Chapter 2 #2
I pulled away first, snatching up my bottle to take another swig. The moment passed, slipping through his outstretched fingers like sand.
“I suppose,” he agreed with a little nod, sitting back on the stool. “So if she’s not your wife…”
“Her name is Abbey,” I told him, grateful for the distraction. Abbey, Sara, they were solid topics of conversation. I could talk about Sara for hours, given half the chance. “She’s a good friend, and my daughter’s nanny.”
“Oh. What’s your daughter’s name?”
“Sara.”
“That’s pretty. How old is she?”
“Four. ”
I could see him trying to do the math, watched him come to the inevitable conclusion. Sara had been conceived just a few months after we’d finished touring. I was caught up in my heartbreak, on a booze soaked and drug fuelled downward spiral when I’d met Amie, Sara’s mom.
“Where’s her mom?”
And there it was, the million-dollar question. Of course, he’d go right for the heart of it. It was part of the contradiction of him – he’d always had the balls to ask for what he wanted but was shit scared when it looked like he’d get it.
I took another swig of my beer, wondering how much to tell him.
I didn’t owe him anything, least of all an explanation or update on my love life.
Even when we’d been fucking around, we’d never had The Talk, had never said we were exclusive even though there was no way in Hell I was going to get with someone else.
“Paris, last I heard,” I answered him, shrugging.
I was used to people asking about Sara’s mom – from the over eager soccer moms at her Saturday morning little league to the lady I took Sara to when it was time for a haircut, even the girls working the counter at the department store when we went clothes shopping.
Where’s her mom?
Well gee, lady, she figured out pretty early on that even though she and I were sleeping together, I was still ass over elbow in love with the god damn rockstar I’d spent the summer screwing, so about 18 months after she gave birth to our daughter, she realized that she didn’t really have the desire to be a mom.
She left and now I raise my daughter alone with the help of a punk rock loving nanny. Great story, right?
“You’re not…”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Sebastian, I get those questions from nosey soccer moms every week, I don’t need them from you too,” I snapped, rolling my eyes before finishing my beer. “You didn’t come here to catch up.”
“The fuck I didn’t,” he snorted, dropping his gaze. He spoke his next words to his tattooed hands. “I missed you, Max.”
I dragged in a breath, shaking my head like I could shake away the sound of him saying “I missed you” in his private schoolboy drawl. I turned away to dump my bottle in the recycling bin, glad of the distraction.
“You don’t believe me?” He asked, quirking a brow when I finally drummed up the courage to face him .
“We haven’t spoken in five years,” I pointed out.
“Doesn’t feel like that right now though, does it?”
“Did you really drag your pasty ass all the way out here to try and convince me to do this tour?” I asked him, hiding my own insecurities behind a snort of derision.
“I was in town anyway,” he shrugged delicately, taking a quick sip from his beer. “And when Sheldon told me you’d freaked out over my very generous offer, I thought I’d stop by.”
“And you thought you could convince me?”
Of course he did. He’d always been able to talk me round.
Just a kiss, Max. Just a quick handjob, Max.
Just a quick hook-up, Max. Just fall in love with me, Max.
It’s not like I wasn’t open – too open – to his suggestions, right?
I think I actually wanted him more than he wanted me.
I was the latest in a long and varied line of people Sebastian had wanted, taken, had .
He was the first (only) man I’d ever been with, because he was the only one who’d been brave enough to take my desires and give them a voice.
“What’s holding you back?”
I stared at him, keeping my face perfectly blank. He stared back impassively for a few seconds before the corners of his lips twitched, barely concealing the smile I knew was brewing just under the surface.
“I haven’t gone on tour since Sara was a baby,” I admitted. “Her mom was still around then. I can’t leave her for months to go on tour.”
“Bring her with you,” he shrugged, waving one of his delicate hands like he could dispel my concerns with a snap of his fingers.
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s four fucking years old, Sebastian! She has a routine, she needs stability.”
“Max, every single day on tour is pretty much exactly the same. If she likes a routine, then she’s going to fucking love it. You could show her the world, and she’d get to see what daddy does for a living. It sounds like a win-win to me.”
“And where’s she going to sleep?”
“On a bus with you and her nanny. Hey, Shep’s engaged now right? I bet him and his fiancée would like a quieter bus too. So you, Sara, nanny, Shep and his future Mrs, perfect little roster.”
“Yeah, like the label’s gonna stump up the money for an extra bus,” I answered, rolling my eyes at him .
Reliant were doing great, we’d always made more than we cost the label and we had a dedicated, loyal fanbase.
We made money with every release, every merch drop, every tour.
Not every band was so lucky, and the label knew it.
They’d always been pretty decent to us, considering they were basically an evil, blood-sucking corporation.
Still, tour buses are fucking expensive.
The band owned one, but just one, and it was cramped as hell at the best of times.
There was no way the label was going to pay for us to rent a second bus so I could make sure Sara got some semblance of peace and quiet.
“I’ll pay for it.”
“The fuck you will,” I replied, trotting out another glare. I wasn’t going to take his money.
There was a headache blooming behind my eyes, so I glanced outside.
There must’ve been a light breeze outside, it was making the water lap gently against the edge of the pool.
It looked nice; peaceful. I hated that he’d come to my house, that he’d brought his knowing eyes and his sinful smirk and his twisting, charming energy into my home.
“Well it seems to me like I’ve come up with a handy little solution and you’re just saying no for the hell of it,” he murmured, voice pitched low. “What’s really holding you back, Max? ”
“YOU!” I yelled in my own head, the sound of it echoing in my ears. He was holding me back – he’d been holding me back for five goddamn years.
“I just don’t know if I want to put Sara in that sort of environment,” I lied. I had no problem introducing Sara to the people I worked with – she considered Shep, Mira and Annabelle her family. Our tour crew was a good team, I knew they’d love her and she’d love them too.
“Look, me and the guys, we don’t party anymore. Got it out of our system a long time ago,” he smiled ruefully, his eyes sparkling with something like sincerity. “We’ve settled down a lot.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I…” he gathered up all the little bits of the label he’d been slowly shredding. “I’m engaged, actually. Her name’s Myah.”
That really did nearly send me rocking back on my heels.
It was more of a shock than seeing him standing in my driveway.
I blinked so rapidly he blurred in my field of vision – one second, he was twenty-two-year-old Sebastian, skinny and hunching, his favorite ratty black sweater slipping off a pale shoulder.
He’d been big blue eyes ringed with delicate purple bruises and permanently smudged eyeliner, sharp bones and soft sighs and the biggest, brightest smile in the room if you could make him smile for real.
Then blink, and he was twenty-seven, rich and successful beyond his wildest dreams, styled impeccably and smiling sadly and getting fucking married.
“Congratulations,” I said, because what the hell was I going to say?
Hey Sebastian, how the fuck could you do this to me? How could you make me fall in love with you, then let me go, leave me thinking about you every fucking day for five years before showing up at my door to tell me you’re getting married of all things?
“Yeah, we haven’t set a date yet. Um, I’m going to do the album cycle with Burning Bright – release, tour, the whole thing – then we’ll probably get married at some point after that.”
“You just have everything figured out.”
“Almost everything,” he looked up at me through those ridiculous long eyelashes, something like a blush rising across his cheeks. “So what d’ya say? Wanna come on tour with us?”
◆◆◆
Shep arrived about 20 minutes after I’d put Sara to bed, which had been about an hour after Sebastian had finally left.
He was carrying a six pack of the weird fruity organic beer he was always raving about.
I’d never been so glad to see him in all my life – and that includes the time he showed up at the county jail to bail me out at 3am on a rainy Sunday morning.
“Was he really here?” Shep asked, looking around the living room as if he could see the ghost of Sebastian’s presence still haunting my home. He could probably still smell his cologne, the bastard never knew when to quit.
“He was really here,” I replied grimly, leading him out on to the back patio.
The sun had long set so it was lovely and cool outside.
The night air sparked chills across the surface of my skin but I was glad of the distraction.
Shep flopped his long frame down into one of the sun loungers, cracking open a couple of beers.
I sat down beside him, knowing without looking that he was studying my face for clues before he handed me one of the bottles.
“Is he insufferable now?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” I sighed. The beer tasted weird, kind of bitter, but it matched my mood so I kept drinking it.
“Did you guys hug it out? ”