Cross My Heart

Somehow, between the antics of the group and the little chatter going around all of us Ronnie’s muscles began to get less tense. She was currently positioned on my lap, a cup of clear liquid within her hands. Her nose would occasionally pinch at the taste of the venue’s tap water, but she knew there wasn’t much else to drink.

My hand was resting on her thigh and she was smiling, her dark hair pulled back as her beautiful brown eyes danced with laughter. In awe, I watched as her hand came up to put some of the black strands that have escaped in the back of her ear and thought: wow, how was I able to grab this one?

Suddenly, the black box began to burn within my jeans and I itched to take it out and propose to her right there. Except I knew that it wasn’t the right time or place to pop the question—it needed to be perfect, so perfect that she couldn’t say no.

Before I knew it, her beautiful eyes were on mine, one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows raised in a question, with that irritable half smirk her brother is famous for. “Stop looking at me like that,” She said with a smile.

I grinned and squeezed her thigh. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly and she only rolled her eyes before reaching down to press her lips against mine. When she pulled away, her teeth nipped at my bottom lip playfully before pulling away.

“I’m going to go get my phone from the bus—I’ll be right back.” She went to move but my hands stayed on her hips so that she couldn’t escape. I narrowed my eyes and sighed, knowing very well she was worried for her son. Maybe I would understand better someday when I have my own, and I hoped with all my being that it was with the woman who currently sat on my lap. Shaking my head, she looked down at me with a frown. “Let go, Johnny.” She said.

“He’ll be fine, baby.” I murmured, her eyes scanning the area. Matt and Zacky were currently in a heated discussion about some game while Brian sat next to Jimmy, who was clearly telling some kind of joke as Brian was bent over at the waist howling like a moron.

“Please, Johnny, what if he called?” The plead in her voice made me cast my eyes back on her and she was pouting sadly. Her eyes begged me to let her go and I sighed, wanting to replace that with a smile instead—or at least calm her conscious.

I recall a while back when my mother had called me—I was stuck on the road, my phone dead and it was nearly midnight. She woke up in the middle of the night, something nagging her at the back of her mind. She felt the need to give me a call, having a bad feeling about me. Turns out she was right and she joked about mother’s just having this third sense when it comes to her children. I wondered that maybe, just maybe, Ronnie was having that third feeling right now.

So to calm down her nerves, I nodded my head. “Alright, I’ll go get your phone okay? It’s dark out there and I don’t need you getting mauled by some horny freak.” Ronnie smirked and laughed as she removed herself from my lap.

“You mean by you?” She stuck out her tongue and I only chuckled.

“Careful, Ron, I just might put that thing to use.” She retracted her tongue quickly before letting a laugh fall from her lips. I kissed her temple before making my way towards the bus.

“Hey, Christ, wait up!” I turned to see Brian jogging up to me. I stopped and waited for my band mate as I held the door open. He had an unlit butt in one hand, and a lighter in the other. “Thanks, man.” He said as he walked through, lighting the stick as he put it between his lips. I saw the bus and didn’t expect Brian to follow, but he matched my small strides and sucked away on the cigarette. “How’s my sister?” He blew out a puff of smoke as he turned his head to the right, where I wasn’t.

I brought one of my hands up and itched the back of my head. “Still a bit shaken up, but she’s doing well.”

“That bastard better not take him away from her.” He said, I stopped and looked at him, the eyes that his sister had holding a little mixture of worry and anger.

“He can’t,” I said, “It would cause a ton of shit to go down, would it not?”

Brian rolled his eyes, took one big drag of his butt before tossing it in the concrete floor. “Yeah, but Alex is a dick and he would do whatever he could to take Brent away from her. Can you believe that that bastard still thinks she’s a drunk? Ron has spent a lot of her time getting sober, has proven it to the court, and yet he’s not giving her more than a fucking weekend with him.”

“Yeah, man,” I muttered as I turned to look at the bus. I thought I saw movement in the window, but my mind knew that there wasn’t anyone in there. “It’s messed up. I wish Alex would just die and rot in hell.”

Brian chuckled, “Oh, if only.” He muttered before taking his phone out of his pocket. “I’m going to go call Ari on the bus, you need anything?”

“Yeah,” I said, “Just need to grab Ronnie’s phone, she wants to give another try to Alex’s cell.” Brian grunted as he made his way to the bus, the phone already in his hand and dialing. As we made our way to the door, Brian said a simple ‘Hi, baby’ and made his way into the bus, holding the door open for me before climbing up the stairs and making his way to the back of the bus, but paused in front of the fridge to grab something.

I passed by him towards the door that would reveal the back of the bus, where she last left her phone from changing her pants. I opened the door, went to turn the switch on when I heard a little voice shout out into the night.

I turned my head to look onto the small bed to see a little boy, with eyes as dark as chocolate and curly hair. Surrounding him sat a suitcase, some papers and some toys. I gasped, “Brian!” I shouted behind me. I turned to see Brian pulling his head out of the fridge, a jug of OJ in his hands as he peeked over the top of it.

“What is it, man?” He called back. I turned to see Brent, who was looking up at me with a questionable look on his face.

“I…uh, don’t think Alex was leaving with Brent.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Uncle Brian!” Brian’s head snapped to the bedroom, his eyes landing on the little boy who was a spitting image of himself.

“Arianna, I need to call you back.” He spoke into the cell phone before turning his attention on his nephew.