Page 23 of All My Love

Riggins

Stella’s birthday party isn’t anything to write home about, just a bonfire in the woods behind Beck’s house, but it’s everything I need. Being on the road was everything I hoped it would be and nothing I expected. Sleeping in new places, standing on a stage and singing to thousands of people, seeing new places.

The parties.

The further we got on the tour, the more the crowd started to sing our songs back to us, the songs Stella and I wrote here in Ashford, spreading through the country and becoming anthems for people I’ve never even met.

But most of all, I missed Stella. Not seeing her regularly felt like a piece of me was missing, my other half, mybetterhalf. Without her, I found myself reaching for beers to mask the boredom, to mend the gap in my soul. I’d smoke with the band and daydream about being under the stars, writing songs with her, and when I woke, a wave of sadness and loneliness would crash over me, so I’d grab a beer to forget that, too.

It was because I missed her, of course, just another reason she needs to come in March.

But mostly she has to come because nothing can stop her now, not her mother or school or anything like that.

And we can finally be together.

On the road, I realized that it wasn’t just proximity or familiarity that had me constantly thinking about my best friend. I realized I fell when we were 12, when she refused to sit with her family at my mother’s funeral, when she reached over and quietly held my hand when I fought back tears, never looking at me but giving me the same silent support she’s always given me.

But now, sitting around a fire with my band, my best friends in the entire world, and some random people scattered about, a gaggle of girls who, now that I’m not the poor, sad kid who lives in the sad-looking house with the dead mom and the drunk dad, have a sudden interest in me, but the only person I can focus on is Stella.

“Okay, okay. Which one of us would survive in a scary movie?” Reed asks, taking a sip of his beer.

“What?” Stella asks.

“A scary movie,” Reed says. “Like,Texas Chainsaw Massacre.Which one of us would live?”

“Not Stell,” I say with a smile directed toward my best friend. “She’d somehow meet the serial killer and decide he was a nice guy. Bring him cookies or something.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she says, tossing a marshmallow at me; it bounces off my chest and into my hand. I eat it and wink at her, and she sticks her tongue out at me.

Fuck I missed her.

“You so would,” Beckett agrees. “You trust everyone you meet.”

“I’m so sorry I’m not a cynic like you guys.” We all laugh before Stella speaks again. “Well, Riggs wouldn’t make it either. Have you ever seen that kid run? It’s like watching a toddler.”

“No, she’s so right, though,” Reed says as he laughs, wiping tears from his eyes. “His hands go out at his sides, and he’s all wonky and lanky.”

“Fuck off, man,” I say. “You’d die first. You’d trip on a twig or something and decide it wasn’t worth it.”

“True,” Reed says with a smile. “Wes or Beckett would live. Probably Beckett because he’d just glare at the guy and scare him away. The serial killer would run away.”

“As he should,” Beckett says, stern face fighting a smile. It continues like that for a while before Stella leans into me, tipping her head to the sky. I’m two beers in and Stella’s had one, and when I look at her goofy smile, I can’t help but smile too.

“Stars are bright tonight,’ she says, low. “But clouds are rolling in.” I know what she’s trying to ask.

“Wanna write?” I ask, hoping against all else, and she says yes. When her smile spreads wide as can be, I know the answer without her saying it.

I wonder if she’s felt it, the ache to write, the way the words come out like molasses when she’s not with me but flow like water when we’re together.

Probably not. I can write, but not the way Stella can. She was born to write songs, to bottle precise emotions into words and chords.

In turn, I was born to make the music she crafts. The perfect duo.

“Be right back,” I say, standing, then, on a whim, pressing my lips to her hair. We both freeze, and I stand straight awkwardly, turning toward the door of Beckett’s house. “My guitar’s in Beck’s house. Be right back.” She stands as well.

“I’ll wander to the back,” she says. “That way, maybe we can sneak out without anyone giving us shit.”

As most of these parties end with everyone getting hammered and Stella and I wandering to the woods to write, we have experience with the crew giving us shit for leaving to be alone.

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