Heaven Nor Hell

It was now Friday afternoon, and all of the Avenged boys were crammed in our tiny apartment, carrying my boxes out to both Brian’s and Matt’s cars. Brian had been determined to move me into his house as soon as possible, so we had spent much of yesterday packing my belongings.

“It’s going to be awful not having you here with me!” Elizabeth exclaimed, sitting next to me in one of the bar stools that lined the kitchen counter. “What if my new roommate is lame?!”

“She seemed really sweet when we met her! You’ll be fine Liza. And we can still see each other all the time! It’s not like I’m moving across the country.” I laughed as Elizabeth moaned, dropping her head to rest on the counter.

I walked to the fridge to grab a bottle of water for the road, but was stopped by a pair of arms wrapping around my waist. I smiled, slowly turning around in his arms. Brian grinned, placing an innocent kiss on my lips.

“That was the last of the boxes, babe…” I sighed, knowing it was time to go. Backing out of Brian’s arms, I turned to face Elizabeth, who looked to be on the verge of tears. I walked towards her, opening my arms as she ran into them.

“I’m going to miss you,” she whined, her arms tightening around my neck.

“I’ll miss you too,” I replied, gasping as she abruptly pulled away, and pointed a finger in my face.

“We better talk every fucking day. I mean it Lily.” I nodded, laughing as she turned to point her finger in Brian’s face. “And you! If you ever hurt Lily, you best pray I never find you,” she threatened, her face darkening. After a few more hugs, and Brian’s promise to keep me safe, he and I were on the road to his house.

I relaxed into my seat as Brian pulled onto the highway, the sounds of Foo Fighters filling the car. A few minutes later, we pulled into Brian’s driveway. I turned my head towards Brian, laughing at the wide smile of his face.

“There’s one more thing you need…” My eyebrows knit together as I watched Brian dig through his pocket, before he produced a lanyard with a lone key. I laughed as I read the words on the lanyard: Keep Calm and Hide Behind Daryl Dixon.

“I was going to get you an Avenged Sevenfold lanyard, but I thought something Walking Dead related was the way to go.” I grinned as he put the lanyard around my head.

“Ready?” he asked, opening his car door. I nodded my head, sliding out of the car, and leading the way up to the front door. Carefully, I unlocked the door, and stepped inside, Brian right behind me. Brian knelt down to greet an excited Pinkly, as I made my way into the kitchen, and set my purse down on the counter. I gazed out the large window of the kitchen, which overlooked the beach. I smiled as I heard Brian greet the guys, as they began to pack all of my boxes into the house. As nervous as I had been, I was glad I had decided to move in with Brian. I knew that Kyle could be a real threat, and was terrified that he could hurt me, or worse, Brian. But being here with Brian made me feel safe, much safer than I felt in my apartment.

I snapped out of my thoughts as a large, tattooed arm snaked its way around my waist, and thin lips placed a kiss on the top of my head.

“I’m so fucking glad you’re here with me,” Brian whispered in my ear, holding me close to his side.

“Me too Bri,” I responded, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek.

“Ready to get started?” he asked, grinning down at me. I nodded, pulling him out into the entry way to organize where everything would go. Piece by piece, we started finding a place for all of my things, which consisted of mostly just clothes. All the furniture in the apartment had been Elizabeth’s.

After I had finished putting away my clothes in Brian’s closet, I headed downstairs to find him. I couldn’t help but smile as I realized he had dispersed the few picture frames I had around the living room, replacing a few of his.

I found Brian sitting outside on the patio, cigarette in hand. He turned as I slid the screen door shut, and smiled, sliding over on the sun chair he rested on so I could sit next to him. I rested my head on his shoulder, feeling tired, even though I hadn’t done much heavy lifting. I sighed contently as Brian ran his free hand through my hair.

“So I have a project for us to do, if you’re interested,” he spoke softly, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray beside him, and pulling me closer to his side.

“And what would that be?” I asked, curling up closer to him, savoring the warmth that radiated from his body.

“I want to redecorate the house. I let Michelle do it when she moved in, so I wouldn’t have to listen to her complain, but it’s really not either of our styles. I think we should repaint. But there’s one room specifically I want to work on, if nothing else.”

“Which one?”

“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me to my feet. He led the way downstairs to a nearly empty room.

“I want this to be your office. That way, you have a place of your own where you can work, or relax, or whatever you want it to be,” he explained, pulling me into the room.

“Brian, you don’t have to do that for me. I’m happy just working in the living room. It’s your house,” I protested.

“But it’s your house now too! And I want you to be comfortable here. I have my studio to do my work; you need a place to do yours.”

“Thank you Bri,” I relented, knowing no matter what I said, Brian wouldn’t change his mind.

---

It was a few days after I had moved in with Brian, and we were at the hardware store to select paint. We had decided to paint the living room, as well as my office space down in the basement.

“What about this babe?” I turned to look at the swatch in Brian’s hand, laughing as I realized it was a deep amethyst color.

“What happened to lighter colors Bri?” I asked, taking the swatch in my hand.

“But that color is badass!” he exclaimed.

“And would be extremely overpowering.”

“Fine…” he sighed, turning back to the wall of paint swatches. We both continued to look for a few moments, before I came across a light cream tint, which matched the amethyst color Brian had picked out.

“Bri, what if we painted three of the walls this cream color, and then the wall with the TV, we could paint your amethyst color?”

“Really?!” he grinned, coming to stand next to me.

“Really,” I answered, giggling as he peppered kisses along the side of my face.

“Have you decided what color you want to do your office?” he asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.

“You know the Metallica song The Day That Never Comes?”

“Of course babe,” he smirked. “It is your favorite, after all.”

“Well the lyrics are I’ll end this day, I’ll splatter color on this grey…so I was thinking we could paint the room grey, and then splatter paint it with acrylic paint…”

“That’s a wonderful idea. We could even paint the lyrics on one of the walls, like in black.” I smiled at how excited he sounded at my idea. I found the perfect shade of grey, and then we walked over to the counter to have our colors mixed.

On our way home, we stopped at an art supplies store, to pick up a few small bottles of acrylic paint, as well as a pack of letter stencils to write the lyrics.

When we got back home, we quickly unloaded our supplies into the house. It was still fairly early in the morning, so we decided to start painting the grey in my office.

What little Brian had kept in the room, we had moved into his studio last night, so we could start right away. I started taping off the doors and covering the floor with plastic, as Brian started filling the liners we had purchased with paint. I was soon done taping, and we began the tedious process of painting. With both of us working diligently, we finished the whole room in just over three hours. We opened the small window in the room, in hopes of removing some of the pungent odor.

After we cleaned our brushes and rollers, Brian went to work in the studio for a bit. The boys were starting up the writing process again, and Brian had been writing what he could in his free time.

Sitting in the kitchen, I decided to call Elizabeth, knowing she would be on her lunch break. The phone rang only twice, before she picked up.

“You didn’t call me yesterday!” she exclaimed, not even bothering with a hello.

“I didn’t know I had to call you every single day!” I laughed, standing to grab a Coke out of the fridge.

“I made you promise you would call me every day, and I meant every single day.”

“Okay okay! I’ll call every day. Has the new girl moved in yet?”

“Yeah, she moved in two days ago.”

“And how is she?” I asked, hoping she was as sweet as she seemed when Elizabeth and I had met her. Elizabeth would never let me live it down if she wasn’t.

“She’s okay. She’s nice and all. She’s just not you.” I could tell she was pouting.

“You’re the one who convinced me that moving in with Brian would be a good thing!”

“I know, but it hasn’t even been a week yet. I’m not use to you being gone. How are things going anyway?”

“They’re going really well actually. It all just feels…natural. Even after only a few days.”

“Well duh, you two are the most perfect couple ever. Where is Brian at anyway?” I raised an eyebrow at her question.

“How do you know he’s not here with me?”

“Because whenever he is around you’re completely distracted by him.” I blushed at her response, letting out a small giggle.

“He’s downstairs in his studio. We were painting one of his rooms downstairs to turn it into my office. Which reminds me, Brian wants to have a barbeque this weekend, once we finish redecorating the house. So you better be there.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world babe. But my lunch is almost over; I’ve got to get back to work.” We said a quick goodbye, before hanging up the phone. It was now nearing one o’clock, and I realized I was starving. I had hardboiled a few eyes just the night before, and decided to just make egg salad sandwiches for lunch.

As I was almost done, Brian came up the steps, and took a seat in one of the stools lining the counter.
We decided to eat outside on the patio, Sully Erna playing softly in the background.

After we had eaten, and done the dishes, we found the paint was dry enough to splatter paint over it. I found a few plastic cups to dump the paint into, before adding a little water to each cup to dilute it. As I was prepping the paint, Brian had covered the ceiling in a thin sheet of plastic to prevent from excess paint splatters.

After all the colors had been diluted, I chose to start with the green, and Brian the purple, before we started splattering it on the walls with a brush.

As we were finishing up the last of the colors, I shrieked as I felt cold paint cover my back. I turned around to find Brian staring innocently off into space, and empty cup that once held red paint clutched in his hand.

“Oh, it’s on Haner!” I yelled, grabbing the cup of yellow paint, and chasing after him with it. I managed to jump on his back, and pour the yellow paint down the front of his white v-neck, laughing as I did so. Our little paint war ensued, until we completely ran out of paint. We lay on the plastic covered floor, both out of break from laughing so hard.

“You best pray this paint comes out of my hair,” Brian said, leaning up on his elbow, so he could look down on me.

“It will, I promise,” I giggled, leaning up to kiss his lips. As I pulled away, I was captivated by his eyes, molten chocolate swirling with emotion I had yet to experience.

Brian lent down, recapturing my lips in a kiss that left me breathless. It was zealous and raw, and unlike any kiss I’d had before.

We were both gasping for air as we pulled away. Brian cupped my face between his palms, his thumbs caressing my skin.

“I love you Lily…

I froze as those words left his mouth. Sure, I knew Brian cared for me. That was the reason I had moved into his house in the first place. But love…love was a totally different thing.

I wasn’t sure I knew exactly what love even was anymore. Kyle had ruined whatever fairytale image my mind had created about love. For the longest time I believed I hadn’t been worthy of that kind of devotion.

But Brian was different. He made me feel like I was the only girl in the world, like I deserved all the best in life, and he was determined to ensure I got it. And in that moment I realized that he had made me believe in love again. That is was good, and it was pure, and it was still attainable. So I swallowed my fears, and said the five words I never thought would leave my mouth.

“I love you too Brian…”