed like a little kid.
The photo was in black and white and his skin was clearly visible under the flimsy material of his shirt.
We’d ducked our heads together while we were talking, and although he had his back to the camera, I could see a bit of his face.
He was smiling softly, which was no surprise. The big shocker? I was smiling back.
I didn’t remember smiling at him, but there it was, clear as day.
I was smiling at him, a little crooked like all my real smiles are.
When I’m fake smiling, it’s perfectly symmetrical, all the better to fool people with.
They see a nice, even smile, and the eye just slides right over you.
But that smile on my face, as I looked at Sebastian, it was genuine.
Just looking at it made something in my chest ache in a distant, not unpleasant way.
“Look at the fucking caption!”
I did as she said, tearing my eyes away from my own stupid face to read what he’d written underneath.
It was a lyric, the words tugging relentlessly at my brain until I realized where it came from.
It was from “Musketeers”, a song from Burning Bright’s second album.
I’d performed guest vocals on that song every night on tour with them.
It feels like something I always kne w
Every road leads back to you
I blinked a good four or five times before looking at her, unable to process the barely contained glee on her pretty face. She punched my shoulder with her phone still in her hand before turning to the fridge to pull out whatever leftovers she’d stuffed in there for me after dinner with Sara.
“So why is everyone losing their shit? It’s just a picture,” I grumbled, heaving my sorry ass up onto a stool as she started spooning salad onto my plate.
“It is not just a picture, grandad,” she snorted. “It’s a picture of you two looking like BFFs, on his official verified fucking Insta, with a super romantic lyric from the song that you two used to perform together all the time before you started feuding.”
“We weren’t feuding,” I argued weakly.
“So, what, you just insult all your friends in the media every time their name comes up?”
“It wasn’t every time.”
“Sure, sure,” she waved her hand dismissively. “The internet is going fucking batshit. I’m pretty sure the AO3 servers crumbled under the weight of people uploading new fanfic about you guys. ”
“Do people still do that?” I asked around a yawn, reaching gratefully for the beer she put down in front of me.
“They sure do, and by all accounts, you’re a demon in the sack.”
“Well cheers to that,” I groaned, lifting my beer in a tired toast. “Trust him to upload one picture and break the fucking internet.”
“So, is there news? Because I’m pretty sure I’d remember you mentioning that you and Sebastian Jacobs had buried the hatchet.”
“There was never a hatchet.”
“There definitely was a hatchet, Gideon Maxwell, with blood and bits of hair and your fingerprints all over it.”
She was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, her braided green hair glinting in the light.
I glared at her but it was no use, she’d find out the truth eventually.
Hell, I’d have to tell her the truth eventually – the record label had approved the budget for me to bring her on tour, to help with Sara.
“Fine,” I admitted, aiming for nonchalant and missing by a mile. “We’re going on tour with Burning Bright. I, uh, I actually wanted to talk to you about it.”
“You guys are going on tour again? Wow. I thought people were flipping out over one little picture, they’re going to lose their fucking minds about you two being on tour.”
“Yeah, we’re just friends. We’re not even friends. I don’t know,” I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck like I could still feel his eyes on me. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. It’s going to be a long tour, and I’m taking Sara with me, and I was wondering if you wanted to come with.”
“To help look after Sara, or to make sure you’re not jumping Sebastian’s bones every chance you get?”
My heart leapt into my throat but as I looked at her smirking face, I reminded myself that Abbey didn’t know about what had gone down between me and Sebastian.
The only people that knew were me, Sebastian, Shep, Mira and Annabelle.
She was just joking – there’d been lots of speculation about our friendship back in the day, I guess – but just the thought of her finding out made me dizzy even though I knew she wouldn’t give a shit.
“To help look after Sara,” I repeated, hoping I sounded sterner than I looked. “You don’t need to say yes right away, I can get the tour schedule from Sheldon and Geoffrey so you can look at it before you make up your mind.”
“Oh please, you know I’m going to say yes,” she replied, rolling her eyes in my general direction before she turned to start loading the dishwasher.
“You sure you don’t want to see the schedule?”
“I’m sure. You sure you don’t need a Sebastian spotter?”
“We’re just friends,” I repeated, shaking my head even though I knew she couldn’t see it. “Hell, Abbey, we’re not even really friends. Until this week, I hadn’t seen him in five years. We have nothing in common anymore.”
Her expression was almost sad when she turned back to look at me, like the reality of my relationship with Sebastian had burst the internet fuelled fantasy of star-crossed lovers and long-lost soulmates that she’d obviously been indulging in since he’d posted that fucking photo.
“Except the way you look at each other,” she replied, sliding her phone across the counter at me, screen open on Sebastian’s Insta feed.
I didn’t glance down, knowing that if I did, she was going to see the truth written all over my face. To her, and apparently Sebastian’s 4.7 million Instagram followers, we were both pretty shitty at keeping our emotions off our dopey faces.
◆◆ ◆
As much as I hated to admit it, Sheldon and Geoffrey were right about the tour.
It was called The Future Nostalgia Tour – I didn’t care for the name, but surprise surprise, the label did not give a shit that I thought it sounded stupid.
They announced it with a pretty cool video where they super-imposed photos of Burning Bright and Reliant from five years ago over the new photos we’d done for our new albums, making the images flicker so you had to rub your eyes to make sure you were really seeing what you thought you were seeing.
The internet did lose its shit, just like everyone said it would. I don’t spend much time on social media, but even I noticed the significant uptick in people posting online in all caps about how excited they were about the tour.
I was happy that people were happy and I couldn’t help but get excited when my social media feeds were filled with people going on about how much they were looking forward to seeing Reliant on the road again.
Each leg of the tour sold out within minutes of the tickets going on sale in their respective countries, which added to the buzz around the whole thing. Everyone was gushing about it, all the time – even Mira and Annabelle had come round to the idea of being on tour with Burning Bright.
Sebastian and his bandmates had gone back to New York the day after our video shoot for “Run”, so they could spend some time with their friends and families before shipping out on tour.
Burning Bright were going to come back to LA though, to do some press out here before the tour started so there was going to be an entire week where Sebastian and I were in the same city.
The thought of it filled me with the same sort of dread I’d had every Sunday morning before my parents had ushered me off to church, but I tried to push past it.
Sebastian and I were going to be around each other for months.
Being on tour is like being in a bubble, you don’t really see anyone outside of the crew.
I had to get used to seeing him, being around him, without looking or acting like some sort of lovesick puppy.
So when he texted me and asked if I wanted to hang out when he got back to LA before the tour started, I said yes – much to Shep, Annabelle and Mira’s surprise.
I was going down the whole exposure therapy route.
I was pretty sure that if I spent more time with him, the novelty of having him back in my life would wear off.
I could get used to being in his orbit again, I had no choice .
“Exposure therapy?” Mira had repeated with a roll of her knowing eyes when I’d explained my plan to them at rehearsal.
“Pretty sure the therapy’s not the only thing that’s going to end up exposed,” Annabelle had added with a saucy wink.
“I hate both of you,” I told them, shaking my head. “I think it’s a good idea. We need to learn to be around each other again.”
“Around each other, under each other, whatever,” Mira nodded.
“He’s engaged,” I reminded them both as I pulled my guitar off and put it down in my case.
Tour was officially seven days away, so we were wiling away our days practicing our set in an effort to damp down some of the restless anticipation of getting back on the road.
Sebastian was back in town, and we’d agreed he could come meet me at the warehouse.
We were going to go out to lunch, just the two of us. It was absolutely not a date.
“And that means what, exactly?” Annabelle asked, glancing between Mira and me. “He’s Sebastian Jacobs. His Internet nickname is Sex on a Stick.”
“It is?” I suddenly felt out of depth in the conversation I’d started.
I’d only meant to drop it casually into the conversation – hey, Sebastian and I are going to lunch, I’ll text you later – and it had evolved into a scary place where Annabelle was lecturing me on all the ways the Internet found Sebastian irresistible.
Like I didn’t fucking know , first-hand, how impossibly attractive he could be.
“Well, that’s just disturbing,” Mira said when Annabelle finally ran out of steam. “You spend too much time online, baby girl.”
“Gee thanks, mom. Would you rather I was out doing drugs? I COULD BE OUT DOING DRUGS RIGHT NOW.”
“Isn’t it a bit early?” I joked, finally feeling like I was back on solid ground. See, that’s exactly why I’d agreed to spend some time with Sebastian – even talking about him made me feel unsteady.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” Annabelle shrugged.
“Isn’t that saying about wine?”
“Alcohol is just as potent a drug as any other, my children,” was Annabelle’s faux solemn reply. That led to her pointing a stern finger at me. “So, no booze with lunch, Maxxie. Alcohol can lower your inhibitions and lead to all sorts of situations. Like infidelity.”
“I’m back to hating you,” I told her, flipping the bird in her general direction as I picked up my guitar. I yelled my goodbyes to Shep, and exited stage left.
Sebastian was outside, leaning against my car just like he had been the night he’d come to convince me to go on tour. It already felt like another lifetime. He looked good – his hair was getting long, spilling across the stretched-out collar of his white tee shirt.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d show,” he admitted as I unlocked the car, gesturing for him to get into the passenger seat.
“This is my practice space, idiot - how can I stand you up when I had you come to me?”
His eyes widened a fraction as he got into the passenger seat, like he’d just realized the truth of what I was saying.
That’s the thing about Sebastian, he’s smart as all hell and sharp as a tack and a real, grade A idiot sometimes.
I smiled just a little viciously in his direction, couldn’t help but enjoy that I could still put him on the back foot.
I felt like I was still reeling every time I got within five feet of him, so it was only fair.
I put on a pair of sunglasses, letting him pick some music as I pulled out of the parking lot. Then we were out, alone, just the two of us and it was ok.
It was going to be ok.