Chapter 1 #2
I slumped onto the couch and swung my feet up onto the coffee table before shovelling a forkful of lasagne into my suddenly dry mouth.
My appetite had all but vanished in the face of Sebastian’s infuriating perfection, but I’d skipped enough dinners when I first got to LA to know that there were few things more important than eating when you had the opportunity.
“Is modern rock’s greatest feud over?” The host asked with a flip of her glossy hair. I couldn’t help but snort – there was no way that girl knew anything about “modern rock”.
“Photographed while running errands in New York yesterday, Burning Bright frontman Sebastian Jacobs seems to be hinting that his war of words with Reliant lead vocalist and former tour mate, Gideon “Max” Maxwell, is finally over. ”
I barely had time to be furious that I’d been Sunday-named on national television, was too distracted by the camera man zooming in on the image of Sebastian. What I saw was nearly enough to make me spit out my food.
Under his leather jacket, Sebastian was wearing a Reliant tee shirt.
The print was faded but it was easy to see what it said.
The band name was printed in massive black uppercase letters, right across the chest. Under the lettering was a stylized lion head with a snake curling out from its snarling mouth.
It was pretty rare, as far as shirts went – we had only made a couple hundred in that design, and they all sold out on the tour we’d done with Burning Bright half a decade earlier.
I swallowed the food in my mouth mechanically so I could take a swig of beer, trying and failing to ignore the lump swelling my throat. I knew exactly where Sebastian had gotten that shirt, remembered it like it had been yesterday.
“You got jizz on my shirt, you fucker,” he said, the smile tucked into the corners of his mouth betraying him. “You really gonna make me do the walk of shame back to my bus in a jizz stained shirt?”
“No, I’m gonna throw that shirt away – the sleeve is practically hanging off, you idiot,” I replied, rolling my eyes even though I was reaching for him.
He was sitting on the edge of the couch in the back lounge of our tour bus, looking for his left boot while I stared at the ceiling and tried to catch my breath.
I curled my hand around his pale wrist to stop him getting up, letting my thumb rest across the flutter of his pulse for a few seconds longer than I really had to.
He glanced at me over his bare shoulder, the light spilling in from the streetlight outside bleaching his skin, brightening his eyes and darkening the tumble of his black hair all at once.
“Here,” I murmured, sitting up so I could pull my tee shirt over my head.
It would’ve been two sizes too big for him when it was new – I was 6 feet tall and broad shouldered, he was 5’8 on a “good day” and lean like a model – but I’d been wearing it since the start of the tour so it was already a bit stretched, the print washed out.
“I always did think it was tacky that you wore your own merch,” he quipped, but there was a softness in his eyes when he looked at me that took all the sting out of what he was saying.
“Well someone’s gotta wear it,” I grinned, shrugging with faux modesty. We were killing it on tour, there were plenty of kids wearing Reliant merch. In fact, we had already sold out of that particular shirt – white, with a roaring lion and snake motif that Shepherd had sketched out himself.
He pulled it on, messing up his hair even more. He looked like he’d just stuck his pretty piano playing fingers into a socket and gleefully flipped the switch. I watched, blushing a bit, as he smoothed out the hem with his careful hands.
“Thanks,” he nodded, catching my chin in those clever fingers so he could kiss me goodbye. “See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, see ya,” I replied, trying to keep my voice light, casual.
There was nothing casual about the way I couldn’t take my eyes off him, though.
The sound of my phone pinging pulled me out of the haze of the unwanted memory. I shook my head like that would clear it, glancing up at the TV and noting gratefully that the host had moved on to talking about someone else.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket, the screen lit with a text message from Shepherd. I thumbed the message open.
Gideon!
I contemplated playing dumb, but there was no way he’d let me away with it.
Shep rarely let me away with anything, had spent a decade putting up with my bullshit as the long suffering and endlessly patient bassist of Reliant.
He’d been one of the first people I’d met when I showed up in LA, 17 and broke and angry as hell – so he’d had plenty of practice dealing with me in my worst moods.
I decided to call him, knowing it was always better (and usually quicker) to talk it out with him. I wasn’t a big fan of talking on the phone but sometimes texting just takes way too long, and with Sebastian blessedly gone from my TV screen, I was hungry again.
He picked up on the third ring, still laughing at my full name being trotted out on TV.
“Why do they do the whole “Max” in inverted commas thing, though?” He asked, his deep voice dipping into a chuckle. “They should either call you Gideon Maxwell, or just Max.”
“I’d rather they don’t talk about me at all,” I reminded him with a huff that was freakishly reminiscent of Sara being told it was bath time. “Why the fuck do they have to drag us into it?”
“Uh, because he was wearing our shirt?” Shep pointed out. “Well, my shirt, actually, seeing as how I designed the damn thing. Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting it to still look so good.”
“Yeah yeah, your art is timeless, asshole.”
“You’re so supportive, Gideon, I think that’s why you’re my very best friend.”
“Fuck off,” I groused, making him laugh even harder .
I could just picture him, his wild red hair falling about his freckled shoulders as he laughed that throaty laugh of his.
Shep’s house wasn’t too far from mine, a bit closer to the water.
His dining room opened onto the beach and judging by the faint roar of the ocean I could hear in the background, he was sitting out by his firepit – probably burning a sickening amount of food and claiming he was cooking while his fiancé, Callie, looked on disapprovingly.
“You know, if you hadn’t taken a verbal swing at him in every interview we’ve done for the past five years, maybe him wearing our shirt wouldn’t be such a big deal,” he said, barely concealing his laughter.
“I have not taken a verbal swing at him in every interview we’ve done for the past five years.”
“You called him a poser.”
“He went to fucking Fashion Week!” I argued. “Walked the catwalk like a super model even though he’s only five foot eight – what is that if not glorified posing, Shep?”
“Callie’s gonna rip your balls off if she hears you saying that, dick,” he replied, still laughing his head off.
“Callie’s a real model though! Sebastian is just a mediocre singer with an ego visible from space.”
“See, this is what I’m talking about, Max,” Shep said. “It’s that kinda talk that started this whole…” he trailed off, so I knew he was gesturing with his spare hand. I was pretty sure I could hear barbecue tongs clicking together. “Feud bullshit.”
“We’re not feuding.”
“Not anymore, supposedly,” he agreed with a low hum. “So…you heard from him at all?”
I dragged in a deep breath and leaned forward so I could put my plate on the coffee table.
I leaned back against the couch, ran my hand through my hair before tugging it in front of my face like I could hide from his question.
I let out an exhale, watching my hair flutter away from my face before falling back into place.
“No. Why would I have heard from him?”
It was a loaded question, and Shep, with his limited knowledge of what had gone down between Sebastian and me, knew it.
I’d never told him – had never told anyone – that Sebastian and I had started screwing around 3 days into that tour and had then proceeded to fuck each other all summer.
I was pretty sure that the only other person in the world who knew the full story was Sebastian.
All Shep knew was that Sebastian and I had gotten really close.
We’d spent all our free time together, and most of it was in full view of our bandmates and crew.
Sure, we’d stolen away for a private moment every now and then, but most of what had happened between us had played out in public.
So Shep had seen us jamming together, eating together, laughing together and talking together, had watched us playfully trash talk each other when we ended up on opposite teams during a rousing game of kickball.
I had ended up performing with Burning Bright every night, Sebastian and I tearing through “Musketeers”, the first single for Burning Bright’s second album.
Everyone had seen us bouncing around on stage together, sharing a mic, Sebastian’s lips smearing across my grinning face.
There were countless photos of us standing side by side on stage, my arm slung possessively across his shoulders while he wrapped his arm around my waist.
Then tour was over, and Sebastian and I weren’t talking. Reliant were still in the middle of a promo cycle for our debut album, Tearaway , and the first time a journalist brought up Sebastian, something inside me snapped.
HE’S A SPOILED brAT: RELIANT SPILL THE BEANS ON BURNING brIGHT FRONTMAN ended up scrawled across the front page of that god damn magazine and that was it, one throwaway comment that sparked a torrent of insults between my band and his.
“I dunno, I just thought…”
“Thought what, Shep?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I didn’t want the answer.
“Thought that maybe he’d reach out to you, or some shit. That maybe you guys had talked through whatever the fuck happened to make you hate each other.”