“Hey stranger,” said Keely, pressing the phone to her ear. Distractedly she sent a little wave in Mr Englis' direction with the hand that held her travelling mug before pushing through the front doors of the hotel with her hip.

The smile was apparent in Jenny's voice as she answered, “Hi, it feels like we haven't talked in forever.”

Chuckling she shook her head, replied, “Coop, it's been two days!” Standing on the corner of the typically damp street, she pondered grabbing a cab to take her to the UAE Records. It was rather cold outside, proved by the leather jacket, dark jeans with no rips and the black toque she had over her fiery red hair.

Yet she still decided to walk instead of just hailing one of the many flashy yellow cabs that were passing by, because she'd never really been comfortable talking on the phone while another person was around, it just felt rude somehow. Unless the person you were standing beside was drunk. That was the one exception. So she set off down the road, dodging between people with ease as she straightened her bag over her shoulder, keeping the phone tight to her ear.

“You're not doing anything, right?”

Taking a hasty sip of her coffee, Keely retorted, “Not at the moment, just getting my daily exercise. You've got me on a rare free moment, I'm walking down to UAE as we speak to hold auditions for my back up band.”

Jenny made an interested sound in the back of her throat. “Do you have anyone in mind for the tour yet?”

“No, Seth has been keeping the list under wraps,” Keely said, scowling at the memory. Mr Seth Ryan – or whatever his real last name was – had decided it would be incredibly funny to literally hold the list of bands that would be trying out over her head, seeing as her height could not compare to his six foot two, there had been no competition.

“He likes to annoy you,” informed Jenny.

Snorting, she looked across the road before hastily crossing, skipping lightly over the puddles building at the curb. “I think I've found that one out for myself.”

She laughed, “Well at least you're not going to murder him.

“I wouldn't be so sure.”

The girl laughed again, before saying, “So... have you been hanging out with Marco lately?”

Instantly the smile spread across her face. Those two were just too cute. Just the day before Marco had been asking her, in that sly secretive tone, if she had talked to Miss Jennifer Cooper lately. Although Keely knew very well that if it kept going on in such a fashion, it would begin to sound annoyingly like teenagers. The same thing had happened when Joe and Haley had first gone out, started out cute and turned sour in her mind.

“Yes, I went out with him and Colton for Chinese food yesterday. And you know what? You're nineteen, he's twenty one, it's time to get over the whole high school “did he mention me” stuff soon, Jenny.”

“That's so not what this is!” she protested.

Chuckling, Keely answered, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, like I haven't heard that before. But just so you know, he was asking about you too.”

With that she cut the line quickly, Keely thought that would be a good point. The last part of a conversation is what sticks in your mind the longest, right? That's what they say. So let that settle in the girl's mind and maybe, just maybe, they'll figure it all out before the get annoying like Joe and Hales.

There was still a while for her to walk until she got to UAE, but that didn't really bother her. All Keely did was slip on her headphones, search quickly through her music, decide that The Dandy Warhols had it and she was good to go.

She arrived at the studio with a good half an hour to spare, so saying high to an engineer that was hanging around the kitchen, Keely made her way to one of the plush waiting couches that were usually reserved for those important people that made appointments with Maureen. Much more important than a lowly artist working on their first album. But when she found them empty, she curled onto one.

Dropping her bag on top of her curled legs, Keely pulled her songbook from it thoughtfully. She may not be at the studio for her album today, but that didn't mean she couldn't think about it, or talk to Seth about it, after all she was yet to find a time when he wasn't willing to talk about music.

Flipping through the worn pages carefully, she looked studiously over each song. There were more than a few about Tony – all very much uncomplimentary – but, oddly, now she just didn't care enough about those songs to record another, she and Seth had already put one to memory, why did her album need another? All of the drama seemed so far away, and being clear from it all, Keely could clearly see the truth. He was her high school boyfriend, and really nothing more. As a friend, he was a pretty good guy. As a boyfriend? Man, that boy was a jerk. Still every girl needs to date at least one jerk to know who the good ones are, right?

Fingers snapping in front of her eyes had Keely blinking and looking up.

“You're here-”

But Seth just waved her would be words carelessly to the side. “We've done that whole back and forth before, no need to do it again.”

Keely glowered up at him, sometimes it was hard to remember why he annoyed her so much, and sometimes it was easy.

Still before she could make one snotty remark towards him, he'd sat down hastily beside her, close enough his thigh brushed her calf that she had tucked up on the couch. His eyes were looking more gold than normal, and Keely found herself unconsciously chewing on the side of her lip as she looked at him.

“I need to talk to you about something,” he told her, taking the song book from her hands and carefully closing it. He looked strangely, almost excited.

Looking at his shining eyes, she couldn't help but chuckle, “What?”

“Well, you know how we were going to do a duet together in the first place?-” she nodded “-But I said I didn't want your first single-”

“Get to the point!” Keely laughed.

“I still want to do a duet, well, not still, I want to do a duet now. We'll put it on your album. But we won't release the single right away, that would kind of defeat the whole point of not doing the duet together in the first place, maybe we won't release it until the last song off your album or maybe we won't release it at all. But it'd be good in more ways than one, so what do you say?”

He was now grinning at her, the side of his mouth quirked up in a crooked grin, and Keely could feel a similar expression tugging on her mouth. He was right, of course he was right, he was always right when it came to music. And talk about musical chemistry. She hadn't had to worry when she'd been singing with him, it had just been natural, everything was perfect. In fact, although it was another thing that she'd never admit out loud to anyone, she couldn't think of anyone else that she'd want to do a duet with besides him.

“Yeah, okay,” she said, finally letting the smile move fully on to her face, “What song do you have in mind, is it the one you wrote?”

“I want to do Under Pressure,” Seth replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

That had Keely freezing, her voice catching in her throat. Sure, they'd sung a bit of the song easily at the warehouse, but it was more fooling around, they hadn't been really trying. It wasn't a simple song in any sense, not musically or vocally, Freddie Mercury had hit some notes in that song that made her a bit dizzy to think about. And she had no doubt that Seth would be doing Bowie, he couldn't handle Mercury if she couldn't.

“You think I can handle the vocals of that song?” she asked, biting on her lip again, but this time for an entirely different reason.

Seth rolled his eyes, tapping her leg with the song book held in his hands. “I wouldn't ask you to do the song if I didn't think you could do it, it's one of my favourites and I don't want to butcher it. You're probably the only person I know off of Broadway that could handle that song.”

Before Keely could fully bask in the compliment, or at least smirk at him and make a snotty comment, Seth pushed her songbook back into her bag and grabbed her hands, pulling her to her feet. “We'll start on it tomorrow, but right now, we have to find you a back up band.”

Hastily following behind him, Keely couldn't help but ask, “Any guesses as to who will be good?”

He just shrugged, pulling her down a different hall that lead them away from their habitual studio, and instead to the conference rooms set up for meetings. “No idea, I didn't put the list together, Ms Jones did, I'm jut here to help.”

“No way, get out,” Seth ordered, pointing at the door.

Leaning over to him, Keely whispered so Maureen who sat at her left wouldn't hear, “You're being mean now, Ryan.”

He snorted, “Do you want to have an electric pop band behind you? Because if you do, I'll call them back.”

Scowling, she took out her frustration by kicking him in the ankle beneath the table. “You know I didn't mean that,” she snarled, although still in undertones, “But that doesn't mean you have to tell be an ass to the bands.”

Swearing he inched his chair towards her. “I'm just-”

“If you two are done arguing,” interrupted Maureen, sounding overwhelmingly bored. She didn't even bother to look at them when she spoke even though both Keely and Seth's heads snapped in her direction, she was looking at the planner in front of her, doing something that was beyond Keely. “We have two more bands to listen to.”

Nodding mutely, Keely sank back into her chair, although she took the time to send a sharp glare in Seth's direction, but he just smirked at her.

Rolling her eyes, she picked up the pen on the table, looking down at the sheet of paper listing the bands that sat on the table since she wasn't sure she'd be able to resist the urge to kick him again if she was looking in his direction.

Absentmindedly she began to cross through names on the sheet. So far they'd only seen one band that seemed good. Well, that was unfair. All the bands were good. But they didn't exactly have her sound, she didn't want to go for a Sinatra sound without the orchestra, no matter how much she loved old blue eyes, it just wasn't the kind of music they were going for. The same with the electronic band that Seth had just kicked out, and countless others.

So far only one band had the sound she was looking for, back to basics rock music, with a little bit of a throw back to the sixties sound and could handle difficult bars or deal with acoustic sets and still make them sound good. Their name was Bitter Rivals, but they also happened to be in their late twenties and early thirties, and while that might not usually be a problem, Seth had said they'd wait to see all the bands before they settled on one. Maureen also agreed with that, she thought a younger band would give Keely more chemistry when they were on stage.

The next band had a heavy metal sound, and while they were good, it still wasn't exactly what they were going for still.

“If we don't find you a younger band, you're sharing a tour bus with old guys,” Seth whispered in her ear.

Not even bothering to look at him, Keely scowled forward, shoving him away by hands on his shoulder.

“Hold it for one more song,” Maureen warned, “One more band.”

The band strolled inside, they looked to be about her age, one of them might have even been younger. There were just three boys, mostly floppy messy hair falling over their foreheads but still showing their enormous wide eyes to be shown as they swallowed everything in sight. Keely felt a smile tugging at the side of her mouth, it was probably their first time in the studio.

Wordlessly Maureen gestured them to the little set that was in front of their table. The drummer was looking a little disgruntled as he sat down at the drums. But Keely was looking them all over, to the boy who was opening his guitar case to reveal a bass guitar and back to the last boy who had already gotten his guitar loose and was... waving at them?

“Hey man,” Seth greeted, raising one hand.

“I didn't know you were going to be here,” said the guitarist, running a hand through his wavy brown hair.

“Well, I am.”

Confused Keely edged her seat over to Seth, making all the times she shuffled away from him during day pointless. “You know them?” she asked quietly as the three boys continued on getting ready to play their one song.

He nodded, grinning at her. “Yeah, I didn't know they were trying out though. They are your back up band, rebel, no doubt about it.”

“How do you know them?”

“I've seen them play a couple times, even played with them once or twice. I mean, they're not going to end up being Led Zeppelin or anything, but they're good. I shouldn't thought about them,” he murmured, his eyes thoughtful as he looked over the boys, “They're perfect for you.”

Settling back, Keely watched carefully.

Their name proved to be Cavern Jets, she really needed to ask them where they'd thought about that one, and they played a cover song. It was The Who's I Can See For Miles. And the smile spread across her face instantly.

Of course Seth was right, she would be getting tired of the fact if she wasn't so bloody happy. They were perfect. They had the perfect sound for what she was going for on her album, they shared that with The Bitter Rivals, but the difference was that they played looser, as if they just loved music and didn't care about anything else. Plus there was the advantage of them not being ten years older than she.

Although she would have liked to jump up and say that they got the job instantly, Maureen took over before she had the chance.

Wearing her business face, Ms Jones stood up, saying emotionlessly, “Thank you. We'll be in touch.”

The boys nodded, still looking a bit wide eyed before packing up their things and leaving the room. The moment the door closed behind them, Keely turned to Maureen, saying quickly, “They're the ones.”

But it wasn't only her voice that said the words.

Keely laughed loudly at Seth's words that exactly mimicked hers.

Ms Jones smiled, packing up her things from the table. “Yes, I figured so much. I'll give them a call tomorrow, and tell them, shall I?”

Nodding eagerly, Keely watched as the woman left the room. “We got my back up band!” she exclaimed, giddily.

“Yeah, we did,” smiled Seth, standing up.

Hastily she scrambled to her feet, following Seth as he moved towards the door. But when they exited the room, the band Cavern Jets wasn't there anymore. Nor were they anywhere in the UAE as they walked towards the lobby.

“So are the guys meeting up at the warehouse today?” asked Keely, falling into step with Seth.

“No way.”

“Huh?” she returned, confused. Someone was almost always at the warehouse.

Shaking his head, Seth nudged her out the doors of the studio pointedly so they were on the street. “You're performance at the Chrome Palace is tomorrow, rebel. We're all taking the day off. Tomorrow we'll meet up for the sound check there, but for now, we just all need the break. So no singing anymore today, save your voice.”

Frowning, Keely looked across the road. She didn't think that had ever happened since she'd moved to New York, been told to not sing for an entire day. It just seemed like too much.

“C'mon,” Seth smirked, seeming amused by her expression, “I'll drive you back to your place.”

- Okay, I'm beginning this by saying sorry, this chapter was so crappy. It was almost literally painful to write it. It was kind of just a filler chapter, the things needed to be done, but were not too fun to write.

Well, there we go. The video on the side is The Who's I Can See For Miles.

Picture on the side is kind of like NSR, just reminded me of them, especially with Seth scowling in the background haha.

Does anyone get the name Cavern Jets? Because if you get the reference right, I will be your best friend for ever, but sorry you still can't join the super cool club, you need Clapton's permission to join.

Yeah I'm not making sense to anyone except ONE person right now. Ten guesses who.

I picked up my sister from a bar last night, that was fun. Note the sarcasm. I had to stop four times on the way home so she didn't puke in my car, and then had to deal with trying to get her into the house, I had to find her pants that was fun, and I had to tuck her in as she told me repeatedly that she loved me. My god it was scary. Isn't the younger sister the one who supposed to be pissed and the older one is the one who takes care of her? Apparently not.

Okay, my rant is done.