My Heart Is Turning Black Tonight

A Happy Birthday banner hung from the doorway of the kitchen looking into the living room in London’s apartment.

The whole group was gathered in the kitchen wearing party hats as they circled Ryan’s highchair. He was a year old and they were having a party for him, even though he would never remember it. It was also another excuse to spend as much time together being happy. The band would be going on tour in two weeks and Skye and Ryan were going to go back to Italy with Gustavo, who had been staying with Skye, Ryan, and London for the last two weeks. London, Van, and Mica were going to go with them for a little while to meet Skye and Gustavo’s family.

Ryan stuck his hand in his piece of birthday cake and brought his cake filled hand up to his face so he could eat it. Instead of most of the cake being eaten, it ended up on his face and on Gerard’s suit jacket and in his hair.

“Hey! No cake on Uncle Gerard, Ryan!” Gerard scolded the one-year-old with a smile on his face. “I thought we talked about this before. You’re supposed to aim for Uncle Mikey or Uncle Ray’s hair!”

Everyone laughed and Ryan just looked over at Gerard, who was at the baby’s eye level, with his big blue eyes that gave Bob’s a run for their money. Ryan started to babble then, not making any sense to any of the adults.

“Why don’t we eat cake like that? It would be so much easier than having to use forks. And we can aim at Gerard more easily!” Mikey asked and received a shove from his brother.

Skye was taking pictures, in black and white and in color, of the party and she managed to set the shutter speed fast enough so that she captured a cake splattered Gerard shoving Mikey, who almost dropped his piece of cake.

Everyone joked around and stayed at London’s apartment all day, none of them feeling the need to leave or to stop making themselves at home.

London stepped away to answer the door when there was a knock on it. She appeared to be the only one who heard it since everyone else was laughing at Frank.

Her attention was only partly on answering the door since she was trying to hear Frank get all the way through a story without having to think about what happened next, so she was looking away with a smile on her face as she opened the door.

When she turned to face the person she was surprised to see their neighbor, Max, was standing in front of her, smiling for no apparent reason.

“Oh, um, hi. What are you doing here?” London asked, not caring if she was rude since he surprised her. She was getting to be more and more like Skye every day, not caring about what people thought as long as she got her opinions and feelings out in the opened.

“Well I just thought I’d come say hi. Whose birthday is it?” Max asked, shifting awkwardly as he glanced over London’s head to see the signs and everyone wearing party hats.

“Skye’s little brother’s,” London replied and glanced back at her friends, who were like family to her.

“Oh, cool. How old is he?”

“He’s one.” How awkward is this? London thought, trying not to show it.

“Oh, the baby I’ve seen you guys with.” He looked surprised. He didn’t think Ryan was Skye’s baby brother, but her son.

“Yeah, Ryan,” she said and then looked back and smiled at Mikey, who stood behind her. “Max, this is Mikey. Mikey, Max, our neighbor,” London introduced the two guys who greeted each other with waves.

“Well, your neighbor for two more weeks,” Mikey told London, then said, “Nice meeting you” to Max.

“Yeah, nice meeting you, too. So, two weeks? Are you guys moving?” Max asked.

“Um, yeah, we’re leaving in two weeks for Italy. Well, Skye, Ryan, Skye’s other brother that’s here, Mica, Van and I. Mikey and the rest of the guys are going on tour for a while.”

“Really? Well, I hope you all have fun in Italy,” Max said and nodded, turning to leave. Mikey and London exchanged silent glances and London called out to Max.

“Do you want some birthday cake?” she asked when he turned his head to look at her. He hesitated and was about to decline when Skye and Mica appeared at the door.

“Oh, hey, Max! How’re you? You coming in or do you want your cake out here in the hall?” Skye asked.

“I’m good. How are you?” he asked and both Skye and Mica nodded, still smiling huge smiles. “I don’t know. I don’t want to crash the party.”

“The more the merrier! Really, you’re not crashing it. Sorry we didn’t invite you before, but we didn’t think you’d want to come, being busy and everything. Come on!” Skye waved him into the apartment and she and Mica each grabbed an arm and led him the rest of the way into the apartment and the party got even bigger and more festive with yet another person.

Max spent the next two weeks with the group, spending as much time with the lively bunch as he could before they would all go their separate ways. He tried not to get attached to them, but it was hard not to miss them when he wasn’t around them, and he knew he wouldn’t be with them for much longer, only three days.

They were all sitting in London and Skye’s apartment, surrounded by boxes. Most of the stuff would be going to Mikey and Frank’s place while they were away and while London and Skye were in Italy.

“So, what do you want to do?” Gerard asked, bored with just sitting around.

“I don’t know, but I feel like we should be spending more time having fun while we can. I just don’t know what else to do since we’ve done almost everything,” London shrugged.

“Yeah, so do I, but there’s not a lot we haven’t done,” Ray agreed.

They ended up spending the day out, doing whatever they pleased. They went to the mall and wreaked havoc, went to the park and ran around like little kids.