Chapter 9 #2
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so much or had as much fun as we were having on the road.
It felt like Reliant had levelled up - touring with a band like Burning Bright meant that nothing was ever too much trouble, or too expensive.
The buses were top of the line, our per-diems were higher than they’d ever been and we had journalists lining up to talk to us in every city.
Of course, Sebastian and Burning Bright came up in every interview.
While most of the journalists we sat down with were smart enough not to just ask outright what had happened between us and what had changed to bring us back together, I could see it in their eyes.
There was curiosity concealed in each friendly, slanted smile.
It was a carefully curated, fragile truce we had going on with most of the music press.
Until someone decided to ask.
His name was Thom and he was the editor of The Sound, one of the biggest British music magazines.
He’d been behind the first piece of press that Forever Fading Echoes had done in the UK.
He didn’t usually write pieces, but the lure of Burning Bright and Reliant touring together had him dusting off his little pocket notebook.
Thom joined the tour in Paris. He was going to be with us through all the UK dates as well, with the idea being that he’d write a cover story about both bands and the tour itself.
I’d met Thom a few times before and always liked him – he was clearly a music nerd who made good, which meant he had a lot in common with a lot of musicians.
He was respectful and easy to talk to, which was both a good thing (easy conversations) and a bad thing (easy conversations…
which could inevitably end up in print).
We were hanging out in the green room, just Shep, Thom and I, when he asked. With his graying brown hair and wire rimmed glasses, he didn’t look like a threat, but they never do.
“I’m sorry, this has been driving me mental – how did you lot end up back on tour together? ”
He was sitting on the couch sipping his tea, not a notebook or pen or Dictaphone in sight, but I knew better than to assume we were off the record.
Thom was mild mannered and polite and so, so English, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t ruthless when he wanted to be.
Sure, we were only on the biggest rock tour the world had ever seen, would probably play to more than a million people before we bought the curtain down on the whole thing at the end of the US run, but that wasn’t the story he was after. Not really.
Sebastian and me? We were the story.
Shep and I traded a knowing look, his big brown eyes doing their very best to keep me calm. I was getting better at not blushing every time Sebastian’s name was mentioned but there were still decent odds I was going to embarrass myself every time he came up in conversation.
“Burning Bright asked us,” I replied, working really hard to keep my voice steady. I even threw in a nonchalant shrug for good measure. “We have a new album coming out, it seemed like a good idea.”
“After everything you and Sebastian have said about each other the past five years? I thought you two hated each other,” Thom chuckled.
It sounded friendly, but I could feel the strength of his curiosity undercutting his words.
We weren’t just shooting the shit, he was really asking, despite making it sound like he was just making conversation.
“Tour’s a bubble,” Shep jumped in with a shrug of his own. “When you’re 22 and you’re round the same people for weeks on end, sometimes things get a bit gnarly. I think we all ran our mouths a little bit when our first tour together was done, but that’s all water under the bridge now.”
I nodded along, trying to make it look like I believed every word he was saying. Really, he wasn’t lying. But that water wasn’t under the bridge so much as it was crashing around my legs, getting higher and higher with every day that I spent in Sebastian’s company.
I didn’t realize until I was sitting in that green room in Paris, pretending that Sebastian and I were friends and had always been friends really deep down in spite of our very public half-decade long spat, that I wasn’t over it . Wasn’t going to get over it.
Sitting in a gray-bricked room backstage in the La Défense Arena while Burning Bright did their soundcheck with Abbey, Mira, Annabelle and Sara sitting in front of the massive stage watching them, that was when I realized I was in love with Sebastian fucking Jacobs .
Always had been. Always would be.
Water under the fucking bridge? I was drowning in it.
Thom seemed satisfied with Shep’s answer and the two of them moved the conversation on to something else. I couldn’t really hear them over the roaring in my ears, my head spinning.
“I’m gonna go hang out with Sara for a bit,” I told them, hoping my voice sounded steadier than I felt. “See you guys later.”
They waved me off and I stumbled out into the hallway.
It seemed cooler out there, so I dragged in a deep, calming breath and headed out towards the stage.
Burning Bright had finished their soundcheck by the time I got there, but everyone was still hanging out.
Sebastian was sitting cross-legged on the stage, his tattooed knees peeking out from another pair of ripped jeans, playing some sort of rhyming game with Sara.
“Daddy!” She beamed at the sight of me, getting to her feet and running over. I scooped her up, buried my burning face in her sunshine blonde hair and took another deep breath. I felt better instantly, more centred, like the weight of her on my hip was holding me steady.
“Hey kiddo, what are you up to? ”
“Playing with Sebastian! He’s my very best friend!”
I looked over at him, still sitting on the stage with a relaxed, happy smile on his face.
He was leaning back on his hands, the sleeveless shirt he was wearing exposing the dramatic swirls of colorful ink that swept up his lightly muscled arms. This wasn’t rock star Sebastian, front man of one of the biggest bands in the world.
This was just Sebastian, the infuriatingly gorgeous, warm, funny, determined guy I’d fallen in love with.
Five years was nothing, nothing . It came crashing down in the face of how much my daughter loved him, how much he loved her, how much I loved them both.
“It’s an honor I take very seriously,” Sebastian said, still smiling as he got gracefully to his feet. “We’re BFFs now, right Sara?”
“Right,” she agreed. “Forever and ever and ever!”
I glanced between them both, swallowing down the lump in my throat.
I had to stop having these major emotional moments in front of people, it was getting increasingly difficult to manage.
Sebastian saw the stricken look on my face, his brow coming down as he stepped forward, wrapping one of those beautiful hands around my elbow.
“You alright?”
“Can we talk?” I blurted out, putting Sara back on her feet. “Privately?”
His blue eyes scanned my face, the shade changing each time one of the stage lights caught them.
Summer sky bled into a cold winter’s afternoon as panic set into his gaze.
Sara bounced off across the stage to Abbey, who met my eyes and nodded.
I was so grateful for her in that moment that it almost took my breath away.
“Of course,” Sebastian murmured, cocking his head in the direction of his dressing room. “Let’s go.”
We walked to his dressing room in silence.
His dressing room was nicer than mine – the sickly gray brick covered with lush emerald velvet drapes.
He’d left his Hummingbird acoustic by the couch, his jacket slung over the back.
It wasn’t as big as the Reliant dressing room but that’s because we were sharing one, whereas each member of Burning Bright got their own space.
My gratitude that we had somewhere quiet to talk, just us, easily outweighed my jealousy that he had his own dressing room.
“Is everything ok?” Sebastian asked as soon as I closed the door behind us. He was frowning, it tugged impatiently at the corners of his usually generously curved mouth.
“You can’t tell Sara you’re her best friend, or that you’re going to be friends forever.”
It was out before I’d even thought about opening my mouth. I had always been pretty proud of my brain-to-mouth filter but like most of my mental defences, it was obliterated by Sebastian. I meant it, but I hadn’t intended for it to sound so harsh.
“Why not?”
It didn’t help that there was something almost childlike about the confusion splashed across his delicate face. Even under the florescent lights, he was gorgeous. I gave myself a second to get lost in the soft sweep of his eyelashes, the way they cast fluttering shadows across his flawless skin.
“Because this isn’t forever, Sebastian,” I told him, the words grating.
“When this tour finishes, you’re gonna go back to New York and get married.
Sara and I are gonna go back to California and get on with our lives.
She doesn’t understand that we have separate lives, ok?
She’s four. When you say forever, she thinks you mean it. ”
“I do mean it,” he countered, his cheeks flushing. His bottom lip was quivering, but he wasn’t upset. I let my eyes trip down the length of him – his well-proportioned chest, down to his small waist, the carved flare of his hips. He was clenching his fists.
“I’m not…I’m not saying this to be shitty,” I said, blowing out a breath.
“She likes you a lot and I’m glad you like her, it’s made this whole touring thing a lot easier on her.
I appreciate it. But this tour isn’t gonna keep going indefinitely and I don’t wanna have to explain to her where you’ve gone when you disappear again. ”
“Why are you so convinced I’m just gonna fuck off back to the east coast and you’ll never see or hear from me again?” He demanded, the spots of dusky pink on his cheeks deepening into a furious red.
“Because it’s happened before!”
He recoiled like I’d punched him, eyes widening in surprise.
Our breakup was not a subject of conversation we’d broached since heading out on the road together.
It was a line in the sand that we danced around, referenced, nudged with a careful toe – but neither of us had crossed it, had dared dig it up.
I couldn’t help but gasp at the force of my words, hadn’t meant to go there.
All the anger had gone out of him. He sighed, unclenching his fists so that he could run his hands through his inky black hair. It fell over his face when he shook his head, making his expression temporarily unreadable.
“It’s different this time,” he said, quietly, like he was talking to a spooked animal.
“We’re friends now. You and me. And me and Sara.
It’ll be different. I’m in LA a lot for work, and I could facetime her.
You. We could write. I’ll send her postcards.
I don’t have to just disappear, this time. If you don’t want me to.”
I didn’t want him to disappear. I’d barely survived it the first time and I was pretty sure the second time was going to hurt ten times more because it was going to hurt Sara as well.
Our life with him in it felt brighter, fuller, louder.
But our life with him wasn’t the only life he had.
We were a side quest, a tour, a ticked box on the agenda of his band’s latest album cycle.
Did I really want him to facetime us with his wife in the background? Did I want him to send us photos, letters, postcards from every tour stop with a few sentences about how much fun he was having with his wife?
I couldn’t face it. Couldn’t face a world with him thousands of miles away, married to someone else.
“We’re not friends, Sebastian. We’re exes. Tour mates. Colleagues. We’ve never been friends. We’ll never be friends. ”
He stared at me, wide eyed and devastated, his face drained of color.
Even his tattoos, from his pale neck, down his arms, all the way down to his shaking hands, seemed duller.
He stood not three feet from me, no designer shades or fancy clothes, and he looked more like the boy I’d walked away from than the man he’d become.
For one quiet, trembling moment, we were 22 again and broken hearted by the impasse widening between us.
The last five years, all his roaring success and adoring fans, my daughter and the family I’d built so carefully for myself, it was all gone.
“Get out, Max. I’m not doing this with you again. Get out!”
His voice cracked as he yelled at me, splintered in a way it never did when he was on stage, even when he’d been performing for the better part of two hours. It made my eyes sting, my heart stuttering in my heaving chest at the sound of him so broken by what I’d said. What I’d done.
I’d fallen in love with him the first time and wrecked us both.
I’d fallen in with him for a second time and really destroyed us.
I let his dressing room door slam behind me, the sound of it echoing in the empty hallway. I glanced around, making sure there was no one there, before I wiped my wet cheeks and scuttled off to try and catch my breath.