A Light in the Dark

by Becky Doughty

  He turned to Sebastian. “You heading out?” It was not a question.

  Before Sebastian could respond, I jumped in, tipping my head toward him. “I wanted to go over a few vocals with you while they’re fresh in my mind. You good to stay for a few more minutes?”

  Sebastian narrowed his gaze at me, and after a moment, shook his head. “I better get going. Work in the morning. Maybe I can come by early on Tuesday?”

  “Oh. Right. Sure.” It felt like a brush-off, like he was putting me in my place.

  He stood and handed me the mug I’d offered to refill for him. “Thanks, Tish. Good coffee.” He grinned at me, but I turned away quickly, not wanting him to see how flustered I felt, how disappointed. “I’ll just grab my guitars from the studio. I’ve got some homework to do between now and Tuesday night.”

  “Sure,” I said again, and then said to Tom, “Can I walk you out?” Before he could answer, I took his arm and steered him toward the front door. Once out on the porch, he grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me to face him.

  “You all right? You good with the way things went tonight? With Sebastian?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded, keeping my voice bright. I smiled up at him. “I thought it went great.”

  “You cool with me?” Now he sounded like Sebastian. “I wasn’t too pushy tonight with the band? I know I was yelling out orders left and right.”

  “Like I said, I thought it went great. Really. I’m cool with you.” I was starting to loathe that statement. “This change is killing me, so I can only imagine what it’s doing to you.”

  He studied me for a few moments. Under the porch light, his eyes seemed unguarded, open, but for the first time in as long as I could remember, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Finally, he pulled me close and hugged me tightly.

  “Love you, Tish,” he murmured against my hair.

  Wrapping my arms around his waist, I hugged him back. I wasn’t angry at Tom, just at his machinations to keep anything from brewing between me and Sebastian while he was still around. I didn’t need Tom to do that for me. “I love you, too, you big lug. Now go home and get some beauty sleep so your mother won’t worry too much about sending you off to adult land.” I leaned back in his embrace and patted his cheek. “And give your mom my love, okay?”

  Tom released me and I backed up toward the door behind me, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “Goodnight.” I heard the resignation in his voice and noted the sad smile on his face was back, too.

  “Goodnight,” I echoed. “See you Tuesday night.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Back inside, I closed the door behind me and leaned against it, waiting nervously for Sebastian. I’d thought he was just getting his guitars, but minutes ticked by. What on earth was he doing in there?

  Finally, I gave up being chicken and made my way toward the studio. As I approached, I heard the rise and fall of his voice, the rhythmic accompaniment of his guitar. I paused when I realized he had to be playing in the mixing room for me to be able to hear him so well. I could tell he wasn’t plugged in.

  I didn’t go in, not wanting to interrupt, but stood with my forehead pressed to the door, listening to the strains of the song that had lingered in my thoughts since I’d heard it over a week ago. It made my heart hurt to hear him sing it again.

  I am consumed. I’m fascinated

  I am immortal when I am with her

  I am yesterday, she’s forever

  I am nothing when I’m without her

  When the shadows know my name

  When the darkness pulls me under

  She’s my light

  She’s my tomorrow

  My light in the dark

  My forever

  I am consumed, I’m fascinated

  I am immortal when I am with her

  I am yesterday, she’s forever

  I am nothing when I’m without her

  Sebastian played the chorus one last time, his voice rasping with emotion—or was it just fatigue?—the words fading into arpeggios, and I imagined his fingers dancing across the strings.

  I slowly pushed the door open. He watched me from the sofa, his fingers still poised over the strings, smiling at me as I stepped into the little room. Did he know I’d been there the whole time?

  I wanted to acknowledge him, his song, but the lump in my throat prevented me from speaking right away. The light in the mixing room was turned down low, but I knew he could see me, so I did my best to let my eyes tell him how moved I was.

  Finally, he leaned forward and settled the Breedlove into its case on the floor in front of him. With a quick check to make certain everything was as it should be, he stood. In the suddenly suffocating, small mixing room with me. He didn’t move to go around me, he didn’t say anything. Just stood there looking at me.

  “Right. Sure. Um, you were—that was—” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat. “Beautiful. It was beautiful,” I finished lamely, looking everywhere but at him.

  He stepped forward and I held my breath… hoping… for what? When he took my hand, I swallowed loudly and began to speak. “Do you want to stay?” Why, oh why did I ask that question again? He’d already rejected me once tonight. “I mean, you didn’t come back out. I just thought—”

  When he tipped his head forward a little, the dim light threw his deep-set eyes into shadow, but I knew he held my gaze. “Not tonight, Tish. I just wanted to give you and Tom time to say your goodbyes. Thought it might be less awkward to wait for you in here.”

  Yep. Rejection. How much more could I take and still maintain a sense of dignity.

  “I have to go.” He squeezed my hand in what I could only assume was meant to be a comforting gesture. “Another time, okay? Then you and I are going to make magic in this room together.” He lifted my fingers and kissed the back of my knuckles, his warm lips soft against my skin, in a gesture so old-fashioned, and at the same time so intimate, that I had to resist the urge to jerk my hand free of his grasp. “And I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Oh. Well, yes.” I’d become a blithering idiot. “So am I,” I said lamely. But then, talk about mixed messages from him! I couldn’t figure out whether we were coming or going.

  He squeezed my fingers once more before releasing them. Reaching around me, he pushed the door open, stepping back to let me go ahead of him. “Milady Marauder.”

  In turn, I held it wide so he could follow with both his guitars.

  We walked in silence to the front door. Out on the patio, he paused. “I’ll see you Tuesday night.” And without another word, he headed off down the walk to his car, leaving me standing there beneath the beam of the porch light, weak-kneed and bemused.

  I lay in bed long after I switched my light off, staring out at the dark sky, wondering what the future held for us. I knew one thing for sure. I could not continue to play with him in my band with whatever this was boiling just under the surface. It would eventually show itself, and we would either have to take it out in the woods and shoot it, or give it its head and see where it took us. The latter option sounded dangerous, unpredictable, even destructive, especially for Marauders if things ended badly.

  Shooting it was clearly the better option.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Ani and I headed out with Juno Monday evening a little more subdued than usual. This would be our last walk to the park before she left on Wednesday, and we were carefully skirting the subject as we discussed everything but her trip. It wasn’t like we didn’t have anything to talk about. I wanted her opinion of Sebastian, now that she’d spent more time with him, and she wanted to hear all about last night’s practice, how the band was handling the fresh blood, and if I’d learned anything more about him.

  “I don’t know anything for sure,” I said in response to her questions about his family. “He did say something that made it sound like it was just him and his dad, though. He’s not very talkative.”

  “The quintessential brooding a
rtist type, hm?” Ani teased as we made our way up the slope to our spot overlooking the dog park. “But that might mean he’s a good listener, and that’s a plus, right?”

  Foster and Pete weren’t around, but it was close to dinner time, so they were probably off rounding up a meal. Ani and I had talked often about how to handle helping him while preserving his dignity. He’d always been very appropriate toward us, had never asked us for anything at all, in fact, and he clearly loved his dog, who looked better fed than Foster did half the time. Every once in a while, we’d come Monday nights armed with a picnic basket packed with enough food to share with Foster, a token meal he always accepted graciously. Maybe it was just to appease our own guilty consciences for having so much compared to a man who seemed to have so little, but we thought it might feel like less of a handout to him that way. Most days we just brought water bottles to share with him and Pete, and he always appreciated them. He took our empties, too, although we knew the recycling plant only gave him pennies apiece, but he always seemed appreciative. So did Pete. But then Pete appreciated everything, everyone, and every dog that crossed his path. Foster once commented that although Pete wasn’t much of a watch dog, he was better company than most folks he knew. Having met and played with Pete, I couldn’t argue with him.

  “I really need to get some one-on-one time with him, Ani. Away from the other guys in the band. Casual stuff so it won’t feel like a drill fest. But our schedules are so tight right now with the extra rehearsals. I may just have to wait until after this Taylors gig, and maybe even after Tom leaves, to do so.” Sebastian was going to be frequenting our home on a regular basis, he had a key to the studio, and one couldn’t be too careful these days. Especially if one was considering getting to know a person on a more-than-friends basis.

  And I was. I was totally considering it.

  And desperately hoping he might be, too.

  It had taken me forever to fall asleep last night. My mind kept replaying the whole evening, but especially those few moments before Sebastian left, his big hand curling around mine, his lips brushing the backs of my knuckles. This morning, I’d even entertained the juvenile notion of putting a bag over my hand to protect it before getting in the shower. I looked down at my hand now, spreading my fingers wide as I turned it this way and that. I could still feel the gentle pressure where he’d kissed it; surely there must be some mark, some telltale imprint left behind.

  “You could just text him, or even better, call him. I mean, if you really want to know him better, why wait? He texted you in the middle of the night, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, I know. But I’m not used to having to drag information out of people. Usually when we start talking, when I invite people over and they see my home, meet my family, my friends, they fill in a few details about their lives. Not so with Sebastian. Hence, Tom and Jordan’s Operation Coffee Shop.” I plucked a blade of grass from where it grew long near the base of the sweetgum, pressed it flat between my thumbs and blew on it, making a noise like a duck call.

  “Ew. What if Pete or some other dog peed on that?” Ani asked, pushing my hands away from my face.

  I’d never thought of that before. I dropped the grass like it had burned me, lunged to my feet, and scurried around to spit behind the tree, then poured some water from my bottle into my open mouth, not wanting to contaminate the plastic rim, and spit again.

  “Hi, Sebastian,” Ani called out, her voice cracked with humor.

  “Oh, you’re so funny,” I said from behind the tree, and then swished and spit again.

  “What are you doing here? Do you have a dog?” Ani never knew when to quit. I took a long swig, filling my cheeks, and turned to threaten her with a shower.

  “No dog. Just here to visit a friend.” Sebastian. Backpack slung over one shoulder, a bulging fast food bag in one hand, walking up the slope toward us.

  Forgetting about my mouthful of liquid, I tried to suck in air. It didn’t work. I spewed the water on the ground at my feet, just missing my shoes, and wheezed and coughed fit to beat the band. Doubling over, unable to catch my breath, I tried to quell the bile rising in my throat. Don’t you dare hurl in front of him, T-Bird!

  Ani was on her feet in a flash, but Sebastian was quicker. He crouched beside me, took my water bottle from me, just like he’d taken my glass at breakfast a couple of weeks ago when I’d choked on my drink in front of him the last time. He rested a hand on my back, but thankfully didn’t pat me. I would have knocked his arm away none too gently if he’d tried it. From the corner of my eye I could see he was studying my face, his own expression concerned, but he waited to speak until I was no longer gagging. “You okay?”

  I straightened a little, pushing a few strands of hair that had come loose from my clip out of my eyes, tucking it behind my ears. “Yes,” I gasped, then coughed some more, my eyes watering like crazy. I swiped at my face with the back of my hand and regained a little control before finally looking at him, my cheeks flushed, I was sure, with both exertion and embarrassment.

  He handed me my water bottle and I gingerly sipped the cool liquid before thanking him. “Classy, I know, right?”

  “The gagging or the spitting?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Great. You saw that, too? I ducked behind the tree to spit, you know.” I wasn’t crass by nature. Yeah, I played the tough girl, but I also boasted the old junior high mantra of good girls everywhere; “I don’t smoke and I don’t chew, and I don’t go out with boys who do.” Usually spitting fell in the same category as smoking and chewing in my book, but technically, I didn’t think my actions really qualified as crass since in essence, I was ridding my mouth of potentially toxic material.

  “Yes, you did,” Sebastian acknowledged with a wide, teasing smile. “You’re quite proper, aren’t you?” His eyes traveled teasingly from my messy knot of hair clipped to the top of my head, to my Misfits T-shirt with its torn-off sleeves, black leggings, and black Chuck Taylor hikers with the neon green laces.

  I flung my arm out to backhand him in the chest, and in a move so fast it made me screech in surprise, he knocked it away with a raised forearm, like a martial arts block. I staggered a little and gawked at him, sliding my offended appendage behind my back. “What was that?” I gasped, tentatively flexing and rotating my forearm behind me. It didn’t really hurt, but with my fair skin, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a bruise tomorrow morning.

  “Crap! Sorry.” He reached for me immediately, his hands curling gently around both shoulders. He ducked his head and looked me in the eye, a muscle in his jaw twitching revealingly. “You okay? You—you startled me. Caught me by surprise.”

  Ani looked from me to him and back again, her eyebrows cocked in concern. “Everything all right?” she asked. As easygoing and unassuming as Ani was, she was not hesitant to speak up on behalf of someone else.

  I nodded, Tom’s words playing at high volume in my head. “It’s instinct, Tish. My instinct is to hit back…” I kept my hand behind me, not wanting either of them to look too closely at it. I didn’t want this to turn into something it wasn’t, especially if it was my fault.

  “Did I hurt you, Tish?” He was clearly upset at the idea and I shook my head.

  “No. I’m fine. I shouldn’t have smacked you that way.” Tom was obviously right, that not all guys were like him and my brothers. But if Sebastian wasn’t like them when it came to how he treated people, did that mean he was like me? Throwing around his physical prowess at will? I’d backhanded him first. If he’d done anything like that to me, I would have hit him back. Harder. So why was his reaction so unexpected? And why shouldn’t he try to stop me from hitting him, even if it had been a little rougher than necessary?

  The three of us stood awkwardly for a few moments, and then Ani asked more directly, “Are you all right, Tish?”

  “Of course,” I assured her. I brought my arm up and waved it around between us as exhibit A. “I’m fine.”

  “Not your arm, doofus. Your breathing
. You remember how to breathe again?” Ani took a step toward me, and I didn’t miss the cautionary glance she tossed in Sebastian’s direction.

  “I’m fine,” I said again, taking another sip of water to prove it. “Just went down the wrong pipe, that’s all.” I beckoned for Sebastian to join us. “Come. Sit with us. This is our favorite place to wait while Juno gets her fill of Dogville.” I pointed out Ani’s Jack Russell who was hanging with a group of dogs near a watering trough. “Hey, Ani, look. Isn’t that Pete?”

  “It is,” Sebastian answered me, and I looked up at him curiously.

  “You know Pete? And Foster?” Ani asked, her own expression mirroring mine.

  “Yep. He’s the friend I was coming to see.” He held up the grease-splotched burger bag he’d dropped when he came to my rescue. “Brought him some dinner.” He lifted a hand to shield his eyes against the late afternoon sun and scoped the park for signs of Pete’s owner. “You two haven’t seen Foster?” His tone was laced with worry, his brow lined.

  “No. And I didn’t notice Pete when we first got here,” I told him, scanning the park myself. I’d never seen Pete without Foster before either. “How do you know Foster?” I asked, my curiosity a slight distraction from the worry building in my stomach.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “I met Foster here. I discovered this place on my way home from work one day and started stopping a couple of times a week just to watch the dogs. Helps me relax after especially busy days. I usually come after work on Tuesdays and have a burger with him. Sometimes on the weekends, too.” While Sebastian talked, his eyes continued to search the park. “Came today because I’ll be busy tomorrow night with the band.” He glanced at me. “How do you know him?”