The days had once again turned into what Keely expected from New York City in October, and she'd bundled herself into a baggy gray sweatshirt. And even when she left the sharp wind from the streets for the warmth of UAE Records, she still kept her ice cold hands covered in the sleeves that were just too long for her.

She was just thankful that today they were only supposed to be working on the vocals, because she doubted her frozen fingers would be able to handle playing the guitar at that moment.

“Keely!”

That was one of the few voices in the world that could make her stop in her tracks. “Yes?” Keely answered smoothly, spinning around on her converse shoe heel.

“I need to talk to you and Seth later,” said Maureen in that commanding voice of hers, looking dignified as always. Once again, Keely noticed the slight horde of people behind the woman, her best guess was that they might be interns or A and R reps.

Nodding quickly, she replied, “What time?”

“Don't worry, I'll come and get you two when I'm free.”

With those words Ms Jones walked away in her calm gait, while the people stumbled after her, causing Keely to stiffen in case she was knocked over.

Turning around, she started to walk to the studio, but that same voice caused her to stop again. “Oh, and if you need to brush your hair, I'm sure Jordan could lend you a brush.”

Scowling Keely kept walking, wondering why every one seemed to have an obsession with telling her when her hair was messy, plus who was Jordan? Going down to the studio, she began to brush her with her fingers, the wind outside having played havoc with it.

When she pushed open the door to the studio, she just had time to scowl at the empty control room before the door was opened behind her again.

Spinning around, she saw Seth, a tray with two disposable mugs inside. His hair was looking even messier than normal, making Keely think that he probably had been walking in the wind as well. And the gray hoodie beneath his black leather jacket could only hint to the fact that she hadn't been the only one bundling up against the cold either.

“Oh, good, you're here,” Seth said hurriedly, dropping the tray on the back table.

Keely was busy beaming at the tray, she hadn't had time to even make coffee if she wanted to be at the studio by nine in the morning. “You brought coffee?”

Yet her words didn't even seem to penetrate Seth's mind, because when she looked away from the coffee to him, Keely saw him opening the door to the hall again. “C'mon, we've got to go like right now.”

“But-coffee!” she returned, pointing to the table.

He rolled his eyes, saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, in a minute.”

“Seth!” Keely whined.

Giving a loud sigh, Seth simply leaned forward, grabbing her by the hand and dragging her out of the control room. “I have to show you something,” he explained, his long jean clad legs eating up the ground so quickly that Keely almost had to jog behind him.

They were once again attracting stares for their odd behavior, but Keely barely noticed as she tried to keep up with him.

“What is it?” she asked, half running as they dodged between people.

All sorts of horrible things were going through her mind since she couldn't see a good reason that Seth would be acting this way. He'd done this to her before, but had been being arrogant and simply annoying at the time so it hadn't bothered her so much, yet this time he hadn't even bothered to insult her.

“You'll see,” he answered, sending her a glance over his shoulder as he pushed through the back door of the studio that lead into the alley. Still tugging her by the hand, he took the steps down to the concrete by two gracefully while Keely was trying to make sure she didn't fall on her face.

When she was safely on two feet upon the pavement, Keely looked around the damp alley, half expecting to see Marco's mangled body, though she couldn't understand why Seth would be excited about that. But all she saw was the regular trash bins and Seth's car parked in the middle. It was almost a let down.

“What are we doing out here?” Keely asked, tugging her hand from his and wrapping her sweater tighter around her. “It's freezing today!”

Rolling his eyes, Seth nudged her forward until she was at the hood of the car. “Just stay here.”

Frowning, Keely brought her hands in the front of her mouth, blowing on them in hopes that they wouldn't freeze. It was much too cold for October, that she was sure of. Yet she couldn't help but watch curiously as Seth dropped into his car, turned on the engine and turned up the volume until it was thudding around them in the alley.

“You wanted to show me that you have a loud stereo in your car?” Keely asked sarcastically, almost having to shout over the radio.

“Just wait for it,” he answered, waving a careless hand at her.

Scowling Keely stood still.

But after listening to the DJ blab on about something new that the Rolling Stones were feuding about, she started to lose her patience.

“Seth, c'mon-”

She was hastily cut off when he simply put his hand over her mouth.

Her eyes widened in shock for a moment, but the shock quickly wore off and she found herself glowering up at him. Thoughts of biting his hand were running through her mind while the radio announcer was talking about a new song he was going to play.

“If you bite my hand I'm going to stop being so nice to you,” Seth warned.

All she wanted to say in response was ask him if had been being nice to her, what was his mean, but his hand was blocking her words.

“Just shut up for a second.”

At that moment she came very close to biting his hand, but a song came onto the radio.

It was more than familiar, and Keely found her annoyance with Seth melting away with every note played on the guitar in the song. She could remember plainly playing those notes until her fingers had built up another round of guitar callouses. Then the drums began in the back, the bass joined in after and then came the vocals.

Finally Seth dropped his hand from her mouth, and Keely didn't even bother to say a word to him. Her eyes had gone slightly unfocused as she listened to herself singing on the radio, if she thought listening to herself in the studio was an out of body experience, it was nothing compared to this. The softness of the song was building into a steady tension that she could feel in the pit of her stomach, and then the drums became louder as the guitar was roughing up.

“That's my song...” Keely said loudly, looking up at Seth blankly.

Looking as if what he really wanted to do was laugh, he simply smiled, the dimple in his left cheek winking.

Pointing a finger at his car, she repeated, “That's my song.”

“Yeah, that's your song, Staub.”

The shock was wearing off, and the smile was building up onto her lips as she listened.

“That's my song!” she squealed, finally getting over the odd experience of hearing herself on the radio. And without thinking about what she was doing, she threw herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck.

This time Seth really did laugh, giving her a squeeze around the waist.

Letting go of him, she felt herself almost bouncing up and down, and even gave herself a little clap. “My song is on the radio,” she murmured, her words getting lost underneath the sound of the radio while the music faded.

“Yeah, and now it's starting to get cold,” Seth observed, rubbing his hands together too.

Still wearing that enormous smile that almost stretched her mouth, Keely nodded to him absentmindedly. “I'll see you inside,” she answered him quickly, moving towards the door that they'd come through.

Her song was on the radio. Really, their song was on the radio, because as much as she'd like to take credit for the incredible song she'd worked so hard on, Keely knew that half of the work went into Seth's hands as well. He'd helped her write the lyrics, the music, he'd produced it, spent hours late in the studio mixing the tracks and even had to deal with Marco complaining about having to play the bass line for the twenty-ninth time.

If she was thinking about who she would tell first about her song being on the radio, oddly it would have been Seth, as much as she disliked the boy and as much as he annoyed her, he would still be the first one she'd tell about it. But who would she tell afterwards? There was really only one person else she could call at the moment.

Pulling her phone clumsily from her pocket with clumsy fingers, Keely quickly dialed the number two, and Joseph's name came up.

“Hey Keel,” came Joe's voice brightly from the other end of the line.

She smiled broadly at the sound of his voice, and started in a hurry, “Guess what? My-”

“Oh, shit, one second,” he told her in an absent voice.

While waiting for him to come back on the line, Keely wandered into the studio thoughtlessly, taking her perch on a stool set up in front of one of the mics. The smile still enormous upon her face, Keely began to tap her fingers unconsciously to the beat from her own her song upon the stool she was sitting on.

But then came Joe's voice, but it sounded as if he was holding the phone down low, making his voice almost wavering. “No, we're not here to rebuild the bathroom at your house, Frank. Just here for planks, we'll do that next week.”

The smile left her face, taking all thoughts from her mind along with it.

“Hey, sorry, your dad was trying to convince me to get the stuff to redo one of the bathrooms in the house when we're just supposed to be getting wood to fix some of the fences the horses broke down.”

“You're with my dad?” Keely asked quietly.

“Yup, weekly hardware store trip, didn't stop happening when you left for New York.”

Not knowing what to say to that, she ran a hand over her mouth, her eyes no longer seeing the glass in front of her anymore. Her dad could take the time to go to the hardware store with Joseph who had no blood relationship to him at all, but he couldn't even take the time to answer his only daughter's bi-weekly phone calls.

How was a person supposed to react to that, honestly? Keely would like an answer, from anybody at that point. How was a person supposed to act when their own father, who was all she had left as blood that had wanted her after her mother died, didn't even want to talk to her?

“Hang on one second, I'll get him on the phone,” said Joe quickly in her ear.

Her voice thick, she answered thickly, “Thanks Joseph.”

A moment passed by, and Keely could only assume that he had pressed his hand over the mouth piece this time since she couldn't hear him speaking, before he came back on the line. “Sorry, Keely, he says he's busy.”

Feeling her eyes start to well up with tears, she hastily wiped her sleeve over them, hoping absentmindedly that they wouldn't be red afterwards. “Oh, okay,” she answered, her throat tight this time.

At that moment Seth barged through the door from the control room, Keely could only wonder if had some kind of second sense when it came to her being in tears or at least close to them. Again she hastily wiped her sleeve over her eyes, like she needed to be crying in front of Seth again. Their relationship was tense enough, if it could even be called a relationship, and he didn't need to see her cry every time.

“Yeah... sorry, what did you want to tell me?”

Keely was about to answer, pointedly looking away from Seth, but it was hard to look away when he stopped right in front of her.

Confused she tipped her head up to him, letting her ginger hair fall away from her face.

But Seth didn't reveal an explanation, just snatched the phone from her hands. Pressing it to his ear, he spoke in a stiff tone, “Sorry, whoever you are, no cell phones in my studio.”

“What the hell?” Keely said, but it came out weak.

He simply ended the call and tossed her phone to her before going to drag a microphone from the corner.

Stuffing the phone back into her front pocket, Keely couldn't even work through the feeling of abandonment and rejection to feel at least some annoyance to Seth. So instead she just looked away from him, towards the glass into the control room, giving a loud sniff as she brushed under her eyes with her gray sleeves again.

A moment passed in complete silence with her staring pointedly at the pane of glass, trying to stop her thoughts from going to her father. But she couldn't help it. She knew very well she'd taken about to leaving the wrong way, before he'd even woke up, but she hadn't left forever, and she did call. How could a father do that to their daughter when they really had no one else? Because there was just each other left; Brooke had died, Frank's parents had died too and Brooke's parents hadn't even bothered to stay in touch after her death.

As she was still staring into the window without really seeing it, Keely eyes caught sight of Seth's reflection as he left the mic halfway through setting up before he came in front of her eye line, pulling a stool up with him.

Sheepishly, Keely gave another sigh, looking over his shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asked, oddly sounding concerned.

Staring pointedly at the back of his head in his reflection, she turned her lips slightly, the smile even looked pathetic in her mirror counterpart. “I'm fine.”

“You know what fine stands for? Freaked out, insecure, neurotic and emotional.”

That got half a laugh out of her, the tears coming terribly close to falling again, making Keely hastily wipe her eyes. “Yeah, I know, I've seen that movie too.”

“Should have guessed.”

“It is Mark Wahlberg, after all.”

“Yeah, I was more going to see it for the Charlize Theron aspect,” answered Seth, making her shake her head slightly, giving another little smile. Another moment of silence passed with her stubbornly not looking at him.

But then in the mirror she saw him move forward slightly, and when his hand lightly brushed her knee, it successfully got to her to look his way.

Once again his eyes were shining slightly gold beneath the soft lighting inside the studio, but there was little touch of darkness inside them that she saw every time she looked at him lately even although the primary emotion she could see as she searched them was worry. “How are you, really?” he asked seriously.

“Why should I tell you?” she retorted sharply.

His mouth twitched half heartedly, and an odd look flashed before his eyes, vanishing almost instantly, leaving Keely to wonder if she'd imagined it. “Because I'm your co-writer, and even if you don't tell me right now, I'm going to find out anyways. So, tell me, honestly.”

“Honestly?” she answered, running a hand through her hair. “I want to scream and punch somebody, but at the same time I want to cry for a week.”

This time he gave her a small grin, replying, “Well, I can take the punching, but maybe not the crying for a week in the studio. As for the screaming, there's a good reason why studios are sound proof, you know.”

Surprisingly, she found herself laughing, “You want me to scream?”

“Well, if you're going to literally scream, at least let me go to the control room first. But I was thinking I could give you some Joan Jett backing in the headphones so you could just sing, scream if you want.”

Waiting a beat, Keely couldn't help herself, it seemed like she had a big mouth lately. “So what's wrong with you?”

“What?” he retorted blankly.

She frowned at him. “I'm not an idiot, whatever you might think, I know there's something.”

Seth just snorted, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Oh, really?”

He just looked at her, the worry that his eyes had held before was completely gone, and she found that she was right, he did look sad.

“You two-”

Keely jumped violently at the sound of a third voice, looking wildly around the room, but finding no one but themselves in the studio. Yet when she looked at Seth, she found he was half turned to the control room, and after a moment of deliberation, looked through the window as well.

Maureen was looking amused yet again, and Keely couldn't help the way her eyes narrowed at the mirror. What was with that look? What was really so funny about them?

It was Seth who recovered the quickest, again. “Oh, hey, do you want us to go to your office?”

“No need,” she answered, waving one of her hands carelessly while the other stayed on the intercom button. “I just wanted to tell you and Keely that I got her a slot at the Chrome Palace for two weeks today, and since we've yet to find her a back-up band, I'm expecting NSR to fill in the spot.”

Frown slightly, Seth threw a glance back to Keely before focusing on Ms Jones. “But I thought we agreed we didn't want anymore NSR interference than there's already been.”

“Yes, I do remember your little rant, Seth. We just won't announce that you're backing her up, you can wear ZZ Top beards if you want, we'll just have it as new artist Keely Staub opening.”

With that Maureen marched out of the office, clearly stating the conversation was over.

A moment of silence passed between them.

“So you're backing me up,” said Keely abruptly, her voice feeling slightly hoarse, “Must be a giant step down from what you're used to, pop star.”

Snorting, Seth pushed up from his stool, dipping his head quickly before it could hit one of the mics still set up precariously around the room. “Let me tell you, it's far from a step down. I'd rather jump off The Empire State Building than ever have to play one of NSR's old music again. You want that coffee, Staub?” he changed topics abruptly, pulling open the door into the studio, but holding it open as he looked back to her.

Keely blinked at him once before scrambling to her feet, mutter, “Oh, god, yes,” as she brushed past him, making Seth chuckle.

- Okay here we are, I was going to post this yesterday, but, yeah, obviously I didn't.

My head is literally throbbing.

Any people under legal drinking age, underage drinking is a bad bad thing! Never do it, I'll be going to hell anyways, so it doesn't matter now, lol.

But it was major fun. I found it the funniest that my sister was insulted she didn't get invited to sexy neighbor/boyfriend's birthday so she tried to get me in trouble so I wouldn't be able to go. She just told my parents that I was going to sneak into a bar underage. And you know what they did? They laughed! My parents are so chill about things sometimes it's almost weird. Although there's a reason I haven't told them I'm dating the sexy neighbor, that's the time my dad gets psycho over protective.

Anyways, party was awesome! Great live music, some great friends that always make me laugh, and after the bar we had a bonfire in the back field, and I got to choose the music. But who else could? I can kick all my friend's asses when it comes to musical knowledge. I was raised by a man who is literally a music encyclopedia, it was passed on.

It was all worth doing all that work to find that stupid motorcycle part. First I had to take a picture of the broken one and show it to the guys at the store so they could get me a new one, and wrapping it? That was a whole other issue.