Brightside | ✓

45.2 | twin flame

It didn't take long for Eddie to track down Moxie after an extremely violent attempt to not puke her guts up in the women's bathroom from how badly she wanted to sob. A lovely, albeit slightly tipsy, woman saw how she white-knuckled the sink and immediately fished the ice from her drink and tried to de-puff Eddie's eyes with it. Forced her to hold the ice like Eddie was post-fight and got to work smudging her personal red lipstick onto her cheeks to try and cover up the streaks Eddie had made in her face paint. Eddie wasn't sure any of it had actually helped but had no choice but to thank her for her efforts. Dr. Ellie Sattler, paleobotanist and bathroom saviour. Woman inherits the earth and all that.

Eddie hoped it wasn't as obvious as she thought it was that she'd been crying as she approached Edward Scissorhands. "Did I miss anything?" Eddie managed. "Mav hasn't made another appearance at his own birthday party, has he?"

"Of course not," Moxie said. At least either way, she was too nice to say anything about how shitty Eddie looked. Then again, Moxie appeared to be fighting a battle she didn't seem to want to talk about. The severe lack of Cruella Queen was easy enough to identify; the tough exterior her girlfriend—girlfriend?—put on wasn't enough to hide the fact the blonde starlet wasn't there. "That would require Maverick to be a normal person."

"Oh, good," Eddie said. "Love flying across the country for no reason."

"Surprised he even made it to his own birthday party," Moxie said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he had accidentally routed himself to Tokyo."

"We should go with him."

"I'm down."

On a makeshift stage stuffed into a corner, as only a Kingston Maverick party would have when he absolutely had the means to have a proper one built, the man of the hour stood in front of a microphone. At least there wasn't any feedback when he coughed before speaking. (And at least he coughed into his elbow.) "Hi! Hello! Sorry, over here." He waved a hand like he wasn't the only one every single person in that building had been looking for for the entirety of the night. "I feel like I haven't been the most gracious host tonight, and I'm sorry about that. Lots of behind the scenes going on. Too many things to do. You know the drill. Anyway. I'm getting off track. Sorry. Again. Can take the kid out of Canada, but you can't take the Canada out of the kid."

If Maverick's rambling wasn't enough to make the whole crowd nervous, any spared glances at Everleigh Meadowlark ditching her homework to give him her full attention should've done the trick.

"I was 19 when I came to New York for the first time. Just down the street from where we are right now is the studio where I recorded my first album," Maverick continued. Not any more confident in his words. "When we finished that, I was so excited to put it out in the world as much as I was exhausted from the entire process. Didn't care if it went well, just that I'd done it. I couldn't have guessed anything that followed. Maybe that was naïve. Or, maybe that was realistic. But for what I knew? It was beyond my wildest dreams. Two years later I made a second album. Then there was Chicago, where I met some of the greatest people I've ever known, and who I will owe for the rest of my life. Couple years later, there was The L. Then a Grammy, if you can believe it. I couldn't. Even from the bathroom. I recorded my fourth album in London because I fell in love with someone I want to spend the rest of my life with. And somehow, it's been 11 years and every time someone likes something that I've made, it feels like I'm 19 again, in New York, feeling like I'm on top of the world. I can't thank anyone enough for it, really. It still feels surreal on most days."

It was a strange way to lead into what Eddie assumed was him wishing himself a happy birthday. But there wasn't much that Maverick did that wasn't strange, so somehow, it felt right that he held the entire room's attention as he continued.