Chapter 4
“L ook, I’m not saying it’s weird but…ok, maybe I’m saying it’s weird,” Shep sighed as he trailed behind me, his Chucks squeaking against the polished wood floor of our local grocery store.
“Weirder than being on tour with him for six months and not talking to him the whole time?” I pointed out, pretending to study the wine display with way more scrutiny than was necessary.
I’d seen Sebastian every day for the past five days.
That wasn’t what Shep was worried about – he thought that my exposure therapy plan was actually pretty solid, and seeing as how he actually did go to therapy, I took that as a ringing endorsement.
What he found weird was that all that time Sebastian and I were spending together?
We were spending it alone, just the two of us.
Nothing untoward had happened, we’d been in public for every outing. Coffee, or lunch, or helping him pick out a new pair of boots to take on tour. There were no romantic overtones at all. Everything was public, on the record, safe.
I was feeling steadier every day, more certain that we could make the tour work with minimal emotional damage to either of us.
Sure, the butterflies weren’t completely gone – I was starting to accept they probably never would be – but I didn’t go completely brain dead at the sight of Sebastian. I thought we were making good progress.
“It’s not weird,” I assured Shep, narrowing my eyes when I saw him reaching for a six pack of that gross beer. “Your beer is weird.”
“Look, I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he said, his brown eyes softening.
I couldn’t explain to him that it was hard to picture myself being hurt any more than I already had been.
Running away from home, cutting off my parents, falling in love with Sebastian, losing him, having to move on from something so devastating all on my own?
There was a lifetime of hurt crammed into just the past decade of my life.
It was hard to imagine anything hurting me the way those things had hurt me.
“I’m not going to get hurt,” I promised him, bumping him with my shoulder. “Unless you insist on bringing that shitty beer to this barbecue.”
The barbecue had been Jet’s idea. He had a house nearby, down by the beach. Sebastian’s parents were in town for an art show so Jet had invited everyone to a barbecue at his place. Even Abbey and Sara were coming, after Sara was done at her karate class.
Knowing I was going to have to introduce Sara to Sebastian made me sicker than Shep’s beer, but I had to get it over and done with.
They were going to be around each other in the immediate future and I wanted Sara to be comfortable on tour.
I hadn’t really given much thought to how I was going to raise a daughter and keep my band going at the same time, but it was becoming increasingly clear that being on tour was probably going to be as big a part of her life as it was mine.
I let Shep buy some of his beer, flinging in a couple of bottles of wine to our basket before we paid for our booze and got into my Lincoln. Shep gave me the directions to Jet’s house (he’d already been once that week, hypocrite) and I tried my very best to focus on the road.
Calling Jet’s place a house feels like calling Antarctica a little bit cold.
It was definitely a mansion and probably cost more than my place and Shep’s place (and hell, probably Mira and Annabelle’s place) combined.
It was all very grand and clean and…oddly beige, considering that it was owned by someone who was legitimately called Jet.
Like, from birth. He didn’t change his name when he joined a band. His parents actually called him Jet.
Eddie and Steve opened the door, raising both their arms and voices in greeting.
I relaxed a little bit as they led us through the foyer to the back yard on the other side of the house, ragging on Jet’s choice of interior décor as they did.
It felt easy, almost normal, to just be hanging around with a group of shit talking musicians again.
Jet’s back yard was, of course, ridiculous. He had a pool with a built-in hot tub, and what looked like a second kitchen outdoors. That’s where we found him, carefully grilling an insane amount of food with a chef’s hat perched rather jauntily on his bleached blond hair.
“Hey guys, thanks for coming,” he grinned, pulling us both in for a quick, slightly smoky hug. “It’s good to see you!”
“You too,” I replied, glancing around. “This place is insane.”
“Yeah, I don’t spend much time here,” Jet smiled sadly. “Made sense to have a place on the West Coast for when we’re out here, but ya know, Sebastian’s heart is always gonna be in New York. ”
Sebastian’s heart felt like a pretty dangerous area of conversation, but luckily Annabelle and Mira chose that moment to make their entrance, their eyes wide as they took in Jet’s whole living situation.
“Fucking hell Jet,” Mira said after letting out a low whistle. “You’re not even that good of a guitarist.”
She flashed him a warm smile to let him know he was joking, and I couldn’t help but notice the blush that rose up his cheeks as she gently ribbed him. Shep and I shared a knowing glance before wandering off to say hello to the others.
Sebastian was already there, of course, but I made a conscious effort not to just make a bee line to him. Especially because I could tell Shep, Callie and Annabelle were hovering, ready to save me from any potentially awkward situations.
I actually ran into Sebastian’s parents before I had the chance to say hello to their son. I’d only met them once, back when we’d played New York on the first Burning Bright / Reliant tour. They’d come to the show, looking more than a little nervous and clearly bewildered by the whole situation.
Sebastian looked like his mom; had inherited her black wavy hair and shimmering blue eyes.
He got his confidence from his dad, though, that much was clear.
His dad wasn’t a big guy or anything, but he had the kind of presence that demanded respect.
In a lot of ways, he looked like the polar opposite of his wife and son – his hair was gray, cut short, and he had eyes so dark they looked almost black.
“Wow, Max,” Mrs Jacobs said, her eyes crinkling with a smile as she pulled me into a warm hug. “You haven’t changed a bit!”
“Hi Mrs Jacobs,” I nodded, offering my hand to Sebastian’s dad. “Mr Jacobs. It’s so nice to see you.”
“You too,” Mrs Jacobs replied, still smiling. “You look so grown up. Sebastian tells me you have a little girl, that’s just wonderful.”
“Yeah, her name is Sara. She should be here soon, actually,” I glanced in what I guessed was the direction of the front door, hoping that Abbey and Sara would just magically appear and rescue me from the small talk.
“I bet she keeps you on your toes.”
“Yes ma’am,” I said. “I can’t believe someone so small can have so much energy.”
They both laughed, and I could tell they were picturing Sebastian at that age. I fought the urge to ask them what he’d been like as a kid. Had he always been so insufferably talented? Had he always known exactly what to say to someone to break through their defences?
“Well we’d love to meet her!” Mrs Jacobs said. “It really is lovely to see you again, Max.”
I repeated the sentiment and watched as they wandered off, no doubt working the room. A few of Jet’s LA friends were there, and they were definitely the type of people you wanted to come to your art show. Their pockets were probably bigger than their egos.
“So that looked like it went well,” Sebastian murmured in my ear. I couldn’t help but jump in surprise, telling myself that my racing heart was because I hadn’t heard him approaching and not because I’d been able to feel his breath on my neck.
“Yeah, your mom said I look really grown up now,” I replied, glancing down at my least ripped pair of black jeans and my new sneakers. “Wait, did she call me old?”
Sebastian laughed, his hair rippling in the afternoon sunlight.
He was wearing another black shirt from his seemingly endless collection, but it looked almost light, tailored perfectly to his graceful, lean frame.
He looked good, effortlessly good. The sunlight reflecting off the pool brought out the more intense shades of blue in his eyes.
“She just remembers you as you were,” he assured me. “I know it was only five years ago but it feels like a different lifetime.”
“I guess,” I shrugged. “I thought your folks would be mad at me. I haven’t exactly been nice about you in interviews and stuff.”
“They don’t read anything to do with me or the band,” he said, his smile slipping ever so slightly. “They’re not really interested in that stuff.”
“Really? Why not?”
“Well they wanted me to be an artist when I was growing up and I think they just figured the whole band thing was a phase. Now I’m here,” he gestured with his inked hands, and I could tell he didn’t just mean Jet’s back yard.
“You are an artist.”
It was out before I could stop myself. Before he’d strolled back in my life, I would’ve sworn up and down I hadn’t listened to anything Burning Bright had put out after that tour.
But it would’ve been a lie so big it would probably be visible from space.
I listened to every song they put out, every album.
It hurt like hell, right down to my bones, but I couldn’t stop.
Sebastian’s voice, his lyrics, all of it – it was brilliant, it was beautiful, it transcended genre.
That was why they were so wildly popular, because although they were a rock band, they were more than that .
There was artistry in that, in reaching across what had previously been pretty firm culture lines and capturing the hearts of people who had never listened to music like yours before. The Burning Bright back catalog was flawless.