𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚑𝚞𝚛𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞.

𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚒𝚗 𝚊𝚙𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚟𝚊𝚕𝚜

𝚂𝚎𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚜𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚢𝚜

𝙸𝚜 𝙸 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎,

𝚂𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚏

𝚂𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚎.

𝙿𝚞𝚕𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑 𝚖𝚢 𝚟𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚊𝚒𝚗'𝚝 𝚊 𝚜𝚒𝚗.

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔𝚒𝚗' 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚋𝚞𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊 𝚍𝚒𝚊𝚖𝚘𝚗𝚍 𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐.

𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝙸 𝚠𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚏𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎.

𝚂𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚝 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚎.

𝙸'𝚟𝚎 𝚐𝚘𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚒𝚗 𝚖𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚊𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚛𝚎 𝚖𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚒𝚗𝚎.

𝚂𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚢𝚜𝚎𝚕𝚏

𝙸'𝚖 𝚒𝚗 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚕 𝚘𝚏 𝚒𝚝.

𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝙸 𝚠𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚏𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚒𝚗 𝚕𝚘𝚟𝚎.

(𝙾𝚔𝚊𝚢)

Eddie sat with Lennon until Jeff reappeared an hour later with Grant by his side. He was sure it was going to be Brontë who ended their conversation but when people started showing up in large intervals, he didn't have time to pull them apart.

Jeff had made himself scarce rather well after seeing Lennon and Eddie together so when he came back with Grant, Lennon was surprised to have forgotten he was even there.

"Hey, do you need time to tune before going on?" Jeff wondered, hoping he wasn't interrupting something important.

"Do I usually?" Eddie shot Jeff a look of indiscretion.

"Uh... No?" he quirked up one side of his nose and turned to Grant for support.

"So, why would I leave before tuning now?" he countered.

"There's a lot of people," he responded with large eyes as he turned to scan the environment.

"Doesn't change anything. Where is Gareth?" Eddie immediately changed the subject, seeing as they were set to go on stage in a few minutes and he was nowhere to be seen.

Grant and Jeff both looked at each other and smiled.

"He's out back..." Grant scoffed, causing Jeff to spit out an uncontroable laugh before turning away to hide his smile.

"Why are we laughing?" Eddie asked in earnest.

Jeff placed his hand on Eddie's shoulder and ushered him out of his seat. "C'mon. We're on in ten. Uh..." Jeff turned to Lennon. "Hope you enjoy the show. It was nice seeing you," he said as if he were in a rush and pushed Eddie toward the back door.

"You too," she smiled half-heartedly and hated to admit that she felt a tinge of sadness when Eddie left.

"Later, Lennon," Eddie shot her a sideways smirk and offered her a half-wave as he was being dragged away.

"Good luck!"

Lennon curled her fingers slowly and watched him disappear into the crowd. Almost like clockwork, the moment her hand rested on her thigh, Brontë was right there in front of her.

"What the hell does he want?" he grumbled lowly with his hand halfway down the throat of an empty glass.

Lennon rolled her eyes and pressed her chin into her palm.

"I want another drink," she tapped the rim of her empty glass, avoiding the question and shifting her energy to match her brother's dissatisfied tone.

"What were you two talking about?" he set the glass in his hand down and tied the rag onto his waist. He quickly poured her another water and without skipping a beat, he swept up the three glasses around Lennon and dumped them into the sink that reached underneath a wall separating the bar from the kitchen.

"Do you guys have lemon?" she asked just to be annoying.

Brontë groaned and played along, knowing that if he started arguing, she would find a way to avoid and ignore all his questions.

He plucked a slice of lemon from one of the containers hiding underneath the countertop and plopped it into her glass. "What does he want with you?"

"Actually, can I get another tea?"

"No," Brontë responded flatly. "What's going on between you two?"

"By the angels..." she picked up her glass and started toward the other end of the bar.

Brontë followed, keeping to his side of of the bar and switching positions with the other bartenders. "I swear... I told you he's not cool, Lenny," he quickly swiped up the glass the third bartender, John, deserted and dumped it into the tub behind him.

"Neither are you," she scoffed, settling down on the seat next to the wall.

"So what about you and Billy?" Brontë shook his head incredulously.

"Firstly, can a girl not have friends of the opposite sex without being accused of cheating?" she glared and stiffened her upper lip with contempt.

"Don't get all feminist on me-"

"And secondly," she talked over him. "I told you. Billy and I aren't serious."

"Sure," he replied flatly. "You?" he laughed. "You fall so fucking fast- Hello!" he quickly turned to the woman walking up beside Lennon for a refill.

Lennon waited for her brother to be done with his customer before defending herself. "I'm not the one with a body count that goes beyond counting on my fingers and toes," she commented before Brontë could finish shoving his tips into his apron.

"At least I'm consistent," he laughed, cleaning up his area while he had time to. "And that's not very equal rights of you!" he gasped. "Judging me on how many people I've slept with."

"Yes, and if you were a girl and I was your average boy, you would be called a dirty whore," she sneered, lifting her glass to her lips and noticing how the speaker system, stopped working the moment her glass left the counter.

"Judging by that tone of yours, I still am," Brontë replied, getting pulled away when another group of men approached for some beers.

Lennon turned over her shoulder curiously and watched the door by the stage. She held her water in her hand, not daring to leave it unattended, and watched Jeff ascend from the curtain before anyone else.

Behind him came Grant, then Gareth, and finally, Eddie.

Similar to how the show went the last time she attended, Jeff took the microphone first. He introduced themselves and hyped up the crowd while speakers were plugged in and the lights were lowered in the area the band occupied.

The mood immediately shifted to something more grungy, dark, and secluded. It would have seemed dangerous or unpleasant from afar, but standing on the perimeter between the main area of the bar and the pit for the stage, Lennon found herself to be a part of that aesthetic, no matter how preppy her clothes were.

She was accepted nonetheless because there was nobody to tell her otherwise. It was a choice. All were welcome but only a few chose to stay.

Lennon was closer to the stage this time and she had a clear view despite the crowd growing by the minute. There were dozens of men and women standing around, congesting the booths and tables; even the bar was about to overflow with customers.

Lennon could tell the boys were nervous, but not Eddie. She would have assumed he would be the most anxious considering he was front and center but he never failed to surprise her; especially that night.

His eyes searched the crowd for a moment.

She smiled timorously, wanting them to desperately find hers. She wanted to be the one he was looking for. She wanted to be the one that made him stop looking.

Gareth started the first song with a strong, maniacal solo before Jeff, Eddie, and Grant strummed in unison. Jeff's fingers began moving rapidly after the first note and that's when Eddie looked right up at her.

It was like her stare was drawing him in like a lure. He went from looking down at his frets to finding the forests within her eyes. It was instant.

Once Eddie found her, he didn't look away.

Again, Lennon didn't know if it was because he knew the song well enough not to need a visual or if it was for the fact that he didn't want to look away. Her head reminded her of how confident he was with his music but her heart wanted to believe in the latter.

Eddie then began to sing, all whilst strumming and maintaining eye contact with the blushing brunette across the pit of gathering drunks.

Lennon stood there in something between conscious awe and an unintentional trance. She couldn't wrap her head around how someone could be so attractive.

His denim vest was gone and the black leather he left on display made his eyes and hair look much darker than before. The lights from above illuminated the high points of his cheekbones and nose. The thin film of sweat on his face after the first three minutes of his performance made the highlights of his skin look like smears of gold paint and glitter.

His eyes flickered down to correct the position of his fingers for a moment before they found their way back to hers. When the beat quickened in a crescendo, Eddie's eyes were ripped away and crinkling with strain.

His foot tapped to the rhythm Gareth set out with the bass drum but his head rocked with the low reverberation of Grant's bass guitar. His lip was pressed between his lips during his guitar solo and the way his teeth trapped his lower lip made Lennon want to bite hers in response.

Unconsciously, her head was bopping with the music and the crowd gathering around the band was growing in numbers quicker than Lennon could comprehend.

When she was knocked back into her senses when the song was over, she glanced around at the other members of Corroded Coffin and saw just how nervous they all were. There must have never been that many people before. There was no other explanation for it.

The second song leaked into a third and then a fourth and then there was an intervention. It was about nine thirty and Eddie took to speaking into the microphone.

"I hope we're feeling really fucking warm now!" he shouted gleefully, trying to stifle his delayed and heavy breathing. The crowd actually responded with communal whoops and a few drunken screams of excitement.

Lennon giggled at the response, noticing the odd looks of surprise on everyone's faces as they were met with matched with an energy as extreme as their own.

"Wow, there's a lot of you..." Eddie laughed, turning to his bandmates and smiling. The crowd giggled and cheered in quiet animation. "Hi!" he exclaimed cheekily, running his eyes over the crowd as he rounded up to nearly thirty people standing in the pit with a few lingering stares coming from afar in the booths along the wall.

"Well... I know we've been enjoying the covers so far but we were hoping to transition into some of our original stuff and if it sucks, it sucks, but if it's good... I think you all know what to do," he announced playfully, earning a loud, collective celebration the moment Eddie's eyes went to the ground in thought.

Eddie smiled when he looked up and saw all the smiling faces directed at him and his friends, but the moment he received the attention, the only thing he craved was Lennon. His eyes raked over all the strangers until his attention was snagged on the pair looking up at him from beside the bar.

His smile widened and his hand mindlessly ran down the six strings of his guitar, letting out a single sound before lifting his lips up to the microphone. "This is 'Mocktails'... or 'Molotovs'... We haven't quite figured out the title!" Eddie curled his lip theatrically and dramatized an expression of worry.

Lennon laughed and the crowd cheered in unison with Jeff's beginning riff. Eddie kept looking around the room as he performed but he never failed to look to Lennon for support.

As he played, there was something about the way he moved that enlightened Lennon. It wasn't admiration or attraction that drew her in, it was all the new experiences she was soaking in through Eddie that captivated her.

From the view of the crowd to the look and sound of the band playing music. Everything felt new and undiscovered. It felt like she was treaded on unmarked territory and for the first time, she didn't feel scared. She wasn't afraid of what might lay in the darkness or what consequences she would face if she made a mistake.

She felt alive.

She had never heard music like Eddie's before and she certainly never saw anything like it live until she met him. She never knew someone so funny and so innocent yet so dark and dangerous at the same time.

Everything was new and yet she didn't feel afraid.

It was the adventure Eddie carried with him that made Lennon want to follow. She felt safe. She felt like she was capable of living if he was by her side. That was what was so addicting.

She watched in satisfaction, staring at them all as they shared their music with the public.

The guitar hanging around Eddie's hips was being played without looking and the way Eddie's head was tilted upward as he sang made Lennon's stomach gurgle with something other than hunger.

His hair streaked through the air in flurries of wild brown curls. His arms tightened and strained as he played his guitar. His tongue peaked out from behind his lips as he was mid-thought. His eyes were scattered but they kept going back to Lennon in between every chorus.

He was beautiful.

"Dude!" someone shouted over the music and nudged her on the shoulder enough to make her spill some of her water.

Lennon turned on her heel and glared. "Bro!"

"C'mon. We're going," Brontë shrugged on a jacket and disappeared into the back.

He came back through the curtained doorway a few feet from the one Eddie and his band came from and wiped some sweat from his brow as he joined her.

"It's not even ten yet..." Lennon responded incredulously.

"I got Sherry to cover the rest of my shift. C'mon."

"It's packed!" she ushered toward the crowd and the busy tables outside the bar area. "What happened to Friday nights being the best for tips!?" she shouted over the music she recently turned her back on.

She didn't want to leave yet. Eddie still had another hour on stage and she wanted to stay.

"Steve's coming over at eleven after picking up Dustin. Let's go. C'mon," he grabbed Lennon's wrist and dragged her away from the bar.

"Bro!" she shouted, tugging at her wrist but failing to get free as Brontë snaked through the people working their way toward the bar. "Brontë!" she wriggled free and protectively pulled her arm to her chest.

Brontë turned around and faced her while everyone around them was dancing or idly talking with a drink at hand.

"You're acting so fucking weird!" she shoved him back with her shoulder as she moved past him. She walked ahead of him and waiting a moment before turning toward the band that was almost too far away now to see.

She angled her head and managed to get a glimpse of Eddie between two men's heads before Brontë took her by the arm and dragged her to the door.

"Bro!" she groaned, ripping her arm free and bumping into someone behind her. She quickly apologized and whipped back around to her brother. "Would you quit pulling?" she yanked her hands underneath her jacket sleeves and exited the building first.

"What the fuck is up with you?"

"What's going on between you and Eddie?" he sharply accused.

They were both standing outside in the cold as the wind blew their hair in every other direction.

"Me and Eddie?" she countered with disbelief. "We're friends-"

"No," he laughed, shaking his head and avoiding her eye as he ridiculed her. "That man wants nothing friendly from you, I can tell you that much," he scoffed.

"Look, whatever he did to you in high school like four years ago, doesn't mean he's gonna do the same thing with me, alright?"

"Whatever he did to me?" Brontë raised his brows and laughed incredulously. "So what? We move you all the way out here and you start man-hopping? Doing drugs? Prostituting? What is it?"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she leered, shaking her head and backing away from him and his accusations.

"Whats wrong with you?!" he countered insistently. "You're the one acting weird. You're swallowing one dudes tongue one minute and you're laughing with a drug dealer the next-"

"Eddie and Billy are friends, you dickhead!" she yelled at him, turning around and stomping through the snow to reach for the car.

"You hangin' out with Eddie isn't gonna get you what you want!" he called out after her. "He's gonna hurt you one way or another!"

"And what exactly do I want?!" she stopped in her tracks and sharply turned to face him again. "What exactly do I want, Brontë?" she leered, too overcome with rage to have noticed her trembling hands.

"I know you don't want people thinking badly of you after the shit that went down back home."

"The people I make friends with has nothing to do with you and if I want to date someone, I have every right to do so without your permission."

"Are we talking about Billy or Eddie?"

Brontë crossed his arms over his chest and pursed his lips knowingly. It was like he knew there was something she wasn't telling him and if she tried lying now, he would be able to tell.

Lennon stopped for a moment and tilted her head with a death glare reflecting in her eyes.

"Billy..."

"Are you sure? Because you don't seem so sure-"

"God! You are so fucking annoying! You were like this during the trial too! I swear you don't fucking believe me!"

"I don't trust you! There's a difference!"

She scoffed and turned her back on him, continuing through the snow until she reached the car.

"How can I trust you to take care of yourself? Sometimes I think you forget you're seventeen, Lenny! Eddie won't bring anything good into your life right now!"

"Why?" she laughed hysterically. "Why? Because he drains people's blood into the lake? Because he sells drugs?" she spoke with contempt.

"Because he's Eddie!"

Lennon ignored him, unable to keep arguing about the same thing over and over again. She stepped into the car and closed the door on her brother. He was quick to race to the driver's seat but the arguing continued.

"Everyone knows he sleeps around," Brontë started.

Lennon didn't want to admit it, but his words did inflict some sort of pain on her. At first, she didn't believe him, but he sounded so sure and it came out so plainly as if there were no if, ands, or buts. She couldn't help but feel ailed. "Okay. That has nothing to do-" she tried projecting.

"He OD's like every other weekend. He has a cult following whether you want to believe it or not. He's got no future, Lenny. Look at him!"

"Are you done?" she sighed, turning up the air as high as it went to try and gain some warmth.

She felt the urge to defend him but what was the point? Brontë wasn't worth the energy and he wasn't going to admit to defeat, so why try?

"Are you?" Brontë egged her on. "He's playing you..."

"You are making this into something it isn't," she pinched the skin between her eyebrows and lifted her foot to the compartment box on the dash.

"I know you," he said when pulling the car into drive. "Like I said, you fall so fucking easily."

"So... Am I going to jump Jonathan's bones any time soon?" she spat back aggressively. "Or maybe Dustin!" she shouted back meanly.

"That's not-!"

"Eddie is a friend! And Billy... I'm figuring it out, alright?!" she exasperated. "Get off my back," she sighed.

"I'm just trying to look out for you-"

"Well stop," she whined. "I've got it, okay? Trust me... Please..." she threw her head against the head rest and pressed her hands to her forehead to relieve the growing headache her brother implanted into her skull.

"I'm just saying... you don't know Eddie like I do... And you're acting weird..."

"Well, I'm not like most seventeen year olds, am I?" she retorted. "I have a right to act weird. Most teenagers don't have to see their moms corpse all bloody and bruised or stand up in trial defending themselves from being called a fucking murderer!"

"Len-"

"Just stop, would you?"