Page 101 of Sebastian's Baby

“Sure, Seb, I’m not exactly about to send you off to a hotel tonight,” she laughs. “Wait, how long do you expect to be here?”

I had thought that I would go back to Chicago tomorrow, but I don’t think I can bring myself to leave Seattle until I know for sure that Lita will be safe.

“However long I need to be here.” I shrug noncommittally.

“Don’t you have to go back to Chicago, though?”

“Not really, we’re finished with promotion forGames We Play. Tour prep doesn’t start until next year.” I consider what obligations I have back home and tell her, “I mean, I’ve got Gabriel’s bachelor party on Saturday. I can fly out Saturday morning if I have to, and back on Sunday. Then you’re coming to Chicago for the wedding the weekend after that, and I’ll see how things are going then.”

I wonder if she could come to Chicago with me this weekend. I really don’t want to go home and leave her here without me.

“You… want to stay with me all week?” Lita raises her eyebrows.

“Maybe. If you’re okay with that, I mean. We’ll see what the pressure is like with the paparazzi. I just don’t want to be a four-hour flight away if shit goes south. If I’m in Chicago, I won’t be able to relax if I don’t know everything is okay here with you two anyway.” I shake my head. “If you don’t want me here with you, I can get a hotel, of course.”

“What the fuck do you do with your days if you can just drop everything and stay in Seattle for an indeterminate amount of time, Sebastian Fox?” Lita demands.

I can’t help but laugh, “Think your baby’s father doesn’t work hard enough for his money, princess?”

It’s true that we’re not really doing a lot at the moment, but it doesn’t mean we haven’t worked our asses off for the luxury of that.

“Well, it depends, really. When we’re promoting an album, we have to do twelve-to-fifteen-hour days, giving interviews, and answering the same dumb questions in every one of them.

“Sometimes we have photoshoots to do, or we’ll be recording a music video. We spent a month last year recordingGames We Play. We go to events and parties. Touring is the big thing, though. It’s months and months of being away from home, but it earns shitloads of cash for us and the people involved with the band: ticket sales, merchandise, fan experiences. We sell ourselves off, basically.

“For the small price of your soul, you too can have the life we lead. The trade-off is that when we’re not doing those things, we have a pile of money to spend and plenty of spare time in which to spend it. Every time someone streams one of our albums or buys a piece of merch on our website or a song is played on the radio, it’s more money coming in. A few of our songs were put on movie soundtracks, more royalties. We could probably stop today and still not have to worry about money for the rest of our lives.”

“You won’t stop, though, will you?” Lita asks quickly, sounding concerned that there may be no more Cruise Control albums in the future, and I can’t help but smile at her.

“No, fangirl, we won’t stop. We all love making music. I’ve already started thinking about stuff for our next album. We have slowed down, though. We’re not going on tour forGames We Playuntil April. With everything that’s happened, we put our foot down with the execs from Sierra and told them we wouldn’t be touring this year. We decided to start the tour one year after the release. The tickets sold out faster than any of the previous tours too.” I realize that she probably knows all of this, except for the reason why the tour didn’t happen this year. “Wait, do you have a ticket to our Seattle concert?”

“I hate when I have to admit how big a fan I am, but yeah, you’re not telling me anything I don’t know about when your next tour is.” Lita wrinkles her nose at me, and I laugh.

She’s so cute when she gets embarrassed about being a fan, but I’m so glad she is because that’s how she came into my life.

I hug her tightly and say, “My baby mama, my fangirl, my princess. I’m glad you’re in my life, did you know that?”

“I had kind of gotten that idea, yes. If you’re trying to butter me up so that you can stay here and we can have sex every day for a week, you don’t have to try that hard. You can pay me back in orgasms.” Lita grins wickedly at me.

I like this idea very much and smirk as I ask, “If you take me up on the apartment offer, can I get the same deal? I’d much rather receive orgasms from you than money.”

Her grin disappears at once, and she says seriously, “No, Seb. If we do that deal, you’ll already have been more than generous enough. I will pay you rent. I have no interest in being ‘kept’ by you.”

Her words have the ability to cut through me, as usual. It’s the way she so flippantly writes off the concept of an involvement with me that hurts, despite me not wanting a relationship with her. Just because I don’t want it doesn’t mean I don’t feel the rejection at all.

“Ah, there it is.” I sigh. “Always so casually cruel to me, princess.”

“I’m just being honest,” Lita says.

“Well, in the interest of honesty, you should know that I intend on taking any rent you pay me and putting it in an account for the baby.” I shrug.

Lita shakes her head. “We are so completely and utterly different, Seb. You’re just writing off my rent, a huge portion of my monthly budget, as if it’s nothing.”

I’m grateful for how far I’ve come in life, and it’s definitely nice not to have to consider the cost of things anymore. I haven’t forgotten what that was like, though.

“I spent a lot of my life not having any spare cash. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rolling in it, either. Spending some of the money I have now on a place to keep you and my baby safe is not something I would ever regret doing. I would rather you keep your money and do whatever you want with it, but I know you won’t, Lita. So, I’ll put your rent aside for our baby instead.”

“Assuming we even do this.”

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