Cross My Heart

2 months had gone by. Keith had started to go out of the house more, and he was starting to keep in touch with myself more than what he was. I could tell he was finally starting to accept the fact that Brandon and Olivia were both gone. He was still a little iffy on moving out of the apartment, but I could tell that him staying there was a little tough on him. That's what he wanted, however, and I couldn't prevent him from doing so.

I was sitting at my kitchen table, Josline was squirting hair dye into my hair. Marque was with Finley in the living room. Finley seemed to like Marque, and Marque was just so excited when ever he got to see Finley. I really liked how Marque got a long with Finley. “Are you finished yet?” I complained to my sister.

“No, I'm not. Shut up.” Josline said to me. I huffed and let Josline squirt more dye in my hair. My hair, which I had dyed back to bright red before we went on tour again, was starting to fade out to an ugly puke-orange colour. Josline offered to dye my hair black again. I refused brown, because I looked TOO much like dad that way. I didn't mind looking like dad, but when I was too similar, I scared myself when I looked in the mirror.

Finley made a high-pitched squeal, which startled Marque and myself. Josline just went on with the hair dying. Marque looked at Finley, then over to me and Josline. He had a really confused, but compressed laugh, smile. Marque started laughing. Obviously he was having too much fun. “Okay Airin, I'm done with the dye.” Josline said, taking off her gloves and throwing them away. “Now, you have to wait 20 minutes!” She laughed evilly as she disposed of the hair dye box. I started to laugh, causing Marque to laugh, and in turn, it made Finley squeal again. Everyone stopped laughing and looked at the little 7 month old. We all started laughing again.

“Little mini-dude, you are awesome.” Marque said, sitting Finley on his lap. Finley squirmed around, obviously not liking facing away from Marque. Josline walked over to Marque and picked up her son, hoisting him up on her hip. It was still really weird seeing Josline take on a motherly role. She was still the weird little girl I had always known her as, but now she had more responsibility. Josline was a fantastic mother though. Josh was a great father. It was really weird seeing those two together, as parents. I knew they would be together for a long time, but I didn't expect them to have kids until they were really settled into their careers.

I had finished getting all the dye out was waiting for my hair to dry, and the phone started to ring. Marque got up and answered it. “Hello?” He answered. “This is Marque.” there was a long pause. Marque was nodding. He then stopped nodding, a look of disbelief washed over his face. “What? Really? That's...that's amazing! An e-mail will be sent out to the whole band?...to the band e-mail? Okay, great. Thank you!” Marque hung up the phone, an extremely excited grin on his face.

“Marque...who was that, and what is so amazing?” Josline asked.

“That was some guy from Much Music. Apparently, Ellaries Dollhouse,” Josline put Finley in his carrier, “has been nominated for Favourite Canadian Video, Much LOUD Rock Video of the Year and Favourite Canadian Artist!” A wave of shock washed over me. Ellaries Dollhouse had never been nominated for anything. Kliik was nominated for Favourite New Artist, but never won.

“Oh, my God! That IS amazing!” Josline got up off the couch and hugged Marque. I was sitting in a dining room chair, an arm draped over the back. I was completely shocked. Marque and Josline looked over at me. They then looked at each other. I knew they were going to tackle me, so I stood up and moved away from the table. Both of them ran at me, flinging their arms around me. Josline was the first to let go of me.

“KEITH! HE NEEDS TO KNOW!” Josline said. She moved away from Marque and I and went back over to Finley, who was whining in his car seat-carried-thing, He didn't like that thing. Josline quickly dialed Keith's number and called him. She explained everything to him, and when Josline got off the phone with him, she said he was basically doing flips. I was glad everything was finally starting to get back to normal.

Josline left about 2 hours after the call, Marque was sitting in front of his computer, talking to Jazz over Facebook. Jazz was more excited about the nominations than what we were. Jazz always had the tendency to be more excited than what was necessary. It was understandable though. Ellaries Dollhouse had never been nominated for any awards, because we weren't that big in the music scene, even though we had been around for a few years. It was great we were finally starting to get some recognition. Marque swivelled around in his chair, facing me. He had shut the computer down.

“Airin?” I looked up from my painting. Marque had a mischievous smirk on his face. I dipped my paint brush in blue water colours.

“Yeah Marque?” I said, looking back down at my painting. I was painting a nature scene. I hadn't painted in a long time, and I found my watercolours sitting in the closet, so I figured why not? Marque walked up next to me, sitting down on the couch. His hand rested on my knee, then started to move up my leg. Marque leaned in closer to me.

“You know what I want to do?” Marque whispered in my ear. I shivered lightly. I tried to shake it off. I dipped my paint brush in the dirty paint water.

“N...no. What do you want to do?” I said.

“Oh...you know.” Marque said. He started to kiss my neck. That was a way he could always get to me. The paint brush slipped out of my fingers and into the water. I felt Marque's lips smile on my neck. I turned my head so I could look at Marque. His eyes were a sparkling blue colour. I had never noticed it before, but he had dazzling green flecks in his baby blues. I pressed my lips against his, Marque's arms wrapped themselves around my neck, pulling me down so I was on top of him. There had always been some kind of passion between Marque and I, but it seemed to be heightened that night. One of my hands was pressing against a cushion of the couch to keep my balance, my other hand was under Marque's shirt, tracing the different contours of his chest. I sat some-what upright, so I was straddling Marque on the couch. I undid the buttons on Marque's shirt, and pulled the sleeves off Marque's arms. The shirt was tossed onto the ground next to the couch. I pulled my tee-shirt over my head, revealing my tattooed chest. Marque smiled and I moved down to kiss him again. I started to move the kisses down his jaw line, and down his neck. I felt our breathing start to get heavier, and start to synchronize with one another. I brushed my lips over his collar bone, and Marque let out a slight moan of pleasure. I smiled at that. Marque's hand ran down my left side, soon his hand was tugging on my jeans. He unbuttoned the button on my jeans, and I knew that this was soon going to escalate into something quite fast.

Soon, pants were removed,which took quite a bit of effort to get them off while on the couch. And with the pants, went the underwear. For some reason, I was the strange one and always kept a condom in the back pocket of my jeans. I never thought it strange, however, how Marque and I were just so comfortable with one another. Marque and I never had a problem with taking our clothes off in front of one another. It's just how we were. Being with Marque, in that moment, it was the most natural feeling in the world.

I completely loved it.