Hard Rock Love Box Set, page 32
She yawned and stretched, unearthing herself from the pile of blankets that was on Lillian’s bed. Still feeling groggy, she reckoned that she would feel fresher after a shower.
So, she hopped into the tiny attached bathroom and stripped, humming bits of songs from swan lake to herself as she set the water running and found a towel to use.
As the hot water ran down her body and the steam enveloped her, she found she had space to think. It wasn’t something she particularly enjoyed in this moment, especially with how much was going on, but to her surprise, the person in her thoughts was mainly Rebecca.
She had only met her last night but could already feel a connection forming within her.
And whether that was a platonic connection or something more…only time could tell.
Bella supposed she had been attracted to other women before, but in her experience, it was much rarer than her attraction to men. It had to be a very particular type of connection, and even then, she usually had trouble distinguishing feelings of friendship from that of romance until it was too late.
As a result, she had never been in a relationship with someone of her same gender before. It made her feel awkward about her sexuality, and she usually tried to repress it, or not think about it. She sometimes felt as if her feelings were normal and every adolescent went through similar experiences.
But this…this felt like it might be a little more real. It was just a little too soon to really start to explore anything. The thought haunted her as she finished her shower and completed the rest of her morning ritual, doing a little bit of stretching in the smaller space to try to ease her muscles into the day.
Only then did she dare glance at the clock.
2:00pm
Fuck.
She definitely wasn’t going to work today then. Not that she had been planning to originally, she would rather have some space from Lucas for the moment. Especially because she didn’t want there to be any chance of him following her home, back to Rebecca’s. That would just put more people in danger.
She quickly sent a text to her supervisor, and then exited Lillian’s bedroom, blinking back the brightness of the daylight that flooded the rest of the apartment. Rebecca was already in the kitchen, making up what Bella assumed to be sandwiches.
“Hey sleepyhead,” she said with a sheepish smile, “Glad to see you finally decided to get up.”
“Yeah, me too. I’m definitely not going to work today,” Bella said with a laugh.
“That being said,” Rebecca sliced a finished sandwich in half, putting it into a Tupperware, sounding a little hesitant, or maybe nervous, “would you like to come to the park with me to eat lunch? There’s a small one nearby, and I usually go to make sure I get outside every day.”
“Of course,” Bella smiled. “I’d love to go. Do you need any help with those?” She gestured at where Rebecca was making up their lunch. She shook her head.
“Nah, I got it under control. Besides, I have no idea if you have the ability to make anything besides a mug pizza, so I’ll take care of this for the moment.”
“Are you doubting my cooking ability?” Bella raised her eyebrows as she took a seat at one of the connected dining room chairs.
“Not necessarily.”
“You so are.”
“Am not!”
“Prove it then.”
“You prove that you can cook!”
“Aha, so you do doubt me.” Bella pointed an accusatory finger at Rebecca with a laugh, who looked about as if deflecting guilt.
“I’m just saying I’ve only seen you make pizza in the microwave.”
“Fine then. I’ll make dinner tonight, and then you’ll see just how wonderful I am.” Bella flipped her hair over her shoulder with a casual motion of her hand.
“It’s a deal then.”
“Deal.”
The two of them broke out into laughter, partially at the absolute absurdity of the situation, and when they were finished (Bella having to wipe away tears from her eyes), Rebecca had finished packing up their lunch into a little tote bag. She came around from behind the kitchen counter and offered her hand to Bella, pulling her to her feet.
“Shall we be off?” she asked.
“Most definitely.”
Rebecca led the way through the quaint little neighborhood to the nearby park, setting up a blanket under one of the larger trees.
Bella sighed as she sat down, looking up at the sky above her with wistful thoughts in her mind. There were many places she could have gone after school, so many things that she could have chosen to do with her life, and somehow, she was here, at the park, about to have a picnic with a new friend.
Rebecca began pulling out their sandwiches and handed one to Bella.
“I should have asked,” she said before Bella could start eating, “you don’t have any dietary preferences or allergies, right?”
“Not that I know of,” Bella said with a wink, and dug in.
When Sebastian arrived at his office after dropping Lillian off, the first thing he did was let his subordinates know that they would be pretty much on their own for the day, as he had many other things that needed tending to.
Then he sat down in his large chair behind his desk and began trying to figure out exactly how he might deal with this situation.
Though Lillian liked to tease him about it, and he in turn her, he had no connections with the mafia, or the mob, or any of those sorts. Besides, even if he did, he didn’t know if this would be a situation, he would want to call them in on.
He knew a few of the people that managed the New York Ballet Company, but he still had to figure out exactly what he wanted to say to them, or even what they might be able to do for him in the end. They probably wouldn’t be down with throwing out Lucas altogether, as Sebastian gathered that he was a fairly good dancer, but he also certainly didn’t want them doing nothing.
Finally, Sebastian picked up the phone, and dialed one of his closer friends at the company.
“Sebastian, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Raphael asked as soon as he picked up.
“I have some important matters I wanted to discuss. I was hoping you might be available to meet for lunch?”
“Today? I don’t know, I was planning on meeting my daughter—”
“They’re very urgent matters. I’m sure your daughter will understand.”
On the other line, Raphael was considering his motive, but remembered all that Sebastian had helped him with in the past. “Of course. Twelve then? Same place as usual?”
“I will see you there, Raphael.”
“Likewise. See you at lunch.”
It seemed like too long until lunch. Sebastian was anxious to get the meeting over, though he couldn’t say the same about having Lillian move back to her own apartment. He just wanted to know that things were on their way to being tidied up, that Bella was safe, that this whole business would be behind him completely and there would be nothing else to worry about.
He couldn’t stand to have loose threads. Metaphorical, or physical. To him, everything had its place, and time was a valuable asset that shouldn’t be wasted.
The time passed eventually, and then Sebastian was sitting in a private lounge at an upper-class steakhouse near to the theater.
Raphael entered not long after, looking smart in a dark red suit and silk navy blue tie.
He was a younger man, by the standards of the business, the dark curly hair pulled away from his face and well-kept beard, though a little gray was starting to show.
He was one of Sebastian’s closer friends, had been for a while. The two of them had met through Sebastian’s mother, who enjoyed attending the theater and the ballet, and had been friends ever since.
“What was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Raphael asked when the two had placed their orders for steak and wine. “What was so urgent.”
“A rather…disturbing issue has been brought to my attention recently,” Sebastian began. “One of your male dancers, along with harassing and stalking a female employee, has been threatening me and my reputation. Now, you can understand why that would concern me, as I’d rather not have anyone spreading false rumors, or getting hurt.”
“Of course, of course, but you have to understand, I need more details before I can do anything about this—”
Sebastian cut him off with a glance. “The dancer is named Lucas. And as I understand it, he has a bright future in dance ahead of him. Unless you want me to convince the young lady who came to me to go to court against him—and I can assure you we will win—I would suggest you relocate him, permanently.”
“What do you mean?” Raphael asked, the expression on his face quizzical and concerned.
“I understand he travelled to London for a while as an exchange with their company there. Surely you can manage to convince him that that is best for his career, and meanwhile warn the establishment against his past grievances so that they do not happen again.”
“I do not know if the company in London would want to take him if we told them that.”
“There are other ways to go about it, dear friend. Tell them, say, that the reason he is leaving is that a rather passionate relationship he was in with one of your employees ended disastrously. Have them warn their female employees not to engage in any such exchange with him. That should suffice.”
“I guess.” Raphael considered this proposition for a moment, looking back to Sebastian as he did so. “You have to understand though, Sebastian, this is not something I’m particularly fond of the idea of. And I’m really only doing it because you are a dear friend, and what you are telling me deeply concerns me. I trust you are telling the truth?”
“Always, friend.”
“Then I shall have it done as you suggest. It will take a few weeks, but in the meantime, I can keep Lucas away from this woman. Where did you say she worked?”
“In the costume workshop. I would also advise you keep him later—he’s followed her home before and I would rather it not happen again when I’ve just relocated her.”
“Of course, we can do that.”
The conversation was interrupted as their waitress came back with two plates of steak and two glasses of fine red wine.
“I trust we can toast to a problem solved then?” Sebastian asked with a smile, picking up his wine glass.
“A toast it is,” Raphael replied, lifting his own to clink against Sebastian’s.
Then they both drank, and the conversation turned to lighter things.
They chatted about business, and their current lives—though Sebastian left a lot of the recent events out. He felt he needed time to sort through them on his own before he let Raphael get a word in. It was still a lot to think about, and a lot to figure out. But he hoped, that with all good will, things were finally headed in a better direction.
Meghan came over to Lillian’s desk almost as soon as she sat down, a look of absolute glee on her face as she presented another envelope to her.
“Your last story was an utter success!” she said, clearly barely containing her excitement. “There are so many places that are practically begging to have you take photographs for them. Our next issue already has over twenty offers, but the theater won out by far. For your next story, you get to photograph behind the scenes of a Broadway Musical!”
Lillian had no idea what to say. This was truly a situation that rendered her speechless, in every sense of the word.
“You’re really moving up in the world, Lillian,” Meghan said with another smile, setting the envelope down on her desk with a little pat. Then she walked away, swishing back to her office. Lillian really could not believe it. She had never dreamed it—had had dreams before, for sure, of photography, of being successful, but photographing behind the scenes of Broadway?
It seemed too good to be true. It felt like she was an actress and was making her debut there. She imagined this was what it must feel like. Or maybe different—this was Broadway asking her to photograph the goings on—not her auditioning for them.
It was strange.
Everything in her life had been strange recently, and she supposed that she should know by now that that was just the way of things. There had been so much excitement, and now she was even back together with Sebastian. They had another chance at this, another chance at being friends turned lovers.
Who knew what might come out of it, the pathways they might explore.
As it turned out, those pathways were fairly mundane compared to the excited events of those few weeks.
There was no more drama, no more intrigue, and thankfully, no more Lucas. It only took two weeks to get him out of the company and on his way to London. Bella could only hope that some girl wouldn’t get caught up in his mess there.
Lillian and Sebastian savored those two weeks thoroughly, tiring themselves out to the point where they had to take one day to call in sick so that they could stay in bed and just relax and catch up on sleep.
Those weeks seemed magical.
To live in that kind of proximity with another human being, especially one that you were falling in love with, it did wonders to bring them closer together. Lillian found herself laughing and crying more times than she could count.
And Sebastian opened up too. About his need to be so controlling and dominant. About what had happened after he had left with his family for New York.
It hadn’t taken long for his dad to branch off in the large city. And to him, branching off meant finding other women. Left alone with his mother, Sebastian had felt the need to take a more commanding stance, to keep things together, to comfort his mother when both of them were hurting.
After learning that, a lot more things made sense to Lillian. Why he had acted as he did when the two of them had first reconnected by chance. How he had known what to say when Bella was scared and confused. How he had changed since Lillian had known him as a teenager.
He had been…softer then. More ready to make mistakes. Not as closed off to the world as Sebastian could sometimes be now.
But in those two weeks, she began to see more of that soft, open boy in him, as he told her things he had never told anyone else before.
It was one fateful Wednesday, like any other Wednesday when Lillian decided to stay an hour late after work. She’d been working hard, finishing up any remaining editing to do, when she looked up from her desk, a familiar face was in the lobby.
It was Ash. He had managed to find his way to Lillian’s work, and managed to find his way past reception. He spotted her through the glass doors of her workspace and they both made eye contact, although, Lillian’s face didn’t show much welcome.
He walked over to her, shyly giving her a glance that was resplendent of hope. Hope to maybe talk to her again.
“Ash. What are you doing here?” Lillian was surprised, completely caught off guard by her visitor.
“I came to find you. I wanted to talk about what happened between us.”
“You should’ve thought of that a while ago.”
“Lillian, I wanted to come here to apologize.”
“Apologize for what? Listen, Ash…” Her voice was trembling now. She really didn’t want to deal with this right now. These emotions were long past due, and she could finally see where her intentions were. They were with Sebastian, and she no longer had feelings for Ash. She finally realized who it was all along. This entire time, the love of her life was lying right under her nose. And Ash, sadly, was just a distraction from that.
“Ash. I’m sorry. I’m with someone else now. And there’s nothing you can say or do to make me change my mind about him. I’ve made my choice.” She was stern and she was solid. For once in her life, she didn’t feel uncertain or wishy-washy. For once in her life, she was confident in what she wanted. It showed. Because the next words hit Ash like a truck because he knew she was serious.
“You need to let me go.”
These words cut through Ash like a bullet. The seriousness in her conviction made Ash realize it was useless to try to fight. He could tell she had made up her mind. Ash felt like a dog dragging his tail between his feet. After a few grueling moments of silence… (to be honest, Ash was at a loss for words) he finally spoke.
“I understand.” His head hung low as he gazed at her through furrowed brows, avoiding her eyes as not to exchange sympathetic energy. “I’m sorry for everything Lillian. I’ll always care about you.”
Lillian could not bring it in herself to respond. She knew any reciprocation would hurt them both. And more than anything else, she just wanted to move on. In a way, she loved Ash enough to allow him to move on too. And above all, her feelings for Sebastian came to light, and she knew for certain, she wasn’t making the wrong choice.
She fought back any urge to say the last word to him, she wanted it to end. It didn’t matter how. As long as they were both able to be free again. Like birds.
And that was that. Ash left her work building, down the elevator, out the doors, and out of her life. A weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
Thirty-Nine
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. I’d like to present to you, after a long period of hiatus… The boys who rocked your world this side of the country to the other. From west coast to east. From far and wide…Dreams of Compass Gods!”
The announcer on the intercom was hyping the audience up. It had been about four months since the last time the band had finished their tour. This show in New York was revving the band up for their second tour that was about to hit the stage in the next couple of weeks.
The stage was huge, tens of thousands of people filled the stadium, the crowd was cheering louder than normal. The adrenaline was pumping through everyone’s veins.
That’s when the lights dimmed down and the entire arena became dark, all except for one area on the stage. Smoke had slowly dissipated throughout the room, and an air of mystery filled the darkness. Slowly, black silhouettes started emerging their way up, front and center.
