Cross My Heart

I was sitting outside with Marque on our deck of the apartment. We had just gotten off the tour for our long awaited second album. We ended up releasing music in the UK, so we toured around England, Scotland and Ireland. We were going to go right back into writing for Ellaries Dollhouses third album.

During the time that we weren't touring, Josline had started to do a lot of collaborations with other artists; a lot of them were indie artists like The Under Pressure and Call In Radio, but she had some big names under her belt like Our Lady Peace and Billy Talent. She also did a song with Marianas Trench. Keith had gotten a small part in a movie, and no one in the band actually knew he could act. It was a horror movie, and he ended up being murdered, but his character was still my favourite, but I'm biased when it comes to family.

Marque officially became part of the Jaulby clan a few months after the MMVA's that we performed at. Marque decided to change his last name to Baxter-Jaulby, because he just couldn't give up having Baxter in his name. I couldn't blame him. I could never get rid of Jaulby.

Josh and Josline still hadn't gotten married. Finley was now four, and he was the most energized four year old I have ever met. I think that Josline and Josh were comfortable not being married. They had been together too long to even care. I considered them married anyways. I had when they first started dating in high school, well, after I got over my dislike of Josh.

Keith and Josie got married, and Josie was currently with Keith's first child, Josie's second. Keith was ecstatic about it. Keith was a great step-dad to Jake, Josie's son, who was only about 1o years younger than Keith. Despite that, Keith enjoyed it.

A lot had changed with the band over the four years. Josline had over come her problems playing with her left hand, and she was fully capable of doing everything she could do before. Even though she could still do that, she now preferred to play piano. Keith was a fantastic guitar player, but he just could not seem to master the solo's. That's when we found a new guy who could. His name was Zack Angelo. We found him through YouTube; he did a cover of one of our songs, and he played the solo perfectly. We were amazed at him, and luckily, he lived in the Vancouver area, so all we had to do was send him a message asking if he wanted a place in Ellaries Dollhouse. He almost immediately responded with a yes. Zack was originally from Newfoundland, so I was automatically amused with his Newfie accent.

We were babysitting Finley for Josline and Josh one afternoon because they had to go into the studio for recording. He was sitting on the deck with us when he started to nod off on us. “Finley, are you tired?” Marque asked him.

“No!” Finley exclaimed sleepily.

“Yes you are,” Marque said.

“No I'm not sleepy Uncle Marque,” Finley's eyes started to droop.

“Then why are your eyes closing?” Marque smirked.

“My eyes are sleepy. I'm not,” Finley said. Marque leaned over to me.

“He is such a smart ass.”

“Get's it from his mother,” I remarked. I looked over at my nephew, “Finley, you're tired.”

“Nuh-uh!” Finley said. He was definitely stubborn like his mother. I stood up from my chair and picked him up. He wrapped his arms around my neck. “Am not, am not, am not!”

“Are too!” I argued back.

“You're sleepy!” Finley retorted in a cute way.

“Your face is sleepy!” I said, pressing my nose against his. Marque was chuckling at us. “I'm going to put him down for a nap in our room.” I said, walking into the apartment. Finley had leaned his head against my shoulder, and almost immediately fell asleep. I smiled and put him down on my bed. He curled up in a little ball and I put a blanket over him. I walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water. When I walked back out onto the deck, Marque was staring at his phone, shaking and tears running down his face. I closed the deck door behind me. “Marque, what's wrong?” He looked up at me, and back at his phone. I sat down in the chair in front of him, keeping my hands around my glass. My glass ended up slipping out of my hands at what Marque said.

“Jazz...Jazz is dead.”