Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jacob
SETH SQUEEZES MY SHOULDER while we wait backstage. As the rest of my band emerges one-by-one to waves of screams, Seth leaves that steadying hand on me. Once Shawn goes and I’m alone behind the curtain to the side of the stage, I turn, rising on my tiptoes to steal a quick kiss.
Seth lets me. When I fall back down to flat feet, he’s smiling at me.
“Ready for this?” he says.
“I think so,” I say.
We’ve practiced with Emmett, going over every single version of the questions we expect I’ll field today. Emmett even threw in some curveballs, a few of them completely outrageous. All that drilling should leave me ready for anything, but it’s one thing to do this in a conference room at the management company’s headquarters and another to do it live in front of an audience and a bunch of cameras.
“Are you ready?” I say.
“I don’t have to do anything but stand here,” Seth says.
That’s true, for now, but the second we leave this studio, everything is going to be different. It helps knowing I have my entire band on my side, and that they’re completely supportive of me and Seth, but this is the first time we’re doing this and it kinda feels like jumping into the ocean in the middle of winter. I don’t know what’s lurking in the depths of this interview, but I know Seth and my band are here to throw me a life preserver if I flail.
“Things are about to get interesting,” I say with a nervous laugh.
“Yeah,” Seth says, “but thing are always interesting with you. If they ever get boring, I’ll know something’s wrong.”
I chuckle, genuinely this time, and Seth bends down to kiss the laughter off my lips. Then my name is booming through the studio, and I have no choice but to leave him and dunk myself into those icy waters. The audience is screaming before I emerge from behind the curtain. I steel myself and slap on a smile, waving as the lights blind me. When my eyes clear, I find a buzzing crowd on the verge of leaping out of their seats. I hurry across the stage, passing in front of the desk the show’s host sits at, and take my place on a couch. I sit wedged between the edge of the couch and Shawn, who gives me a tiny, sympathetic nod as I settle in.
“Thanks for being here,” the host says.
She’s a crisp woman in a loud, fun shirt instead of a suit. I think she used to be a comedian before transitioning into talk television. Honestly, it puts me a little more at ease. Her warmth comes across as genuine when she greets each of us and invites the crowd to applaud and scream again.
“Folks, we are so lucky to have Baptism Emperor with us today,” the host says. “In just a little bit, they’ve promised to perform one of their new songs. You’re hearing it here before you hear it anywhere else. But first, guys, let’s have a chat. Wait. Why are you all looking at me like I’m your mother suddenly? I’m not that old.”
The crowd laughs. So do I. It’s not the best joke, certainly, but I think everyone is eager to break the tension.
“It’s not you, it’s us,” I say.
“Now where have I heard that before?”
I put up my hands. “Sorry, sorry, that’s not what I meant. It’s been a whirlwind, you know? This time last year, some of us worked in grocery stores and record shops. This has been … a lot.”
“I bet it has,” the host says. “They really scooped you guys out of nowhere. What has it been like getting that famous that fast?”
“Weird,” Shawn says.
“Crazy,” I add. “We’re doing what we’ve been doing for years, but suddenly it’s like the whole world is watching us do it.”
“I gather the press has been pretty intense,” the host says.
Keannen steps in, taking the burden of answering off my shoulders. He’s had it at least as bad as me. Apparently, when he and Tim moved in together, it took some real muscle to get them from their moving van into the apartment building. I heard Keannen came pretty close to throwing a punch, which would have been a PR disaster.
He doesn’t mention that, of course, but he can talk just as knowledgeably as me about how insane the press has been since the tour ended. The host asks him a couple more questions in that vein, and I gratefully allow him to take the lead. It’ll be my turn to talk soon enough, and we all know it. Shawn, Levi and Dan aren’t very good on camera, not unless they’re holding an instrument. We all got briefed on how to handle this interview, but the expectation is that Keannen and I will be doing most of the talking.
The host switches to asking about music. This isn’t what the audience here at the studio or at home really want, but she can’t exactly have a band on her show and not ask us about music. Shawn and Levi and Dan do help a little on this stuff. This is an area they can talk about. They get pretty passionate when it’s only about music, but we all know this is the quiet before the storm. The host is doing her due diligence before launching into the stuff everyone is actually watching this interview for.
The music questions taper off. The host reaches under her desk, coming back with blown up pictures on pieces of cardboard. They’re this size so the cameras and audience can see them, and I already know what they are. They’ve been all over social media for days. None of them are going to surprise me, but I brace regardless.
Here comes the hard part.
“Enough about music, we want to know all about you guys,” the host says.
The crowd titters with excitement. This is what they’ve been waiting for this whole time. Me and Keannen have been in the news a lot, and everyone watching this knows the host isn’t going to let that slide.
“Keannen, I’ll start with you,” the host says. “How are things with the beau? We saw you moved in.”
I glance over my shoulder. Keannen sits on a stool behind the couch looking like he’s chewing glass, but he composes himself and gives the answer we practiced with Emmett.
“Yeah, we did move in together,” he says almost calmly. “It’s been really great.”
“What’s it like sharing a home with a rival?”
“We aren’t really rivals. There’s plenty of space in this industry for both of us. In fact, when we were on tour, most fans were there to see both bands, not just one.”
“But surely there’s some tension,” the host says. “What if you revealed Jacob’s new lyrics accidentally?”
“We aren’t worried about that,” Keannen says. “We trust The Ten Hours, and they trust us. Like I said, we aren’t rivals.”
That wasn’t always true. It certainly wasn’t true at the start of our joint tour. When we hit the road with The Ten Hours, Keannen intended to upstage the other band every night at every show. We were a way smaller band back then, and Keannen had a chip on his shoulder about being an opener for his ex-boyfriend.
Things have changed. Keannen and Tim certainly aren’t exes anymore, and I’ve talked with The Ten Hours about possible collaborations. We’re allies in a tough, unforgiving industry rather than rivals reluctantly sharing a stage.
The host finally accepts Keannen’s answer, but that means she swings her shrewd gaze to me. My stomach contorts itself like a balloon animal.
“Jacob,” she says, drawing my name out, “you know I can’t not ask you about your man.”
The excitement in the crowd crackles. I swallow, bracing, and sneak a look toward the edge of the stage. Seth stands draped in shadow, invisible to everyone but me and my bandmates. He gives me a small nod as the host continues.
“There’s been a lot of rumors and speculation. I wanted to give you an opportunity to set the record straight. You had an interview not too long ago where you said there was no one special in your life. Is that still the case?”
It’s a single word, but it comes out with the weight of the world hanging off it.
“No.”
The host smiles. Even though we all knew this was coming, I can tell she smells the ratings spike and social media buzz this is about to garner. She’s the first one to break the news everyone has been waiting for.
“So there is someone special then,” she says.
“Yes, there is.”
“Care to elaborate on that for us?”
No , I think, but I swallow it down. We practiced this. We practiced all of this. I know the right answers; time to keep my cool and deliver them.
I try to smile and shrug, like this is no big deal. In reality, my heart is banging at my chest and I can hardly breathe.
“We’re keeping things low-key for now,” I say. “As low-key as we can, anyway.”
The host deploys those blown up pictures she’s been holding. She turns one around, and it’s me and Seth at the diner the other day, him feeding me a forkful of waffle.
“I’m sorry to say, but the secret might be out,” the host says.
The audience laughs, and I force myself to laugh as well, as much as I want to snatch that picture away and tear it up. It wouldn’t help. The images are all over social media.
“It might be,” I agree.
“So, I have to ask, were the waffles any good?”
This time it’s easier to smile. “They were excellent.”
She sets that picture aside. The next one is Seth dragging me into his house, me tucked protectively under his arm. It’s from the night he finally admitted he cares about me, the night before the waffles.
There are others. Seth and I at that ice cream shop. Seth and I outside my place. Seth helping me out of the club on my birthday. They’ve captured every second of our lives, left us no space for privacy except behind a bedroom door. I give the answers I was trained to give and do my best to smile.
Then the host says, “So, I understand Seth has been rehired as your bodyguard.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Isn’t that a bit of a conflict of interest at this point?”
She says it like a joke, and it gets a couple chuckles, but I don’t laugh along. Seth saw it as a conflict for so long, and it kept him away from me. It took a lot to convince him to come back.
“No,” I say, “I don’t think it is. There’s no one who would keep me safer than him, so there’s no one I’d rather have doing that job.”
A strange sort of quiet washes through the studio, but I don’t care. I’m looking backstage again, right into Seth’s eyes. That answer wasn’t for the cameras or the host or the audience.
It was for him.
“Well, isn’t that sweet?” the host says to break the tension.
“It isn’t,” I say, turning my gaze back to her. “It’s just the truth.”
She smiles, softer and more genuine than all those wry smirks. “Then I’m glad you have him. We wouldn’t want anything happening to the most exciting new voice in the music industry. Baptism Emperor, everyone. When we come back, you’ll get to hear their new single, ‘Escape.’”
The crowd cheers, and for the first time in weeks, I breathe a sigh of relief.