14 Days

Evie couldn’t wipe the smile off her face as she sat in with Halestorm while they were rehearsing, the familiarity blanketing her in comfort. She looked around, taking it all in while she could, trying to soak up every detail and pretend she hadn’t been absent for the past two weeks. She watched as Arejay kept the beat on his practice pad while Joe and Josh strummed away. Lzzy was focusing on her vocal warm ups in the corner while Evie made sure her guitars were all in tune. It was all a seamless routine that Evie had found herself a part of once again.

She stayed silent as the band made their setlist, arguing which songs they thought would best suit the festival, given their time slot and the set length. Before they knew it, Phil was knocking at the door and telling them it was time to get side stage. The nerves in Evie shot up as she suddenly realised that she hadn’t even asked if there had been changes to the usual routine since she had been away. Evie quickly made her way to Troy and picked his brain.

“Don’t worry,” he reassured her, noticing the panic in her eyes. “We will go back to the way it was before you left us. You look after Lzzy and Josh, I will handle Joe and the stage gear.”

Evie was simultaneously relieved and slightly hurt. While it eased her mind knowing that they were all fine with reverting back to the old routines, the way he worded her ‘leaving’ hit her in the heart. He made it seem that it was her idea to go, that she had anything to do with leaving the band and helping out Avenged. That’s all it was, she was just a hired hand, but this was her family. Right?

She didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on the thoughts as Lzzy caught up with her, tearing her away from Troy and a few paces behind the rest of the band as they walked to their stage.

“So,” Lzzy started, her eyes wide with excitement, “are you going to tell me all about your love affair?”

"Love affair? That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” Evie asked, verbally stumbling over her friend’s wording.

“Well, seeing as you haven’t told me a single thing about it, I have no context in how to word it,” she retaliated, a smug smirk taking over her painted lips as she verbally bested Evie.

“It’s not a love affair,” she assured her with a roll of her eyes at the dramatic phrasing.

“Well then, what is it?” Lzzy asked eagerly. “You have given me nothing!”

“Is now really the best time to be talking about this?” Evie asked, looking around the pair as they grew closer to the stage. “I mean, you are about to play for thousands of people, and you want to talk about my love life?”

“At least you are admitting there is something to talk about!” Lzzy grinned in triumph. She was grateful for any morsel of information she could pull out of her guarded friend. It was like pulling teeth!

“Well, it’s not a love affair! Affair indicates that one of us is cheating on someone to be involved with each other. That is not what is happening here,” Evie replied.

“Are you sure? I mean, how well do you really know him? Are you sure there is no one waiting at home for him?” She asked, skeptical that a man that attractive would have nothing else happening on the side. Lzzy just worried for her friend.

“I am sure. I mean, he had this thing with a girl before they set off on tour, but that is over,” she explained, keeping her voice low at the group stopped walking and awaited their turn on stage. Lzzy cocked her eyebrow, silently questioning the story. “It’s the truth, I swear, it’s just a long, weird story.”

“As long as you’re not being taken advantage of,” she told her friend. “You are so much more than some side bitch.”

“You can be so damned eloquent sometimes,” Evie quipped sarcastically, rolling her eyes at the loving, caring words that fell from her friends mouth, vocalised in a less-than-typical fashion.

“But you love me anyway,” Lzzy replied, a huge grin showing Evie that she would never take any of her shit.

“Always,” Evie replied easily, not even questioning the love she held for the woman standing beside her.

“5 minutes,” a tech called out to the band, silencing the conversations around them.

“Saved by the bell,” Evie grinned smugly, knowing that she narrowly avoided what would be a very difficult batch of questions to answer.

“Postponed, not saved. This isn’t over,” Lzzy corrected her. “We still have all afternoon, all evening, and all of tomorrow yet.”

“Fuck,” Evie cursed, realising that Lzzy was right. She was finally realising that she wasn’t going to get out of the best friend grilling, and she had best just accept her fate.

Evie slid past Lzzy and the rest of the band and made her way to the stage, roll of gaffa tape in one hand, leads in the other. She found a peace in tracing the path of the leads on the stage and sticking them in place, the routine of the job helping to lull her overactive mind into a calmer, more sedate head space. This was what she knew inside and out, she could do this job with her eyes closed, and she didn’t have to second guess a thing. It was a nice escape from the drama that had started up in her love life, a way to get away from it all for a brief moment and be able to feel like herself again.

That moment was short lived. As soon as she returned side stage with the rest of the crew, she noticed the arrival of Avenged in the wings, wishing Halestorm luck for the show. She moved between the groups, trying not to let the quick brush past Brian get to her new found sense of calm. It was useless. As soon as she had felt his fingertips graze her waist as she stepped past, she was done for, her senses heightened and her heartbeat elevated. The subtle, sneaky touch was nearly as intoxicating as a shot of tequila, and Evie had to take a second at the guitar cases to recompose herself.

Grabbing the correct Gibson for Lzzy and bass for Josh, she walked back through, taking a different route that made her pass Jimmy rather than Brian. If he touched her again, she was not strong enough to keep it together in front of her brother, and she wasn’t selfish enough to ruin his focus right before a huge show. She handed off the guitars, giving them both a huge grin and wished them good luck before they hit the stage.

Evie immersed herself in the performance, temporarily forgetting the band behind her as Halestorm launched into their first song of the set. She sang along with Lzzy, moved as much as the tight squeeze backstage would let her, and clapped along as they played the final notes of each song. She was in her element, immediately transported back to when she was their tech full time. Apart from a few little hiccups that were easily fixed and moved past, the show went smoothly, the crowd eating up their 6 song set and the band giving it right back.

By the time they closed with ‘I Get Off’, the Avenged boys understood why Evie had talked up Halestorm so much. Not only were the songs catchy, Lzzy’s vocal range had shocked them, and they made sure it was one of the first things they complimented as the band retired to a thunderous applause.

Evie gave each of them a giant, sweaty hug as they filed off stage, her spirits higher than they had been in weeks thanks to her feeling of home returning. Or maybe it was the fact that she had both her past and current families surrounding her, and they would be together for the next day as well.

“Ok, I am stealing you,” Lzzy said to Evie once everything started to calm back down. The festival’s stage crew were sliding the Halestorm equipment to the side and loading in the following band, effectively shooing all unnecessary personal out of the wings and backstage.

“Why?” Evie asked, her mind immediately blank as Lzzy grabbed her hand and started to pull her through the group.

“We will meet up with all you guys later back at the bars,” Lzzy told them, ignoring Evie’s questions and moving quickly from the group. Evie sent a wave to the rest of the group, all now laughing at her captivity and moving towards backstage at their own pace.

“Where are you taking me?” Evie asked, finally pulling her hand from Lzzy’s firm grip and following her instead of being led by her.

“First we are going to the dressing room so I can get changed, then we are going to talk properly!”

And that is what they did. Lzzy had a quick shower and changed into her after party clothes while Evie took the chance to have a cigarette. Once she was dressed, Lzzy joined Evie outside and the pair sat under the shade of a tree on the edge of a parking lot.

“So, tell me more,” Lzzy demanded, taking a quick glance around to make sure no one else was around to listen in.

“Tell me more? Like did he have a car?” Evie replied back in the same melodic stylings of the famous song from Grease.

“I’ve not missed that wit,” Lzzy replied, lightly smacking her friend on the arm as she sassed her. Her statement was a lie though, she had missed the living shit out of Evie, and had dealt with nearly as much separation anxiety as Josh had.

“Yes you have,” Evie said.

“Anyway,” Lzzy started, pushing past Evie’s distraction tactics, “You say that this thing between you and the guitarist is not a love affair, and he is definitely single, so what’s the story? Why aren’t you together? Have you slept together? I know nothing, you need to tell me every single detail!”

Evie’s brain slightly fried from the amount (and intensity) of questions, trying to find the best way to sum up the last two weeks of interactions between herself and Brian.

“Ok, like I said, super long story, but it basically started with just a working friendship -” Evie started.

“A working friendship? How was that possible?” Lzzy interrupted, already pulling Evie up and needing a little more truth that she was getting. “You did realise how attractive he was, though. Right?”

“Yes, of course I did! I do have eyes,” Evie confirmed, taking a deep breath before continuing on. “So, it started out with him as my boss, working with him to find a solid routine for the shows. Looking back, I kinda see now that I potentially had a little crush forming.”

“Little?!” Lzzy interrupted again. If this crush was something Evie actually admitted to, Lzzy knew it had to be more than ‘little’. It took a lot for Evie to admit anything when it came to her emotions, so this was a huge step, equivalent to a ‘normal’ person saying ‘I love you’.

“Yes, little! If you want to hear the rest of the story, stop interrupting me,” Evie said firmly, raising a challenging eyebrow at her friend. Lzzy mimed zipping her lips, and eagerly awaited the rest of the pared down story.

Evie quickly ran her through the rest of the two weeks, telling her of the conversation she had with Brian about his ex (more to prove to Lzzy that whatever was between the two exes was now over), about their evening drinking bourbon in the parking lot, and finally their night together at his home in Huntington. True to her word, Lzzy stayed mute for the rest of the story, and Evie was a pile of nerves once she finished recapping how Brian had swapped seats on the flight that morning.

“I have so many questions,” Lzzy said, her eyes wide as she stared at Evie. She didn’t know quite where to start, so took a pause while Evie took the chance to light up another cigarette.

“I really don’t know what else to tell you,” Evie said, filling in the silence. “So, do you like him?”

“Well, obviously I like him. I slept with him, Lzzy!”

“Yes, but you can sleep with someone and not like them. Having sex is easy, its when it is more that it gets complex,” Lzzy pointed out, drawing from her own complicated past.

“Well, I’d say it’s complex,” Evie told her in her own roundabout way of confirming that she did in fact like Brian. “But tomorrow is very likely the last time I will actually see him. That is not enough time to build anything.”

“How does he feel?” Lzzy asked, already understanding how helpless Evie felt and figuring the conclusions she was drawing.

“Like I said, we haven’t really talked about anything yet,” she admitted, looking down at the concrete lot instead of showing her vulnerability to Lzzy.

“But you said that something had happened that has let you believe that he is interested in more than the one night you guys had together.”

“Before the last show, the day after-”

“After you ran from his house and hid in the hotel all day until you had to be at the venue to do your job?” Lzzy supplied, not missing a chance to bring up the timid nature of her friend. Evie sighed loudly, unimpressed.

“Yes, that day. Thanks for that,” Evie said dryly, glancing back at the grinning Lzzy. She was not immune from the smile, and found herself lightly laughing at the ridiculous story of her past. “Anyway, we ended up alone together before the show - don’t say a word! - and he told me that he wasn’t ready to give me up.”

Even though she was confiding in her best friend, Evie found herself blushing at the words. It wasn’t even Brian saying them this time, and it was still affecting her so profoundly.

“Are you an idiot?” Lzzy asked her loudly, hitting Evie on the arm. “You say that you don’t know how he feels, even though he told you that he wasn’t ready to give you up! Evie, I love you, but you’re a fucking idiot.”

“Hey! Rude,” Evie replied, hitting Lzzy back. “You know what guys are like, they will say anything to get laid. I didn’t know if this was any different.”

Lzzy stared at Evie for a breath, refusing to believe that she could be that dim witted. Lzzy was getting the information second hand and she could tell Brian was all in, and that it wasn’t just a line. With every interaction Evie described, she could see how he was going out of his way to show her that he was interested. He had followed her to Ohio a day early so he could spend more time with her, for fucks sake!

“Okay, I am just going to put that on hold for a second, even though I would love to go into detail about how he said that AFTER you guys fucked, but I will drill that into your head later,” Lzzy said, trying to wrap her head around it all. “What I really want to know is what do you feel? What do you want from this?”

Evie was silent, the answer both known and unknown. She had asked herself the same thing multiple times, and the answer always varied. At first she wanted nothing to do with it, she didn’t want to be known as the tech who would sleep with whatever band she was working with. She had worked too hard and was too stubborn to let her career die before it began. But when she started to realise that maybe she felt something more than friendship with Brian, the answer became murky.

“I really don’t know,” she admitted, her voice breaking slightly. She leaned against Lzzy’s shoulder, needing some comfort as she tried to work through to a real answer.

“Yes you do, come on. Finish the sentence. In an ideal world, I want…”

“It’s not an ideal word, Lz. It’s the real world. What I want, and what I can get are two totally different things.”

“In an ideal world, I would want…” Lzzy tried again, blowing past Evie’s logical response.

“What’s the point? Why should I hope for something that can’t happen?” “In an ideal world…”

“Uh, fine! In an ideal world, of course I would want to explore what we have,” Evie replied, giving in to her friend’s persistent nature.

“Then do it!” Lzzy encouraged. “You still have until we leave on Monday morning. That is like, a day and a half to actually let yourself give in for once! Enjoy the time you guys can have together and don’t try to brush off whatever comes up.”

“I can’t do that, Lzzy!” Evie fought. She rose to her feet and started pacing to try and get out some of the pent up anxiety within her. “There is no point in being together for another day. If I let myself get swept up in him again, then I don’t know if I will be strong enough to let go when it comes time to get on that plane.”

Lzzy rose to her feet and held Evie by the shoulders, stopping her in her tracks. She met her worried gaze, trying to get through to her. “Then I will be here for you. I will be a shoulder to cry on, or to yell at, or whatever you need to do to make yourself feel better and heal,” she said honestly, bringing her younger friend in for a long hug.

She held tight, feeling Evie grasp her firmly in return. Pulling away slightly, Lzzy wiped her thumbs against Evie’s cheeks to catch the few stray tears that fell from her eyes

“Or, I will be the first one to tell you ‘I told you so’ at your wedding,” Lzzy said, lightening the mood and making Evie laugh.

“You know you are possibly the best person in the world, right?” Evie asked her, pulling her friend back in for another hug to say thank you.

“I am aware, but it’s nice to hear it every once in a while,” Lzzy replied cheekily, feeling Evie chuckle at her honest response.

“See, I can admit that I have missed your wit,” she said, pulling away from the hug and taking a step back. She palmed at her own eyes, putting her tears on hold and pulling her head back in from the heavy conversation she had needed to have.

“Are you implying something?” Lzzy asked, putting a hand to her chest in mock hurt as the pair started walking back towards the tents to rejoin their group.

“Oh no, definitely not,” Evie replied, shaking her head furiously. “I would never.”

“Damned straight!”

“Unfortunately for you, my little Bi-queen.”

“You’re so fucking funny. Maybe I haven’t missed you after all.”

Their banter continued, playfully ribbing one another in only the way a best friend can get away with before they rejoined their group, most of whom were well on their way to get tipsy. Evie took a breath, purposely putting herself in the gap next to Brian.

Deciding to play into her fresh outlook, after Evie took her seat, she reached her hand beneath the table top and rested on Brian’s thigh. He quickly shot her a glance, his eyes bright and a smirk trying to break through as he took in her action, and placed his own hand atop hers, his fingers curling around and keeping her from running away. Evie had to drop her gaze before she started smiling like a lunatic and gave everything away, and instead buried herself in conversation with Joe, catching up on everything she had missed since her departure.

Notes

Sorry about the delay.
Last week I was a mess of a human, and managed to write about 50 words. Yesterday I was clearly cured because I wrote the rest of the chapter :P

Hope you enjoy!
Xoxo
Sas