Amy breathed an audible sigh of relief before closing her laptop and throwing her head back into the couch.
“Were you nervous?” Kevin asked, chuckling.
“I have never been more nervous in mylife,” she said, head still back against the couch. “I have looked up to you guys for so long, I just—well, you know what they say about meeting your heroes.” She finally looked at us then, biting her lip when her eyes met mine. “But you guys have been amazing. So, thank you. For listening to me, for trusting me…for just—being amazing human beings and making this so much fun.”
“You’re going to have an incredible career,” Max said, and we all nodded in agreement.
Amy relaxed after that. She could have left after the song was tracked, but she didn’t. She stayed to watch us record the last few songs on our list, before we all packed up and headed outside. Kevin and Max left first, leaving Josh, Amy, and me standing on the sidewalk outside the studio.
“Any chance you want to grab a drink before you head home?” Josh asked Amy, and my blood pressure spiked. Irrational? Maybe. But it irritated me that Josh, who was heartbroken over his marriage failing mere hours ago, was hitting on her. Not because I was delusional enough to think she was somehow mine because we shared a moment on a couch, but because I knew Josh. He trulywasbroken up over Emily, and I knew that meant he’d fuck around with Amy and use her as his rebound, leaving her heartbroken in the end.
“Actually,” she said, looking over at me. “I was kind of hoping Eric would want to go to dinner?”
“Of course,” I said without hesitation. “I’d be honored.”
THIRTY-THREE
Eric
? Tear in My Heart – twenty one pilots ?
Amy and I were inseparable from that night forward, but we kept our relationship private for months. With her band about to break through, she was worried people would assume that any success they had was because of our relationship, and I understood her hesitation with going public. She and her sisters had worked their asses off for this opportunity, and they deserved to be recognized for the hardworking powerhouses they were.
The single we’d recorded that night, “Shadows of the Past,” hit number one after only two weeks on the charts and stayed there for eleven weeks. The label wanted to cash in on the buzz surrounding the song, so they announced that Murphy’s Law would join our fall tour, and the idea of Amy and I touring together had us over the moon.
If we were still keeping things quiet once rehearsals started, we wouldn’t have to work as hard to hide that we werespending time together. If some paparazzi photographed us leaving the arena together or grabbing a bite to eat, we’d be able to play it off as a working relationship. I’d been ready to go public for months, and honoring her boundaries by not being seen with her in public was starting to become more and more difficult.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said one night as we laid in bed together, her head on my chest, my fingers threaded through her hair, lightly massaging her scalp. “What if we went public at the Grammys?” She sat up and looked at me, the sheets falling away from her bare chest, making it harder to concentrate on the conversation I was desperate to have.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“It’s been five months, and I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of hiding. I’m crazy about you and I want the world to know how goddamn proud I am of you. Of everything you’ve accomplished. How proud I am to call you mine.” She smiled, which I took as a good sign, so I continued. “We’re both nominated. We can plan it so that we all arrive at the same time, and once we walk some of the carpet with the bands, we can break away and walk the rest of it together.”
She chewed on her lip for a moment, considering.
“I guess it would be good for the tour,” she said, shrugging.
“Fuck the tour,” I said, sitting up and placing a hand on her face, running my thumb over her cheek. “I don’t give a shit about the tour, or the album, or the single—none of it matters to me more than you.”
Her mouth crashed into mine and I moved my hand from her cheek to the back of her head, holding her to me. She pulled away first and smiled as she rested her forehead against mine.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
I’d been to the Grammys three times prior to our nominations for “Shadows of the Past,” but I’d never been as nervous as I was that night. The guys wanted to do a few shots before we left Josh’s hotel room, so I stepped into the hall to do a few breathing exercises I’d learned after I started seeing a therapist about my anxiety when we weren’t touring. I’d been doing well since I completed rehab a few years ago, but our last tour was the longest one we’d ever done—ten straight months on the road with no breaks—and I started to feel the pull again as soon as I’d gotten back home. My sober coach recommended therapy, and it had been helping a lot more than I imagined it would.
When the guys were ready, they met me in the hall, and we made our way downstairs to the car that was waiting for us. As we got closer to the venue, my heart beat faster and faster in my chest, and by the time we pulled up to the red carpet, I was sure I was going to pass out.
Then I looked out the window and saw her and all my nervous energy disappeared.
Amy and her sisters had just stopped at the first group of paparazzi on the red carpet, and she lookedincredible. They were all wearing some variation of black and purple—keeping with the theme of their debut album cover—with Amy wearing a strapless, black leather corset that looked uncomfortably tight (sexy as fuck, but very obviously uncomfortable), and deep purple wide-leg pants. Her hair, which she’d changed from dusty pink to jet black a few months ago, hung in loose waves to her waist, and her makeup was dark and dramatic.
She posed with her sisters, working the cameras like she’d been doing this her whole life. Like she was born for this.
The guys and I took our spot on the red carpet behind them, both groups working our way down the line of photographers and press and closer to the doors. Then, just as we’d planned, her sisters continued on and through the doors, and she turned and approached me.
The guys peeled off to follow Amy’s sisters into the arena, hugging her as they walked by.
And then there we were. Just the two of us. She ran her hands up my chest, I put my hands on her waist, and then I leaned down and kissed her.
