Part 27 (1/2)
”Don't bother. Wherever he is, he's not with Ruby.” Then he sucks in a breath and the change in his voice is as if he's flipped to a new song sheet. ”I'm heading back to the arena, just came to grab some stuff.”
His hands are empty.
”Which band are you seeing?” I ask.
”Three Letter Acronym.” The Heavy Tent headliners. Owen offers to look for Ruby in the crowd before giving me an all-encompa.s.sing hug and telling me that the Kalinskis are a tough bunch and Ruby's the toughest of the lot. ”She'll be fine, Kaz. The girl's made of Teflon.”
Everyone seems so convinced that Ruby's fine and yet I can't shake the feeling that she isn't.
Once Owen's gone, Sebastian reaches over and pulls me closer to him.
”Is there anywhere else you want to look?” His fingers are calloused against my palm and without thinking, I turn his over to stroke the tough skin on his fingers and he laughs. ”The price of playing too much guitar.”
”I figured. I play too not as much, obviously.” I turn my hand over and he mirrors the way I touched his.
It feels a lot like he might be about to kiss me...
”Coffee!” I shout in his face, then start walking backwards until my foot catches in a pothole and I collapse to the ground.
My ankle hurts.
Twenty minutes later and it still hurts, but at least I have the coffee I was so keen on. And Sebastian, on whom I am also keen. We're sitting up by the line of trees that stand guard across the highest hill of the campsite, the field below a constellation of campfires. Even though we can hear the cheers of a crowd we can't see and the catcalls tossed between the campers, the world feels peaceful, muted.
In this subdued bubble, I can hear Sebastian sip and swallow.
”I like it here,” he says.
”Here on the hill? Here at the festival?”
”Here. In this moment. In this place.” Everything he says makes me want to smile. ”I'll probably use that in a song.”
He sips his tea again and waggles his eyebrows, making me laugh.
”Nothing's sacred?”
”Not to a songwriter. Words, thoughts, feelings everything I see or hear or touch. All a song to be written.”
He's beautiful. Not specifically to look at, but to be with.
Sebastian's looking at me carefully and I can see the subtle twitch in his eyes as he studies my face before meeting my gaze. The world recedes so far that there's only me and him sitting alone on a hill in a field that only exists for us to sit there. He puts his cup down in the gra.s.s and then brushes a thumb across my cheek, pulling back to show me the eyelash he's captured.
”I've stolen a wish,” he says.
”Not stolen,” I reply. ”Saved.”
”Very poetic. I'll steal sorry, save that too.”
The eyelash is still resting in the whorl of his thumbprint, waiting for one of us to claim it.
”I'll let you have it,” I say over the rim of my cup. ”I'm generous like that.”
Sebastian closes his eyes and blows my eyelash away across the field, his lips curved in a smile so private I'm almost embarra.s.sed to have noticed it.
I think I know what he wished for.
I think it's what I would have wished for too...
I am going to kiss this boy who isn't Tom and I am going to do it now.
Only what I actually do is headb.u.t.t Sebastian in the nose as he reaches for his tea, knocking the gla.s.ses from his face.
”Oh my G.o.d, I am so sorry!” I say. For a second I think he's crying until I realize it's laughter.
”I'm fine. It's fine. My nose is fine. You really don't need to apologize.” But the fact that he checks his hand for blood when he lifts it away is far from rea.s.suring. (Although there doesn't appear to be any.) Replacing his gla.s.ses, he says, ”Do you want to try that again?” He edges forward slowly to place a soft, cool kiss on my lips.
A slight hesitation and I kiss him back, lips pressing briefly before I withdraw.
That was nice.
But Sebastian reaches out, his fingers running along the b.u.mps of my braids, along the edge of my ear to rest lightly on my jaw.
”Again,” he whispers and this time, the kiss isn't so soft but it's just as nice.
We stay like that, sitting, kissing in our bubble on the hill until we eventually have to stop. I'm cold and the other members of SkyFires keep calling to find out where their designated tour van driver has gone.
”I could stay,” Sebastian says, kissing my cheek, then the lobe of my ear and my jaw.
I smile as I say, ”No. You couldn't.”
”You're right. I can't my friends would kill me.” He stands up, pulling me with him until my lips reach his once more and I breathe him in. He smells like his songs.
When I pull back I feel giddy.
”Are we going to do this again?” Sebastian asks as he slides his hand into mine. Our fingers intertwine the way I always wanted to do with Tom and never did.
”Same time next year?” I'm making light of it, because I don't know how else to handle it.
”That's a long time to wait between kisses.” Sebastian turns me to him and we stop on the path amidst a stream of people flowing from the arena.
”About two minutes and fifteen seconds, sixteen seconds...” I'm still talking as I press my lips to his and we smile through another kiss. And then another, until a pa.s.serby shouts, ”Disgusting! That's what tents are for, mate!”
And I pull away, hot with humiliation, my mind full of thoughts of Mum's condoms and the horror of actually having a reason to use any of them.
”Out in the open is fine for me.” Sebastian squeezes my hand.