“Did you get to sleep?” she asks.
“Yeah. Longer than I thought I would. How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay. Dissociating like a motherfucker, but… this helps,” she adds, gesturing to the crowded group inside.
I huff amusedly and look around the room at the band, their partners, her friends all sharing food, laughing, and telling stories.
I reach over to pinch the back of her knee, and her shoulders droop with a sigh before she offers to share her fries with me.
I don’t know how long it is that everyone hangs out. At some point, Bonnie stands to see what video Foster is showing Reed and ends up sitting at the table and chatting with them for a while. I move up the steps and sit on the top one, resting my head against the wall, one eye on her at all times despite the conversation I end up having with Zeb about alien activity at Joshua Tree.
Each time Mads looks my way, there’s a warning in his eyes that makes me stiffen. He isn’t pushing it. It’s a reminder, though it has me hesitating to smile at her too hard in his presence.
And when everyone begins to file out well after midnight, I don’t follow behind them.
“Flight’s early, right?” Zeb asks, reaching out to fist-bump me.
“Yeah, we’re out of here around ten,” I say as I stand. “Back to LA. You guys get three days. Then it’s recording time for a few weeks until RagnaRock.”
He nods. “Alright. Bon—” He wraps his arms around her and hugs her tight. “I love you,” he says, smacking a kiss on her head. “If you need me…”
She waves him off when he releases her. “I’m fine,” she says. “I told you. I’m fine. I love you, too, idiot.”
He smiles and nods, then waves my way before finally exiting.
I push my hands into my pockets as the quiet swells in the trailer, the door clicking behind Zeb. Bonnie immediately grabs the television remote from the table and turns on the first action movie on the screen.
“I cannot do silence,” she says. “Tell me your favorite movie.”
My heart flutters a little at the painless question.
“Ah… anything with a morally grey or reluctant hero,” I answer.
“I bet you like villain origin movies,” she says, flipping through the television.
“I amobsessedwith villain origins,” I admit. “I love seeing the motives that pushed someone over the edge.”
“It’s so raw, right?” she agrees.
“It’s raw and complicated and always so fucked up. It makes the story more compelling.”
“Who is your favorite origin story?” she asks.
I hesitate, and Bonnie eagerly looks my way.
“Superheroes? Horror lore? Comic book villains? Sauron? Tell me if I’m close.”
I chuckle. “I like DC comic lore,” I admit.
Her eyes brighten. “Like… Joker? Catwoman? Poison Ivy?”
“Kind of obsessed with Poison Ivy,” I tell her.
“Oh shit—Well, there’s your Halloween costume. I was her a few years ago. We did a concert back in North Carolina and dressed-up as DC villains. Wait, if you’re her, does that mean I can be Harley?”
“I don’t know if I can handle you as Harley Quinn,” I say, stomach filled with butterflies at the thought of her in those tiny shorts and pigtails. “You would be perfect, though.”
She draws her bottom lip behind her teeth like she’s imagining what exactly I might do to her in that costume.
