Page 49 of Wild Fixation
“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?”
