A few days later found Keely strolling down the street in a plain gray tank top underneath a beige jacket, her ginger hair flooding down across her shoulders, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her torn jeans, humming carelessly to the Bob Dylan that was blasting through her ears.

For the practically the first time since coming to the city, she was getting looks from those that were passing her. Keely had a few theories as to why that was. One, she was probably humming louder than she thought she was. Two, the guitar case was hitting people as she walked. Three, they had just seen one of the many gossip magazines that had pictures from she and her friends' night out on the cover. And four, she was walking much slower than the rest of the people bustling about around her.

Although she had a sneaking suspicion that it was option number three.

Even Keely had stopped at one of the magazine stands to buy a copy, planning to read it later, the title proclaiming: 'Late Night Fun In NYC'. But it was stuffed into her shoulder bag at that moment.

Yes, she was in an incredibly good mood.

Her morning had gone perfectly. She'd had enough sleep. She had her guitar. She had Bob Dylan in her ears. She had a coffee in her hand, and had already eaten a bagel with enough cream cheese she thought it might make someone like Rachael Gosling who worked so hard to keep the model physique faint. There was a soft sun shining down between the enormous buildings, giving her a hint of warmness that she'd been missing during the cloudy October days so the tiny strip of her stomach showing between the top of her jeans and tank top was not freezing.

And it didn't matter that she was going to be two minutes late since she decided to walk most of the way to the studio, even though Seth would be sure to chew her out for that, but she doubted even Seth simply being in her day could ruin it.

Calling happy hellos to those inside UAE Records, Keely immediately made her way towards their habitual Studio C. The studio was beginning to seem like a home away from home, she had never used another one so far in her stint in New York. Sipping on her coffee, she could only wonder how she would feel about not having this studio while they recorded on the road.

She she opened the door, Keely was ready to scowl at Seth and make some snarky comment in response to the sharp words he'd hurl at her for being late. But when she stepped inside, the control room was empty.

Frowning she stepped forward so she could see inside the studio in case Seth was setting up.

But there was no one there either.

She was sure he hadn't been in the studio when she'd shown up, and the boy had never just left when she had been late before.

Anyways, if she needed any proof that he hadn't shown up yet, it was the fact that nothing had been set up inside the sound booth or the studio. And every time that she'd been late before, he'd have the board ready for whatever song they would be working on, and the same for the studio for if they were doing vocals or instruments.

Shrugging, she put down her coffee, bag and guitar case, moving into the studio to set up the mic since he'd told her the day before he thought they should use a U-87 mic for the vocals on the newest song.

Yet an hour and many cups of coffee later, there was still no sign of him.

By that time she was fuming, pacing up and down the control room, the coffee jittering about in her system.

The door swung open behind her, and furious, Keely spun on her heel, ready to tear him apart piece by piece. "Seth I swear to god-" she cut off hastily, when she saw shaggy blonde hair opposed to Seth's dark.

"Not quite Seth here, Keel," Marco said as he hauled in the case for his bass.

Once again she found herself frowning as she asked, "Where's Seth?"

Marco just shrugged, dropping his guitar case on the table behind the sound board. "Why would I know? Isn't he here with you?"

"No," Keely answered, her frown now becoming a scowl. "I've been waiting over an hour for him to show up."

"Seriously?" responded he, halting in opening his case.

"Yes I'm serious! Do you know where he could be?"

Pausing, a line came between Marco's brow as he thought about it. "Well, if he's not here he might still be at his apartment. He's not at the warehouse, Colton is there right now and would've chewed him out for not showing up. I can't really think of anywhere else he'd be. Unless-" he stopped his words abruptly with a grimace.

"Unless?" prompted Keely impatiently.

Shrugging he dug into the pocket of his jeans, bringing up a set of keys, pulling one off and dropping it into her palm. "Here's the key to his apartment."

For a moment Keely stared at him incredulously, but recovered quickly. She would like nothing better to take her anger out on Seth, and Marco was literally giving her the key to do it. "I don't know where his apartment is."

"Here..." Marco rattled off the address to her while Keely scribbled it down on a piece of paper.

As she snatched up her things, Marco followed her out, seeming quite okay with the fact they obviously weren't going to be recording for a while. But they got into separate cabs, Keely handing the driver the address to take her to wherever Seth's apartment might be while Marco went wherever he wanted, she hadn't bothered to find out.

Repeating the apartment number over and over underneath her breath as she walked through the floors once she arrived at the building, Keely finally got to the room on the top floor.

She got to a plain wooden door with the same number Marco had given herm and with no hesitation whatsoever, unlocked it and barged into the room. Any other time she might have taken in more than the bright lighting, but in her blinders made by anger, Keely only took the time to throw her things on a brown leather couch before starting down the hall she could see after the kitchen and living room. It was at that point almost two hours later than their scheduled studio time, and she was furious.

Checking through the doors in the hall, she didn't find what she was looking for until she opened the door at the very end of the hall.

Pushing her way through it, Keely first saw the brick wall across the room, but most of what might have been brick was taken up by an enormous window looking over the building next to it. Her eyes moved quickly through the room lit brightly by that sunlight she'd so appreciated that morning, a guitar hooked up to an amp in the corner, there was a plain wooden desk with the laptop she'd seen Seth use when he was working on the NSR album, the chair attached to it had a shirt flung carelessly on it, and there was a tattered anthology of William Blake poems on the desks as well.

Eventually her eyes made their way to the large bed in the middle of the room. And there was Seth, his head pressed into the sheets, one arm slung over a pillow on his side, the other hanging carelessly off the side of his bed and his blanket only covering his lower half, leaving his naked back bared to the world. Keely had a moment to be thankful he was alone instead of Rachael or one of those random one night stands she'd read about in Haley's gossip magazines before anger took over again.

And without pausing to even look at the indentations and plains of the smooth muscular back in front of her, she ripped the pillow from beneath his arm and swung it with all the strength she could muster. "Get the hell up!"

Seth shot up instantly in his bed, displacing the blanket to reveal a pair of grey sweat pants.

Keely could see the obvious dark bruising underneath his eyes paired with red rims, but she only swung the pillow again.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Seth incredulously, swiftly grabbing the pillow from her hands.

"What the hell am I doing?" she exclaimed, starting to feel quite hysterical that she'd simply found him sleeping when their session had started at noon. "I am waking up an idiotic, egotistical asshole of a pop star who doesn't seem to think he has to show up to the studio!" Keely yelled, stepping back and throwing the paper back she'd seen before at his head.

He simply snatched the book from the air, seeing as in her anger Keely's aim had turned horrible and the book would have flown across the room. "Could you not yell? Seriously," he said, rubbing his temples wearily.

Then it came together, the bruised eyes, the sleeping in, the not talking so loudly.

"You're hungover? What the fuck Seth?! We're supposed to be in the studio right now!" she screeched, wishing she could find something else to throw at him.

Groaning, he swung the blanket off his legs, standing up straight, making Keely have to tip her head upwards to look at him. "Yeah, I get it, Keely," he muttered, stretching slightly. That time she did notice the defined chest that all lead down to the v right over top of the sweat pants that hung low beneath his hipbones.

She might not like the boy, in fact at the moment she hated him with a blinding passion, but she was an eighteen year old girl. And it wasn't as if it was a secret Seth Ryan was more than good looking and fit, every woman, man and child in the country knew the same thing.

"Here," he yawned, pressing the book into her hands. "After I swallow a whole bottle of Advil, we can go," he told her, wincing at the sound of his own voice as he ran his hands through his hair, making it even messier than before.

Glaring at him, Keely retorted, "You might want to try a shower to. I might drunk off the fumes."

"Yeah," he answered carelessly, brushing past her.

As he didn't tell her to leave or stay put, Keely hesitated for a moment in her spot as he simply walked out of the room. But she found herself following him out of the room, straight down the hallway where she'd come from.

She followed him straight into the kitchen she'd passed before, but this time she took the time to look around. The hitting him with a pillow and throwing a book at his head seemed to have calmed her anger, at least momentarily.

All the floors were hardwood, the ceilings high and open with warm colors. And the kitchen he stopped at was separating from the living room with an island, bar stools set up at the island and a hardwood pathway between the back of the plain leather couch where her things still laid. The kitchen almost looked untouched, all granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances, lights that needn't be turned on hanging over the bar, underneath cupboards to light up the counter tops and on the ceiling.

The lights didn't need to be turned on seeing as the brick wall in the living room straight across from the kitchen was almost a whole window, following the example of his bedroom.

Not knowing what else to do since Seth still hadn't said a word to her, Keely boosted herself into one of the bar stools set up at the island. Being true to his word, Seth immediately went to the cupboard to find a bottle of Advil while Keely absentmindedly flipped through the poem anthology, wondering why Seth had a book like that.

From her experience with the boy, he didn't seem the kind to read much. Yes, he was a good song writer for lyrics and the music, plus she hadn't spent much time around him to be truthful, but she hadn't pegged him as the kind to be reading poetry in his spare time. Maybe she was being biased, thinking of all those times she'd seen him on the cover of a magazine since the time she'd been fourteen. But it was pretty clear evidence that he was more the partying type.

““If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite”,” quoted Seth, popping the pills into his mouth.

Glaring at him, Keely raised her eyes from the book to see him leaning casually against the counter, a glass of water in his hand still not having felt the need to put on a shirt. “Yeah, I know that one,” she snarled, “Jim Morrison named The Doors after William Blake's The Doors of Perception.”

Not phased by her nasty tone, Seth just arched an eyebrow at her, putting his glass down on the counter before leaving the kitchen.

Heaving a great sigh, Keely spun around on the stool, thinking about going to look out the window while she waited for him.

But then she finally really looked at the living room besides the couch and the window.

There was a matching loveseat and chair to the brown leather couch, and a television propped carelessly in the corner, but that wasn't what caught her eyes.

No what caught her eyes were the roof high shelves on either side of the wall, probably reaching to about fifteen feet high from her rough estimate.

Curiously she pushed off the stool, wandering towards them.

At first she just looked at the records on one wall, instead of the odd picture fit into the shelves to break it up. She'd never seen so much music in her life, she'd had a modest collection at home, but nothing compared to that. She hadn't known such a collection had existed. She could see Pierre de la Rue and Franz Berwald to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin to The Grateful Dead and Genesis, then to the present day vinyls she didn't know how he had gotten. The Used, Death Cab for Cutie, Jack Savoretti, Jimmy Eat World, Muse, Neon Trees, Modest Mouse, and the list just kept going and going on forever.

She had no idea how someone could even listen to that much music in one lifetime, she felt like her eyes were about to simply fall from her head as she stared at them, wondering if there was drool coming from her mouth at the time. And then he also had CDs slipped in with the records, Jack's Mannequin, NOFX, Pearl Jam, Placebo, Regina Spektor, Jeff Buckley and once again, the list went on and on.

Wandering to the other side of the room, Keely found a similar shelf, but instead of music, this time it was books.

Yes, she'd read during school, but nothing much afterwards, always having been focused on things that really didn't matter too much to her. But she'd never thought that Seth Ryan would have read more than her, apparently she was far from the truth. She had no idea who most of the authors were, but she could tell some of the books were extremely old.

He had everything from renaissance poetry to The Holy Barbarians by James Lipton set up in his shelf.

But then something else caught her eye before she could fully take in the enormity of all the authors she didn't know, it was one of the pictures she'd noticed before, squeezed into the middle of the shelves between the books.

For a moment she blinked, but Keely Keely quickly realized the people in the photo.

It was Colton, Marco and Seth; there was no doubt about it. They must have been only twelve in the picture, still with the glow of youth in their cheeks. Marco's hair was still the dirty blonde with his bright hazel eyes peeking out from beneath, Colton's hair still a mess of curls on top of his head with his familiar blues eyes. And there was Seth, his hair was cropped as it was no, standing up slightly in the front, wearing that smile she'd only gotten to see twice since she'd met him, but there was something different about his eyes. They were brighter almost, they looked happier as he he stood in the middle of his friends, his arms slung over their shoulders.

Frowning, Keely moved on to a different picture on the shelf. But this one she grabbed straight off the shelf. Seth was smiling in that photo, but it wasn't the same happiness she'd seen in the previous photo or the time she'd seen him smile before, there was no dimple either. And his eyes, his eyes were darker, almost... sad. Yet she still didn't linger too long on him in the photo, she was focused on the guy sitting beside him holding the guitar. The long blonde hair falling out from beneath the hat he was wearing, with familiar brown eyes.

Her brow furrowing Keely moved across the room, her eyes still on the photo as she moved to the records. Hastily she looked through the albums, and sure enough, she found the one she was looking for; Tyler Collins. He was exactly the same in the photo as he did on the cover of the album.

The frown becoming incredulous, she flipped over the album, scanning it until she found the producer. And then she saw that name too; Seth Ryan.

Seth had produced Tyler Collins album? He was one of her favorite artists that was still alive and working on music at only twenty five years old. She had every album he'd ever released in her room at home on vinyl, and she also had every one in CD form as well, bringing it with her to New York and was now sitting in her hotel room.

How had she listened to those albums over and over, marveling at the amazing sound he produced, the perfect lyrics and never noticed that Seth had produced the album? A closer look revealed he was also co-writer on half of the songs, and even helped record some of the guitar tracks. Once again, Keely could only think, how could she not have known?

“You okay there?”

Keely jumped violently at the sound of his voice, her mouth still slightly agape as she turned to look at him.

Seth was just wearing a pair of his regular jeans held up by a plain black belt and a long sleeved white shirt, rubbing a towel through his soaping hair. Keely hadn't realized she'd been looking at his music and book collection for so long.

“You produced Tyler Collins?” she asked, her eyes still wide.

He nodded, tossing the towel to the side as he moved closer to her. “Just his past two albums, I'll be working with him when our tour is completely over again on his newest.”

Chewing on her lip, Keely kept in the words about those being her two favorite albums from Tyler Collins. “So you're like... friends with him?” she asked slowly. Some part of her knew that she shouldn't be in such a shock, seeing as Seth had been famous since he was seventeen and was now twenty one, but she had never thought he'd know one of her heroes.

“Yeah, he's a cool guy, are you okay? You look like you're about to faint,” he observed looking amused.

“I'm fine,” she snapped at him thoughtlessly.

He rolled his eyes at her, taking the record and picture frame from her grasp.

“Yeah, and you're becoming a little bit of a stalker,” he muttered, but sounded close to laughter.

In her shock, Keely let it go, still thinking about Tyler Collins being friends with the boy she mostly hated, but was her co-writer and producer. It was a bit of a surprise for her. And to think she'd had some of Seth's music all along.

She bit down on her lip watching as Seth carefully slid the record back into place, then crossed the room to place the picture down again.

“You ready to go record something?” he asked, snatching up his care keys from the end table.

Mutely Keely nodded.

But as they walked out of his apartment, she stole a glance towards him as Seth looked straight forward, thinking about the difference she'd noticed in him between the two photos. She had to be just over thinking things, right? The whole idea that you could simply tell someone was different in anything but appearance in a photo was absurd... wasn't it?

Yet she could see the difference between the photo of him as a child with his two best friends and the twenty one year old version of himself at that moment.