CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I didn’t hear from Sebastian until right before we sat down for dinner.
SebastianJack: Can’t make it until rehearsal. 7 right?
JollyRockerTBird: Yep, 7. Everything all right? Why did I keep asking him that?
SebastianJack: Yes. Stopped by to see Foster. See you at 7.
I suddenly wasn’t as hungry as I’d been a few moments ago. Something about Sebastian’s texts bothered me, but I couldn’t put a finger on what it was. I filled my bowl with Jasmine rice and Mom’s crockpot chicken curry. Surely, once I started in on it, my appetite would raise its pouting head. It was one of my favorite meals.
Besides, Ani and I had headed to the park with a thrilled Juno this morning, loaded with some banana bread and coffee Ani had made fresh. But when we’d crawled through the fence and down to the tunnel, we were surprised to find it empty. Not just of Foster and Pete, but completely empty of any evidence that someone had been there, other than the indentation where we’d made up Foster’s bed for him. We went back again around five. The park was much busier in the late afternoon hour, so it took us a few tries to get through the fence unnoticed. But it didn’t matter anyway. No Foster. Or Pete. And Sebastian hadn’t answered his phone both times I texted, presumably because he was at work.
I worried something terrible had happened after our aborted text conversation last night. Maybe he’d had to take Foster to the hospital after all. As scary as that might be, at least it would explain things. I supposed it was also possible Foster had moved locations early in the morning, especially if he thought someone was coming for him, but that possibility scared me and I didn’t want to think about it. Surely, there was a reasonable and good explanation for his absence at the park today.
Tom sat beside me, talking nonstop with Jordan about some project Jordan had going, but I tried to tune them out the way it seemed Tom was tuning me out. I sensed a rift forming between us ever since the night he’d point-blank asked me to give him a reason to stay and I couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. I figured it was self-preservation on Tom’s part, but after my conversation with Jordan last night, it obviously had to do with Sebastian, too. If Jordan could see it, and Mom could see it, then certainly Tom could see how difficult it was for me to keep from ogling the new guy.
In fact, Tom had seen it. The day Sebastian auditioned, he’d joked about me drooling over him. Granted, I’d been drooling more over his music than anything, because I was still really ticked at him, but I also knew better than most that a person’s music was really an inside-out version of themselves. I’d seen his underbelly that day and as much as I’d wanted to hate him for the magic he had inside him, for the way he’d treated me all semester, I knew my gut reaction had been an instant and visceral response to him, something I couldn’t deny.
Something I didn’t want to deny.
Could I keep my feelings on a leash for another couple of weeks while I got some more info on the guy? Or at least until Tom’s plane left? I really needed to do that much for my friend. Be a little unselfish for once.
But even in Sebastian’s absence, I felt the pull of him, the yearning to be with him. My hands tingled at the memory of his big hands wrapped around mine. I shivered slightly as I felt again his slightly rough fingertips sliding up the curve of my neck. I closed my eyes, trying not to recall the feel of his broad back pressed against me, the contours of his chest under my hand as he pressed my palm over his heart. A magic man, for certain.
“You okay, honey?” Mom asked from across the table. My eyes snapped open. Don’t blush, don’t blush, don’t blush.
“I’m good. Just thinking about all the things we have going on this week.” It wasn’t really a lie, was it? I put a hand on Tom’s forearm. “I posted event invites today. We’re already getting a ton of responses. Should be a good turnout at Taylors.”
When the guys started showing up around seven, we herded into the studio with Mom’s promise of fresh-baked peanut butter oatmeal cookies in an hour. Sly sometimes brought Allistair with him to give his folks a break from babysitting. Mom was as good at being a grandmother as she was at being a mom, and the little guy loved hanging out with her and Dad. They usually made some kind of dessert together, and then raced Hot Wheel cars on my brothers’ old plastic tracks, built a crazy Lego monument, or watched some kid movie together. He was usually sound asleep on the love seat in the living room before nine, and barely cracked an eyelid when Sly loaded him into his car seat to take him home at the end of the night. Sly was a good dad to his boy, and he always expressed his deep appreciation to Mom for being able to bring him along.
Sebastian swept in only moments before practice started. We were already in the studio when he arrived and by then, Tom was a little on edge. He’d voiced his concern to the rest of us that Sebastian didn’t seem to be taking this seriously enough, that we had way too much to cover with the changes we were making to Friday’s show to be sloppy about it. But Sebastian jumped right in without a word, proving Tom’s fears unfounded.
For the next hour, we went through the songs like military drills under Tom’s command, working through solos and drum fills, hashing out vocal parts, and more. By 8:30 PM, when Mom and Allistair poked their heads in to let us know they were ready for us, we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. Shuffling out of the studio quietly, the tension thick enough to slice, we were met by the delicious aroma of strong coffee and baking.
The mood shifted subtly as everyone gathered around the island where a platter piled high with cookies sat waiting for us. I excused myself to run upstairs to the bathroom, but also to get a breath of fresh air. I pushed open my bedroom window and stuck my head out into the night. Even though the sun was gone and the moon was beginning her slow waltz across the sky, I could still smell evidence of twilight lingering in the air outside. The jasmine flowers were blooming long and late this year, and at twilight, the fragrance they emitted was almost intoxicating. A trellis of the boisterous plant sat at each corner of the front of our house, one of them almost directly below my second story window. I closed my eyes and breathed in and out, long, slow, calming breaths.
I hurried back downstairs just as Sebastian was coming from the bathroom at the end of the hallway, and there was no way to avoid him. I paused on the bottom stair, appreciating the six or seven extra inches of height, took a deep breath and looked up at him, trying to maintain the sense of peace I’d found upstairs.
“Hey,” he said in a low voice. When I didn’t respond, he reached out and took my hand from the stair rail, holding it in both of his. “I’m really sorry about how things started tonight. About last night, too. Right after I texted, a couple of cops showed up, started doing a thorough sweep of the park, including all along the fence line. I had to get Foster out of there. Went to check on him after work today, took him and Pete dinner, and stayed too long. I didn’t know what to say when I got here so I just kept my mouth shut. Didn’t have the effect I was hoping.”
I sighed with relief. “Well, I’m really glad to hear that he’s okay. Ani and I went down to the park twice today to take him food and check on him, and of course, we didn’t find him. We were getting really worried and you didn’t answer your phone….” I let the words trail off. “I was just hoping he hadn’t gotten worse.”
“He says he feels better today.” Sebastian snorted quietly, his head bent toward mine a little. “But he looked awful with his face turning all shades of purple and red. Seemed to be breathing okay, though.”
“I’m glad.” I wondered if I should take my hand back or if he was just going to keep holding it until we had to go back to practice. Not that I minded. It felt nice cradled in his. “So, did he tell you what happened? Who did that to him? I tried not to eavesdrop last night—”
Sebastian’s eyebrows shot up in sarcastic disbelief.
“Okay, fine. I actually did try to eavesdrop, and I heard enough to scare me, but not enough to get any real information.” I tugged on m
y hand, feeling the need to cross my arms. Of course, he didn’t release me, but instead, started doing that thumb rubbing on my wrist thing again. It was really rather distracting. “So, um, did he? Tell you anything, I mean?”
Sebastian lowered his gaze to our hands and stepped closer, leaning a shoulder against the wall in a relaxed pose. He spoke quietly, but kept his tone casual, too, I assumed in case anyone was listening and got too curious. “He filled me in a little more tonight. You know that multilevel parking lot downtown?”
I nodded. Three levels, the bottom one underground, the middle one at street level, and the top a story up.
“A couple of weeks ago, while out late collecting recycling, he ended up down on the bottom level near the back where they have a row of big trashcans. While he was there, a suit came down the ramp and headed toward his car, not realizing he was being followed. The guy behind him waited until he was bent over to open his car door, then knocked the suit to the ground with some kind of club and cleaned out his pockets as well as the car. Foster thought the thief would leave quickly, so he lay low and waited. Instead, the guy pulled off his dark glasses and beanie and started going through the contents of the wallet right there, the victim moaning on the ground at his feet. When a large group of people came bursting through the stairwell door from the level above, Foster thought the thief panicked, because he started to run toward the back where he and Pete were hunkered down, even though there was no way out back there. The guy seemed to realize his mistake and turned to head the other direction, but that’s when he saw Foster. Well, Pete barked a warning, and you know how it is in those parking structures. The sound echoed off the walls as loud as any car alarm. The guy took off, ducking low so the group coming in wouldn’t see him.” The worried look I’d seen on Sebastian’s face last night was back.
“Oh wow. I heard about that. They never caught the guy, did they?” It had been front page news right around graduation, making everyone temporarily a little more cautious about wandering downtown alone at night. An anonymous tipper had given a pretty detailed description of the thief—the victim recovered quickly, but because he was hit from behind, he never saw his assailant—and now I realized who the tipper was. “Foster called in the description, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. Thought he could get away with doing the right thing,” Sebastian let out a frustrated huff. “Apparently this isn’t the first time this perp has taken someone out this way. He hits from behind, robs people, and bails. So I guess the perp wasn’t too happy about being reported. He must have put two-and-two together and figured out it was Foster. He and his dog aren’t unknown in these parts. Been living in Midtown at least as long as I’ve been here.”
I nodded. “Right. I see Foster and Pete all over the place. But at the park, mostly. They really seem to enjoy it there, both of them.” I made a huffing sound. “I guess that makes sense. It is their home, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. The perp figured that out, too, and caught up with him yesterday when Foster came to get his things from the drain. Foster let Pete into the dog arena and went back out through the parking lot and around the long way just to keep a low profile. I guess the guy followed him, and as soon as they were out of sight, he tore into Foster with the club. Sounds like Foster dropped pretty quickly and that may have saved his life. The guy left him for dead when a couple of kids wandered through that alleyway behind the park where they were, but he managed to drag himself out of sight before anyone noticed him.”
My eyes widened. “Do you mean to tell me that while we sat there talking about our childhood memories, Foster was on the other side of the park getting beat up?” I was aghast.
“No. It happened before we got there. In the middle of the afternoon. Foster had mistakenly assumed the guy wouldn’t come for him in broad daylight.”
“What are you two jabbering about out here?” It was Tom.
***
I pulled my hand free and Sebastian stepped back a little. The look on Tom’s face made it clear he was reading things into our little hallway rendezvous. I put an overly-sympathetic hand on Sebastian’s shoulder and beckoned Tom to join us. The truth is always easier to keep track of, I reminded myself.
“Sebastian was just telling me about a family friend he’s helping take care of,” I said in as sincere and concerned a tone as I could muster. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t hard to do. I really was worried about Foster right now. “The guy was in a bad accident and has some pretty significant injuries—cracked ribs, a lot of cuts and bruises, right?” I looked up at Sebastian and willed him to play along.
“Yeah. Took a lot of the impact in the face. Split lip and a big bump on his forehead.”
“Anyway, he took the man dinner tonight and it took longer than he’d planned.” I grabbed Tom’s hand and drew him closer. Even though I hated deceiving him with these half-truths, I didn’t know what else to do. “It’s all good, okay? Let’s lighten up a little, alright?”
Tom closed the gap between us and slipped an arm around my waist. His eyes narrowed, darting back and forth between me and Sebastian a few times, and I could tell he was trying to decide if he should believe us or not. I bumped him with my hip—from my slightly elevated position, we were almost hip-to-hip—and then took the easy way out.
I wrapped my arm around his neck and gave him a big hug. “I hope you left us some cookies. You’re on fire tonight, by the way. You’re going to blow people away at Taylors. Not that you don’t already, mind you.” Then I hopped off the step and dragged him along with me, leaving Sebastian in our wake. I didn’t dare look back, but I hoped he understood. My stomach churned over the way I was using Tom’s feelings to distract him. I really didn’t like myself at that moment, but I didn’t know what else to do.
The tension among the band members had broken, however, due perhaps in a small part to Tom and my apparent forgiveness of Sebastian’s near-tardiness, but probably much more so because the cookies were hearty and delicious, the coffee was a rich Sumatra roast, and my dad was in rare form tonight, regaling the guys with some of his most bizarre work stories, most of which I’d heard before. He’d been an instructor for a small, but busy flight training program out of the local municipal airport outside of town before he retired last year. He still piloted a couple of chartered flights a month for the same company, but he did so under an independent contract. He no longer taught, but I could tell he missed it.
By the time we headed back to the studio, Allistair had snuggled into the love seat with Mom and a pile of books, the plate of cookies on the island held only crumbs, and we were tanked up on coffee and ready to make some noise. It ended up being a very productive evening.
Sebastian and I didn’t get another chance to talk—he took off pretty quickly after practice, saying only that he had to run—but I felt much better having spoken with him during those brief moments in the hall. Especially the moments when he was holding my hand. And leaning toward me. And looking into my eyes.
I groaned loudly in pent-up frustration and put my pillow over my head, muffling the sound so no one would think I had a dying cow in my room. I just wanted him to kiss me already, now that I’d acknowledged my certainty that it would happen eventually. Now would be a lot better than eventually, I explained to the pillow pressed against my face.
But lying in the dark, my thoughts spinning uncontrollably around Sebastian, I realized I’d forgotten to ask where Sebastian had moved Foster and Pete.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I rode along in the backseat with Ani, her mom turned halfway around in the passenger seat, one slender leg tucked up underneath her, and George at the wheel. We were on our way to the airport to send Ani off to the waiting arms of her Paulo Durante. We’d spent about an hour in her bedroom this morning, lying on the floor, staring up at the blue painted sky, promising to text and email and call and write whenever anything even the slightest bit significant happened. About Foster and Pete. Juno. Tom. Sebastian. Marauders. Portland. Italy.
Lucca. Paulo. Our parents…
“If he proposes to you, I want to be the first to know,” I demanded. “Even before your parents.”
“He’ll ask George and Mary Darling first. You know that, right? They’ll already know it’s going to happen.”
“Yes, but we all know it’s going to happen, silly.” I relished the happy smile she gave me. “That’s not the point. You have to tell me first when it actually does happen. Just a text. Then your folks. You owe it to me.”
“And why do I owe it to you?”
“Because I saved your life that time.”
She rolled onto her side and propped her head on her elbow. “What time?”
“You know. That one time.” I waved a hand in the air above us ambiguously.
“Oh yes! Of course. That time. Like that one time I saved your life.”
“Right. See?” I rolled onto my side to face her. “So you’ll tell me first?”
Ani laughed and poked me gently on the nose. “I’ll tell you first. But if you ever let on to my parents, I’ll have to kill you.”
“Agreed.” I pretended to spit in my hand and held it out to her. She followed suit.
Now here we were, the four of us once again taking the hour-plus drive to Los Angeles airport to send Ani off into the great unknown. Yes, we knew where she was going and who was waiting for her on the other side. But what none of us knew, including Ani, was what direction this trip would point her in as she stepped into her future.
It was exciting and traumatizing all at the same time. I reached over and squeezed Ani’s hand. She laced her fingers through mine and we held hands the rest of the drive to the airport.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I ached for Ani after she was gone. Not because I already missed her, although that was true, too. So many things seemed at odds these days, loose ends flapping around in the breeze. Ani and I had weathered a boatload of storms together, and I felt completely bereft facing the waters ahead without her by my side. Thank goodness for the Internet and cell phones.
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