Eli Borrelli

51: Birthday

Eli POV.

On my actual birthday morning, I went on my morning run, ate a quick breakfast, and quickly drove to the gig.

I was the first one there, which didn't surprise me since it was just seven o'clock in the morning, but I started looking around and making sure everything was going to be okay. The place was not as big as the shows I had done in the past months, but I liked it better. It was more intimate and secluded than the other places, and it had a better backstage and bar, which were basically the best parts.

It was a pretty big nightclub in New York, that could fit a lot of people, but still had that intimate feel to it. I wasn't a big fan of stadium gigs or stuff like that, since I was always more of a club singer.

Jax was the first to come, with four monster energy drinks in his hands and a bag filled with snacks. I think that gives the best picture you could get of them. Still half asleep with a black hoodie almost covering their eyes, four energy drinks in their arms, that they could have easily put into the bag, but hadn't thought about it, and a bag filled with Cheetos.

"Привет," they said clearly still sleepy, but already opening the first drink.

"Доброе утро. Как дела?" I asked with a smirk seeing them already falling asleep.

"Хуй тебе!" he just called and flipped me off.

Jax was just seventeen years old, and even tho, they were older, than me, I felt protective of them. Their family faced a lot of backslash for being Russian, and even Jax had a lot of trouble in the music industry because no one wanted to hire someone with the last name, Ivanov. That just meant it was so much easier for me to get him to play with us, and he was just an amazing bassist.

Soon after Jax, Taylor came in with a coffee in his hand and politely refused the drink Jax was offering him. He really hated energy drinks. He always said how much he despised the taste, but after a while, he got used to Jax drinking them.

Taylor was in a lot of ways the most responsible out of us all. He always made sure we ate, when we were practicing for long hours and he always brought healthy snacks to counter the chips and candy, Jax brought along. He always looked like he was pulled straight from a book with a light academia aesthetic and an aura, that gave strong, I'm-not-meant-to-be-in-this-realm, vibes.

Dean and Elise came on the same subway, so they arrived at the same time.

Dean was the oldest one, but definitely not the most responsible. He had the worst ideas of anyone I knew, and if it weren't for Taylor, he would actually go through with jumping off a bridge just to try to swim to the other side.

He moved to New York from a small town in New Jersey, when he was just eighteen, to play the guitar. He played in a lot of bands, but none of them ever took off. Still, he got to live his dream of playing for money and living in New York.

Elise might just be the coolest person I ever knew. She was the best drummer I had ever met and an amazing person. She too moved to New York a year before, when she turned eighteen, with her best friend. At first, she went into fashion design but soon realized, that she was a drummer at heart and started playing. That's where she met Dean, and they became good friends. They actually dated for a while, which came as a huge shock to me. They just laughed, almost falling to the ground as I just had my mouth as wide as my eyes, still recovering from the shock.