Page 80 of Crash & Burn

“What?” she asks. “I wanted a hug too.” She is wearing jean shorts with a cropped, red Cross My Heart T-shirt. We all agreed we would each wear a different color tonight. Drew has a black one, Annie has a red one, and I’m wearing a pink one.

We all laugh as she sits down on the other side of me. Before her ass even meets the chair, Luke appears in front of her with a gin and tonic, with a bendy straw that he keeps behind the bar just for her.

“Luke,” she says.

“Annie,” he replies, in the same curt tone as hers. “Still mad at me?” He asks.

“Always,” she deadpans.

Obviously,somethinghappened between now and last night at the karaoke bar where they were totally fine, but it is getting hard to keep up.

He walks away, and she just shakes her head as if to sayit’s not even worth explaining.

“So,” she starts, “obviously, I missed something,” she says.

“Oh you know, just your standard Saturday evening trauma-dumping,” I joke, even though it is nothing but the truth.

“Without me?!” Annie gasps. “Not okay, girly pops. Start over, from the beginning.”

Drew and I laugh at how dramatic Annie is before explaining to her what Luke said to me about Eddie, and she came to the same conclusion as Drew, that he cares about me and he can’t help but be overprotective because of what happened to him.

“So, Eddie is open about what happened to him?” I ask.

“No,” Annie and Drew say at the same time.

“Not at all,” Drew adds. “You saw how he got the one time he overheard Annie and I telling you about our track record with parents. He refuses to talk about it.”

“Then how do you guys know?”

“Emmett,” Drew answers.

“Luke,” Annie answers.

“Makes sense.”

“In our defense,” Annie adds, “Everyone knows that what you tell Luke and Emmett is fair game to us. While Eddie has never opened up about it to us, he knows we know.”

“Yeah, we all have had our share of shit, so we all have the shared understanding that we know what each other went through and are there if they need.”

“That’s beautiful, in a really tragic way,” I conclude.

Drew smiles. “The universe sucks, and it always reminds us, but at least it gives us the people we need to get through what it throws at us.”

Drew’s words stick with me for the rest of the night, along with what she said about Eddie and what happened to him. The more I think about it, the more I hope Eddie knows that nothing is his fault, and that he deserves to heal. He doesn’t always have to hold it together for everyone else, he has people who will hold him up when he needs to.

And one of those people isme.

We finish our first round of drinks as Luke tells the other patrons that it is last call because Lenny’s is closing early. With the heavy crowd, Annie has to step in to help, mostly because she was getting annoyed with the way Luke was running things on his own, so she stepped in to show him how to do everything the “right way.” Drew and I do one more round before Annie and Luke get everyone out.

We do a third round and the alcohol makes my face feel fuzzy. Drinks are more expensive at the concert venue, so I don’t feel bad heading there with a good buzz because it will wear off by the time Cross My Heart gets on stage.

Emmett meets us at the show having got there early to help the guys with their equipment. They needed an extra set of hands after cutting it close on time with their last-minute practice. They’re debuting their surprise song tonight, and they wanted to make sure it was absolutely ready to perform for the first time. I have been hyping it up on their social media, and it got a lot of traction. Fans are excited, and there is a strong sense of anticipation in the air when we get in.

Comparing this crowd with the crowd of the first show is night and day. I would say the number of people here for Cross My Heart specifically has doubled, and the guys couldn’t have done a better song creating a setlist that perfectly aligns with the other bands on this tour, helping them dip into those fan bases.

“Have you heard this new song?” Annie asks me over the buzz of the crowd. The guys are supposed to be on any minute.

“No. I don’t go to many of their practices anymore, so I haven’t had a chance to hear it.”

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