Westbound Sign ➵ Billie Joe Armstrong

Pot, Jack, & Pop Tarts

Collin

''Wait. What? Who? What do you mean?"

I tossed the soggy blanket onto the floor and looked at her with the expression of someone who just saw God, and He was wearing Doc Martens and had a Les Paul slung over His shoulder.

"Billie. From the hallway. From the fucking stage. He came up here. Talked to me."

Her mouth fell open, then snapped shut.

"No fucking way."

I nodded. "Asked if I wanted to hang out. Said they've got duct tape and a broken radio."

"That's practically a proposal," she said, wide eyed, already digging through her bag for a clean shirt. "We're going."

"I said I'd wait for you," I reminded her, not sure why that felt important.

Erin froze, then softened, shooting me one of those rare, genuine looks that didn't come wrapped in sarcasm or swagger.

"Well, I appreciate that. But now we're both going."

Erin had showered in record time, swapping her mud crusted shirt for a clean, oversized striped tee that hung loosely off one shoulder. She was twisting her damp, cherry brown hair into a braid, a few rebellious strands sticking out like antennae that caught the light every time she moved. She looked gorgeous, she always did, even when she wasn't trying.

Years of childhood beauty pageants had taught her how to pluck her own eyebrows, how to care for her skin, how to make foundation look like her natural skin, how to turn herself into something radiant with almost no effort at all.

Somewhere along the way, she'd traded sashes and hairspray for loud music and chaos, for sneaking out windows and screaming lyrics until her voice broke. But there was still a kind of poise to her, deliberate even when she was messy. Erin was sharp - her cheekbones, her mind, her wit. Confident and outspoken, the kind of girl who never asked for permission and rarely apologized.

I wasn't like that. Not really.

I was the girl who was just next to her - the one with too many scars on her knees from softball and a farmer's tan that never quite went away. Brown eyes, brown hair, long and wavy and almost always tangled from sleep. Short limbs in comparison to Erin who was a good three inches taller than me.

My skin was too pale for Texas, like I'd been grown under cloud cover instead of sun. My face was softer, rounder. I'd never been one for chaos, but I hated how quiet life could get without it. Erin thrived on the noise; I analyzed every sound.

She was a spark. I was the smoke that lingered after.

Still, somehow, we fit.

By the time we were ready and in front of the hotel doors, I felt like I'd aged a decade.

We stood in front of the room's double doors. They were a nice mahogany, gold accents adorning it. It looked expensive, delicate, whatever was behind the door wasn't anything we were used to, but the band probably was.

Erin glanced at me, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Ready?"

"Nope."

"Too bad."

She pushed the door open without knocking.

Inside, chaos lived.

Cords snaked across the floor. A big king mattress lay in the middle of the room with someone alive on it, green hair sticking up at odd angles, cigarette burning dangerously close to a torn flannel sleeve.