Yawning, Keely half fell from bed after an hour of laying lazily in bed staring up at the ceiling with her limbs feeling pleasantly heavy and peaceful. Eventually she had convinced herself to get up, and had ended up rolling off the bed.

Though she stumbled - her natural lack of dexterity was shown to maximum with the effects of a night too full with sleep - Keely made it to the calender she had laid on the end table beside her phone and laptop. Looking at it, she crossed off yet another square with bright red pen. She'd been in New York for almost three weeks as shown by the calender.

Grabbing her phone, Keely sat - mostly because she was afraid she would fall down but half because she was scared she wouldn't be able to make it through the conversation on her two feet - on the ground cross-legged. She opened her phone up to the contacts and brought up her father's information.

Sighing, she looked down at his picture. He had been eating, and Keely had snapped the picture the moment he looked up.

But even if she had wanted to call him, there was no point. Her room had become a black hole for service. And she was just hoping her dad had called while she was stuck inside said black hole.

Suddenly, a knock rang through the room breaking through Keely's self-depressing mood.

With another yawn, Keely climbed to her feet before walking drunkenly down the stairs, keeping one hand carefully tight on the railing.

Smiling, she pulled open the door. It was about eleven, she was feeling really rock star, sleeping in until noon - well close enough - and sleeping in a fancy hotel room. Maybe it was Marissa, she should be back from her radio tour by now, it could one of Marco's many morning calls where he would basically drag her from bed for really no reason at all.

"Hi," Keely said in her surprise she forgot to be rude.

Seth raised one of those dark eyebrows, his hair was more than a bit mused as if he'd just rolled out of bed as well, and his eyes were looking hooded and tired.

Now she remembered. "What are you doing in my hotel?"

Rolling his eyes, Seth pushed off the hood of the blue hoodie he had pulled up before barely brushing her when he walked in through the door. Biting her lip in confusion, Keely closed the door behind him. It was a show of the tiredness that she even let him through the door.

Folding her arms over her chest, Keely turned around to glare at him. "Ever going to answer my question?"

The brown eyes didn't look loathing or sarcastically insulting for once, instead they just looked a bit exasperated. "I was drafted to come pick you up and become your personal driver today."

"Huh?" Keely said rather stupidly, but, really, what else could she say?

"Yeah, I thought Marco would have told you, you're going with us to a movie premiere tonight. Maureen wants you to get some publicity... You could probably skip it if you want her to murder you."

"Uh... yeah, that's what I want," she laughed in automatic reaction. "Little bit tired," she flicked a hand carelessly, but then remembered who she was talking to, and had to glower up at him. "Where are we going anyways?"

"Andy," he said simply, dipping his hand into the front pockets of his jeans.

"I have to change before we go," she pointed out her voice hard as she looked down at her little Scooby Doo shorts and U2 t-shirt.

When he didn't say a word in response, Keely tried very hard not to roll her eyes before turning away to get changed.

Pausing at the top of the stairs three minutes later, she had the strong urge to run down the stairs and rip her music from Seth's hands. There he was - he'd pulled the hood over his head again - looking through her music and Keely narrowed her eyes down at him. It was very hard for her to let people touch her music, it was like they were touching a part of her and she just really didn't trust people.

But instead of following the urge, she walked slowly quietly calm down the stairs where she grabbed his arm and pulled it back. "You said we were going to a photo shoot."

"Yes, Jesus, woman," he muttered.

Without noticing the movement, he cupped a hand over her elbow and kept a hold of it as he half dragged her to his car.

If it would have been any other time during the day, instead of when she'd just woken up and was groggy with too much sleep, Keely would have tried harder to pull her arm away from his grasp. But seeing as it wasn't, she only pulled weakly and disinterestedly back at his hold and then gave up, and let herself be pulled.

It wasn't until Seth had half pushed her into the passengers door and he was already backing up from his parking space that Keely gained back barely a glimmer of her old wits. "Why didn't anyone tell me about the movie premiere?"

"Because you've gone incognito?" he suggested vaguely.

Rolling her eyes, Keely hit him in the arm. "I was in the studio with Marco yesterday."

"Well, Marco didn't really even know until like ten last night. Colton is the one who always like organizes us, and he forgot to tell us until last night." Keely was just confused, why wasn't there any sarcasm or loathing in his voice?

"Why aren't you being an ass?" she asked suspiciously.

Now he seemed to remember as well, pulling up his hood so she couldn't see his face, Seth just said, "Go to hell."

"And now everything is back to normal," she sighed leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes.

*

Keely knew that she should be like seriously running out of her hotel room right now.

But she couldn't help it, underneath it all, she was a girl.

And that was her excuse for being a bit late.

Taking a deep sigh, Keely looked at herself in the mirror from all angles, yet again. This was the first time people were going to taking pictures of her - it really wasn't the same as a photo shoot, seriously - and she wanted to look perfect? Was she being too vain?

She's perfected her hair, it wasn't curly madly, instead with barely a curl except for where the layers in her hair styled it perfectly. Her skin looked perfect, still very pale and pristine, but her eyelids were black with a silver sheen going up to her eyebrows, eyeliner and mascara made her eyes even darker and smokier. For her lips, she just put on a clear lip gloss, keeping them a natural colour.

For her outfit, it was the dress she'd been fitted by Andy herself for tonight while Seth had slouched, scowling, in the waiting room.

There were very short cap sleeves adorning her shoulders for the hundred percent sequined black dress, it had a high neck in the front, but a deep open back, the whole thing almost glued to her body. Even Keely was pulling down a bit awkwardly on the hem of the dress, rising a couple inches over mid thigh.

In all, Keely would say she looked very good as she stood in front of the mirror, absentmindedly twirling the loose curls over her shoulders. She couldn't really take credit for it though, everything she'd done had been following step by step instructions by Andy and her team.

Her phone vibrated on the counter.

Snatching it up, Keely read the text from Marco: 'I swear to god Staub, you need to get here in a minute'

Rolling her eyes, Keely slipped on the ankle breaking red stilettos, it took her a second to get used to walking on them, like it always did when she wore high heels. But she was soon stumbling down to the hall to elevator. She was feeling a bit nervous, what would they say when they saw her? Would they say she was trying too hard?

As she walked through the doors, she had time to see the boys standing outside as her eyes skidded over them. Both Marco and Colton were wearing appropriate suits, but she almost laughed as she looked at a scowling Seth. He looked as if he'd been forced into the black dress pants, white shirt and black tie seeing as he'd thrown a leather jacket over top and was pulling discontently upon the tie.

When his chin tipped up towards her, Keely hastily looked away. Who really needed a run in with the asshole pop star?

"You look great," Marco smiled.

"Thank god you said that," she laughed, for once she felt graceful and floated down the steps towards where the three boys were standing outside their limo.

The rock star look was completed when Keely scowled at the limo.

"I really hate these things," she complained watching Colton climb in first. Did Seth's mouth just twitch? No, it was a trick of the light.

It didn't take too long to get there, but Keely was twitching with nerves. She laughed at Marco and Colton's constant razzing of each other, but it was more of a hysterical sound. She really didn't have to worry about it though because it didn't seem like either of them noticed.

The thing that was making her even more nervous was the way that Seth seemed to notice, because every time she would let loose one of those tight laughs, his eyes would dart quickly to her face. Why did it have to be the guy that she hated the most that seemed to actually know what was going on with her? Keely wondered angrily, she wasn't liking being in such close proximity to him.

And she meant close proximity. Because somehow, he was sitting beside her. And Keely knew that her muscles wouldn't be so rigid if it had been Colton sitting beside her, and her foot wouldn't be tapping as it was now. Actually, it probably would, she had a constantly moving foot and that's why Keely hated not having music in her ear, because she had no excuse for why she was tapping her foot like that. But her excuse lately was that she had a song stuck in her head so she was tapping out the beat to it, which actually wasn't even a lie.

This song stuck in her head was one she had wrote about she and Joe before she came to New York. They were recording it for the album, and she'd already laid down the vocals with Colton and Marco there, but there was something missing.

With the thought of the constant problem song entering her head again - though she'd finally gotten the thought of it out of her mind - Keely totally forgot that she was dressed up for a movie premiere in New York and she was seated beside someone she loathed.

But the paradise was gone as soon as it came when the limo slowed.

Within moments, Marco and Colton were out the doors, waving to the crowd that had gathered.

And she just froze. Thank god she was in the shadows so the cameras couldn't catch her as she stared blankly out into the crowd, the flashes already managing to blind her.

"C'mon," Seth muttered grabbing her arm. Like the morning, Keely was just too distracted to rip her arm away from his grasp, though she probably wouldn't have done that in front of the cameras.

He kept a hand on her elbow as he got out of the limo gracefully, Keely followed suit but with much less elegance.

Her eyes were wide. It was all she could do to stop herself from fainting, actually, if he wasn't holding onto her arm, Keely thought she might have already slumped to the ground. There were flashes coming from all directions that she wanted to flinch away from, then there were people shouting from every corner of her consciousness. Questions, demands, things she didn't even want to repeat.

Hearing a groan much closer to her, Seth dropped her arm. For a moment Keely pondered clinging herself to him. She didn't have anyone else around at the moment, and Seth would do just fine.

But before she could act on the thought, his arm wrapped securely around her waist, as if holding her there to make sure she didn't fall or run away. "Just think of whatever song you're writing, okay?" he whispered in her ear, surprising Keely that she could hear him over all the shouting.

Finally about halfway down the red carpet, smiling and posing naturally with Seth for the cameras but only thinking about Joe and the song, Keely gained conscience to what she was doing. Looking up at him, she asked clearly, "Why are you being nice today?"

"Call it a favour," he said looking back down at her.

*

The movie was probably good, not that Keely would have known since she spent the whole night trying to not be some psycho little girl pointing out all of the celebrities in the room as she sat sandwiched between Marco and Colton. It was a hard thing to do when she saw more than a few musicians who had albums in her room at the moment. All she wanted to do was run over and beg for an autograph, but she held herself in. Although she suspected that Seth might trip her if she tried.

After the movie, Keely was quickly informed by Colton - who had taken over making sure she didn't die of shock instead of Seth - that they would not be going home. Apparently they had to go to some after party thing, although Keely was still fighting the desire to run up to people.

And that's what lead her to that moment, leaning against a wall, after having danced with an actor named Edward Lorry. He turned out to be actually quite nice, but Keely hadn't really wanted to talk to him. She would have preferred to speak to musicians instead of actors.

"Want to dance?"

Keely smiled at Marco who was holding out a hand, pushing up from the wall she was leaning against she took the outstretched offer. "Anything for a friend," she smiled at him as she matched his step towards the dance floor.

There was a long moment of silence between them where Keely placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Okay," she smiled, pushing up his chin so that he looked down upon her instead of down at their feet. "I may have only known you for about a month Marco, but I can tell when you have to spit something out and really do not want to."

"Are you having fun though?" he asked, turning them around smoothly

Keely gave a small shrug. "You know what? I'm surprised that I can stand this, but the party bit is a lot better than the cameras."

"You'll get better at dealing with them," he laughed as he took a step back, he was a much better dancer than she. "I'm going to stop evading now Keel, what I have to tell you is that I'm not going to be able to make it into the studio tomorrow."

"Well, that sucks," she pouted for a moment, "But I do have Colton."

"Uh... that's what I wanted to talk to you about."

Immediately, Keely froze the dance and narrowed her eyes up at Marco. "What are you talking about?"

"It's called Colton being completely hopeless when it comes to doing his taxes, because apparently that was the only thing he doesn't have planned out, so he has to go meet with his brand new accountant. Yeah, yeah," he said to Keely's unasked question. "I know it's a Saturday, but it happens like this when you have to fit a life in between photo shoots and everything else. So, in summary, both me and Colton are going to have to bail for tomorrow."

"So what do I do?" she dropped the hand from his shoulder and flung the hand through the air. She lowered her voice because a few people glanced over at them. "So am I supposed to just not go to the studio tomorrow and leave it empty even though we booked it?"

He seemed to grimace, "Well, there's another option."

Dropping the hand to her waist, she couldn't get rid of the temper that had always so easily plagued her. "I'm listening."

Marco bit his lip for a second, and Keely couldn't help but narrow her eyes at him. "Um... well, I have this friend who is a really good producer. I mean, he's my age, but he's learnt more than I ever have, he co-produced his last album and he's an amazing song writer as well."

"Then who is this amazing person I'm going to be recording with tomorrow?" she asked, Keely's confusion grew when he grimaced and looked back down at their feet. "Oh, no, no," she said when a horrible possibility came over her. "No, no, no, you can't be serious."

"C'mon Keel," he said endearingly looking up. "Seth's already agreed to help, I mean, he may not be jumping in joy for having to cancel on Rachael but he's doing it."

"Okay, okay," she murmured pressing a hand lightly to her sequined covered heart. "I'll do it, and I'm doing it because I need to finish my album on time."

"There's the spirit," he laughed pulling on her nose brotherly. "You're not mad at me are you?"

"No," she smiled at him falsely, she couldn't get her mind back into their conversation, she was thinking about the horrors that the next day might bring. "I'm never mad at you Marco, you're like my best friend in this town and madly in love with a girl that I've really come to like so I can't be mad at you. But that doesn't mean I don't want to kill your band's lead singer."

"Hey!" he exclaimed, "What do you mean madly in love with someone? Keely! What are you talking about? Keel!"

Not paying heed to the rest of what Marco said, Keely left him on the dance floor. And dodging the famous bodies around her, made her way to where Seth was leaning against the wall. He did not look to happy at the moment, scowling down into the glass he was holding. Keely assumed it was because she'd come over.

Folding her arms, Keely stopped in front of him, "I think I need to talk to you."

"Oh really?" he asked disinterestedly.

Then she scowled down at his cup. "Really, you're drinking too? Are you going to get pissed tonight and then get arrested too? That's something you like to do, isn't it?"

Seth just smirked at her before draining what was left in the class. "I don't like it, love it."

But then the DJ interrupted before Keely could get into her rant, "This is a slower song so I want everyone on the dance floor. Even the ones just standing around talking, who should I use as an example? Hmm, why not my boy Seth Ryan and the gorgeous girl beside him Miss Keely Staub."

Looking around, Keely knew everyone could see her rather nervous and confused face. Turning her head back to Seth she lifted a hand, but then dropped it. "I-I-I... um."

"C'mon, I want everyone to grab a partner and get on the floor."

"Grow up Staub," Seth rolled his eyes, dropping his cup onto the table and gripping her by the elbow once again, towing her to the dance floor. It wasn't long until the DJ's wish came true.

Keely was surprised at the fact she didn't manage to make them both fall flat on their faces, she being the more or less accident prone type, klutz to put it in the simplest terms. But maybe it was the tension of the moment that made her surprisingly graceful for the moment. Feeling like an eighth grader at her first high school dance and being forced to dance with a guy by her friends, she put a hand on his shoulder and he put his hands on her waist as the song Strange And Beautiful started playing by Aqualung.

"So you wanted to talk to me?" he hinted.

"Not quite like this," she muttered, staring hard over his shoulder.

That just seemed to amuse him. "What did you want to do Staub? Yell at me some more?"

"It would really make me feel better," she assured him sourly as he spun her stylishly in a circle. "But what I wanted to talk to you about," Keely finished when she was in front of him again with her in his and the other on his shoulder. "It's about tomorrow, and how it's just going to be us there."

He rolled his eyes, still looking intently down at her. "Staub, you could probably shut up now and make the rest of this dance bearable."