Chapter Text
The pit turns mean in a blink.
One second, it’s a glorious tangle, elbows up and shoulders rolling, bodies colliding in the friendly way that makes strangers into a single, breathing animal. The next, the animal rears. All that heat and beer and bass compresses into a tidal shove that takes the floor right out from under you. Your boots scrape, then skid, then hover. The air sticks to your skin. Somebody’s backpack zips your forearm. Someone else laughs too close to your ear, sharp and oblivious to his surroundings, and the sound slices straight through the song and into the fear trying to claw its way up your throat.
You suck in half a breath. It goes nowhere. The crowd surges again.
It’s not panic that hits you, but raw understanding that you are in danger if you cant get out. The current keeps pushing, your center of gravity is failing, and your feet are not part of the conversation anymore. You are buoyed in a sea of bodies, unwilling, by the slam of shoulders and the grind of bodies. Your world tilts as you are almost swallowed. The barricade you aimed for a minute ago might as well be three states over, and then there’s a hand at your waist. Not a groping hand but an anchor holding you steady in a tidal wave of people.
He finds you in the chaos his rings cold and grounding dig into your hip bone, palm spreading heat through your shorts, he steps into your space with zero hesitation and a look of determination and understanding, like he knows the difference between fun and danger.
He lifts you up, It’s not elegant. You bump a shoulder and your knee snags on someone’s belt, but the way he moves is practiced, like he’s done this before and will again, no questions asked. He shoulders into the wave the way you’re supposed to surf it, uses the crowd’s momentum to slide you through an opening, and then, suddenly your back bumps the rubber-capped rail and you’re up against the barricade, and blinking at a sweep of stage lights.
The world is still loud, but it’s a different, the bass stops punching your lungs and you feel like you can breathe again. The air is a little cooler. The band’s chorus cracks open above you and the whole place lifts their hands, and under everything there’s the thud of your pulse.
He’s right in front of you, close enough that you can smell the salt of sweat and the faint curl of something sweet from someone’s spilled drink, his hand still firm at your side like he doesn’t trust gravity or the barricade to keep you upright. He tips his face down and grins at you, feral and delighted, you feel something pull softly behind your ribs.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me now!” he yells, joyfully shameless, opening with a joke to break the awkward tension. You laugh breathlessly on reflex, and it comes out a little wild. His grin deepens like that’s exactly what he hoped for.
He frees his other hand long enough to yank a half-crushed water bottle from his back pocket. It’s slick with condensation and probably not new but it is the best thing you’ve ever seen. Before handing it over, Eddie tips it back and takes a long swig himself, then flashes you a quick grin. See? Totally safe. Totally fine. He presses it into your palm, steadying it with his fingers when your hand shakes. You tip it, gulp it down too quickly then cough. He winces like he can feel the cough. Then with a gentleness that startles you more than the lift did, he crooks his knuckles and nudges your chin up, so the blood doesn’t rush out of your head, and you don’t choke. “Easy,” he shouts, softer than the bass and screams booming all around you.
He stays there like that, knuckle under your chin, until your throat stops stinging and your head clears up. Finally you get a really good look at him as he’s inches away. Brown eyes, dark even in the harsh white sweep of the strobes. Eyeliner smudged into his bottom lash, rakish probably from him rubbing at it, sweat and time. He’s got a mouth thats made to grin, and he’s definitely using it, a soft and mischievous grin curve that eases your worries. Hair curly, dark, and wild like he’d run into a storm only moment before saving you. He holds your gaze until your breathing evens and the tight tremor in your finger’s quiets, then he nods, satisfied, like you’ve passed some unspoken test in his mind.
“You don’t even know me.”, you manage when you can talk again. Your voice sounds wrecked and relieved.
He shrugs, still keeping your hip caged with his palm. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, not loud now, just close. “Crowd like this? We look out for each other.”
You nod, because arguing with that logic would be ridiculous. Another surge ripples the bodies to your left, and you flinch. He’s already moving, pivoting to slot himself between you and the tide. He plants both palms on the top rail of the barricade, and braces like a shield between you and the crowd. It’s so instinctive you can’t tell if he thought about it. His rings scrape the metal of the barricade; you hear the little teeth grinding squeak even under the music. When the waves of crashing people come, it hits his back with a fanatic frenzy. He takes the brunt of it, and you feel the shock go through him, the flex of his shoulders as he anchors himself, the way his spine bows and then holds. You never get crushed or feel the brunt of the crowd again, and he refuses to move or break.
Sweat beads down his neck slowly as he holds steady; you want to catch it with your thumb, and you don’t even know this man. He grunts once when a particularly tall guy behind him rides the push like a battering ram, and a strangled apology bursts from you, ridiculous when you’re not the one slamming into him. You press your hands to the rail where his are, your fingers almost touching his. Heat radiates off him like a furnace that’s spent all night burning.
“Don’t worry about it! You better?” he pants, bringing his face closer so he doesn’t have to shout, so the question becomes a little private pocket between you. His forehead is nearly touching yours and you could count his lashes. The stage lights rim his curls with white like a halo.
You could answer him and tell the truth and everything you are feeling in the moment, but you don’t. You don’t say: Yes, don’t leave me. Ever. Your mouth would betray you, and your pretty sure your face probably already does. Because something in your chest has already reconfigured, by his body bracing against a tide so yours doesn’t have to. You just nod again, pulse settling.
He flashes you a mischievous grin through wet curls that have gone wild with humidity, mouth curled in a grin, that says he’s used to getting away with things. The song ends in a crash of feedback and the band steps back from the mics to drink water, and crack jokes you can’t decipher. The crowd exhales. You lean on the rail, as the pit eases. The air shifts, less frantic, more sway. He eases too, arms softening beside you on the rail.
Til he drops his arms and finally gives you space, but only an inch. The heat remains. He offers his hand like you’re meeting in a quiet cafe instead of a roiling chamber of noise. “I’m Eddie.” and once he says it, it’s obvious; there’s no other name for the man who just shouldered down an entire section of pit with a grin and a handful of rings. You grin back in a quiet excitement, tasting the cool fizz of the present moment, like a soda on your tongue
You put your hand in his. “Y/N.”
He repeats it like it’s a good lyric. He doesn’t let go immediately, and you don’t make him.
“You from here?” he asks, eyes flicking to the stage, then back to you in the same breath.
“yeah,” you say, and you tell him a little bit about yourself and the small town you live in, the three-dollar tacos stand you’ll die for, the bus that always eats your evenings, and the bookstore where the you spend the rest of your time. He responds with enthusiasm every single time.
He shares the quick sketch of his own life, works at a guitar shop teaching lessons to people on the weekends, in his own band that he’s trying to get off the ground, and knows some of the openers tonight through a guy who drums with him occasionally. He talks with his hands even when they’re occupied, fingers twitching lightly against the rail, like his body cannot bear to be unexpressive.
The music swells again, cutting through the easy rhythm of your conversation. His voice trails off, and the crowd roars their approval as the next chorus kicks in. He shifts closer without seeming to think about it, bracing his arms on either side of you. His chest brushes your shoulder, close enough that you can feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing over the pounding bass. His breath ghosting against your ear as he ducks down to speak over the roar.
“still good?” His voice is low, pitched just for you.
You nod, though your heart’s hammering as much from him as from the music. “Yeah!” you yell back, breathless.
He grins, wicked and close, his lips almost brushing your ear. “Don't need you getting swept away again,” he teases.
You whip your head around to glare at him, and he just laughs, delight cutting through the chaos, like he’s been waiting for that reaction all night. His grin softens, though, his voice dropping lower, more sincere. “Relax. I’ve got you.”
Something flickers across his expression when he looks down at you during the next chorus, satisfaction, sure, but also a kind of joy that’s not about the band at all, and It warms you stupidly from the inside as you smile at each other.
The band goes in for the last trio of songs with the relentlessness of a freight train, and you and Eddie spend them together. He raises his arms to throw up devil horns at certain points but always lowers them to keep you from getting smashed by the people behind him. He learns the precise seconds when your shoulders tighten so he can shift and take the press for you. He tests a hand at the small of your back and you lean into it, automatic. He howls the bridge of a song you don’t know and teaches you the words by yelling them at your ear, and when you get them right, he beams.
Somewhere in between the shared intimacy, he leans down and says it near your cheek because that’s where his mouth ends up when he wants you to hear him. “You sure you can see anything from down there, short stack?”
You glare up at him without heat. “yeah, I can see your big ego just fine.”
“Must be big then.” he grins.
“Oh, it is. I don't know how you hold your head up.”
He laughs, delighted, and then, as the next chorus hits and the bodies jump, he crouches. Right there. Drops to a knee with a casual confidence that says he’s thought of this already. He taps his shoulder. “Hop on!” he yells, grin huge.
You hesitate. It’s reflexive, some mix of etiquette and sanity and the knowledge that being on someone’s shoulders in a crowd is a crazy commitment for two people who met only minutes ago. You open your mouth to protest. He pitches his voice into a coaxing taunt that shouldn’t work on you and does. “C’mon, I don’t bite!”
“Liar,” you say, but the word is swallowed by the swell and replaced by your own laughter because you’re already climbing. His hands find your thighs, warm and certain, and he lifts; you settle with your knees clamped lightly around his neck and your hands in his hair because you don’t know where else to put them and because he gave you permission with the easy way he tilts his head forward to slot you into balance. He gets his hands around your thighs and stands like it’s nothing.
The world opens. The crush falls away. The crowd is still an ocean, yes, but you’re above it now and the stage is right there, and the singer is grinning down at you. You throw your arms up and scream, full body and ridiculous.
The crowd roars at the same time you do, your laugh goes high and startled and turns into a shriek when the lights sweep your way and people look up, point, cheer. A stranger hands you a crumpled poster and you wave it like a flag. Eddie whoops beneath you and wobbles just enough to make you squeal “hey!” and swat at his hand around your thigh, which he clearly did on purpose because he’s shaking with his own laughter.
He sets his feet wide and moves with the beat, so your body becomes an extension of the music. He’s shockingly good at it, distributing balance through his knees, gripping your calves without pinching, adjusting every few seconds so you always feel secure. You can feel the cough of his laugh more than hear it, vibrating up through his shoulders into your hands.
You lean down once, voice breaking happily: “You’re unbelievable!”
He shouts something back that could be “I know!” You lift your eyes and keep them on the show, so you don’t do something absurd like kiss the top of his head like you’ve known him for years instead of an electric fraction of an evening.
When the final song barrels toward its last chorus, the whole room shifts into that feral, communal wanting for one more second, one more chord. The band drags it out, milking it. The lights hold a dark red, the sound of the last guitar rift rumbles and wails. The venue plunges into darkness, the sound cuts to nothing but breathing and ragged yelling, a heartbeat of suspended chaos before reality comes rushing back.
The venue collapses into feedback and applause; Eddie eases you down. The crowd surges with excitement and you stumble forward into his space. His hands stay on your hips to steady you and suddenly your faces are stupidly close, close enough to see the brown flecks in his eyes and the way a wet curl clings to his jaw. A drop of sweat falls off the end of his nose and lands on you, it should be gross, but you find that you could care less. Your faces are so close you can feel the brush of his exhale.He glances at your mouth and then back to your eyes so fast you might have imagined it. You don’t push it. You both look away and then back like magnets trying to be cool. Someone behind you says, “Get a room,” cheerfully crude, and you both laugh and don’t move.
“Hi,” you say, because your entire vocabulary has vacated the building except for elementary greetings.
“Hi,” he says back, like it’s a secret.
“Thank you,” you tell him, simple because anything else would underestimate it.
“Anytime,” he says, equally simple, and you believe him in a way that makes your stomach do an unprofessional roller coaster loop.
The band shuffles off and the show ends on a high they’ve earned, lights up and house music sliding in as if the room needs easing back into a regular tempo. Bodies begin to stream out, the floor a slow river. You and Eddie get swept with them, laughing in that hoarse, post-scream way that sounds like you both swallowed gravel.
The crowd moves like an outgoing tide. Eddie was right next to you and then somehow you blink and he’s half a dozen bodies away and then he’s gone, swallowed by the current. Disappointed you think you’ll see him at the door. You don’t. Your fingers don’t find his sleeve. Your mouth forms his name, and it disappears into the chatter. You tell yourself it’s fine, even though your chest feels a little like the last echo after a song cuts, like maybe the music should still be going but somebody unplugged something.
You think you’ll find him again after you push toward the exit, you really do. That you’ll bump into him at the merch table or the bar or the bathroom line, that the gravity of “we survived a set together” will pull you back into the same moment of time. But as the venue unspools, you get folded into the slow-motion mass of bodies trying to leave the venue. The door yawns and you spill out into night alone.
It’s cooler out here, your breath fogs in the cold night and you pull your jacket around you slightly. You inhale deeply, letting the cold sink into you, steadying the riot still humming in your chest. You aim for the back of the venue, thinking maybe you’ll loop around and wait by the alley that leads to the stage door because people cluster there, because maybe he’ll think to circle too.
That’s where they find you, two guys peeled away from a group, eyes wired a little too bright, the contrived lazy swagger of people who intend to be trouble. They step into your path, not close enough to touch, close enough that you have to stop. One is tall with a grin that doesn’t mean anything good. The other is short with a leather vest and a crust of dried something on his cheek.
“Got a smoke?” Tall says, casual on the surface, but his tone makes it sound like he’s already after something else.
“No,” you say, straightening your shoulders.
“C’mon,” Vest says, rolling his jaw, “you sure?” He leans in when you pull back. “we're all friends here, sweetheart.”
“I don’t smoke,” you answer, shifting your weight back a step. Your eyes flick past them, scanning for an opening you could slip through without brushing shoulders. There isn’t one, the narrow alley funnels you in, and the hum of departing traffic swallows the last of the crowd noise, leaving the space too quiet, too exposed.
“Maybe you should start,” Tall says with a little snicker, like he’s clever. His friend smirks behind him, silent but complicit.
“Cigarettes make friends.”
The words are light on the surface, but there’s a curl of something darker underneath, a suggestion that has nothing to do with nicotine.
“C’mon, sweetheart. You tell me you came out of there without a pack? It’s like a cultural obligation.” The first one snorts. They laugh at their own joke.
You plant your feet. Keep your voice level. “I said I don’t have any.”
“Maybe you could—” the first one begins, leaning in with the look of someone about to make a suggestion that you would definitely turn down.
A shadow drops between you and them.
Eddie bursts onto the scene like he’s been fired out of a cannon, cigarette between his fingers, lighter already sparking in his other hand. His free arm lifts in a large enthusiastic wave that moves his whole body.
“Hey! There you are,” he announces, voice too bright, too thrilled, like you’ve been playing a game of hide-and-seek and he’s finally cornered you. In a few long strides, he’s in your space, planting himself solidly between you and the two guys, shoulders wide slightly blocking your view of the two guys.
“My favorite person, thought I lost you.”He doesn’t so much as glance at the guys. To Eddie, they are unworthy of acknowledgment, too far beneath his notice. His whole focus is on you, eyebrows raised, eyes wide and conspiratorial, like you’re both in on some private joke.
“What am I supposed to do,” he continues, voice dropping just slightly, “when you disappear on me like that?”
The guys falter, thrown off-balance by his sheer volume and refusal to even see them. Offense flickers, then wavers. The shorter one clears his throat, trying to claw back a scrap of control.
“Hey, man. We saw her—”
Eddie sighs loudly, cutting him off before he can even get going, not giving them a chance to explain or smooth things over. Without a word, he fishes out his lighter and flicks it open, the flame sparking to life like a challenge. He lights his cigarette slowly, deliberately, like he’s got all the time in the world and none of it belongs to them.
He takes a long drag, giving his mouth something to do while his body does the real talking, turning smoothly between you and them. His back is to you now, a solid wall, his stance loose but unyielding. For a moment, his eyes stay closed, like he’s savoring the calm before the storm.
When he opens them, he exhales to the side, a dragon’s breath of smoke curling harmlessly away from you, then tilts his chin just enough to meet the nearest creep’s gaze. His smile follows, sharp and gleaming, all canines and no apology.
“What,” he says, mock-polite and not even pretending to be polite, “you don’t know what no means?”
There’s a beat, long enough for the challenge to land. The guys exchange a look, the kind that says they weren’t ready for this particular brand of problem. Too loud. Too public.
They mutter, some half-assed combination of “whatever, man,” and peel off toward their friends, tossing one last dumb glance over their shoulders like it might save their dignity.
Eddie watches them go with the lazy patience of a cat pretending not to be amused, smoke curling lazily around his head. When they finally turn the corner, his shoulders loosen and he drops the show entirely, exhaling like he’d been holding the moment together by sheer force of will.
He shifts, turning to face you, and looks, really looks at you. The way someone does when they’ve just found something they were terrified they’d misplaced, like the world just snapped back into focus. Relief hums low and genuine beneath the rush of adrenaline.
Up close again, he smells like smoke and sweat, threaded through with the faint sweetness of vanilla laundry detergent. His eyes flick over your face, cataloguing every detail like proof you’re really here.
“Nice to see you again,” he says, softer than the words deserve. The joke’s there, sure, but it’s flimsy cover for the obvious truth: he’d been looking for you.
Your exhale scrapes out of you shaky and honest. “Nice to see you again,” you echo, and your laugh is there in it, a small, bright scrape.
“You’re a magnet for trouble, aren’t ya?” Eddie says, his tone joking but not entirely unserious, like he’s still tallying up the chaos he just pulled you out of.
You narrow your eyes at him, putting on mock offense. “Excuse me? Pretty sure I wasn’t the one almost about to get into a fight out here.”
He huffs a laugh, cigarette hand halfway to his mouth before he pauses. After a beat, he lowers it again, like the urge to look effortlessly cool is no match for the stronger impulse not to blow smoke in your face. You notice the choice, small and deliberate, and it wrecks you a little, your heart thumping so loud you’re half-convinced he can hear it over the fading noise of the crowd.
“Oh, sure,” he says, grinning as he tilts his head down at you, voice pitched just loud enough to be heard. “Because you definitely look like somebody who doesn’t need a saving. Half the crowd could’ve carried you off without even noticing.”
Your mouth drops open, a scandalized gasp ready, but it only makes him laugh harder. There’s no malice in it, just warm dizzy affection wrapped in teasing, like he’s grateful to be laughing with you.
“Oh, you’re so funny,” you shoot back, rolling your eyes and giving his arm a shove. “Real knight-in-shining-armor.”
Eddie gasps, staggering back a half-step with theatrical horror, hand over his heart like you’ve dealt a mortal blow.
“Knight? Knight?! Sweetheart, please!” His other hand flourishes wide, cigarette held like a prop in some over-the-top stage play. “I am a bard. A roguish bard, if you please. Knights are boring. Me? I’m the dramatic, cunning, musically-gifted hero of this tale.”
You raise a brow, unimpressed. “Oh, so saving me was just… what? A side quest for you?”
“Nah,” he says, his smirk softening at the edges as his eyes linger on yours a moment too long. “I’m just the comic relief who got stupidly lucky this time.”
you laugh but the way he says it makes your stomach flip. It could mean the almost fight, but there’s something in his tone, warm and a little vulnerable, that makes it feel like he’s talking about meeting you.
Then, almost like he can’t help himself, he bumps his shoulder gently into yours, a small easy gesture of joking camaraderie that leaves your skin buzzing. When you glance over at him, he’s already looking away, pretending to study the glow of his cigarette like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.
The moment stretches, tension weaving through the quiet like a live wire. The sounds of the alley creeps back in around the edges, distant laughter and the slam of a car doors, but between you there is a fragile bubble of silence that feels like it might pop if either of you breathes too loud.
You swallow, pulse thrumming in your ears, and before you can talk yourself out of it, the words slip free.
“I couldn’t find you,” you admit, thinking how childish it sounds and saying it anyway.
Eddie freezes, like the sentence reaches out and hooks into him. His face turns toward you slowly, the grin he’d been wearing softening into something quieter, unguarded. For a heartbeat, he doesn’t speak, just looks at you, as if to make sure you’re really there. Relief flickers across his expression, low and startlingly genuine. Then he clears his throat, forcing a crooked half-smile back into place, though his voice betrays him, softer than he probably means it to be.
“Same,” he says almost sadly. “I thought that you left already.”
“I considered it.” Even though you know you were also looking for him.
He digs in his pocket, pulls out a pen wrapped in electrical tape like something rescued from a junk drawer, and a crumpled receipt from the drink stand. “Hey, uh…” He clears his throat, trying for casual and landing squarely in nervous. “Maybe we, y’know, swap numbers or something? Just so, uh, next time we don’t have to…” He gestures vaguely around, his laugh soft and self-conscious. “Play hide-and-seek in an alley.”
You blink at him, startled by the sudden rush of warmth in your chest. “Oh. Yeah, um...yeah, that makes sense.” You take the pen carefully, fingers brushing his, the touch quick but sharp enough to leave your skin buzzing.
Grinning, he flattens the crumpled receipt against the rough brick wall, cigarette tucked between two fingers. You lean in and write your number carefully, neat and deliberate despite the chewed-up surface. When you hand the pen back, your fingers brush his for the briefest second, a spark sharp enough to make you swallow hard.
He slips the cigarette between his teeth, smoke curling up around his face, and scrawls his name, Eddie, the letters messy and bold, followed by his number written with the quickness of someone who knows it by heart, but you don’t see the numbers.
You’re too busy watching his hands. big and calloused, marked with tiny nicks and ink smudges. You remember those hands firm at your waist earlier, holding you steady in the chaos. Unhelpfully, you wonder how they’d feel tangled in your hair. Which is a stupid thought, your brain really needs to calm the hell down.
Eddie tears the paper cleanly down the middle and holds out your half like it’s ceremonial, solemn despite the crooked grin on his face. You take it carefully, tucking it into the safe pocket of your bag and patting it once, like a promise.
There’s a beat. Quiet, you look at each other, both trying to memorize the face of someone you only just met. Not wanting to smoke in front of you but unwilling to waste his already lit cigarette, Eddie lifts it to his mouth and inhales quickly before turning his head to the side and blowing the smoke away from you. The motion buys him a second to compose himself, but when he shifts back toward you, there’s a flicker of self-consciousness there that wasn’t before. So, naturally, he smothers it with humor.
“I could walk you to your car,” he says, grin tugging crooked, “but I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. And with your track record, you’ll probably trip and sprain your ankle, I’ll have to end up hauling you the whole way like some gallant hero.”
You snort. “You, gallant? With that mouth?”
“It’s a multitool.” He winks.
Your laugh slips out, softer than you mean for it to be, and suddenly it takes effort to make your voice come out steady.
“I wouldn’t mind you walking me to my car,” you admit quietly, almost swallowed by the night air.
Eddie freezes for a split second, cigarette paused halfway to his lips. Then a slow, warm grin spreads across his face, softer than his usual smirk, like you’ve just handed him something fragile.
“Yeah?” he says, voice pitched low, more serious than he probably means it to be.
You nod, feeling absurdly shy despite everything.
“Yeah.”
His grin tilts crooked again, playfulness creeping back in to cover the edges of something deeper.
“Well then,” he says, flicking his cigarette to the pavement and grinding it out beneath his boot, “lead the way.”
You fall into step together, the night air cool and sharp against your skin. For a few moments, neither of you speaks, the only sounds are your footsteps on the pavement and the distant hum of the city settling into night. You feel hyperaware of how close he’s walking beside you.
“Hey,” Eddie says at last, breaking the silence. His voice tilts toward sincerity, though there’s a laugh wedged into the corner of it, like he’s trying to keep the words from tipping too earnest.
“I’m glad I saw you almost get trampled.”
He glances at you sidelong, grin crooked but eyes warm, like he means so much more than he’s saying.
“I’m glad you were there to make sure I didn’t.” You smile, small but real, and it warms something low in his chest.
The walk to your car is quiet after that not uncomfortable, just full of things neither of you is quite brave enough to say. When you reach it, you pause beside the driver’s side door, reluctant to break whatever this is.
Eddie pats the roof of the car, a light thunk in the cool night air, then lets his gaze travel one last, quick, greedy circuit of your face, like he’s memorizing you before you disappear again. For a second, he rocks forward on his toes.
“You should head home,” he says finally, voice soft but edged with playfulness. “Eat something salty. Drink water. Pretend the ringing in your ears isn’t early-onset hearing loss.”
The corner of his mouth tilts up, but there’s a raw sincerity beneath the joke, as if what he really wants to say is please, take care of yourself.
You clutch the strap of your bag a little tighter, your pulse loud in your ears for reasons that have nothing to do with the show. You don’t want to open the car door yet. You don’t want this moment to end.
“Good night, Eddie,” you say, softer than you meant to.
He grins, crooked and warm, like the sound of his name on your tongue is something he wants to tuck away and keep. “Night, trouble.”
You slide into the driver’s seat and close the door, the soft thunk sealing you off from him and the cool night air.
As you start the engine, you glance up to see Eddie walking backwards toward a different end of the parking lot, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, his grin visible even in the dim light. He raises one hand in a lazy almost theatrical wave, before he turns quickly, almost tripping as he disappears into the dark.
The folded scrap of paper in your pocket feels heavier than it should, anchoring you to this exact moment in time. You’re smiling and nothing can chase it away. Not when you pull out of the parking spot, not when the venue disappears in your rearview mirror, not even when the dark, quiet streets open up in front of you.
The smile’s got its own momentum now, joy bubbling in your chest like pop rocks. When you finally park outside your apartment, you sit there for a moment, hands loose on the steering wheel. You turn the engine off and tip your head back against the headrest, still smiling like an idiot in the dark.
Eventually, you climb out of the car and head upstairs, your steps lighter than they’ve been in weeks. And even though you tell yourself not to, you can’t help hoping just a little, for the ring of your phone, and the voice of a certain curly-haired metalhead on the other end of the line.