“The car will be ready in a minute,” Sebastian comes back after talking to the car hire guy at the booth.
“Ok, and the hotel room’s ready any time we get there. It’s about fifteen minutes from here.”
He nods and pulls me in against him, his hand resting against the small of my back. Since leaving Sydney, it seems he can’t stop touching me, wanting to be close to me. And there’s no reason for me to complain. I’ve left all my worries and concerns back in the classroom.
“You tired?” He says gently, caressing my cheek.
“No, I’m good. Happy.” I give him a smile to reassure him.
“Regret your choice?”
“No, I love it here.”
“I didn’t mean about the location. I meant… about the choice of company.”
I open my mouth to make a joke and then stop, realizing he doesn’t have any reason to trust me more than me him, and it’s not the time to test that.
“No. Except, maybe, that I didn’t make it sooner.”
***
It’s dark when we load ourselves into the rentalcar. The hire guy tells us that our resort isn’t far from there but to make sure we have our cell phone charged because there’s hardly any traffic at this time of day and into the night, and if we need help, the best thing is to call rather than wait for help.
“You ready?” Sebastian asks once I’ve clicked in my seatbelt.
“As I’ll ever be!”
We drive in a comfortable silence for a moment. It’s almost pitch black once we leave the main highway, and I look out into the dark and wonder what is looking back at me. It’s unnerving but somehow poetic at the same time. The refocus of our senses when any stimulation of one sense is completely nil. It reminds me a little of the opening of the band’s intro.
Our ruminations are interrupted by the vibration of his phone.
“Seb, we said no phones.” I remind him, when he takes his eyes off the road for a moment to glance at his phone.
“I just… I just have to take this one call, sorry.” He says before swerving to the side of the road and pressing the answer button on the phone.
“Hey.” He says.
And I can hear the female voice reply. It’s Hailey.
“Hey, what’s up?” Her tinny voice through the earpiece says.
“Yeah, um, just letting you guys know that Cadence and I won’t be at rehearsal until Monday, probably. Can you let your Dad and the guys know? And I won’t be reachable until then either.”
There’s a pause.
“Why?” She asks, and I turn towards my window, hiding the scrunched up look on my face.
“Just tell them, Hails.”
“You OK?”
“Better than ever.” I hear him reply and he pokes me gently in the back.
“You with her?”
“OK, relay the message, OK? Thanks. Talk to you soon.”
He hangs up the phone and turns to me. “All done, no more calls, I promise.”
I can’t face him yet, so I continue staring out into the dark.
“Hey, you OK?”
“She’s always going to come between us, isn’t she?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Hailey.”
“Oh god, not this again.”
“Yes, exactly, that’s exactly what I think. Every time.”
“I told you. There’s nothing ” He starts to deny.
I cut him off. “No, listen to me. You might not have any feelings for her, I don’t know, but she definitely does for you, and she makes no effort to hide it.”
“You’re crazy.” He scoffs and runs his hands through this hair.
“Do you know she’s supposedly slept with half the band?”
“No. She hasn’t.”
“Yes, she has. She said it herself! Sarah heard her bragging about it in the bathroom.”
“Look, I get that women are weird around her, but I told you, there’s never been anything between us. What you’re seeing is just very close friends. She’s been on tour with us, in the hard times and the good times, that’s all it is.”
“Well, I can’t compete with that…” I admit, and suddenly, I’m so tired.
“You don’t have to.”
“I just… I need some air…”
I throw open the door and step outside. It’s suddenly cold and I wrap my arms around me.
“Cadence! Get back in the car!”
I ignore him and hear his car door open and his footsteps crunching in the dirt as he runs over to me.
“Cadence!” He grabs me from behind and pulls me hard against him, his face burying in the back of my neck.
I try not to melt against him, reaching up to brush a tear from my eyes. “Why is this so hard, Sebastian?”
“It doesn’t have to be. Just trust me, why can’t you just trust me?” He spins me around and in the dark I can just make out his face through my tear-filled eyes.
“Make me. Give me no other choice, Sebastian. Make me not care, make it so nothing else matters, the fear, the distrust, the not knowing. Make it so… I can’t help but be with you.”
His eyes burn into me, and I’m suddenly hot.
“Goddammit, Cadence, don’t you know how much I want you? How hard it’s been this last month to force myself to hold back from you? Do you? Do you know how much it physically hurt not to just bury myself inside you? How much I wanted to make you mine and only mine for all time?
“I don’t believe you.” I say and he growls.
I run my fingertips over my lips then reach out and press them against his mouth.
“Show me.”
Those two words release him from any restraint he ever enforced on himself.
He grabs my arms around the biceps and pushes me back against the car. Tucking his hand under my ass he lifts me up and wraps my legs around his waist. Leaning me back against the car door, he drags his lips along the line of my neck.
I feel his teeth graze the skin. A moan comes from somewhere, and I think it’s me. My hands come up to tangle in his hair and I feel his hand run along my thighs as he tightens them around his waist.
“Cadence. Baby, you drive me so crazy,” he groans as I grind against him.
His tongue is hot against the valley between my breasts as he drags his head up to meet mine, pausing for just a moment to take a breath before ravaging my mouth with his.
Lost in his kiss, I barely feel him reach between us to fumble with his zipper.
“God, I’m so fucking hard. You have no idea how much I’ve dreamt of this, Cadence.”
I can’t even tell him, that I’ve fantasized about him just as much. His mouth is suddenly everywhere, on my mouth, on my neck, suckling my nipples through the thin material of my dress. My back arches, cleaving to him, wanting more, wanting every inch of my body, my skin to feel his.