Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Jacob
A CAR PULLS UP to Seth’s house. I steal a final kiss at his door before throwing on my shoes and rushing outside. A final kiss. Hopefully only the final one today, and not the final one of my life, but the way Seth shrinks away from the door so the driver won’t see him twists my stomach into a sick knot of worry.
It’s the same driver as yesterday, Ricky. I wave at him, smiling before hopping in the back seat. It’s not like this guy doesn’t know who I am, or who Seth is, or that I must have spent the night at Seth’s house. But he doesn’t react, offering nothing more than a nod. For all Seth’s paranoia, I’m betting a person like Ricky cares more about his laundry than whatever I’m up to.
He pulls away from Seth’s house without a word, taking me back into the sprawl of downtown Seattle. My little indulgence this morning means I won’t have a chance to go home before meeting up with my bandmates for practice. I hopped in Seth’s shower, but then I had no choice but to put on yesterday’s clothes. It’s not like I could borrow any of Seth’s stuff. His shirt hung halfway down my thighs, a fact that sends a little trill of excitement through me even as I slouch in the car. Seth’s gaze darkened the instant he saw me in that shirt, his spatula freezing in mid-air as stormclouds of desire shadowed his face.
I chew on my lip while the taste of the devouring heat behind that gaze sizzles on my tongue. We did manage to eat some French toast later, after discarding the burnt piece and cleaning ourselves up, but when I run my tongue around my mouth, it isn’t to find more of the sweet syrup and bright powdery sugar. Seth lurks beneath it all, strong and musky, and I suck on my teeth like maybe I can pull some hidden bit of him from between them.
My search for him distracts me until the car pulls up outside the practice space. It’s a different space from last time, and we’re all going to let the driver take us home. These precautions will hopefully prevent the fiasco we endured before, though a little piece of me yearns for Seth to take me by the arm and carry me through the crowd again.
My dashing knight.
I might have expected him to hate that nickname, but it’s one of the few things he hasn’t balked at. He certainly embodies the image easily enough, especially when he picked me up both last night and this morning…
A pleasant shudder shivers through me at the memories. I shake myself before thanking Ricky and getting out of the car, but when I slip into the practice building and head down the hall, I’ve never felt less prepared to sing in my entire life. I don’t even have my notebook with me, and the second I step into the practice room, eyebrows raise as my band takes in the very obvious and unavoidable fact that I’m in yesterday’s clothes.
“Good night?” Keannen says with all his usual snarky sarcasm.
Part of me wants to deflect or cower, but I lock my knees and force myself to face them. Who cares what they think? I’m an adult. If I want to spend the night with someone, where’s the shame in that?
“Yes, actually,” I say. “A very good night. And a good morning.”
I wink, hoping it comes off as casual and cocky, but Keannen’s smirk only digs deeper into the corners of his mouth. Dan and Levi look away like they’d rather be anywhere else in the universe, but Shawn watches me with a carefully blank expression. I’m not sure what he’s hiding under there. He’s tough to read in the best of times, and even moreso when he doesn’t want you to know what he’s thinking. Something lurks beneath the clench of his jaw, however, I just know it.
“Oh my God, you’re acting like I burned down the Space Needle or something,” I say.
“Worse, we’re acting like you told us we’re pivoting to nothing but ballads,” Keannen says.
I roll my eyes. “Can a grown man get laid once in a while? Jeez. You all need to relax. I’m here now, aren’t I? My business is my business. You’re becoming as bad as the press.”
“Speaking of the press,” Shawn starts in his slow, considering way, “were they at your home? Is that why?”
I swallow, realizing my mistake. Why would I be in yesterday’s clothes if I had managed to get home? The obvious conclusion is that something blocked me from my own apartment. And who was the only person with me at the time? Seth, of course.
I can’t deny it, but I’m also not going to confirm it for them. They can speculate all they want, but I know Seth will wither with shame and embarrassment if he thinks anyone knows. He already obviously feels uncomfortable with this, no matter how many times I assure him he shouldn’t.
“Yes,” I say, refusing to back down. “They were at my place. Again. I didn’t want to head in, so Seth got me somewhere safe instead, but it means I didn’t have a chance to change. Mystery solved, okay? Can we make music now?”
“What about the interview?” Shawn says. “Was it a lie?”
It takes me a second to follow his train of thought. He does this sometimes, says something that feels completely disconnected, but it’s only because his mind is whirling, jumping from one connection to the next without informing the outside world.
I discover his path after a moment of hesitation. The interview. The host asked me about my birthday and whether I had “someone special.” I denied it, looking right at Seth as I explained that the person I had feelings for didn’t return those feelings. He probably still doesn’t. One night together isn’t going to make Seth feel any differently about the complications implicit in our circumstances. Sure, he let me spend the night and cooked me breakfast (after throwing me sexily onto his kitchen table), but I can taste his hesitation. What we did might mean nothing to him. I might never get another chance with him, even after the past twenty-four hours. He still sees himself as a knight chasing after a prince, unworthy, duty-bound to keep his hands to himself. I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to convince him otherwise.
“No,” I say. “It wasn’t a lie. There’s no one. It was just fun.”
Dan and Levi carefully and deliberately don’t look at me. Keannen’s mocking mirth quiets. Shawn’s mouth tightens, but he doesn’t press the point.
I step in front of a mic before they can keep prying. I want to talk about this even less than Seth suddenly. My band follows my lead when I take them into one of our new songs, something we need to tighten up before we can call it finished and move on. Entire sections remain disjointed, but as I drag my band through the music, the song weaves itself into the first inklings of the tapestry we’re building thread by thread.
I sink into it, giving myself to the music the way I have since I was a kid looking for a way to explain feelings that as yet had no name. It’s always been my escape and my refuge, the place I go when I need to process.
Seth is certainly giving me a lot to process.
As I belt out the notes, it’s like I’m screaming them to him all the way across town. We spent that night and morning together, but his discomfort rolled off him in waves as he bid me goodbye. He’s going to try to keep some distance between his job and what we just did. He’s going to run from it. I know it before he even has the chance to say it. Why can I attract anyone in the world except him?
The song ends, dumping me back into reality, where I have no buffer from the thoughts scratching at the back of my mind. I don’t even have proof of my worries, but the sick feeling burrowing into the pit of my stomach leaves no doubt that it’s only a matter of time before Seth pushes me away to preserve some sense of professionalism. He kept repeating how this is his job and it was inappropriate, meaningless objections I couldn’t care any less about. But Seth cares, and that’s going to make all the difference when he starts running last night through his head.
Before I can escape into another song, Dan’s phone buzzes at him. He looks at the name on the screen, then puts up a finger, indicating he needs to answer. We wait, tension billowing up like steam out of a vent as Dan’s expression turns grave and he says variations of “I understand” to the person on the phone. He hangs up with a sigh.
“Well?” I prompt when I can’t stand it any longer.
“That was Emmett,” Dan says.
“Why’d he call you in particular?” Keannen says with his usual brashness.
Dan shrugs. “Dunno, but he said we’ve got a meet and greet next week.”
Everyone groans at the news. It’s not that we hate meet and greets. I mean, I guess Shawn and Keannen do, but the rest of us genuinely enjoy meeting fans. The problem is more the constant, non-stop scrutiny we’ve been under since the end of the tour, the interviews, the social media posts, the mob scenes every time we leave our houses, the incessant stories and photos in the press. We haven’t had a second out of the spotlight, and it’s starting to wear us all down. A meet and greet is about the last thing we need right now.
“I know,” Dan says, “but Emmett says we have to do it. It’s already set up. We just need to show up, sign some autographs, take some pictures. The usual thing. No big deal.”
“It’s a big deal when we’re all exhausted,” I say.
“No choice,” Dan says.
We all know it’s true, so no one bothers to contradict him. He rattles off the details, date, time, place, all of that. I’m not really listening. I’m more focused on bracing myself for yet another situation where management trots me out to smile and wave and be photographed.
“Seth is working on a team,” Dan says.
“He won’t be there?” I ask a bit too quickly.
“He’ll be there, but Emmett said he wants to get some new guys in too, try them out in an easy, low-stakes situation. It’ll be a good opportunity for him to step back and let someone else take over. It has to happen eventually anyway.”
Right. Of course it does. Seth’s assignment was never permanent. He was never going to be my knight in shining armor forever. He’s only here because he hasn’t replaced himself as our bodyguard yet. The meet and greet is a great opportunity for him to take a step back, which only makes me dread the whole experience more. I don’t want someone else protecting me. I don’t want someone else filling that “knight” role in my life. That spot is for him, if he was only willing to accept it.
This is going to give him the perfect opportunity to pass the title on to someone else, to pass me on to someone else. He can create the space he craves and run away from what we did, and knowing Seth, that’s exactly what he plans to do.
I don’t know how I’m going to change his mind, but after having a taste him, I can’t simply let him slip away.