“It still hurts.”

“I think it’s supposed to.”

Scrunching up her nose, Keely shook out her wrist as they walked down the road. “But it hurts,” she complained, not caring about the fact she sounded like a whining child.

In a comforting movement Seth swung his arm around her shoulders, pulling her in close against his side even as they continued down the road, gaining odd looks from the people littered across it.

Instantly her heart got caught in her throat. Powerless to stop the urge, Keely just turned her face into his side, breathing deeply in. He smelt intoxicating and she just winced at the thought, but didn’t pull away yet, not so secretly being pressed tightly against him though she couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else noticed he smelt good or she was just being irrational.

However the instant his arm shifted slightly around her shoulder, she tugged away, keeping a rather close yet safe distance between them.

Hoping desperately that he hadn’t thought she’d been clinging onto him, she hurriedly busied herself, pulling her hair over her shoulder. Ignoring the constant nagging pain on the sensitive part of her wrist, she began to braid her ginger hair loosely over her shoulder, leaving her bangs shaggily over her forehead.

“I held your hand the whole time and bought you ice cream afterwards,” Seth pointed out, making her eyes snake over to him, looking casually handsome with the dark sunglasses covering his eyes. “What else am I supposed to do?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be multitalented?” she retorted.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

At the cocky tone she glanced back in his direction, finding an amused smirk stretched attractively across his lips. For a moment she found her eyes falling to his lips, remembering clearly that they’d been soft when they’d pressed against hers.

Shaking her head lightly, Keely looked determinedly in front of her, forcing the thought from her mind. “Then why don’t you use one of them to distract me,” she threw back distractedly, not thinking about the words that slipped off her tongue.

Before her thoughts could waver, Seth quickly gripped her waist, announcing, “Well, if you say so.”

A surprised laugh sprang from her mouth even as he pulled her back against his chest. Elbowing him lightly in the chest so his hands dropped from her waist, because, after all, it was very distracting with the warmth from his large hands spreading through the plaid shirt she was wearing over top of the Muse v-neck she had on.

“Oh, you only wish,” she grinned, stepping forward as she glanced over her shoulder.

With that charmingly cheeky smile on his face Seth answered casually, “Every day.”

Instantly her head swung back around, cricking her neck. Wincing she raised her hand, rubbing her neck as she stepped about the corner. However before she could question him about his words, a blast of noise rounded on her from her new position on the other side of the corner building, causing her to swing her head around again.

“Oh my god,” she said in awe, shrinking back around the corner until she only had her hands on the brick and was peeking about it.

From behind her Seth stepped forward, peering over her head to see what she was looking at. “What are you – oh.”

Unable to help her reaction, she felt her nose crinkle in confusion as she stared at the pulsating crowd charging the gates that held open a pathway to the open hall was. The screaming was deafening if she dared to poke her head out even a little bit further, people were jumping up and own with signs in their hands and Keely was sure that she saw more than a few tears.

However it wasn’t too long until an unpleasant thought occurred to her. That pathway that the crowd was trying to beat down was the same path that she and Seth were supposed to be walking down.

Wincing she just let her eyes travel up and down the crowd, staying blissfully hidden. As much as she liked to meet with the crowds that showed up to the shows and such, this was not one she was looking forward to. First of all because they looked bloody dangerous at the moment. Not to mention the fact that she doubted they were here for her anyways, and walking down there with Seth just seemed like adding fuel to an already raging fire.

“Are we going to risk it?” Seth questioned, still peering over her head.

Thankfully no one was glancing in their direction; the crowd’s attention was zeroed in on the hall in front of them. There were enormous windows stretching across the front of the building, giving a view of the foyer, which probably accounted for the screeching of girls wishing to catch a glimpse of NSR.

Keely snorted disbelievingly, shaking her head lightly. Maybe on the way out it might be a little safer, especially since she couldn’t find any way that would get them through the swarm to the pathway. “Not with you,” she answered simply as she turned on her heel, taking them away from the chance of someone seeing her.

Instead of taking a step back to account for the sudden closeness, Seth just frowned down at her, his brow drawing together from behind the sunglasses. “What does that mean?”

Rolling her eyes light heartedly, she reached up, gripping him by the lapels of the faded jean jacket he had on. “It means we’re going through the back door, rock star,” she told him, pulling them back away from the crowd.

Seemingly coming back around to himself, Seth followed the pull on his jacket easily, grinning down at her. “Taking initiative now, are you, rebel?”

Chuckling lightly in the back of her throat she dropped her hands from his jacket, smoothing it thoughtlessly. When she realized she was running her hands down his chest, Keely hastily dropped her hands, hoping desperately she wasn’t blushing. “That’s me,” she replied easily, hoping he didn’t notice the sudden turn in her tone. “C’mon,” she told him, nodding to the alley way she knew lead to the back door, “They’re already going to kill us.”

Apparently the idea of getting even deeper into Maureen’s bad side was enough to send him walking behind her without complaint. After all the stress they’d caused her, from faux drugs to slipping songs off albums, it wasn’t fair to purposely antagonize her.

Knocking roughly on the solid metal door in the alleyway sandwiched between the two enormous buildings, they were quickly ushered in by a harassed looking member of the security that had been hired for the event.

Instantly they were set upon, Colton and Marco making an impressive two person swarm.

“You’re late!” exclaimed Marco accusingly, glaring at them.

“What is it about you?” questioned Colton thoughtfully, with much less complaint than the other as he looked down at her, pondering through his thoughts aloud.

From beside her Seth sent the boys an incredulous look. “C’mon, we’re not late. We just didn’t show up half an hour early like the rest of you did. What’s the point?”

However Keely wasn’t truly paying attention to the boy beside her, instead she had her head cocked to the side as she looked up at Colton in confusion. Even then, though, her attention didn’t stay long on him, because a movement caught her eye.

Widening her eyes slightly, she straightened up finding herself staring straight into a camera while the two person camera crew huddled around them. Feeling her eyebrows draw together, she asked bluntly, “Who are they?”

This time Colton just shook his head, smiling while Marco gave a great sigh.

“Seriously?” said Seth, his voice painted with amusement. “What were you doing when we were on the phone with Maureen? It was only like three weeks ago.”

Crinkling her nose in thought, Keely contemplated the question for a moment, raking her memory for even the phone call. If it was only three weeks ago, it was right when the tour had begun again, although three weeks seemed like only a short space of time for what had happened since it had restarted. The shows, the traveling, it was enough to bring anyone to their knees in defeat. If anything, she felt it should be more like three months of time would be more appropriate.

“Don’t strain yourself,” Seth put in smugly, pulling her from her thoughts.

Not so much as pausing, she punched him lightly on the shoulder with her left hand, keeping her right hand rightfully guarded. “Don’t be cheeky,” she teased easily. “Anyways, I just got bored I guess… stopped listening.”

Surprisingly it was Marco who laughed loudly. “I swear if you didn’t have Seth or Maureen dragging you around everywhere, you’d be completely lost.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she responded with a roll of her eyes, “Let’s make fun of the poor girl that has to deal with a bus full of boys who she isn’t even in a band with. Anyways,” she began, pulling in a breath to end her small rant with a frown towards the camera and the woman and man who were completely silent. It was rather creepy to her when she thought about it, people standing silently about with cameras? “What are they doing here?”

“Ah, rebel, they’re here about that television show,” answered Seth, someone finally taking pity on her despite her absentminded ways.

“Huh?”

“The television show? Oh, c’mon. They’re with us for four days, taking footage.”

Thoughtfully she bit lightly on her bottom lip. “Four days? But after the show, we’re going on the bus to California.”

“Yes, that’s part of it,” the slender woman finally piped up, making her a lot less creepy than before. Not to mention she sounded intelligent with her sharp grey eyes, which was a relief. “You four are squeezing two more into your tour bus.”

“You’re going to hate it,” Keely warned.

The woman arched an eyebrow, retorting, “We’ll rough it.”

Finally remembering the manners that didn’t always kick in anymore, Keely smiled at them, holding out a hand to the man than the woman in time. “Hi, I’m Keely Staub and you’re going to be very disappointed by us in the next four days. We’re really not that interesting.”

“Except for the bus full of coke and hookers,” added in Seth from behind her.

Her lips twitched but she tried her best to keep a straight face as she followed along with him. “Well, yes, except for that.”

At the very least the two didn’t take it too seriously which gave Keely a little hint of hope that her next few days wouldn’t be absolute torture. Maybe she was finally meeting the good reporters after a stretch of horrid; Peter hadn’t been bad even if he’d been a tad bit self-involved.

And after only a few moments she found that their names happened to be Meredith and Ewan. Although there was the sad fact the man looked nothing like his McGregor counterpart, with his auburn hair with a rather large nose.

Still they weren’t dragged into formality for long since it appeared that Marco was getting a bit restless with it. “We gotta get going,” he announced, reaching out to grab her by the wrist and tug her forward a step.

But Keely gasped in pain, trying to wrench her wrist from his grasp. She hadn’t been expecting it to hurt that much.

“You tool,” Seth snarled suddenly, taking a step forward to yank his hand off of her and shove his best friend back a step.

Holding his hands up immediately in surrender Marco had a bewildered expression on his face, falling back the step. “Shit, I didn’t know it would hurt. I’m sorry, I was barely touching you!” he pointed out, his eyes worriedly scanning over her as if he expected her to burst into tears at any given moment.

Wincing slightly, Keely rubbed her wrist in question tentatively. “No, its fine,” she assured him, “I was being overdramatic.”

“Keely…” Colton began slowly, dragging her eyes in his direction. Her cringe was worse this time when she noticed that his gaze was glued to her wrist, her hand not hiding it well enough. “Why do you have a bandage on your wrist?”

“Uh…” she replied, using the same slow tone, wishing she’d had the forethought to pull the sleeves of her flannel shirt down instead of where they were folded up at her elbows.

“I think you can take off the bandage now,” Seth observed, stepping slightly behind her.

Grimacing again she absently began flicking the edge of the white gauze. “Do you think it’s ready yet?”

“What are you two talking about?”

He gave a shrug. “They said in two hours it should be okay. It’s been three.”

“Seth!”

However they just kept ignoring not only Marco and Colton, but Ewan and Meredith as well. It only seemed to get the two boys more worked up in their worry but it made their little camera crew excited as they huddled closer.

“Have you taken yours off yet?” she questioned, frowning slightly.

“Yeah,” he answered with a shrug, “I took mine off at the ice cream place.”

“Keely!”

Ignoring Colton completely she just looked up eagerly at Seth. “Really, you did? Does it look cool?”

“Yeah, it’s awesome.”

“Hey!”

Pursing her lips together thoughtfully, Keely glanced back down at her wrist; successfully overlooking any attempt Colton and Marco were making to get their attention. “I was going to take mine off too, but I didn’t want to do it in front of cameras in case it was all bloody and gross or something.”

“It’ll be fine,” Seth assured her, the warm smile he sent her enough to make any girl in a twenty meter radius melt. It was a wonder her knees were still supporting her. “Just take off the bandage.”

“Oh my god!” Marco finally exclaimed, getting Keely and Seth to finally glance in his direction. “You two got matching tattoos or something stupid, didn’t you? If you did, I’m going to personally murder you. Why the hell–”

“Well, they’re definitely not matching,” she observed, finally reaching down to peel the bandage off, wincing slightly at the tug on her skin.

She was about to continue talking but the words turned into a delighted sound from the back of her throat. Thoughtlessly, she just tossed the bandage that had a spattering of blood on it to the side, her eyes focused tightly on her wrist.

It had been bloody painful to get the tattoo on the sensitive inside of her wrist, and Seth had warned her before, but that’s where she’d wanted it so desperately. And she didn’t regret it, not to mention that while she’d been getting it Seth had gripped her free hand in his, his thumb rubbing the circles into her palm that she adored. Anyways, the tattoo looked brilliant in her opinion, the simple black strokes on her delicate wrist making up the fine feather and the surrounding circle.

“They’re not matching,” she continued on, her voice a little vague as she ran her finger lightly over the black circle. “We were talking back in New York with Will and Jake about how much we loved Led Zeppelin then in Chicago about how we wanted to get tattoos. So I got the Robert Plant symbol and he got the Jimmy Page one.”

“Oh that’s awesome!” exclaimed a new voice coming into the picture.

Grinning widely, she looked up to find Will peering over shoulder down at the tattoo on her wrist. “I know, it’s great, you just need to John Bonham one,” she joked easily.

Colton rolled his eyes. “Don’t tempt the kid. Now, really,” he started, carefully grabbing her clear wrist this time and tugging her a step forward. “We have to get into this thing, the rest of the guys are waiting for us.”

Even with Colton pulling at her wrist, Keely started chatting good naturedly with Will about the tattoo and if he should get the John Bonham one. A move that she completely supported, not to mention she urged him to text Jake about getting himself the John Paul Jones tattoo, just to make it a complete little group.

However when they reached the in between room, she left the group of boys who had surrounded her, making a beeline for a completely different group of men.

For the first time a thought occurred to her, making Keely look around the small room in surprise. Since Marissa had left the tour, it made her the single girl on the road. There was NSR talking in the corner, Will standing with the other three members of his band – one who standing anxiously close to the door, listening to the angry buzz of chatter through it – while the last group was her back up band, the three older men waiting patiently for her.

Shaking the thought from her head, she tucked her hair absently behind her ear as she moved through the crowded room. Smiling broadly up at them, she clapped her hands together. “You guys ready for this one?”

But instantly John’s eyes zeroed in on her wrist. “What’s that?” he asked sharply.

Sending him a bland look, she stuck out her wrist for all of them to see, her previous reasons for keeping it hidden flying out the window. “If you’re going to give me the old man talk about how I shouldn’t be “defiling” my body or something, I’m going to have a few choice words for you.”

“I was going to say that Robert Plant was a good choice,” he responded through narrowed eyes.

“Oh,” she replied, the look falling away before getting replaced with her previous anticipated one. “Okay, good. Now let’s – oh, wow,” she said in surprise as she spun around, coming to an abrupt halt when she found a camera inches from her face, the mic hanging right above her head yet out of sight.

For a moment she frowned into the lens before her eyes flickered up to Meredith who was looking pointedly at the men behind her. “Yeah,” she said hurriedly, “This is the incredible band, The Bitter Rivals, who have been backing me up for this tour. And, now, I think we do have to go.”

Hurriedly she gripped two of the men’s arms and pulled them forward, away from the cameras. Or, at least, hiding her away from them.

At the door that she came to, Keely found herself sandwiched safely between her band members while NSR stood ahead, The Cavern Jets pulling up the back.

“Ready?” the guy at the door called.

Even as the rest chorused an affirmative, she swivelled her head around to find Will standing behind the rest of his band, looking a little green around the edges. Understanding why he’d be so nervous, she sent him a wink before the door was open and the screeching started.

Without so much as a word, they were shoved into the thick of it.

The fan meet and greet wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be. In fact, it felt rather simple, at least for her. She stopped and chatted for a moment with each person that she came into contact with, signing anything they handed her, answering whatever questions they might have even though that was supposed to be held for later on. Although she did notice the fact that the boys were having much more trouble, the guys in the crowd were not even close to as grabby as the girls who were pulling at Seth’s shirt.

Although, Keely really hadn’t expected this part to be that awful since she found lately that she quite liked mingling with the fans, in fact, she still found it a bit odd. The fact that the crowds could sing along to her songs was more than a little surreal, even when someone called her name out on the street she would freeze and ask very suspiciously how they knew who she was most of the time. But it was the casual almost press conference after she wasn’t looking forward to.

Throughout the entire she got annoyed very few times. It wasn’t when fans were asking her about what went on in the tour bus or when a girl asked her if Seth was a good kisser, it was when Meredith and Ewan pressed close to her, invading the personal space she liked to keep away from cameras.