There are more people than the bar can fit, and it’s stunning to see them leave the patio doors open so people can pile in on the outside balcony.
“Alright, motherfuckers, how are we?” Reed asks into the mic.
The crowd roars back, and Mads strums a couple of notes.
“We are Young Decay, and tonight… we’re celebrating,” Reed goes on, smirking at Mads. “Can’t tell you what we’re celebrating, but we’re fucking celebrating, and we thought—what the hell? We want to enjoy this time with our favorite people—our fans.”
I tap a few times on the snare as the audience whistles and claps.
“So, we’re going to take tonight a little slow, play some new shit, see how you fuckers like it, yeah?” The crowd yells in response, and Reed grins back at me.
“Ready when you are, Bed,” he tells me.
I hold my sticks over my head and clack them together three times, leading into the set list we all agreed to in the car ride over.
I’ve missed playing intimate venues like this.
Playing here brings it all full circle. I feel like that young twenty-year-old girl sleeping on her friend’s couch, no thought to her future except to get out of the place she grew up in. Emotion swells within me as Mads strides by the kit and winks at me over his mask, and I know we’re all feeling the same thing.
And the new shit? God, the crowd loses it.
We’re a couple of songs from the end when I notice Zeb practically eye-fucking one of the women in the front.
Hot nerdy goth...
I chuckle to myself. She has long black hair and micro bangs, bold black glasses, a septum piercing, and winged eyeliner… Her skin is pale under these lights, and her curvaceous mid-size body is mostly covered under heavy clothes—a chunky black sweater tucked into a form-fitting black pencil skirt. I can’t see her shoes, but god I hope she’s wearing spiked boots.
Zeb twists my way and nods his head in her direction, and I grin.
“All you,” I mouth to him.
“If you miss me later, check the national forests,” he says with a wink.
I laugh, though when we finish up our set a few minutes later, Zeb makes good on his word to disappear.
Fans come up and chat with us after. I sign some things and take photos, loving each story they tell me about the first timethey saw us play or heard our music. By the time I make my way to Gemma again, my heart is full and heavy.
I needed this. I think weallneeded it.
Shows like this put our world in perspective, help us remember to be grateful for the places we began.
I sigh as I look at Gemma by the bar, and it hits me how grateful I am for her. I don’t care how rocky this started for us. What matters is now and who we are together here.
She’s the person I’m going to live my entire future with. And as I take in the sight of her gorgeously sleepy hazel eyes, I know, in my bones, that I need more.
“Hey, rockstar,” she says when I reach her. She kisses my nose and sinks her arms around my waist. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I want it on paper,” I say, settling into her embrace. “I want you and me. I want this—” I hold up my ringed hand “—to be real. I want our names forever written together on a stupid government document just because we fucking can. Because no one can stop us. And when we die, your name is going to be engraved into the same headstone as mine, and someone is going to have to sprinkle our combined ashes out into the ocean because you’re fucking stuck with me. Forever. And yes, we will have both because I plan on being as obnoxious as possible about us.”
She leans in, her nose dragging across my cheek. Chills erupt on my arms, and I wrap them around her neck so I can squeeze her in closer.
“Does this mean you want me to ask?” she says softly.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Yes, you want me to ask, or yes, you’ll be my wife?”
My eyes flutter. “Yes, I want to be your wife.”
