Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jacob
HOURS LATER, MY ENTIRE band sits crowded around me in my otherwise empty, cavernous apartment. They’ve refused to leave my side since they saw what was unfolding at the meet and greet. As soon as Seth got Ryan out of the building, they put me in a car and took me home, and all four of them have stayed with me since.
My couch is large enough that we all could have plenty of space between us, but everyone sticks close to me. Levi sits on one side, his shoulder against mine, and Shawn on the other, his quiet presence like a blanket draped over me. Dan and Keannen are as close as they can get as well, and Keannen looks about ready to start a fight with the wall.
“I can’t believe that asshole thought he could do that,” Keannen says for the fifth or sixth time. “The next time I see him…”
“There won’t be a next time,” Shawn says, firm and low and hard. He’s so quiet people tend to underestimate him, but beneath the introversion lurks a fiery passion that usually only comes out in his music. I guess seeing a friend in trouble brings it out as well.
I sit quietly, too shaken to say or do anything. Something like that has never happened to me. Sure, we have some overenthusiastic fans. Plus there’s the paparazzi, of course. But I’ve never had someone just … grab me that way. It was like I weighed nothing, like I was a kite and Ryan held the string. The second I realized I was helpless, something inside me broke, a thread snapping to unleash a flood of pure, disabling panic. I couldn’t seem to do anything, not until it looked like Seth was going to punch Ryan’s face into paste.
I glance up from the hands clasped between my knees as though Seth might walk into the room any moment. Seeing him snapped me out of my panic, and I yearn for his presence even hours later. My knight in shining armor. If he was here, I’d feel better, steadier, but he stormed out with Ryan and no one has seen or heard from him since. I want to reach out, to tell him I need him now more than ever, but my band hasn’t left my side. I simply have to hope he’ll head over here after he deals with the situation.
When someone knocks at my door, my heart leaps, but when Dan answers, it’s just Emmett, our manager. The tall, lanky man gives Dan a nod, then sweeps into the room, all business.
“Jacob,” he says curtly. “How are you?”
There’s little real concern behind the question. It’s more a courtesy than anything else. Emmett wouldn’t come here only to check on me. He must have some sort of news for us.
“I’m okay,” I say.
“Good,” he says. “I’m glad you’re all with him,” he adds for the rest of the band. “Obviously, this is not how we hoped or anticipated the event would go.”
“It wasn’t anyone’s fault,” I say.
“Well, it was, in fact,” Emmett says, “but we’ve handled that.”
Worry knits my brows together. “Handled it?”
“Ryan has been fired, of course,” Emmett says. “That kind of behavior is beyond unacceptable. It’s clear he is not fit to be a bodyguard to anyone in this band, but you most of all, Jacob. In fact, I imagine he’ll have a very hard time finding work with anyone in the industry after this incident.”
Relief and regret war inside me. I certainly don’t think what Ryan did is okay, and I don’t want him to do it to anyone else, but I don’t want to ruin his life either. Maybe I’m being too kind to a guy who violated every personal and professional boundary, but it isn’t like he physically hurt me.
“Hey,” Shawn says softly beside me, as though he can hear my racing thoughts. “It’s the right call, and it wasn’t your call to make. Emmett’s doing the right thing. That could have been dangerous.”
Dangerous. My exhale shudders. I didn’t even consider it being dangerous. As a guy, that’s not something I’ve thought about all that much, but man or not, Ryan is massive compared to me, so I guess anything really could have happened. The whole thing is kind of a blur, but if Seth hadn’t come out, if no one had noticed, if Ryan had decided he wanted something else, what could I have done?
I startle out of my spiraling thoughts when Shawn takes my hand. He’s not a touchy guy, so it’s certainly strange to have him grab me out of nowhere, but the friendly touch is so, so welcome. It tethers me back to the present and drags me out of my head, where everything is a confused mess.
“I didn’t think about … being in danger,” I say.
“I know,” Shawn says with a squeeze.
“You don’t need to think about it,” Levi says on my other side. “You aren’t in danger anymore. You’re here with us.”
The warmth and support of my entire band wraps around me, and some of the tension eases out of my neck and shoulders. Emmett is as rigid and straight-backed as ever as he allows this moment to unfold. Then he continues mercilessly with the report he came here to deliver.
“That isn’t all,” he says. “We needed to address the entire incident, not just Ryan.”
Now I’m confused for a whole new reason. What could there be to address other than Ryan himself? He was the one who crossed the line. No one else was even out there with us.
Then Emmett continues, and it’s like a clap of thunder on a clear day.
“We’ve fired Seth as well.”
For a moment, all I can do is blink. I gape at Emmett, replaying his words over and over to search for the lie. This cannot be real. Seth did nothing wrong. He was the one who saved me. Firing him makes no sense. My mouth is hanging open, yet I can’t summon the words to fill it as dread floods through my chest and clogs up my throat.
“He was responsible for hiring Ryan,” Emmett says. “He was the one in charge. This is his failure.”
“But he saved me.”
“Only after placing you in danger in the first place.”
I open my mouth to retort, but Emmett puts up a hand to silence me.
“It wasn’t my call alone,” he says. “Seth resigned before I could fire him. We are in complete agreement on this.”
I shake my head. Resigned? This wasn’t his fault. He can’t disappear like this. The floor seems to fall out from under me, and even though I’m sitting, I swoon, landing against Shawn’s shoulder. The world tilts away, everything I once believed steady and sure sliding out of my grasp.
“We’ll assemble a new team for you as quickly as possible,” Emmett is saying, “but we’ve obviously had to cancel a couple future appearances, so it shouldn’t be an issue in the short term. Jacob, you may want to lay low for the time being.”
Maybe he goes on, but his voice turns fuzzy and hollow, like we’re underwater. Vaguely, I note Dan rising to lead Emmett out of my apartment. When the door shuts, silence floods this big, empty place I live in alone, this beautiful shell full of perfect white furniture and stainless steel appliances and not a drop of anything real. Only when Seth was here using my kitchen did this place seem like something I might call a home.
“Hey, why don’t we order some food?” Levi says.
Everyone but Shawn gets up and starts deciding on dinner. It takes me a moment to realize Shawn can’t move because I’m clinging way too hard to his hand.
“You okay?” he says softly.
I shake my head. “This isn’t Seth’s fault.”
“He quit. What can they can do?”
“He’s blaming himself. I know he is. But he’s wrong.”
Shawn squeezes my hand. “We’ll talk to him, but first let’s eat, okay?”
I reluctantly agree. When the food arrives, a bunch of take out from a pho place nearby, everyone climbs back onto the couch. Keannen puts on some movie about buff dudes in a sweaty jungle hunting an alien monster. Someone hands me a bowl of beef pho, and I make myself eat it mostly so the others won’t notice if I don’t, but it tastes like sand. Even the explosions on the screen can’t knock me out of the loop of repeating, upsetting thoughts echoing in my head. Seth is gone. He’s gone. Just like that, he’s going to disappear from my life, and over something that isn’t even his fault. If I thought this day couldn’t get any worse, it just did.
I feel slightly better by the time the movie ends, but only because I’ve resolved to reach out to Seth. I have his number, so unless he’s blocked me, I can at least send a message. I doubt he’ll answer. More likely, he’ll bury himself in shame and regret and try to go on avoiding me.
By the time the guys are cleaning up dinner and telling me I should head to bed, I’m nearly nauseous with all the conflicts battering my brain. In one moment, Seth can be my passionate defender, my brave knight swooping in to save me from the likes of Ryan or the paparazzi, and in the next he can fire himself so that I never see him again. In one moment, he can be in my bed, lavishing every inch of my body with care and attention and devotion, treating me like every fleck of skin is uniquely precious, and in the next he can get up and leave, and tell me it was all a mistake. The back and forth is dizzying, and most of it lives solely in Seth’s head, but how will I ever convince him of that?
Shawn takes my arm and encourages me up from the couch, then leads me to my bedroom.
“Everyone’s going to crash here tonight,” he says, “in case you need anything.”
And so I’m not alone.
I know it’s true, but I also know all of my bandmates will let it go unspoken, protecting my pride.
In my room, Shawn gets me to the bed like I’m some frail old man who can’t manage it on his own. He pats my shoulder as I sit on the edge of the mattress.
“It’s going to be okay,” he says. “We’ll figure out the stuff with Seth. Not all fans are like that. Most of them are nice.”
“Fans?”
This wasn’t about a fan, not really. All of the fans we met today were perfectly normal, even if they were excited to see us. Shawn doesn’t correct himself. He simply leaves me there in the dark, shutting the bedroom door quietly behind himself as he goes.
I sit there for a moment, clinging to the edge of the mattress, staring at nothing. A few days ago, I was getting ice cream with Seth. I was inviting him up to this room. I was touching his beautiful body, sharing a moment with him that I thought meant something to both of us. Could I have been that wrong about what I felt that night? Or maybe it’s that he doesn’t feel it too, that he really is nothing more than a protective bodyguard, and I’m nothing more than a client he happens to find attractive.
I force myself to strip down and crawl into bed. I cocoon myself in the sheets, but they’re no substitute for having a real person beside me, a warm body who might actually care about me.
I drift to sleep hugging my pillow against my chest and wishing it had a heartbeat to match my own.