#pittsburgh childhood

[hunterrrs]

man spends day off his sport watching another sport

[icedbatik]

Doesn't he just look unbearably pleased?!

[onthehighwaytomel]

No Doubt is absolutely killing their Coachella set right now.

[freebooter4ever]

.

[malkin-mind-meld]

Love that they’re just leaning into the Sidney Crosby Hometown Tour on national television

[mappingthemoon]

One of my earliest childhood memories is of standing on our front porch in Carrick, watching distant hot-air balloons float through the sky. It’s one of those hazy memories, where a relatively "normal" (albeit rare) occurrence is made surreal simply due to my child’s-eye view: everything in the adult world being huge, incomprehensible, and novel to my young self. The only details I’ve ever been able to recall about that event was that it was a warm evening, pre-dusk, I think; most of the balloons were the usual ovular shape, but some were shaped like other objects, and in particular I’ve always remembered one that was shaped like a sneaker, which at that age I probably thought was very fun and silly. Every now and then I’ve googled things like “hot air balloon race pittsburgh shoe” – just trying to prove to myself that the memory really happened – but I’ve never turned anything up… until now!! Thanks to Reddit user PeanutHakeem, who rescued Wally & Barb’s photo album from an estate sale (!!!), I now finally know that this was the WPXI-TV/Snyder of Berlin Hot Air Balloon Classic, which was held August 1-4, 1991, during the 3 Rivers Regatta! We didn’t actually go to the Regatta (at least not that I can remember), but pretty neat that we could see part of the balloon race all the way at our house, which faced south away from the rivers.

[sofakingmanyrecords]

While I have never been a big Fleetwood Mac fan as a whole, I have always liked her songs, starting as a little boy in the late 80’s. Even as a small child I found her voice sensual.

As I got older and learned more about the band and their history I found I gravitated towards her works. She was a great songwriter and certainly had a style and a vibe that you could feel plus she had that sultry voice.

So I was taken aback when I got that BBC notification and saddened.

“Everywhere” will always remind me of Thanksgiving/Christmas season of 1987. My family had just moved to Pittsburgh and I was about to get a sibling and Pittsburgh radio often played this song and I has stuck with me since.

[muirneach]

such a crazy game for me because as i’ve said many times the wild are one of my childhood favourite teams. but i also grew up in hockeyworld during the 00s-10s and theres no one who experienced that who could really be a penguins hater. and now look at this.

[joegeniusblog]

PASSING/MLB: Johnny Jeter

Johnny Jeter passed away on January 16th. of this year. This flew under the radar of the national media and even my brother and sister MLB nerds over at Baseball Fever didn’t find out until July of the passing of Mr. Jeter who passed of undisclosed causes in his native Louisiana where he had attended Grambling University. Baseball was the thread in the fabric of this 12 year-olds summer of…

[al-live]

Taylor Swift pushed the image of a small town country girl with an old soul. May 7, 2024

She's not the first star to fabricate their beginnings but it is worth mentioning that she rejuvinated the falsehood of becoming big and known from humble beginnings as long as youre a good writer. The truth is, her parents had money and a nice house in PA.

She had the full support of her parents especially her father and their money. She was periodically flown back and farth to thousands of dollars worth of private music lessons in Nashville Tennesee and one day they moved there all together for her career as it began taking off. Yes she was a spunky, ballsy little girl who had decent writing skills for a kid but she had the force of support and money on her side.

Even so, bootlegging her very old and very nostalgic first album and having casually watched a few of her early rocky-voiced fresh faced performances and then some of her newer ones, I wonder what could I be with support for my art. Falsehood and all.

Many family members didnt even know I wanted to make music and thats my fault but look at where I'm from. Look at what I am. I know what i am made for- to help when it is needed and to create always. Ive seen many days alone in body and or spirit and the thought of connecting with MY people outside of my blood line can seem far away. i have friends but THEY are far away and few. But i always feel like a spectator or a spectacle of the world. I want to shed this earthly skin and walk as a soul not just a body and connect as a real and understood creature of life. To me, I feel so close to it when I am my self and engage in creation so that people may see me and my world.

[icedbatik]

x

[goatisbetheres]

nate talking about the two loves of his life, sid and jo 😂

On if MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby will ever play together.

“I hope so. I’m hoping, I don’t know what’s before the 2026 Olympics, there might be something, but I guess the main thing I’m focused on is the Olympics. I think Sid has a ton of game left. I think he can play as long as he wants to, honestly. I’m a believer that primes are a little longer now, and if you do the right things, look at guys like him, Pavelski. There’s lots of examples of guys very successful in their 30’s and I think Sid’s going to be a great player 2-3 years from now. Hopefully I can stay good enough to make that team, and play together.”

On who he likes to watch when he’s not playing…

“I think Sid. I watch a lot of Pittsburgh games. I watch Brayden Schenn as well. Just two good friends of mine. Tyson Barrie in Nashville, and then I love watching Kucherov. I think everyone does. If you asked everybody’s favorite player in the NHL, I think they’d say Kucherov. I think everyone is a big fan of his. Obviously McDavid is McDavid. I like watching Pastrnak, he’s a right handed shot guy. Big fan of the game.”

On Jonathan Drouin…

“First of all, I know he’s a great person, and he’s even better as a person than 10 years ago when we were in High School. His talent, it’s still there, you can see it this season. He had a slow first 10 games, just getting comfortable, and now he’s taken off. He’s looked awesome. We’re playing together on a line, and he’s earned it. He was getting healthy scratched and still had a smile on his face everyday. He took less money to come to us, which is great, but I just felt like the value he would bring, I just felt like there’s so much more there. I can’t speak on Montreal, but I know in Denver, it’s pretty good. There’s not a ton of pressure. He can kind of do his thing and fly under the radar. He even talks about just going to the grocery store now, he’s just a civilian living his life, and I think he really enjoys that…he loves hockey. He watches every game, like he really loves the game. We can just talk about anything, and I think when you have a friend from your childhood, pretty much, you just feel so comfortable with them. We drive together a lot, on road dinners, we go every time together. We do a lot of the same workouts together. We’re just together all the time in the gym, after practice, we’re just on the same page with everything, which is awesome. You don’t find that a ton, that friendship, so I’m grateful that we are teammates again, and we’ve had a lot of fun together this year.”

[milfstalin]

GIRLS YOU CAN HIT (original .pdf)

WHY DO FASCISTS WANT TO KILL TRANS WOMEN?

In a nine-day period between June 25 and July 3, six Black trans women - Brayla Stone, Merci Mack, Shaki Peters, Draya McCarty, and Tatiana Hall - were found murdered. The news barely made a ripple; Black trans women and trans women of color are murdered regularly - and no one is shocked, because the gender class structure is operating as usual. Liberal-individualist analysis claims that this is simply the result of amorphous personal "prejudices" -- that individual men, fearful of the unknown or afraid of change, attack trans women for personal reasons.

This is both idealist and ahistorical, a comforting fantasy that naturalizes and atomizes the oppression of trans women as a class and protects the underlying gender class structure of the empire.

In fact, reactionaries make trans women a primary target. ICE imprisons trans women in special separate concentration camps under under even worse conditions than cisgender men and women, and during protests, police subject captured trans women for especially brutal treatment. On July 25, a group of pro-police protesters outside Pittsburgh switched their chant from “all lives matter" to "kill transgenders" and "kill faggots." State power and reactionary elements target trans women specifically - but why? Because the oppression of trans women as a class is critical to the gender class structure of the empire, and by centering the oppression of trans women in our material feminist analysis, we can understand that class structure much more clearly.

WHAT IS THE GENDER CLASS STRUCTURE OF THE EMPIRE?

Fundamentally, the gender class structure is built on the domination of white men over women; white women constitute a subordinated but privileged class under the control ("protection") of white men, and reactionary white manhood is ultimately defined in terms of control of women.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF TRANS WOMEN (AND NONBINARY TRANSFEMININE PEOPLE, WHO ARE TREATED LIKE TRANS WOMEN) IN THIS GENDER CLASS STRUCTURE?

Trans women, nonbinary transfeminine people, and feminine gay cisgender men are treated as a gender underclass. Structurally, they are "girls you can hit." They are also subject to substantial sexual violence in the form of sexual assault and rape. Cisgender women from oppressed and colonized nations are treated more like "girls you can hit" if they are less acceptable as potential members of the "protected" class of potential wives and mothers.

Thus, Black and Indigenous women are treated disposably as "girls you can hit." Likewise, sex workers, who are seen as disqualified from the "protected" class of women, are "girls you can hit." The further they are from the "protected" class of women, the more disposable they are, and they are treated more and more like trans women. This develops intersectionally as well; Black trans women are often accused of sex work to justify violent treatment, and Black trans women sex workers are murdered casually.

WHY DO CISGENDER MEN OPPRESS TRANS WOMEN? IN OTHER WORDS, HOW DO CISGENDER MEN BENEFIT MATERIALLY FROM OPPRESSING TRANS WOMEN?

This dynamic arises in childhood, where they are an acceptable target for violence and covert sex ("practice girls") by boys trying to enact their manhood. Men can gain status and an identity as controllers of women by hurting “girls you can hit." They "protect" (white, cis) women in the same way that the police "protect" communities: by enacting violence on the underclass, they gain control over the "respectable" class of women.

The threat to the women they control is supposed to be implicit, not enacted: "Serve me faithfully and you will never be hurt the way | hurt those sissies in middle school." But the opposite side of the coin is that any "protected" woman who refuses to comply in a serious and sustained way can be threatened with degradation to the underclass.

WHY DO CISGENDER WOMEN OPPRESS TRANS WOMEN? IN OTHER WORDS, HOW DO CISGENDER WOMEN BENEFIT MATERIALLY FROM OPPRESSING TRANS WOMEN?

They get to not be treated like trans women, sex workers, and other "girls you can hit." Their respectable status is contingent on having an underclass they are not part of.

HOW DOES THE OPPRESSION OF TRANS MEN (AND NONBINARY TRANSMASCULINE PEOPLE, WHO ARE TREATED LIKE TRANS MEN) FIT INTO THIS GENDER CLASS STRUCTURE?

The greatest threat to a trans woman's life is being treated like a trans woman. For trans men and nonbinary transmasculine people, the greatest threat to their lives is being treated like a cis woman. We can see this play out in fascist fantasies of "correcting’ trans men to become cis women, and in the way that transmisogynists like JK Rowling claim that "trans activists [code for trans women] are seducing your daughters into mutilating their healthy, fertile female bodies in an impossible attempt to become men." In fascist and reactionary rhetoric, trans men are framed as deluded, innocent cis women who have to be saved from a horrible error. In the material world, this agenda often plays out in the form of corrective rape and other atrocities.

Trans men from colonized communities are treated much more violently, as in the case of the murdered Tony McDade; there is no prospect of forcing them to be "protected" women, so they are treated disposablly, like trans women.

HOW DOES TRANS WOMEN’S LIBERATION THREATEN THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE EMPIRE? IN OTHER WORDS, WHY DO REACTIONARIES WANT TO WIPE OUT TRANS WOMEN?

The reactionaries are not mistaken to see the liberation of trans women (and sex workers) as linked to the liberation of cis women from colonized communities, nor is their targeting of trans women a mistake.

The liberation of trans women and "girls you can hit" in general would invert the gendered class structure of the empire and strike a critical blow to the control of "protected" women that reactionary men depend on for both social reproduction, personal exercise of power, and identity formation.

WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR US?

We must center the liberation of trans women, sex workers, and other “girls you can hit." This will immediately help to liberate cis women from colonized nations, remove the hierarchical power of "protected" white cis women over other women, degrade the power of white cisgender men over oppressed genders, and remove the basis for treating trans men and transmasculine people as deluded cis women.

[puck-luck]

horror movies & puppy dog eyes | 2.5K | fem!reader & nh go from roommates to more.

party favor | 0.2K | fem!reader & nh leave the end-of-season party early.

in memoriam: nico's mustache | 1.1K | nh takes fem!reader on a scenic ride.. and fem!reader treats herself to a scenic ride.

i might've left some marks | 0.3K | it's all in the title

with a bang | 3.8K | after a loss, nh gets out of his head by taking fem!reader out of hers.

one bed trope by design | 4.6K | dm builds (& breaks) a bed in hopes of getting into fem!reader's pants

two beds again | 1K | part two of one bed trope by design

the adventurous one | 2K | dm & fem!reader take a hike

instigation investigation | 1.1K | fem!reader relieves dm's frustrations after the april 3rd, 2024 devils & rangers game (and fight)

the art of loving you | 2.2K | jm & fem!reader celebrate their anniversary, a little belatedly.

moving along | 2.5K | jm is traded from pittsburgh to new jersey & has to prove to fem!reader that the move isn't such a bad thing.

the open secret | 2.5K | sj gives fem!reader something to suck on.

gamer guy | 0.9K | ms looks hot, even when ignoring fem!reader to play his little video game.

co-eds | 10.5K | fem!reader and ms explore polyamory with jq.

all roads | 4.8K | ms puts fem!reader through the ringer during the most confusing situationship of her life.

co-eds | 10.5K | fem!reader and ms explore polyamory with jq.

play house with me | 2.9K | al & fem!reader fulfill a childhood pact.

[fatehbaz]

Organizing more notes. Some recent-ish books on German colonialism and imperial imaginaries of space/place, especially in Africa:

----

German Colonialism in Africa and its Legacies: Architecture, Art, Urbanism, and Visual Culture (Edited by Itohan Osayimwese, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023)

An Imperial Homeland: Forging German Identity in Southwest Africa (Adam A. Blackler, Penn State University Press, 2023)

Coconut Colonialism: Workers and the Globalization of Samoa (Holger Droessler, Harvard University Press, 2022)

Colonial Geography: Race and Space in German East Africa, 1884-1905 (Matthew Unangst, University of Toronto Press, 2022)

The Play World: Toys, Texts, and the Transatlantic German Childhood (Patricia Anne Simpson, 2020)

Learning Empire: Globalization and the German Quest for World Status, 1875-1919 (Erik Grimmer-Solem, Cambridge University Press, 2019)

Violence as Usual: Policing and the Colonial State in German Southwest Africa (Marie A. Muschalek, 2019)

Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, the League of Nations, and Imperialism (Sean Andrew Wempe, 2019)

Rethinking Black German Studies: Approaches, Interventions and Histories (Edited by Tiffany Florvil and Vanessa Plumly, 2018)

German Colonial Wars and the Context of Military Violence (Susanne Kuss, translated by Andrew Smith, Harvard University Press, 2017)

Colonialism and Modern Architecture in Germany (Itohan Osayimwese, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017)

---

German Colonialism in a Global Age (Edited by Bradley Naranch and Geoff Eley, 2014) Including:

"Empire by Land or Sea? Germany's Imperial Imaginary, 1840-1945" (Geoff Eley)

"Science and Civilizing Missions: Germans and the Transnational Community of Tropical Medicine" (Deborah J. Neill)

"Ruling Africa: Science as Sovereignty in the German Colonial Empire and Its Aftermath" (Andrew Zimmerman)

"Mass-Marketing the Empire: Colonial Fantasies and Advertising Visions" (David Ciarlo)

---

German Colonialism and National Identity (Edited by Michael Perraudin and Jurgen Zimmerer, 2017). Including:

"Between Amnesia and Denial: Colonialism and German National Identity" (Perraudin and Zimmerer)

"Exotic Education: Writing Empire for German Boys and Girls, 1884-1914" (Jeffrey Bowersox)

"Beyond Empire: German Women in Africa, 1919-1933" (Britta Schilling)

---

Advertising Empire: Race and Visual Culture in Imperial Germany (David Ciarlo, Harvard University Press, 2011)

The German Forest: Nature, Identity, and the Contestation of a National Symbol, 1871-1914 (Jeffrey K. Wilson, University of Toronto Press, 2012)

The Devil's Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa (George Steinmetz, 2007)

[coneyislandbabey]

going to california. -> e. roundtree

WARNINGS: some swearing, alcohol, sappy shit, use of my own personal headcanon that eddie's full name is edwin.

SYNOPSIS: you move to Los Angeles, and are surprised to run into an old childhood friend. word count: 3,351

The heat was different in Los Angeles. Not like New York City, where you’d spent the last few years of your life; all humid, thick walls of wet air that cloy inside your lungs and make you hot from the inside out, relentless, merciless warmth even in the dead of night, even with the windows open laying naked on the bed. No, here the air was thin and dry, the egg-yolk sun warming but not ruthlessly so. You stepped out of the car, joints creaking, and swallowed up a great lungful of that thin bright air, felt the clean glare of the sun bouncing off the hot car and onto your face. New. Everything you’d been hoping for already. 

After graduating from your Pittsburgh high school a semester early, you had booked it onto a train to Manhattan about five seconds after your diploma was in your hands, getting a job in the mailroom of a newspaper and crashing on your cousin’s couch, sleeping only a few hours a night and spending every other waking moment writing or wandering the five boroughs sniffing out experiences to write about. Writing was your lifeblood, and it had been practically since you’d first learned how to hold a pen. You never knew exactly what you wanted to do with your life– where you wanted to go, what you wanted to see, where you wanted to end up– you only knew that you’d be writing the whole way through. And that’s what you did for those few years in New York. You wrote feverishly, a woman possessed. Your cousin complained daily of the little green desk lamp you kept on at all hours of the night, sitting in your sleep shirt with your notebook propped on the arm of the couch, fingers bruised from the ever-present pressure of pen against skin. 

It worked out for you, though. All those sleepless nights, accepting strangers’ invitations to parties in Brooklyn or Alphabet City or even the Rockaways, dropping acid in people’s basements or getting drunk on the subway, even rising in the ranks of your job at the paper until you were a real and true reporter: after a year and a half, you had a half-presentable essay collection and a publisher who wanted  to make your wildest dreams come true. And that was that; your essay collection was published a little over six months later, and every week it climbed higher on the best seller’s list. In the wake of your immediate success, your publisher wanted to start working on a second publication, another collection of essays or short stories or a novel, whatever you wanted, they just wanted your name on another book in their arsenal. You readily agreed, of course– this was the only thing you’d ever wanted to do. But you walked out of that meeting, and onto the streets of Manhattan, and all you felt was suffocation where there used to be inspiration. 

It wasn’t a surprise to anyone in the city who knew you, and therefore knew your more impulsive tendencies, when you told them you’d bought a shitty old car for a hundred bucks and were planning to roadtrip your way to L.A. You hadn’t been behind the wheel of a car since before you’d moved to New York, but you’d seen the old thing with the ‘for sale’ sign tucked into the dash and you knew you had to have it. Already the inspiration was pouring in; a novelized account of your roadtrip across the country and ensuing introduction into Los Angeles society. The idea consumed your brain until there was room for nothing else, until you turned right around on the sidewalk and bought the car then and there. You spent the next 24 hours on a goodbye tour, visiting everyone you had come to love in those last few years, and then your meager belongings were all shoved into the backseat of your new acquisition and you were sitting in the driver’s seat, hoping to god you still remembered which pedal was the gas and which was the brakes. 

You made it to the opposite coast after two weeks of seedy motels, eating roadside burgers with strangers, and climbing up to the roof of the car every night to lay out and see the stars the way you never could living in the city. And here you were, a week into your new Los Angeles life, having just spent most of your book earnings on buying a tiny, dilapidated house in Laurel Canyon with huge windows and the perfect little overgrown backyard for you to sit and write in. You felt it in your bones already, that this was where life would start to become important for you. 

***

You had met Brandi the day you moved in. She and a few friends lived in the house across the street, and being the only one home at the time, she came over to help you move your stuff in when she noticed you unloading the car in the morning. She had a golden California tan and big blonde hair, and the kindest smile you’d ever seen. She was your best friend five minutes after meeting her. 

“You have to come by tonight,” she said by way of greeting as she let herself in the front door. It was late afternoon, and you were stretched out across the couch on your stomach, editing something you’d written in your notebook on the road trip here. Old habits die hard. She worked as a cocktail waitress at The Troubadour, and in the few weeks you’d been living in Laurel Canyon, she’d tried to get you to go nearly every time she had a shift, to no avail. 

“I don’t know, Brand–” you started, flipping your hair over your shoulder shifting to face her. 

“No, man. Enough of this writing bubble thing you got going on. You’re coming out tonight,” she said sternly. You couldn’t help the laugh you let out– Brandi was spot on. Every time she asked you to go out, you told her you weren’t interested because you were trying to double down and polish up the road trip writing you’d done on the way here. “How are you supposed to– how did you say it? ‘Be inducted into Los Angeles Society’ if you never go out and see Los Angeles society?”

“Okay, fair point,” you responded, sitting up. “I’ll go tonight, alright? You got me.” 

Brandi grinned, clapping her hands together in delight. “Okay, Yaz and Lynn will walk over and get you and you’ll all drive in together, alright? And I’ll see you there.” 

“Sounds good,” you nodded. 

“That was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I’ll see you later!” With that, Brandi disappeared down the front steps just as fast as she’d arrived. You sighed, closing your notebook and falling back onto the couch. After your few weeks of relative seclusion, you were more than ready to get back out into the world and have some fun, and yet, there was something uneasy growing in your chest. Actually going out in the city, that meant really starting this new part of your life, and well, honestly, that was a little terrifying. Better to rip the band-aid off now instead of rotting inside the house any longer. 

***

A few hours later, you were dressed in a pair of bell bottoms and a sheer orange tie-front top with big bell sleeves, your makeup and hair more done and put together than they’d been in months. You observed yourself in the mirror one last time, before lighting a cigarette and loping down the stairs to where Brandi’s two roommates were waiting, equally glammed up, for you. You sat in the backseat of Yaz’s car on the way over, window all the way down and your chin resting on the sill. You were used to city sights, you knew your neighborhood and so many others in New York intimately, but L.A. was different, and so thrilling. 

The Troubadour was different from the clubs you’d frequented in New York, but it still held some level of familiarity, and you were hit with an unexpected pang of nostalgia when you walked in with the girls. You grabbed Yaz and Lynn’s hands and pulled them farther in, toward the stage where an upbeat band was in the middle of a song, and immediately began dancing, trying to shake off the more complicated feelings of being here in this new place. When the song ended, you whistled loudly for the band, who were packing themselves up and off stage, making way for the next one. 

“Our next band is one we know and love here, give it up for The Six!” a silky-voiced man announced into the microphone before vacating the stage. In his place, a band made up of four guys and one blonde woman took the stage, setting up their instruments and getting ready. You cheered with everyone else in the crowd, though you weren’t familiar with them the way the locals clearly were. Within a few seconds, the guitars had struck up, and the front man was at the microphone, lashing out the first lyrics of a song. 

And you realized. No, you didn’t know them the way the locals did, but you knew them. The boys, at least. You recognized Graham Dunne first, that cherubic face and big baby blues the exact same as you’d last seen him in high school. Warren Rojas was behind him on the drums, unmistakable mop of curly black hair dancing as if it had a mind of its own on top of his bobbing head. The front-man, you guessed, was Graham’s brother Billy, just familiar enough to place the face despite never knowing the older boy back home. And, sure enough, there was Eddie Roundtree on bass. The last time you’d seen him, he was just a lanky kid with a guitar that he still gripped awkwardly in his too-big hands. (‘Not ‘too big”, you remember him telling you back then. ‘The rest of me just hasn’t caught up yet.”) He’d grown his hair out, you noted. Grown broader in the shoulders, too. His hands were no longer comically large, compared to the rest of him. He had such an easy command of the bass he was playing, so relaxed on the stage, like he belonged and he knew it. It was kind of hard for you to reconcile this version of him with the juvenile one you used to know. 

And they were good, too. You could see the way a group like them could become something great, something once in a lifetime. They weren’t there yet, but you could vividly see just how it could happen for them. Eddie Roundtree and the Dunne boys and Warren Rojas, all in Los Angeles at the same time as you, all of you so far from home. You couldn’t help the startled laugh that bubbled up and out of you. Lynn turned a questioning look on you, but you didn’t have time to turn and start explaining yourself before Eddie’s eyes swept your way, probably drawn by the laughter. Those brown eyes settled on your own, lazily, for a few seconds, before widening ever so slightly. His hands slowed, but never faltered, on the strings for just a second. Something zinged through your chest when you realized that he recognized you, too, even after all these years. 

You watched Eddie for the entirety of his band’s set. You couldn’t help it– his fingers dancing across the strings of his guitar were mesmerizing, and besides, you couldn’t get over the fact that this was the same boy from your childhood, that all of them were boys who’d slept through your shared classes, who had walked to your house after school to drop off your homework when you were home sick, who you commiserated with about running the mile in high school gym class. 

Brandi found you during the last song, pulling you into a hug and squealing about how happy she was that you actually came. Reluctantly, you tore your eyes from the stage and gave your best friend your full attention, allowing her to drag you back to the bar so she could buy you a drink. By the time you had a drink in hand, The Six’s set was over and a new band was coming on, so you stayed back by the bar even after Brandi had to leave you alone to go do her job. 

“I knew it was you, bluebird.” You whirled around at the nickname, coming face to face with Eddie. He was a few inches taller than you remembered, smiling down at you with a curious mix of surprise and something else swirling in his brown eyes. 

“I haven’t heard that nickname in years,” you laughed. “Hi, Edwin.” 

He groaned. “Nobody calls me that, woman.” 

“I always have,” you pointed out, arching an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, that’s true. What are you doing in L.A?” 

“Writing, mostly,” you shrugged. “I’ve got one book out and now the publisher wants another. You know how it is.” 

Eddie’s grin grew wider, if possible. “Glad to hear you’re still writing. I remember you back in high school, always carrying that notebook around that you’d never let anyone look at.”

You laughed, recalling the notebook yourself. You had treated that thing like it was your baby. “Yeah, well if you’re curious about my writing, you could buy my book and see.”

“First thing on my agenda tomorrow is to go out and get a copy,” he said easily, and you snorted. 

“Good, you better like it. And what about you guys? When did you get here?”

“Few months ago. We’ve been playing gigs at a few regular spots while we put together an album.”

“I want a copy of that record as soon as it comes out!”

“You’ll be the first one to get one outside of the band,” Eddie grinned. “Where are you staying?”

“I bought a place in Laurel Canyon a few weeks ago. It’s tiny, but still a hell of a lot bigger than the living room I was sleeping in in New York,” you laughed. 

“That’s where we are, too,” Eddie said, jerking his head in the direction of backstage. “And, New York? What have you been up to since high school?”

“Many things, Edwin, many things,” you grinned. 

Eddie stayed quiet, all soft smile and soft eyes aimed in your direction. You felt something long dormant start to shift in your chest. 

“I’m really glad to see you, bluebird,” he said after a moment, voice quieter than before. A sentiment just for the two of you to hear. 

You nudged his shoulder affectionately with your own. “Me too, Roundtree.”

“What do you say about us getting together some night soon? You can fill me in on this whole New York story,” Eddie suggested. 

“Only if you tell me how you all wound up here, doing this,” you responded. 

“Deal,” Eddie said, sticking out his hand to shake. You took it; his palm was warm and calloused beneath your own. 

***

“It was not like that!” you insisted through your laughter. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Roundtree.” 

Three nights later, and you and Eddie were sitting on your living room floor, bottle of scotch between you, very much on your way to being drunk and well into reminiscing about your shared high school days. He had shown up at your door a few hours earlier with a smile on his face, and the scotch and a copy of your book in his hands. You laughed so hard at the fact that he’d actually gone out and bought a copy of the book that you almost forgot to ask him how the hell he knew where you lived. Sheepishly, he told you that he’d seen you talking with Brandi and asked her after you left that first night. 

“I promise, birdy, Jimmy McKenna was gone for you for years. You drove the poor kid crazy because he would try to flirt with you all the time and you just never picked up on it,” Eddie explained through his own laughter. You sorted quickly through memories of the boy Eddie was talking about, and as what he said slowly clicked into place, you only began to laugh harder. 

“Oh, god,” you said, throwing an arm over your eyes. “I have always been such an idiot.”

“Not an idiot, just oblivious,” Eddie countered. “You were too wrapped up in your writing to notice anyone around you.”

“Not true! I noticed you,” you said defensively. 

Eddie’s eyebrows raised slightly, a split second look of surprise washing over his features before they settled back into that soft smile he always seemed to be wearing around you. He took another swig of whisky, humming. “Lucky me, then.”

You scoffed, trying to cover the way your heart stuttered with another drink of whiskey. “You were one of the only people I liked hanging out with back then, Ed. I liked stopping to watch you and Graham and Warren mess around with your instruments in the garage whenever I walked by. When I took off to the city, I really did miss you.” 

“Well, if it means anything, I missed you, too. We all did,” Eddie said. His voice was softer now, more serious, matching your own. “Nobody knew where you went, you were just gone when we got back from winter break.” 

“I just had to get outta there, you know?” you sighed. “I worked my ass off so I could graduate early. I had all these visions of the life I wanted to live, and it was so big. I was so focused on getting there that I didn’t even realize there would be anything to miss until it was all gone.”

“Yeah, I get what you mean. Don’t tell the guys this, but even now I sometimes miss Pittsburgh,” he admitted. 

“Me too,” you nodded. “I just keep collecting places to miss. Pittsburgh first, and now New York, too. I felt so suffocated there by the end, too, and now? Some nights I can’t even sleep because I’m not back on that awful couch in my cousin’s apartment, listening to the Manhattan traffic.” 

“Guess that’s life, right? You just keep collecting things to miss,” Eddie said. At some point, he had shuffled closer to you, both of you sitting with your backs leaning against the bottom of the couch. You leaned your head on his shoulder. “I’m really happy I don’t have to miss you anymore, bluebird.”

You looked up, and there were those eyes, big and brown and full of affection, so close. Looking right at you, right through you, like he could see all your guts and bones and thoughts and desires all at once. Riding the tide of whiskey-fueled courage and extreme affection you were feeling for the man sitting next to you, you reached out, palm against his cheek, and pulled his face to yours. The kiss was slow and languid, noses nudging softly against skin, Eddie’s mouth gentle against your own. His hand moved to rest on your hip, a warm and comforting pressure against your skin. 

When he pulled away, your breath catched at the sight of the silly little smirk gracing his face. “You don’t know how badly I’ve wanted to do that the entire time I’ve known you.”

“Oh fuck off Eddie, don’t tell me you had a crush on me in high school too and that’s just another thing I was too oblivious to realize,” you said, lightly shoving his shoulder. 

“Okay, I won’t tell you if you kiss me again,” he said, grinning.  Rolling your eyes, you grabbed his collar and pulled his face back to yours. You could feel his smile against your lips, which only made you want to hold him closer, to make up for all the years you’d gone without him in your life.