Then why did it still feel like he was?
The overpowering relief I felt in his freedom was a strange sensation. Yes, Martin may still try to exert control over me, but he no longer held that control over Sebastian—the threat of jail time for standing up for his brother. For protecting and preserving. It clashed with the realization that the call on Sebastian’s life was finally calling him away.
Even though I knew it would come to this, it didn’t make Sebastian leaving me any less difficult.
Strobes flashed from above the stage, and a chaotic ring of bodies circled us while Sebastian slowly swayed, moving us at half the pace of the strident beat.
Clearing his throat, he continued, “With the news, our label wants us back on the road immediately after my court appearance. They’re putting together a short tour, mostly western states, getting us out to a few cities to build a buzz, before we’re back in the studio to record the new album. Guys are fuckin’ relieved, baby. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”
He pulled back, hands framing my face. Sadness crawled across his defined features. His jaw clenched as he dealt with the jumble of emotions. Thumbs stroked beneath my eyes, fingers firm as they dug into the back of my neck. “Fuck…just looking at you breaks my goddamned heart. Everything I’m feeling right now is written all over your face.”
He squeezed in emphasis, searching me, slipping inside, under, and all around. Stealing more.
“Is…is moving there…permanent?” I stammered over the question, because this…this is what we’d avoided. We’d evaded talk of the inevitable and instead jumped right on that speeding train.
He gave a quick, uncertain shake of his head. A steely frown tipped down the crooked side of his mouth. “I don’t know.”
Taking my hand trapped between us, he wove our fingers together. He lifted them and gently brushed his lips across my knuckles. The promise was muttered on fierce words. “All I know is that this…this is what is permanent. The rest of my life…I don’t know. What the hell I’m gonna do with my baby brother…the guys…how long I can keep living this kind of life. The only thing I’m certain about is you. But I also know for now I can’t change this, Shea.”
“I told you I would never ask you to give it up. It’s a part of who you are. What makes you wonderful and a piece of what truly makes you happy.”
He dropped his face into the side of my head and nodded, because he knew it, too.
An impossible silence enveloped us in a cocoon of unknowns and apprehension and insecurities.
“What does it mean for us?” I finally managed to ask. His heart pounded beneath the thin fabric of his shirt.
Pulling back, he pinned me with an unflinching stare. “When we finish up touring the west coast, I want you to come to California.”
My spirit danced with the idea, before reality came crashing down. Because just like Sebastian, I had my own responsibilities. “I can’t just leave here, Sebastian. Uproot Kallie. This is our home.”
“I’m not asking you to pack up all your stuff and move right now. I’m asking you to come out for a while. Check out L.A. See where I live and what I do. We’ll figure out the rest of it from there. One day at time, as long as each of those days lead to you always being at my side.”
Still clutching him, I almost laughed. “I hate L.A., remember?”
Face turned toward the ceiling, he chuckled, before he leveled me with the most brilliant kind of smile. “Not a big city kind of girl, huh?”
This time my soggy laughter bled free as we both went back to that first night when he’d coaxed me onto the back of his bike, when he’d teased and played and taunted me against the outside wall of my house, tempting me in all the ways a man had never had the power to do before.