Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jacob
WE MAKE IT TO practice. Barely.
The mob outside the place we booked almost traps us in the car. The driver, Ricky, has to circle around the block before the paparazzi thin out enough that we can dash inside while trying to dodge the questions flung at us like hail pelting our shoulders. One reporter manages to get in my face, and I answer out of pure anger and frustration when he asks how I’m doing after “the incident.” When he brings up Seth, I almost lose it.
“I hope he comes back,” I say.
Then Keannen is dragging me away. He hauls me through the crowd and all but throws me into the practice space.
“Holy shit,” he breathes once we’re safely inside.
“Is it going to be like this all the time?” Levi says. “They keep saying it’ll calm down but it’s only getting worse.”
I hunch with shame. “I’m sorry, guys. This is all my fault.”
Shawn grips my shoulder. “This isn’t your fault.”
Keannen nods. “He’s right. You didn’t make Ryan act like an asshole, and you didn’t make these vultures start circling us again. Let’s get to our space and try to practice. I feel like I haven’t actually played music in years.”
I understand the sentiment. This whole journey is supposed to be about the music, but in the weeks since the tour, our planned album has taken a back seat to every other stupid thing this industry can throw at us. Despite my fancy new apartment and greatly inflated bank account, I’m starting to regret signing that contract with Emmett, and if I’m feeling that way, some of the others surely feel the same. We’ve held strong through disagreements, day jobs and overdrawn accounts, but it might be actual success that undoes Baptism Emperor in the end.
I can’t bear to face that.
As I slouch to the practice room, all I can think is that all of my dreams are crumbling before I’ve even had a chance to enjoy them. Sure, the tour was great. I loved being onstage, and I think the rest of the guys did as well. We left that tour as sudden, unexpected superstars, our songs getting thousands and thousands of plays, our indie-produced album selling out everywhere, our lives and fortunes made. But the constant scrutiny and pressure has been hard on all of us. It’s even managed to cost Seth his job.
I can barely sing when we arrange ourselves in the practice room. My chest is so tight I can’t seem to get enough air to hit the right notes. The new lyrics I wrote come out lackluster and dull. I think the others feel it, but they’re not doing much better than me. I’ve never heard us play so poorly, not since our first fumbling practices in the garage of Levi’s parents’ house. Back in those early days, we had a sort of childish naivete about this whole thing, a shining enthusiasm that nothing could dim. It was only four of us then, and when we added Keannen later, everything fell into place. A basic drum beat on a keyboard couldn’t hope to compare to what Keannen brought to us. That was the moment we booked actual shows in actual bars and everything started to change.
We should be enjoying the high, living like reckless rockstars now that our moment has finally arrived. Instead, everything is falling apart before our eyes.
“I need a break,” I say after the latest disaster of an attempt at singing. To everyone’s worried looks, I add, “I’m just heading to the bathroom.”
They let me go, but they’re clearly reluctant. The other guys have been like mother hens since that stuff with Ryan. The day it happened, they stayed at my place overnight, and Dan cooked us breakfast in the morning. As much as I appreciate all their kindness, it’s verging into smothering. I’m a grown man; I can handle this.
I head down the hall outside the practice room toward the bathrooms at the far end. When I find the facilities empty, I sink against the cool tile of the wall, letting it take my weight as I close my eyes and breathe for a few seconds.
All that quiet time with my own thoughts does me no good. In seconds, I’m pulling out my phone in search of distraction. I go right to social media, the ultimate distraction device, and scroll through while leaning against the wall. The bathroom remains empty, likely because no one can get into this damn place with that mob waiting for them outside, so I take my time watching cat videos and meme dances and whatever else the algorithm wants to feed me.
Then a live feed interrupts the flow of engagement bait.
My finger freezes over my phone screen as my heart pounds a warning against my ribs. The video shows a house with all the blinds shut, even in the middle of the day, and a mob of people waiting outside it. I know the house instantly, even though I’ve only been inside it once.
It’s Seth’s.
Any relief scrolling brought me vanishes as whoever’s filming fights to get closer to the house. The comments scrolling by on the side of the screen confirm my worst fears.
omg is that the bodyguard’s house???
wait which one? the creepy one or the hot one?
ask him about Jaceth!
Before I can wonder what the hell “Jaceth” is, someone goes and spells it out for me. I instantly wish they didn’t.
Hot! I ship it! Jacob x Seth!!!
Jacawn is so much better
What the fuck? They “ship” it? We’re people. Actual, real people. What the hell do they mean they “ship” it? How do they know about me and Seth in the first place? Or is this speculation, overenthusiastic fans constructing a reality that excites them?
I’m tempted to fling my phone across the room, but before I can the bathroom door opens, and Shawn creeps inside. He walks softly, like he’s afraid he might startle me.
“Hey, man,” he says.
“Did they send you to come babysit me?”
“No,” he says. “I offered.”
“That’s not actually better, you know.”
He shrugs and takes a spot on the wall beside me. His dark hair flops across his face, but apparently it doesn’t obscure his view of my phone.
“That Seth’s house?”
I sigh and tuck my phone away. “Yeah. Apparently they found out where he lives.” The moment I say it out loud, I bury my face in my hands. “Fuck, I feel awful. He lost his job. Now this. He doesn’t deserve any of this. All he tried to do was help me.”
Again, Shawn’s hand lands unexpectedly on my shoulder. That’s been happening more and more lately, and while it hasn’t become less strange, I’m starting to learn that Shawn can be surprisingly soft under all the tattoos and leather.
“It’s not your fault,” he says.
“I know, but that doesn’t make it better. They’re going to hunt him for sport until they get what they want from one of us.”
“What do they want?”
The question stops me in my tracks. It suggests a lot more than friendly curiosity. The way Shawn asks is kind of the way those fans in the video’s chat log were asking about us. Shit, does everyone know? I can’t imagine how, when Seth has been so aggressive about keeping it a secret.
With nothing left to lose, I lift my head and look right at Shawn. “How do you know?”
He shrugs again, which seems to be his default response when he’s uncomfortable with a question.
“Come on,” I push. “There must be something. In the comments they were calling us … Jaceth.”
“Jaceth?”
“Jacob and Seth, but mashed together, I think.”
Shawn cringes. “That’s, um…”
“It doesn’t matter. How do they know? How do you know? Does everyone know?”
Shawn squirms. As much as he clearly wants to be supportive, this isn’t his forte. “It’s… Sometimes you look at him and…” Another shrug.
I can’t help but laugh at myself. “Christ, am I that obvious?”
“Sort of.”
I scrub a hand through my hair. “And here I thought I was the suave, cool frontman.”
Shawn smiles a little and nudges my shoulder with his. “That’s what everyone else thinks. We know better.”
“Yeah, and it’s a good thing they do think that. Otherwise you might have to deal with this shit.”
Shawn shivers head to toe, and I laugh again. I can’t imagine him having to deal with all the questions and cameras like Keannen and I have. He looks hard, but he’s like a big, leather-wearing cat, happiest when left to do his own thing. He can steal the whole stage during a solo, but only when he’s swept away in the music does Shawn shine like that. Otherwise, he’s like a shadow sticking to the walls.
“You know,” he says, quietly and slowly, chewing over every word, “it’s okay, I think.”
“What’s okay?”
He waves vaguely. “This thing with you and Seth. If it’s true. I think it’s okay. Maybe it’s good.”
My eyebrows rise before I can stop them. “You think it’s good?”
“If it makes you guys happy, then sure. Why not?”
“Seth keeps telling me it’s inappropriate, that he can’t do his job right. He’s ‘compromised’ because we’re hooking up.”
Shawn snorts. “That’s not why.”
“Oh yeah? Then why?”
Shawn meets my eyes at last. “He’s compromised because he cares too much about you. Isn’t it obvious?”
I blink, taken aback by this punch of honesty.
“That… No, there’s no way,” I say. “He keeps trying to run away. He didn’t even stay last time. He left right after we, um…” I clear my throat, and Shawn’s eyes skitter away. “Anyway, if he cares, he’s sure not acting like it.”
“Why do you think he quit?”
“Because … of the thing with Ryan?”
“That’s not the reason,” Shawn says. “He quit because he thinks his feelings made him fail you.”
My mouth opens and closes, but no words ever come to fill it. Of all the reasons for this latest disaster, that one never crossed my mind, yet the second Shawn says it, it makes a weird sort of sense. That is exactly what Seth would think. It is exactly how he would frame the situation with Ryan.
“I think you should talk to him,” Shawn says.
“For real? You saw that video, right?”
“Find a time. They can’t stay there forever. Or just charge in.”
“If I do that, everyone will know that everything they suspect about us is true.”
“So?”
It’s such a simple counter, but it blasts past all my defenses. I’ve been holding back for Seth, but I have never cared if people knew about us. I’ve never been ashamed. I’ve never needed it to be a secret. And now apparently it’s not. So what the hell am I still hiding from him for? What good is it doing either of us? We have nothing left to lose with the press on our asses and him losing his job. If our feelings are the “problem” here, we aren’t going to fix anything by hiding from them.
“If you want him, go get him,” Shawn says, but his voice is strangely wistful, like he’s hyping himself up in a mirror.
It doesn’t matter. It works. I straighten, pushing away from the wall with fresh determination. By the time we get back to the practice room, I’m not merely ready to deal with Seth; I’m ready to conquer the entire world. The press, the fans, management. None of them can stop me any longer.
I grab the mic, and when I unleash my voice into it, I feel like the whole world hears the song that spills out of me.