Cold State Line

"RISE AND SHINE, BITCHES!" Jimmy always had a flare for the dramatic. He loved to be himself and that's what worked about him. We loved him; he was ours and we wouldn't be Avenged without him.

Yawning, I rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweats and a tank top. I loved the ranch, and I loved how Papa Gates treated us here. He treated us like a family, like his other sons. That's what we were. We weren't just a group of boys that had been brought together by an ad or a manager. We were friends, for years and had come together over our love of music and our friendship.

None of us did great in school. Hell, Johnny barely made it out with his GED. I'd basically flunked out, but people loved our music. We had so many compliments about our melodies and lyrics. For some reason, our fans thought we were geniuses, and I was okay with that.

As I walked into the kitchen, I almost forgot that other people than us were here. Of course, the asshole Clay was here but so were three other women. I immediately recognized one of them, my rodeo girl, Haylee.

"Haylee..." her name came out quiet and breathy, and I felt like a weird creep.

She turned and all her beauty hit me again. At first, she seemed like any other pretty girl, but when you looked at her, she was just stunning. Everything about Haylee just took your breath away.

"Hey, Matt." She smiled at me brightly and came over to hug me. "It's good to see you again. How do you know Mr. Haner?"

I laughed. "Good to see you too, babe. Mr. Haner?" Another laugh came out of my body. "We call him Papa Gates. He's Syn's dad."

Clay snorted. "Yeah, I got a question about that. Why do you call him Syn?"

I tried not to let the sound of his voice piss me off. I couldn't really place why he pissed me off so much other than how he'd treated Haylee. The way men treated women told a lot about who they were. "We all have stage names."

"Stage names?" Anna asked, spreading butter on her toast.

"Yeah, kind of like Slipknot, ya know?" Zacky said as he poured us all coffee. That man was a coffee nut. "For me, I wanted to get back at all those fuckers in high school who doubted my potential and said I'd never make it, so I became Zacky Vengeance."

"ZV gave me mine," Johnny said, nodding at the green-eyed man. "He said it suited me. JC is always the guy that dies, and we had a few bassist. So I'm like the opposite of the Jesus Christ guy."

"Syn was fucking drunk and yelled that he was Synyster Gates and he was awesome," Zacky said on a chuckle. "Jimmy just made his the fuck up."

"I AM THE REVEREND THOLOMEW PLAGUE!" We all looked around trying to find out where Jimmy's voice came from. Such an odd man.

"Yeah, and this dumb shit." Johnny pointed at me. "Thought he was the darkest member of the group-- Shadows. And wanted to keep some part of Matt so M. M motherfucking Shadows."

Haylee smiled at that. She knew that I wasn't a dark guy. I'm pretty sure all of them knew that I wasn't a dark guy. All of our fans thought so, especially after I wrote "Dear God." We got so much shit for that video.

"Weird," Clay said and walked out of the room. I tried really hard not to glare at his retreating form.

"Girls," the other woman I didn't know said, "Finish up and get to practice. Rodeo is tomorrow."

"Yes, Tina," they said together and giggled. Those two were like sisters in the same way that Avenged were brothers, fucking best friends and bonded for life.
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Banging sounded on my door in the middle of the night. I shot of bed, grabbing the bat I kept next to it. I hated being woken up, and the fact that someone did was not a good sign. They were gonna get an ass whooping.

Opening the door, I saw a teary-eyed Haylee. She had snot running down her nose and a bruise forming on my face. All thoughts of hurting the person who woke me up flew out of my head.

"Haylee?" My voice was quiet, almost nervous to ask her what was wrong.

"Can I come in?" She was hiccuping and crying harder the longer she stood there. I nodded and guided her in.

I followed behind her as she sat on my bed and sobbed and sobbed. Haylee always appeared to be such a strong woman, unafraid of anything. Seeing her like this was breaking my heart. I didn't want to touch her because of the bruise, and I had no idea how she'd react if I did.

"Will you tell me what happened?" I asked, handing her the cup of water I kept next to my bed.

"Clay."

That was all I needed to hear.

Notes

Sorry for another short update. I'm studying for the GRE and my brain is fucking fried.

Thanks for my comments ladies!

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