Chapter 10
I didn’t tell anyone about my spat with Sebastian, not right away. Partly because I wasn’t sure I’d done the right thing. I’d hurt him, and despite the light-hearted teasing aimed at him from my bandmates and crew, they were actually pretty fond of him.
I hadn’t handled the situation well and I knew it, and when I told my friends about it, they’d know it too. Still, I felt like despite the rather clumsy way I’d gone about it, I was sure I’d done the right thing for all of us; me, Sara and Sebastian.
That certainty didn’t stop me feeling sick to my stomach every time I saw him after that. He wouldn’t even really look at me anymore; when his eyes happened to catch mine, they’d glaze over and slide away. Those moments were when I’d waver, when the niggling doubts would creep in.
Being friends with Sebastian was difficult, given the fact I was ass-over-elbow in love with him, but being nothing to him? That was maybe worse.
“You alright, kid?” Kelly asked me after our set at the Glasgow show.
Burning Bright had cut “Musketeers” from the set list after Sebastian and I had our backstage argument.
The official line was that they wanted to mix up their setlists a bit, so that the fans who travelled to multiple dates (there were a good few, even I was starting to be able to pick them out of the crowd and I’m not great with faces) got to see different songs.
I was pretty sure everyone knew that the reason I was no longer giving Sebastian heart eyes on stage every night was because we’d had some sort of fight, so it was only a matter of time before someone asked about it. Of course it was going to be Kelly, she was like our tour mom after all.
I glanced at her as we made our way down the corridor to our dressing room.
Sara and Abbey were already on our tour bus getting ready for bed.
Mira had headed back to Jet’s dressing room with him after our set – he’d been waiting for her at the side of the stage, beaming with pride.
I hadn’t gotten round to asking her about that little situation yet, was too caught up in my own messy love life, but there was definitely something going on between them.
Shep, Annabelle and Shep’s fiancée Callie were heading into the city for a late dinner. I’d waved off their invitation, sent them on their chattering way. I just didn’t have the energy for it, for smiling and joking and ducking questions about Sebastian all night.
“Don’t lie to me, you know I can always tell,” Kelly warned me, expression stern.
“No, I’m not alright,” I admitted, blowing out a shaking breath. “Why did you make me say it if you already knew?”
“Sometimes you gotta admit it to yourself before you can admit it to anyone else,” she shrugged in reply.
“I’m going to assume this is Sebastian related, given that the tour is going swimmingly, you guys are killing it every night and if pre-order numbers are anything to go by, the album release is going to be your biggest one yet. ”
I glared at her, but only because she was right.
Everything else had been going so well, until I’d opened my stupid mouth and broke the fragile truce Sebastian and I had going.
Our record label had announced our new album, Dark Horses , a week or so before.
The new single, “Run”, had been released alongside the music video and had been doing crazy numbers on the streaming platforms.
The pre-order campaign for the album was in full swing and judging by the increasingly stunned reports from the record label, we were selling albums in numbers we’d only dreamed of when we’d first gotten together.
I was under no illusion that being on tour with Burning Bright was a big part of that; we were being put in front of a much wider audience than usual, and we were winning them over everywhere we went.
I wanted to feel good about it, I wanted to feel proud of the work we’d done and how far we’d come. Hell, even just to be excited about the numbers – which had never really held much sway with me but seemed like an easy thing to get excited about – would’ve been nice. But I just couldn’t.
“Has he said anything to you?” I asked her as we ducked into the empty dressing room. She immediately grabbed us both a bottle of water and gestured to the only slightly stained couch. I dropped down on it with a sigh, suddenly feeling every minute we’d spent on stage under the burning lights.
“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t think he’s said anything to anyone, to be honest. Last time you two got into a fight, his band closed ranks around him pretty tightly. We did, too. But everyone still seems friendly, on good terms. Apart from you two. ”
“I told him we can’t be friends. That we aren’t friends,” I admitted, ducking my head so I didn’t have to look her in the eye.
“Why? I thought you two were getting on well.”
I looked back up at her, hoping my heartsick expression would do the talking for me because I was pretty sure I couldn’t do it for myself.
I tore open my bottle of water and took a long swig, hoping that the cool water would help dislodge the lump I’d had in my throat since I’d stormed out of Sebastian’s dressing room.
“Oh,” she murmured, pushing her glasses up her nose as she took a long look at me. “That’s the problem. You two have been getting on well.”
“Bingo,” I croaked, putting my water down. I let my hands fall on my bouncing knees, hoping to still them. The nervous energy coursing through me wasn’t really helping when I already felt so damn tired.
“You’re still in love with him, huh?”
“It turns out I spent five years thinking I hated him, when actually I was just in love with him the whole time,” I replied, forcing a grin. “So…I’m not winning any self-awareness competitions any time soon.”
“Well I could’ve told you that, Max,” she smiled fondly at me, placing one of her hands over mine. My knees went still. “Which I guess kind of backs up your point, here.”
“I was kind of…harsh with him. I didn’t mean to be, Kelly, really.
But you know how stubborn he is, and he just didn’t get it.
He thought that when tour was over, he’d go home and get married and things would still be the same between us.
He thought he could send us letters and postcards from the road, facetime us with his wife there, and it’d be fine.
He thought I’d be fine with that,” I explained, feeling the knots across my shoulders loosening with every word that tumbled out.
Kelly gave my hand a little squeeze, sitting with it for a moment.
That’s what I appreciated most about her, that she didn’t rush to conclusions.
She never opened her mouth without thinking about it.
That’s why she’s such a god send as a tour manager; she doesn’t get swept away with a situation – she manages the hell out of it.
“Two things,” she began. “I understand why you did what you did. You need to protect yourself, and Sara. You’re still in love with him and watching him go off and marry someone else is going to cause you pain.
And if you’re hurting, Sara’s gonna hurt too.
It probably is better to end things here before either of you get too close to him.
The longer it goes on, the harder it is to walk away. ”
“Right,” I agreed, nodding gratefully. God, I was so glad she got it.
“But, second thing,” she continued, holding up two fingers to make it clear to me she wasn’t done.
“Sebastian doesn’t know you’re in love with him.
You two have spent the past 5 years taking pot shots at each other in the press and although the tour’s been going well, there’s a difference between getting on with someone and being in love with someone.
He has no reason to believe you feel that way about him, Max.
So he’s not going to understand why all of a sudden, you’ve cut him off.
I don’t know him nearly as well as I know you, so I don’t know what he feels exactly, but he cares about you and he cares about Sara.
And just like you have every right to protect yourself, he has every right to be hurt by what you said. Do you understand?”
Damn it, she was right. I knew she was right.
That was why I’d been feeling so shitty about how things had gone down with Sebastian.
Even though I’d been sure I was doing the right thing, it had still hurt him and I didn’t want that.
Not anymore. I wasn’t even sure I’d ever really wanted to hurt him, even when we were at each other’s throats across the front pages of the internet .
“This is such a mess,” I groaned, putting my head in my hands as if that’d stop the pounding headache I could feel coming on. Kelly rubbed my back, and I let my eyes drift closed. It was a rare moment of peace.
“I know this is going to be hard on you, Max, but I think you need to talk to him. To clear the air,” Kelly said.
I opened my mouth to argue, but stopped at the sight of her quirked brow, demanding my silence.
“You don’t need to go back on what you said.
I stand by your choice; I think you’re doing the right thing.
But you don’t want to leave things like this with him. It’s weighing on you.”
There was a reason she was the first person I’d confided in. Kelly was a real adult, in a proper grown-up relationship. She understood what I was going through, where I was coming from, even though our exact experiences weren’t the same.
“I don’t know what to say,” I confessed. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Kelly murmured, rubbing my back again. I leaned into it, into her safe, sturdy hands, and hoped she was right.
◆◆◆
I gave it a couple of days, turning my conversation with Kelly and my conversation with Sebastian over in my head so many times they kind of blurred together. We had a couple of days off, so Abbey and I took Sara to a park near the hotel for some fresh air and to let her burn off some energy.