.: Let Our Crosses Crown Our Past [Julian Drain] :. Info

A large, heavy load pressing down on my abdomen woke me from the deep slumber I had fallen into after my snowball fight with Julian last night. The last thing I remembered from the night before is being so cold that I just climbed into bed with all of my clothes still on, wrapping the covers around myself as tight as I could, and passing out as soon as my head touched the pillow.

I slightly cracked open my eyes to see who had given me such a rude awakening, but the light from the nearby window made the perpetrator look like nothing but a silhouette. I heard some incomprehensible talking so I assumed that there were two of them. Unfortunately for me, I had to open my eyes fully to see who they were better. But I became fully awake when I saw who it was.

“Jesse?” I asked, grinning. I would have sat up and hugged him, but he was currently sitting on me so that was impossible at the moment.

“Hello, sleeping beauty,” he replied grinning as he looked down at me.

I looked around and saw Lauri sitting by the foot of my bed. “Good morning,” he said, smiling just as much as Jesse. “I told him not to wake you up, but he insisted.”

“It’s alright,” I replied, too happy too see my best friends to care. “So how was your trip? And the tournament? Did you guys win?” I had about a hundred more question to ask them, but decided that two was enough for Jesse’s small brain to handle at the moment.

“Oulu was a great city. Loved the nightlife,” Jesse replied. “And as for the tournament…” He reached out onto my nightstand and grabbed a large gold statuette that I hadn’t noticed notice before. “We won the championship. Against Oulu.”

“You mean they won the championship?” I asked, teasing him for the fact that he couldn’t play. He shot me a glare and set the trophy down again.

“At least we got revenge on Oulu for knocking off our best player,” Lauri said, trying to boost Jesse’s mood again.

“Suck-up,” I called over to Lauri as I stuck out my tongue at him. I looked at the time and realized that it was only eleven in the morning. I assumed that they had an award ceremony to go to this morning and that’s why they arrived the morning after the championship game.

I heard my cell phone vibrate on the nightstand and immediately looked at the new text message I just received. It read, Hey, me and the band are going to Amadeus tonight if you want to meet us there. The message was sent by Juke.

If I wanted to see Juke tonight, I would have to play my cards just right because I knew Lauri and Jesse would be incredibly upset if I didn’t spend their first night back with them.

“So what are your plans for the rest of the day?” I asked them as I shoved Jesse off of me and sat up.

“I’m going to unpack and then take a nap. We went bar hopping last night after we won so we didn’t get back to the hotel until very late,” Lauri said laughing as he stood up from my bed. “What are your plans for the evening?”

“Do you guys want to celebrate your win with me?”

“Sure. Want to go to a sports bar tonight?” Jesse asked as he stood up as well.

“I was hoping we could go to Amadeus actually,” I replied, looking down at my phone as if I were busy. I knew that both of them were probably giving me weird looks right now. We hardly ever went to Amadeus. They knew that it wasn’t really one of my favorite bars since it was always too crowded for my taste.

“I guess,” Jesse responded slowly. “Why do you want to go there?”

I had to think quickly, so it only took me a second to think of a good excuse that they couldn’t say no to. “Katrina’s going to be there.”

Jesse immediately smirked and looked at Lauri. Lauri attempted to look as if my statement hadn’t affected his decision. “Then we’ll definitely go tonight. I’m sure Lauri here missed his girlfriend dearly.”

“Shut up,” Lauri mumbled as he walked out of the room. Jesse playfully winked at me and followed. Apparently, he had been working on walking and was pretty successful at it, although he did walk with a slight limp.

A feeling of triumph flooded over me as I realized that I had just gotten away with it. Now all I had to do was make sure Katrina would be there. I grabbed my phone and texted Juke to tell him I’d be there, and then texted Katrina to tell her to go. She agreed to do so I didn’t have much convincing to do.

For the rest of the day, I merely lounged around the apartment. Even though Lauri and Jesse were both passed out in their rooms, it felt nice to have them back. The apartment seemed much livelier.

I studied for an hour or two before starting to get ready for my evening. I put on some makeup and dressed into faded light jeans and an embroidered white tank top with a black pinstriped blazer on top. I pinned the top of my curly hair back and just put on a long necklace.

Jesse, Lauri, Antero, and I left at nine and arrived at Amadeus not too long later. The second I entered, I remembered why I hated this place so much. All the tables were pretty much filled up, as was the bar. It usually wasn’t this crowded though.

I felt a hand on my elbow as I looked around for a table and stopped to see who it belonged to. I assumed it would be one of the guys I came with, so I was shocked when I came face to face with Theon, whose arm was still wrapped in a cast..

“Hey! Glad to see you could make it,” he greeted me as he gave me a hug.

“Hey!” I hugged him back. “This is Antero, Lauri, and Jesse,” I said, pointing to each one.

“Hey, nice to meet you all,” Theon said, shaking all of their hands. “We have a table set for us back here.” And then he led the way through the crowd.

“Why is it so crowded tonight?” I asked him as we weaved through the people.

“You’ll fine out,” he replied laughing. We got to the table, which was much bigger than I assumed it would be. All of the band’s girlfriends were present, plus a few of their friends, plus one more band that I recognized.

“Hey Natalia!” the blonde-haired beauty said. He got up to give me a hug.

“Hey Jonne,” I replied, hugging him back. We all introduced ourselves, and my life goal was finally complete as the members of Negative introduced themselves to me. I didn’t need someone to tell me that the bar was so crowded that night because Negative was playing there.

Luckily for me, the seat next to Juke and across from Katrina was empty so I sat down.

“I didn’t think you would be able to make it,” Juke said, motioning to Jesse.

“I told him that Katrina would be here. For Lauri’s sake, he agreed,” I replied as we both laughed. It was loud enough for Katrina to hear, but she didn’t since she was currently engaged in a conversation with Lauri and nothing else in the world mattered to her.

“I heard they won the championships,” he said as he took a sip of his beer.

“How’d you find out?” I asked him.

“It was on the news this morning. Lauri is as famous as Jonne now,” he said laughing.

Negative went up to perform a few songs as we all continued talking and joking around. And we finally got around to making solid plans about our snowboarding trip in a couple of weeks. We all decided that we would go right after the semester ended, which was in two more weeks. We would spend our Christmas and New Years there, then come back before Lovex had to record their new album.

When Negative came back, the bar started playing some pop/rock songs to dance to. The table got emptier as some people went home, some went to dance, and some went straight to the bar. Juke and I stayed in our seats since we were talking about the trip.

“I have a feeling that this trip will decide the winner of our bet,” I stated as I looked at Lauri and Katrina, who were dancing just a bit too close to be just friends.

“Probably. Maybe, when I win, I’ll make you sleep outside of the cabin...” he said, smirking, “…naked.”

I laughed at the comment. “Maybe I’ll just make you go to a gay bar with me,” I replied. “And maybe I’ll just hand your number out to a few people as well.”

“You wouldn’t,” Juke said as his eyes got wide. I smirked at him and took a sip of my beer. We passed a few more ideas around until we just got bored of the conversation.

“Do you want to dance?” he finally asked me. “That is…if Jesse isn’t going to murder me.”

“He probably left with some chick a while ago,” I replied laughing as I stood up and took his hand, dragging him out onto the dance floor.

We were dancing for a few minutes and seemed to get closer every minute. By the time our fifth song was over, I could feel his breath on my skin. I don’t what was going over me, but I was feeling pretty tempted at the moment.

“I’m going outside for a smoke. Want to come?” I whispered into this ear.

He looked at me a little shocked. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“I don’t,” I replied smirking as I took his hand and led him through the crowd. We just got through the back door when I turned around and pulled him toward me so our lips met in a heated kiss. He rested his hands on my lower back and pulled me closer into him as I wrapped my arms around his neck.

The feeling of his soft lips pleasuring mine satisfied the craving I had not too long ago on he dance floor. The feeling heightened even more as his tongue grazed over my lower lip. I part my lips slightly and our tongues met halfway in between. I was just about to deepen the kiss when I felt vibrating come from my pocket. Still not separating from Juke, I reached into my pocket and got out the disruption. Unfortunately, I had to pull away from his to read the text.

He looked confused for a second when I did, but then understood as soon as he saw me flip open the phone. The message was from Lauri stating that he was waiting outside for me since we were leaving. I frowned as I looked up at Juke. He must have understood what my expression meant because he looked slightly upset as well.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said, breaking our silence. He flashed me a soft smile and nodded. I reached up and kissed him lightly on the lips before turning around and going back inside the building, leaving Juke alone all alone in the empty alley.

Note: It's a few hours late, but this one is in celebration of Jukey-Poo's birthday so...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JUKE!