Chapter 13 #3
Abbey had taken Sara out to the park, so I had the house to myself for a little bit.
I made a bee line for the shower, even though I felt like the only thing keeping me awake was my own spent-the-night-in-a-hospital-waiting-room stink.
I turned the water temperature up and stood under the spray until it felt wasteful, picturing the tension across my shoulders swirling down the drain with the shampoo.
I shaved, brushed my teeth twice and scrubbed at my face in a vain attempt to make the bags under my eyes look slightly better. I’d just finished getting dressed when Abbey and Sara came home with sandwiches from our favourite deli for lunch.
We sat out by the pool to eat. There was a soft breeze rustling the trees and the water sparkled invitingly in the early afternoon sun. I was warm and fed and smiling at my daughter, who had mayo on her chin.
“Hey sweetie,” I began as I wiped her face with one of the wet wipes Abbey had on her person at all times. “I’m going to go to the hospital to see Sebastian but I’ll be back for dinner, ok? ”
“Ok daddy,” she nodded. “Remember to tell him I said hi.”
“I will. He’s going to be in town for a while, maybe when he’s feeling better we can go see him together.”
“Really?” That perked her right up. My heart swelled at the brightness in her eyes, the way she lit up at the idea of getting to see Sebastian.
I’d always thought having a kid would’ve made my life more complicated, but Sara had actually simplified so much for me.
She saw the world in black and white and while the countless shades of gray that I knew existed wouldn’t be visible to her until she was older, there was something about that clear cut world view that I really admired.
She loved Sebastian and I knew, looking at her smiling face, that he could be someone really important to her. With time, and with patience, we could become a family. He had wanted to stay in her life, before I messed everything up.
“Yeah, really. I’m sure he’d be happy to see you.”
Me, on the other hand? Well, I wasn’t sure how that would go.
Abbey had set up a play date for Sara with one of the girls from her karate class, so I managed to nap for an hour before Shep and Annabelle came to pick me up. I sat in the back seat, bouncing my knees up and down all the way back to the hospital.
Jet and Mira were waiting for us in the relatives room where Burning Bright had pretty much set up shop.
They were both clearly exhausted, but some of the heaviness from the night before had been lifted – Sebastian was awake and talking and asking for his iPad so he could watch Red, White and Royal Blue so all immediate concerns for his safety had passed.
“He’s been asking for you,” Jet told me with a knowing smile. “Would you mind holding down the fort so we can go get cleaned up a bit?”
“Me? Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“He’s just survived a tour bus accident, Max, I’m sure a little awkward conversation isn’t going to kill him,” Mira pointed out. “You’ll be fine.”
“We’ll wait here,” Shep suggested, grinning a shit eating grin as he sat down on the couch.
“I’ll come with you,” Annabelle said, clapping a hand to my shoulder.
I glared at her – I wasn’t even sure I was ready to witness what was sure to be a difficult conversation with Sebastian and I had to be there for the whole thing to happen.
Doing it with other people in the room? Just the thought of it made me want to throw up.
“ We will wait here,” Shep repeated, a bit more forcefully. Annabelle rolled her eyes in his direction.
“Spoil sport,” she muttered, but she sat down beside him anyway, grabbing one of the fading magazines from the table and flicking it open with more force than was necessary.
“Thanks, man. See you later!” Jet threw up a little salute as he and Mira left.
Steve and Eddie were already out in the hallway, looking like they were ready to drop.
They waved a weak goodbye and then I was rooted to the spot, with Shep and Annabelle pretending they weren’t watching to see what I’d do.
“I guess I’ll just…” I gestured vaguely in the direction of the hall.
“Uh huh,” Shep nodded. “We’ll be here.”
“Waiting,” Annabelle added.
I shoved my hands into my pockets, ignoring the tremble in my fingers as I headed down the hallway. Sebastian was in the room right at the very end, because of course he was. The hum of the fluorescent lights echoed in my ears, broken only by the staccato of my heartbeat.
Jet had mentioned in passing the night before that they were putting a fake name on the little card outside Sebastian’s door, so that random people walking along the hallway didn’t know who was in the room.
Someone from Burning Bright’s security team was in the room with Sebastian whenever his bandmates weren’t there anyway, but they weren’t taking any chances of someone snapping a photo of him in a hospital bed or something.
I glanced at the name card and nearly passed out.
S J Maxwell
I tore my eyes away from it, refusing to let my mind dwell on just how good it looked to see his initials and my surname together, like it was a given. Fuck, we’d never even gone on a real date – marriage wasn’t going to be a topic of conversation for a good long while.
I rapped by knuckles against the door – damn fingers were still shaking – and waited.
A burly redheaded guy I didn’t recognize opened the door.
He had an AAA laminate from the tour swinging on a lanyard tied through his belt loop though, so it was clear he was a member of Burning Bright’s security team.
“Hi, uh, Jet sent me to…” I gestured at Sebastian’s room.
“Oh yeah, he mentioned you’d be stopping by. I’ll go grab something to eat man, I’ll be back in an hour if that’s ok?”
“Yeah, sure,” I nodded, hoping I sounded way more relaxed than I felt.
I closed the door behind him and let my gaze skip around the room.
Sebastian was asleep, the monitor he was hooked up to beeping merrily away.
Someone had closed the drapes, so the buttery sunlight that spilled across the bed was muted but it was still bright enough to see by.
The walls were a faded peach and there was an unobtrusive painting of a fruit bowl facing Sebastian’s bed.
I looked at the perfectly boring painting with a wry smile; no doubt Sebastian would have thoughts on that when he woke up. I wondered if he’d mentioned it to Jet already, it seemed like the first thing he’d do.
“It’s not even ugly, which I think makes me hate it more.”
I tried not to react outwardly; to let him know he frightened me, because that’d make him laugh. I was pretty sure, with the cracked ribs and broken collarbone, laughter was not something I should be encouraging.
“Hi,” I said, turning to face him.
At least when he was sleeping, he’d looked peaceful.
Battered and bruised sure, but in sleep, his expression was smoothed out and restful.
He had a huge bruise blotted across his left temple, smudging out from his hairline towards his eye.
Cuts, caused by broken glass, were splayed across his cheekbone like a scabbing spiderweb.
The worst of it, though, was the pain I could see etched into his features. His bottom lip was bruised and a little swollen, like he’d bitten down on it too hard. It took me a second to realize he wasn’t frowning at my presence – he was grimacing, because he was in so much pain.
“At least if it was ugly, it’d be interesting,” he explained, tilting his head towards the painting. “But it’s perfectly fine, which makes it super boring.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” I asked, crossing the room to the bed. I sat down beside him, folding my hands in my lap. I wanted to reach out for him, to take his hand in mine but I was worried about crossing a line.
“Oh, this?” He flicked his eyes down, taking in the sling holding up his left arm to protect his broken collarbone. “I’m not worried, the very dashing doctor says I’m going to be just fine.”
“You nearly died, Sebastian.”
It felt like sacrilege to say it out loud, to acknowledge that it had been a very real possibility.
He could’ve died and instead of spending the rest of my life with him, I would’ve spent the rest of my life mourning him.
It pressed down on me from all sides, the loss of him, even though the threat of it was slowly fading away.
“I didn’t,” he murmured, fixing that knowing blue gaze on me. “I’m gonna be ok.”
I looked down at the bed, hoping to hide the tears I could feel prickling at the edges of my vision.
Sebastian reached for my hand with his uninjured one, swiping his thumb reverently across the knuckles of the fist I’d clenched on top of his covers.
I was digging my fingernails into the palm of my hand in an unsuccessful attempt to keep my emotions in check.
I loosened my fingers, turning my hand palm upwards so I could take his hand. He laced his fingers through mine without saying a word, although I could feel his gaze on me, warm and heavy.
“I can’t lose you. Not again,” I forced the words out, wincing as they scraped past the lump in my throat.
“Max…”
“And this isn’t just about the crash, I swear, I was working on telling you. Getting myself to a point where I could tell you everything. I’ve been going to therapy, you know? I wanted to be ready for it, when the time came. ”
“Ready for what, Max?”
“Ready to be with you, really be with you,” I sighed, shaking my head. It sounded stupid, when I said it out loud.
“Since when did you want to be with me?” He asked with a bitter little chuckle. The sound of it made my chest tighten, almost as much as seeing him in that hospital bed had.
I sat in silence, really sat with that question. It was a fair enough question for him to ask, given that I’d rejected him more than once. It had always been me, pulling away. He had every right to question me, after everything I’d done.
“Since the moment I met you,” I admitted, feeling like a weight had been lifted. I had never confessed that to anyone, had only recently admitted it to myself. I wondered if it felt as earth shattering to him as it did to me.
Judging by the way he smiled knowingly up at me, Sebastian wasn’t nearly as surprised by my confession as I had been. But then he’d always been lightyears ahead of me in most things, it was something that impressed me and pissed me off in equal measure.
“I’m on top shelf painkillers right now, so I think we’re going to have to talk more when I’m feeling better if that’s ok with you, Max. ”
He squeezed my hand, and settled further into his pillows, the pain lines around his eyes and mouth smoothing out as his eyes fluttered closed. I couldn’t help but smile back at him, squeezing his hand as gently as possible as I sat back in the chair.
“Yeah, that sounds good to me.”
◆◆◆
Sebastian was discharged into Jet’s care after 4 days. I helped Mira set up one of the many guest rooms at Jet’s mansion so that it would be more to Sebastian’s tastes – changing the bedsheets from dark beige to navy blue, filling the closet with Sebastian’s clothes.
He’d been wearing his old Reliant shirt on the night of the crash, the white one with the lion head and the snake.
The paramedics had to cut it off to assess his injuries, so I went rummaging through our band storage unit and managed to find one.
It was a size too small for him, but I was pretty sure Sebastian wouldn’t mind baring a little midriff.
In fact, I was pretty sure most people wouldn’t mind him baring a little midriff.
I hung it up in his closet just as Mira finished squaring up the bed. She caught a glimpse of the shirt and rolled her dark eyes at me, although I could see she was fighting off a smile.
“Is this the rockstar equivalent of giving him your letterman jacket?” She asked, finally letting a grin slip free.
“Fuck off,” I replied, but I was grinning back, I could feel it.
“Jet hasn’t given me a Burning Bright tee shirt yet; do you think I should ask him for one?”
“You’re the worst.”
“Then again, we haven’t been pining over each other for 5 years so.”
“Really, the worst,” I repeated but I could feel a blush rising across my cheeks. Even the tips of my ears felt like they were burning.
“Can I be bridesmaid at your wedding?”
“I think we’re going to elope, actually,” Sebastian’s voice said from the doorway. “Vegas, Elvis, little white chapel – the whole nine yards.”
“Hey,” I said, hoping he didn’t notice how much I was blushing.
“Hi,” he smiled back, adjusting his sling as he stepped into the room. “You can’t get married in red though, Max, it’s not your color.”
“Oh fuck you both,” I huffed as Mira started laughing. I ushered her out, ignoring the kissing faces she was making at me.
“The doctor says I’ll need to wait at least 6 weeks for that,” Sebastian was positively beaming even as he shuffled across to the bed. “If we want to go all the way, that is.”
He was still in a lot of pain, but at least his ability to make me blush was still intact. I sat down beside him, taking his right hand in my left. It felt natural now, to hold his hand. I expected it – if he was within reaching distance, I wanted to be touching him.
“Well, we’ve waited five years for this,” I said, sweeping my thumb across his knuckles just like he’d done for me, in the hospital. A steadying touch. A promise.
“We can wait a little while longer,” I finished the thought. He tugged on our joined hands, pulling me closer.
I turned my face to his, already closing my eyes for the kiss I knew was coming.
He was smiling as he kissed me, I could feel it pressed against my mouth.
I couldn’t help but smile back, letting my free hand tangle in his inky dark hair so I could deepen the kiss.
How had I gone five years without this, without him?
“Six weeks,” he whispered, his lips moving against mine .
“And then forever,” I murmured back, letting my hand slip from his hair to his neck, so I could feel his pulse hammering under my palm.
It was like music – a thrumming, powerful, miraculous thing that I didn’t just hold in my hand, I could feel it in my bones.
It made sense and mystified me, stopped me in my tracks and pulled me forward, elusive and all encompassing.
His pulse, pressed against my palm, made me feel like I had the whole world in my hands.
Sebastian Jacobs was many things – incredibly famous frontman of the biggest band in the world, bisexual icon, talented singer, witty wordsmith, pretty good guitarist, supposed fashion icon – but finally after 5 years, too many angry words and a few incredibly painful conversations, I could add another thing to the list of the many, many things Sebastian Jacobs was.
He was mine.
“And,” he said, kissing me.
“Then,” another breathed word, another tantalizing kiss.
“Forever.”
The End