by C F White
He dawdled down each corridor, bag flung over one shoulder and holding Beatrice to his chest, mostly looking at her rather than where he was going. When he reached the sliding exit doors, the fresh air hit him as if he was emerging from a hole. He squinted, the spring sun glaringly bright until it dipped behind one of the many fluffy white clouds. The outside world felt like a different place. It was unpredictable and hostile now. He coddled Beatrice closer, lifting the blanket to cover her face and protect her from the fumes, the chill, the noise. She wouldn’t be used to any of it. But all that fear and worry soon washed away when Seb laid eyes on the sight awaiting him.
Jay stood by their car, ready and waiting at the pickup bay, and he gazed at him—at them both—as if they were the most precious thing in his world. All his world. And, God, it felt spectacular to be on the receiving end of those blue eyes that drank him in and spilled out love for their child.
Jay had always had more than one love in his life. Football had been his passion for so long that Seb accepted that he came second. With him feeling the same way about his music, it was this shared acceptance of where they came in the pecking order that made their relationship work. But right then, as Seb stepped up to the car and Jay tucked his hand under Beatrice’s head whilst he kissed Seb, things had flipped. They’d just created an impenetrable bubble around the three of them. They were now the perfect team. Jay’s team.
Team Ruttman.
“Careful with her,” Seb said, as he handed Beatrice over to Jay.
“I will.”
“She’s lighter than you think.”
“I know.”
“And it’s cold, so make sure the blanket doesn’t fall off. She’s got zero fat to keep her warm.”
“I know.” Jay gave him an eyeful as he took Beatrice and carried her to the car and around to the driver side back seat.
“Watch her head—”
Jay poked his head up over the car.
“Sorry.” Seb held up his hands. “I’ll leave you to it.” He then clambered into the passenger side and fastened his seatbelt.
Jay secured Beatrice into her rear-facing car seat, adjusted her covers, and rattled the soft tinkling mobile toy that dangled down by her face. He then closed the door and slipped into the driving seat. He started the engine when Seb suddenly grabbed his arm. “Wait.”
“What?” Jay switched off the engine.
“I can’t see her.” Seb twisted in his seat. “I can’t see her!”
“She’s there.”
Seb flicked around to face front but the feeling of unrest at not being directly beside his baby caused his heart to pound. So he unclicked his seat belt.
“I’m sitting with her.” He then climbed awkwardly through the car, over to the back seat, breathing out his relief when he saw her beautiful face, still snoozing away and dreaming of what her life was going to hold.
Magnificence. That’s what.
Jay met his gaze in the rear-view mirror. “Ready now?”
Seb nodded, draping his arm around the car seat, and stroked Bea’s cheek with the back of his finger. “Born ready.”
* * * *
That night, they ate takeout pizza sat on the rug in the lounge with Beatrice in the Moses basket next to them. It was a pivotal moment for many reasons. One, Jay was indulging Seb with a stuffed crust meat feast that he’d normally forbid. They even cracked open a beer to go with it and cheers’d to their new life. But, also, because Seb had settled into fatherhood as if he’d been made especially for it.
Jay had let him do all the feeds and changing. And by let, that meant he hadn’t been allowed to. Seb, it seemed, had taken it upon himself to do everything. Eventually, Jay would bat him out of the way and have a turn caring for his daughter’s needs. But, for now, Jay was content to fetch anything Seb, or she, needed. Because witnessing the transformation in his usually egotistical boyfriend was nothing short of a miracle. He’d dived into fatherhood headfirst and was holding his breath.
And Jay’s heart.
After the second beer had been polished off, Jay binned the remainder of the pizza and leaned against the doorframe from the kitchen to the lounge, watching Seb sat crossed legged on the rug and swaying Beatrice in his arms as he sang to her.
“We should take her to bed,” Jay said. “You’re cream crackered. You ain’t slept in weeks.”
“I have no idea how I’m going to put her down. Nor sleep.”
“Come see her room. You might change your mind.” Jay pushed away from the doorframe and, grabbing Seb’s hand, he hauled him up.
Seb glided past him. Still humming. Still smiling. Still all eyes for Beatrice. Jay stroked a hand along Seb’s back, rubbing circles, as they climbed the stairs and headed to the door at the end of the landing. Beatrice’s name was stencilled on the front and Jay paused. “You ready?”
“Do you have tissues?” Seb asked. “I might cry.”
Jay laughed. He then shouldered open the door and allowed for Seb to breathe in the fully refurbished nursey, courtesy of help from his old man. The cot was fitted together, above it hung a rotating mobile dangling alternate footballs and guitars. The stuffed animals that Seb’s mum had sent were all stacked in the corner on the rocking chair and the room had been repainted to John Ruttman’s professional standards, along with shelves that housed framed photos of them—their family unit. There were two large glass picture frames on opposite sides of the room. One with a West Ham shirt inside, one with the Drops’ Breakthrough debut LP.
“It’s perfect.” Seb leaned into kiss Jay. “You’re perfect.”
“Ain’t so bad yourself.” He stroked a thumb over Beatrice’s forehead. “So, you gonna put her down?”
“Absolutely not.” Seb shook his head. “I can’t. Not yet.”
Jay chuckled. “All right. But you need to lie down. Take her to our room. Have a shower. I’ll move her when you’re asleep.”
Seb gave him a look.
“I set up the monitors, you’ll see her from the screen. I’ve got the mattress alarm and everything. She’ll be fine.”
With reluctance, Seb agreed and followed Jay into their room. He placed Beatrice in the middle of their bed and after a brief check she was okay, he scurried off to the bathroom while Jay stripped to his boxers and laid next to her. Seb came back, showered, clean, and changed into lounge trousers. He crawled onto the bed, the other side of Beatrice, propping himself up on his elbow and stared at her.
“I think she looks like you,” he said, tucking the blanket around her tiny body.
“She’s got dark hair,” Jay replied, curling onto his side, and laying his head down on the pillow to watch her sweet, shallow breaths as she slept.
“It’s those cheeks. They’re so adorable.” Seb demonstrated that by planting a soft kiss to Bea’s cheek.
“She’s got your nose,” Jay said.
“With blue eyes.”
“All babies are born with blue eyes. They’ll change when she gets to about one.”
“Been reading the baby books I got, have you?”
“Sometimes.” Jay smiled. “They get me to sleep.”
Seb punched him on the arm over Beatrice snuggled between them. But before he could lay a second blow, Jay used his sharp pro-footballer reflexes and grabbed his hand, kissing the underside of Seb’s wrist. “I love you,” he said.
“Back at you, baby.” Seb smiled, then got a pensive look in his eyes that Jay only ever saw from him when he was mid-composing. Maybe he was. But after a moment of stillness, with only sweet, contented baby snuffles between them, Seb said, “She looks like you and that’s the reason I love her so damn much.”
Jay’s heart thumped as Seb met his gaze.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever told you but the day I met you, I’d just written a new song.”
“Yeah?” Jay watched him from over their daughter’s snug body and he fiddled with the frayed ends of her blanket, bracing himself for Seb to start singing it.
; “Never gonna fall in love,” Seb said, then mouthed the no doubt bracketed, ‘fuck you.’
Jay rolled his eyes through a fond chuckle.
“I meant it back then too. Love brought pain, misery, and a whole heap of heartache. Love meant having half of your heart ripped from you and having to watch it walk away. Love meant rejection. I thought it would be so much easier on my own. To not give myself to anyone who could trample all over me. I was a shadow that day. A nothing. You crashed into a hollow meat suit. My father taught me that’s how to survive. When Sylvia left him, he shut himself off from everything and threw himself into work. I guess I did the same.” Seb kissed Beatrice’s forehead. “When I met Sylvia again and heard her out, her reasons, I thought I understood her. But now I have this,” he nodded to Beatrice. “I can’t imagine ever walking away and leaving her behind. Not for anything.”
“You’ll never have to,” Jay said.
Seb held his gaze and Jay’s stomach fluttered at the penetrative stare. “I’m so glad you crashed into me that day. I’m so fucking“—Seb mouthed the curse—"glad you didn’t look where you were going. And I’m so grateful that you came over to me in that coffee shop and yanked me out of my own arse…and into yours.”
Jay laughed and Seb pressed a finger to his lips to shush him. Then he leaned over Beatrice to kiss him.
“Marry me,” Jay said, lips ghosting against Seb’s. “Let’s be a proper family.”
“After Brazil—”
“Now.”
“What?” Seb hovered back.
“Next weekend. I’ve asked your old man. He says we can. Everyone we know will down tools to be there. We only want small anyway.”
“Jay, baby, what about the World Cup? There’s still a chance you could go.”
“Then I’ll go a married man.” He reached over to stroke a hand up Seb’s neck and into his hair. “I love you. I love her. And I love this. Us. The three of us. I want to say that in front of all our family and friends and make you my husband as soon as I possibly can.”
Seb’s returning grin was so wide Jay thought he might tear his cheeks apart. “Then let’s do it,” he said. “Let’s officially become the Ruttman’s.”
Chapter Sixteen
When It’s Time
Seb’s father was, and always had been, true to his word
Saunders House and Country Club had been kitted out to perfection considering he’d only had a week’s preparation. Although, Seb suspected that Jay had been planning this for a while behind his back. It was too prepared to have been organised on a whim, even with the best of the best in every aspect hired by his father from the flowers, to the claret and blue colour scheme throughout the house and gardens, to the staff on hand. Every minor detail had been meticulously thought through and it, surprisingly, wasn’t too showy. It was elegant. Sophisticated. Understated. Everything that their high-profile careers and relationship wasn’t. Or hadn’t been.
But it was everything that they needed.
How Jay, or his father, had managed to find a celebrant at such short notice, was also something Seb didn’t spend too much time thinking about and just enjoyed someone else being in control for a change. Because, for the past week, he’d had his mind on other things. Flowers, suits, colour schemes, and creating a spectacle fit for his celebrity status wasn’t so important anymore. Maybe Jay had let his mother do it all. Seb was fine being the one in the dark this time. It meant he could spend every moment tending to Beatrice.
So on the day of the wedding, as he fiddled with Bea’s tiny white satin dress and she lay on the bridal suite bed gurgling away, his insides fluttered at the prospect that today wasn’t just a special occasion, but an important one. Free from any constraints, internal or external, they could finally show the world how much this meant. He was still nervous about it all and he tried to shake the unease that something might swoop in to ruin it all by focusing on getting his daughter into a dress that was far too big for her tiny frame.
The rap of knuckles on their door put Seb into the present and he secured the ribbon on the soft booties covering Beatrice’s little feet as he called out, “Jay, door!”
Jay rushed from the bathroom, buttoning up the collar on his pristine white shirt already tucked into the black tuxedo trousers, loose bow tie dangling around his neck. The scent of freshly washed skin sprayed with musky spice wafted into the bedroom and Seb didn’t want to ever exhale again. Jay smelt divine and it hit all Seb’s nerve endings at once. But then Jay opened the door and Barbara stood behind, hair twisted into curls and huge fascinator on her head, wearing the mother-of-the-groom baby pink suit-dress she’d no doubt had tucked in her wardrobe for months and reminded Seb that the hardest part of the day was now upon him.
“Oh, Jay!” She gushed, hands gesturing to him. “Here, let me help.” She then took over buttoning up his collar and fastening the bow tie for him.
Jay shot a look of exasperation over his shoulder to Seb. He chuckled, and lifted Beatrice from the bed, rocking her over to the doorway. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do this part. Barbara tapped Jay’s chest, stepped back to admire her spruced up youngest son, then started her first round of sniffling. She’d been in bits since their arrival the night before, and it seemed she wasn’t going to be letting up today either. Seb had packed a ton of Kleenex into Beatrice’s baby bag for Barbara alone.
“You look so bloody handsome,” she said, wiping nothing away from Jay’s cheek just so she could touch him without forcing him into another hug and crumpling his suit.
Jay took her hand, kissed her knuckles then put an arm around Seb to usher him forward. He stumbled. He hadn’t realised quite how much he’d dug his heels into the luscious carpet until he fell into Barbara and she took Beatrice from him. Seb was cold without her in his arms. Empty. As though he was missing a limb. But Jay curled an arm around his waist and his warmth flowed over him to spark him into life.
“Hold her like this,” Seb said, adjusting the way Barbara held his daughter. The fact that she’d had two babies of her own and two grandchildren, didn’t matter one iota when it came to his precious princess. “If she gets too hot and bothered, there’s a change of clothes in the bag. Milk is in there too. But, honestly, Babs, if it’s too much, we’ll just—”
“I’ll be fine, Sebastian,” Barbara said as Jay hauled him closer and kissed his temple. “I’m a seasoned Nanna. Me and Bea are gonna have some girlie time. We’ll see you down there.” She then swayed down the corridor and Seb noticed she was wearing pumps rather than heels. He smiled that she might have done that so Seb wouldn’t fear her toppling over on the uneven eighteenth-century wooden floorboards whilst holding his baby.
Jay closed the door, and Seb stared at it, chewing on his bottom lip.
“She’ll be fine.” Jay slid warm hands onto his waist and drew him closer to kiss his forehead. “Let’s get married.”
Seb smiled, then stepped out of his embrace to readjust Jay’s tie. He found his own on the bed, knotted it himself, then slipped into his jacket synchronised with Jay, the static from both of their satin shirts crackling in tune. They stood face-to-face, matching tuxedos, and Seb breathed out his fluttering exhalation.
“You look…phenomenal,” he said. “I actually can’t believe I’m marrying you.”
“Same.” Jay held out his hand. “Ready?”
“Born ready.”
Entwining their fingers, Jay opened the door and stepped out. Seb’s heart banged against his chest and his insides were awash with butterflies that he rarely got when ready to jump out on stage to a packed-out arena. This, somehow, was more nerve-wracking and more important. He blew out a giddy exhalation from rounded lips and leaned into Jay’s shoulder. For support, yes, but also to check if he, too, was trembling. He wasn’t. He was a solid stone of granite and he gripped Seb’s hand as they arrived at the top of the stairs, leading down to the back foyer and onto the grand hall where they were to wed.
The steps were aligned
with flowers—claret roses, blue gerberas and white lilies combined to match the colour scheme that was all for Jay, his club colours. Green foliage twined around the wooden banister and secured at the bottom with an elegant black bow, leading them onto the red carpet. Seb’s chest rose, for at the bottom of the stairs stood both of their father’s—his and Jay’s. They were both suited to perfection with maybe John looking slightly more uncomfortable in his ensemble than Will, especially when the photographer snapped away at them. Seb blocked it out. He’d had so many lenses in his face that flashes in his vision were a permanent fixture. He blinked them back to look at Jay.
“Final chance to bow out?” he said. “I know what being tied to a Saunders can do.”
“Not a chance.” Jay squeezed his hand and took the first step. Seb followed, remaining at his side where he planned to be forever.
On reaching the bottom, Seb had to let go of Jay to shake his father’s hand. “Thank you,” he whispered to him in all the conviction he could muster through his quivering body.
“No, thank you,” Will replied and he cupped another hand into their shake, holding them in place.
Seb would have gone in for a hug that he wasn’t sure he could ever remember giving his father when an unexpected sniffle and snort forced them apart. John had hauled Jay in for a bear hug, slapping his back and choking through his sentiment of, “I’m so fuckin’ proud of ya, son. So proud.”
“All right, Dad. Let us go so I can actually do this.”
John stepped back, clearing his throat to match Will’s masculine stoicism. With a sharp nod, Will gestured for John to follow him into the grand ballroom to take their seats and announce their arrival. Seb sucked in a calming breath that seemed to be in synch with Jay’s leisured inhalation. Then, hand in hand, they walked forwards, the strumming acoustic guitar playing at the front of the hall accompanying their stroll down the aisle.
The guests rose to their feet. There was only a small selection. Family and close friends. That’s all they’d wanted. With both he and Jay having had their careers play out to huge audiences, this part of their life they wanted to keep intimate. This wasn’t a big demonstration, nor did they want to provide a display case for their private life. This was them, in front of their loved ones, tying that loose end.
