Epilogue
Jacob
Three years later...
EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE has changed so fast, but some things will always remain the same.
“Never. Do that. Again,” Seth says.
He clenches his teeth so hard a muscle in his jaw jerks. Worry splotches his cheeks in beads of color beneath his beard.
“It was one little stage dive,” I say.
The color in Seth’s cheeks brightens. “One stage dive into a crowd of thousands , Jacob. Do you understand how dangerous that could have been if I wasn’t there to pry you out of that mob? What if they carried you to the other side of the festival? What if you were alone? What if I couldn’t reach you?”
The adrenaline of the show is draining from my body, and as it does, regret sneaks in. Seth’s worry is genuine, even after three years of chasing me around the country and the world during these shows. The paparazzi isn’t as insane as it was when we first hit the scene, but they’re always around, and our lives have become no less monitored and scrutinized. Seth has a whole team now, and we need every single one of his guys when we go absolutely anywhere at all.
All of which to say, he might have a point about the stage dive…
“It was the heat of the moment,” I say. “I got caught up in the excitement.”
“I know,” he says with a sigh, his bulky shoulders deflating. “I appreciate that, but Jacob, seriously, you need to think about your safety.”
“He’s right, you know,” Keannen says as he saunters into the greenroom with a bottle of water.
The rest of the band is with him. I look to Shawn and Levi and Dan for help, but none of them take my side. The traitors.
“Sorry, Jacob, he’s kinda right,” Levi says.
“I’m more than kind of right,” Seth says. “You’re not doing that ever again.”
“Unless you know in advance?”
Seth glowers at me.
“What?” I say. “If you knew in advance then there’d be no risk at all! You could pluck me right back out of the crowd. Easy peasy.”
“There would still be a risk,” he says, “but I suppose it would be more manageable.”
I flash a toothy grin, my dimples surely digging into my cheeks.
“Do not think you have won,” Seth says. “I’m still against it.”
I stride up to him, getting on my tiptoes to kiss him. “But you’re less against it than you were before.”
He sighs, but from this close I can pick out the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You damn demanding princeling.”
“ Your princeling, Mister Knight.”
He tries not to react. Seth gets embarrassed by that sort of thing when we’re in public, though he seems to like it plenty when we’re alone. Especially when I get it in my head to make my “brave knight” kneel to receive my princely blessing.
Seth clears his throat and steps away, busying himself with the stack of water bottles in the corner of the greenroom. Outside, the next band playing at the festival starts up, their music dissolving into vague thumping by the time it reaches us. We throw ourselves onto couches and chairs, the exhaustion of our set finally catching up with us. Everyone’s in high spirits, chatting as Seth distributes water and then stands glowering in a corner.
It’s weird that this is our life now, but it’s also become normal. Well, “normal.” It’s our normal. It’s not really anyone else’s normal. Still, I wouldn’t want to walk down this strange path with anyone but the guys around me in this greenroom. We’ve supported each other from the time we were a small no-name band all the way through our rise to stardom, through relationships, disagreements with management, weird encounters with fans, tough interviews, paparazzi, backlash, all of it. We’re making music, our music. We’re living rockstar lifestyles. We’re providing for our families thanks to our fame. It’s a life out of a story, and even three years into it I sometimes can hardly believe it’s real.
Thankfully, as much as things have changed, there’s a few things I’ve been able to hold onto all this time.
I rise from the couch to head to Seth. Everyone else is relaxing as well, drinking water, getting on their phones. Our part in the show is done, and soon we’ll return to our hotel, but I don’t want to wait that long. I cling to Seth’s shirt as I rise on tip toes and steal a long, more indulgent kiss, a kiss that has been grounding and steadying me for the past three years.
“I’m sorry for worrying you,” I say.
He tucks my hair fondly behind my ear. “You always worry me. You always will worry me. I knew what I was signing up for.”
“Damn straight,” I say. “And you signed up for life. Don’t forget that. You’re stuck with me forever.”
He smirks, tilting his head as though he’s considering this proposition and it’s not basically written in stone.
“I think I can live with that. What kind of knight abandons his prince?”
My knight in shining armor wraps me in his arms and kisses me again, and for just a moment, we’re alone. No cameras. No fans. No paparazzi.
No one but us.
No matter how much our lives change, some things will always remain ours.