Page 32 of Wild Fixation
I’m not sure if it’s more threat or promise. Maybe a bit of both. Either way, I’m too weak to refuse, too weak to deny it. I promise myself I’ll find a way — later. After he’s gone. Once I can think straight. Once his taste is out of my mouth. Then I’ll end this the way I should have last night.
“My knight in shining armor,” Jacob says with a smirk.
I wish I was half as chivalrous as he seems to believe.
Chapter Seventeen
Jacob
A CAR PULLS UP to Seth’s house. I steal a final kiss at his door before throwing on my shoes and rushing outside. A final kiss. Hopefully only the final one today, and not the final one of my life, but the way Seth shrinks away from the door so the driver won’t see him twists my stomach into a sick knot of worry.
It’s the same driver as yesterday, Ricky. I wave at him, smiling before hopping in the back seat. It’s not like this guy doesn’t know who I am, or who Seth is, or that I must have spent the night at Seth’s house. But he doesn’t react, offering nothing more than a nod. For all Seth’s paranoia, I’m betting a person like Ricky cares more about his laundry than whatever I’m up to.
He pulls away from Seth’s house without a word, taking me back into the sprawl of downtown Seattle. My little indulgence this morning means I won’t have a chance to go home before meeting up with my bandmates for practice. I hopped in Seth’s shower, but then I had no choice but to put on yesterday’s clothes. It’s not like I could borrow any of Seth’s stuff. His shirt hung halfway down my thighs, a fact that sends a little trill of excitement through me even as I slouch in the car. Seth’s gaze darkened the instant he saw me in that shirt, his spatula freezing in mid-air as stormclouds of desire shadowed his face.
I chew on my lip while the taste of the devouring heat behind that gaze sizzles on my tongue. We did manage to eat some French toast later, after discarding the burnt piece and cleaning ourselves up, but when I run my tongue around my mouth, it isn’t to find more of the sweet syrup and bright powdery sugar. Seth lurks beneath it all, strong and musky, and I suck on my teeth like maybe I can pull some hidden bit of him from between them.
My search for him distracts me until the car pulls up outside the practice space. It’s a different space from last time, and we’re all going to let the driver take us home. These precautions will hopefully prevent the fiasco we endured before, though a little piece of me yearns for Seth to take me by the arm and carry me through the crowd again.
My dashing knight.
I might have expected him to hate that nickname, but it’s one of the few things he hasn’t balked at. He certainly embodies the image easily enough, especially when he picked me up both last night and this morning…
A pleasant shudder shivers through me at the memories. I shake myself before thanking Ricky and getting out of the car, but when I slip into the practice building and head down the hall, I’ve never felt less prepared to sing in my entire life. I don’t even have my notebook with me, and the second I step into the practice room, eyebrows raise as my band takes in the very obvious and unavoidable fact that I’m in yesterday’s clothes.
“Good night?” Keannen says with all his usual snarky sarcasm.
Part of me wants to deflect or cower, but I lock my knees and force myself to face them. Who cares what they think? I’m an adult. If I want to spend the night with someone, where’s the shame in that?
“Yes, actually,” I say. “A very good night. And a good morning.”
I wink, hoping it comes off as casual and cocky, but Keannen’s smirk only digs deeper into the corners of his mouth. Dan and Levi look away like they’d rather be anywhere else in the universe, but Shawn watches me with a carefully blank expression. I’m not sure what he’s hiding under there. He’s tough to read in the best of times, and even moreso when he doesn’t want you to know what he’s thinking. Something lurks beneath the clench of his jaw, however, I just know it.
“Oh my God, you’re acting like I burned down the Space Needle or something,” I say.
“Worse, we’re acting like you told us we’re pivoting to nothing but ballads,” Keannen says.
I roll my eyes. “Can a grown man get laid once in a while? Jeez. You all need to relax. I’m here now, aren’t I? My business is my business. You’re becoming as bad as the press.”
“Speaking of the press,” Shawn starts in his slow, considering way, “were they at your home? Is that why?”
I swallow, realizing my mistake. Why would I be in yesterday’s clothes if I had managed to get home? The obvious conclusion is that something blocked me from my own apartment. And who was the only person with me at the time? Seth, of course.
I can’t deny it, but I’m also not going to confirm it for them. They can speculate all they want, but I know Seth will wither with shame and embarrassment if he thinks anyone knows. He already obviously feels uncomfortable with this, no matter how many times I assure him he shouldn’t.
“Yes,” I say, refusing to back down. “They were at my place. Again. I didn’t want to head in, so Seth got me somewhere safe instead, but it means I didn’t have a chance to change. Mystery solved, okay? Can we make music now?”
“What about the interview?” Shawn says. “Was it a lie?”
It takes me a second to follow his train of thought. He does this sometimes, says something that feels completely disconnected, but it’s only because his mind is whirling, jumping from one connection to the next without informing the outside world.
I discover his path after a moment of hesitation. The interview. The host asked me about my birthday and whether I had “someone special.” I denied it, looking right at Seth as I explained that the person I had feelings for didn’t return those feelings. He probably still doesn’t. One night together isn’t going to make Seth feel any differently about the complications implicit in our circumstances. Sure, he let me spend the night and cooked me breakfast (after throwing me sexily onto his kitchen table), but I can taste his hesitation. What we did might mean nothing to him. I might never get another chance with him, even after the past twenty-four hours. He still sees himself as a knight chasing after a prince, unworthy, duty-bound to keep his hands to himself. I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to convince him otherwise.
“No,” I say. “It wasn’t a lie. There’s no one. It was just fun.”
Dan and Levi carefully and deliberately don’t look at me. Keannen’s mocking mirth quiets. Shawn’s mouth tightens, but he doesn’t press the point.
I step in front of a mic before they can keep prying. I want to talk about this even less than Seth suddenly. My band follows my lead when I take them into one of our new songs, something we need to tighten up before we can call it finished and move on. Entire sections remain disjointed, but as I drag my band through the music, the song weaves itself into the first inklings of the tapestry we’re building thread by thread.
