Every teenage girl this side of the Atlantic would have strung Keeley up by her toes for her attitude right now. After all, who in their right mind would be granted backstage access to a Shattered Diamond concert only to skulk around with a face looking like… what was the phrase Fitz used again? Oh, like a smacked arse.
Any one of the fans lined up outside would have given their right arm to be where she was right now: in the wings and on the outskirts of the band’s soundcheck as they warmed up before their show. She wasn’t dumb enough to think that it wasn’t cool - just because she’d grown up around athletes who jumped into veritable rocketships, it didn’t mean she wasn’t prone to getting a little starstruck. The idea of teenage Keeley, shut up in her poster-wrapped bedroom back in the suburbs of Westchester, spending a prolonged amount of time talking to Diego Rodriguez without getting tongue-tied would have been laughable to her old fangirl self, once upon a time. Now, she took it in her stride. Diego was easy to talk to, Henry had a really dry sense of humour and Poppy had always been nice to her, with one of the best ACNH islands Keeley had ever seen.
Being starstruck around them wasn’t an option now, even if she did hesitate to call the band her friends. They only knew of her through Noah and the last thing Keeley wanted to do was overestimate her importance in someone else’s life. The past few weeks had been enough of a goddamn cautionary tale for her to make a mistake like that again.
She heard the strum of Diego’s guitar and, still enough of a genuine superfan to recognise the song, immediately felt her stomach drop. The intro belonged to a song that had been added to an Instagram post and more than a few stories she’d uploaded, all of them documenting Keeley’s freckly face pressed up against a smiling blond’s. It was Théo’s favourite song.
The same nausea that had been rolling around in her stomach for weeks reared up again and she dry-swallowed as best as she could. Choking out an excuse to Bobbie who remained in the wings, she took large strides down the tiny corridor until she found the first door there was. Immediately, she slammed her hands down on the exit bar and pushed her way outside, spilling out into the evening air.
A few other people were milling around. Roadies, the tech crew, and she could hear the distant shouting of fans as they lined up outside the venue. Puffing air out from her cheeks, Keeley looked around and decided nobody was going to question what she was doing here, too busy with their own jobs. If they did, she had her VIP pass attached to a lanyard and shoved into the front pocket of her shorts.
It was stupid to think the song wouldn’t have been on the setlist. God forbid the Diamonds skip past one of their most famous love songs at the unspoken request of Keeley. She’d just forgotten to mark it off as one of the many things in her life she couldn’t look at in the same way right now, or maybe ever again. Alongside her pink denim jacket, the Polaroids she’d ripped off her wall and the Togepi plush Théo had bought for her that was now shoved down in the very depths of her closet.
An ache pressed against the column of her throat as she tipped her head back against the brick of the building. Cigarette smoke filtered through the air and at least that was an unbiased enough scent for her nostrils to pull at. Théo had never smoked, so that was safe.
“Drag?”
She frowned, dropping her head down to stare at the owner of the voice. The guy in front of her was clad in a leather jacket and holding out a joint to her. A few seconds passed as she took stock of him. Tanned skin, dark curls, a hoop in his right ear, a piercing in his nose. She resisted the urge to nod to herself. Again, he was different and so he was safe.
Her eyes dipped down to the joint. She wasn’t much of a smoker, even if she’d taken an edible or two before. And she knew better than to take a drag of something someone else had rolled.
“You look like you need it,” the guy said, eyes glinting as he wiggled it in front of her face.
There was something about the way he was looking at her that excited Keeley. A smirk playing on his lips as he waited patiently. A hunger in his eyes that had never been in Théo’s. And Théo had never wanted her, not really, so maybe that meant this guy did. It felt like a pathetic act of desperation when Keeley eventually nodded and reached out, plucking the joint from his fingers and placing it between her lips.
“Thanks,” she mumbled, just as the door swung open behind her again.
In the past, Noah had dragged himself through soundcheck with a scowl on his face and his head in the clouds. Night after night of listening to the same Shattered Diamonds songs whilst his muscles ached and he nursed a sore head, fumbling with whatever fucking complicated lighting set up the superstars wanted, sometimes four or five hours before they even graced the stage for soundcheck. He still had to be there obscenely early, but now he knew that when Poppy bounced onto stage, she'd be wearing his hoodie and providing the soundtrack to his otherwise dreary day. Besides, Bobbie and Keeley were going to be there tonight, and that cheered him more than he was willing to admit.
Sitting cross-legged on a permanently sticky arena floor, a map of wires trailing over his legs and across the floor, Noah pushed his mop of dark, shaggy hair off of his face. Halfway through Air Guitar Diego had began signalling a crew member as the sound of his guitar - ironically - spluttered out. Noah, closest to the stage, had clambered over to readjust the wires, lifting his head every now and again to make eye contact with a pissed off Diego, who kept strumming and adjusting his ear piece.
"Better?" Noah called out, his accent curling around his t's and making a sound that sounded an awful lot like "Beddah"? He tried not to scowl at his rough pronunciation, instead pressing his index finger to his thumb to form the international hand signal for OK.
The frontman nodded curtly, but Noah, deciding to take the high road for once in his life, simply let his eyes slide past the band to the side of the stage. A grin split his face in half as he caught sight of Bobbie, nodding along as they gave Air Guitar a second spin.
Balancing his foot against a speaker, Noah hoisted himself onto the side of the stage in one fluid movement, catching Bobbie's waist and lifting her right off her feet.
"Hey, Bobs." he chirped, smacking a kiss against her temple before setting her back down. Looking around for his pesky ginger sidekick, he vocalised, "Where's Keels?"
So close to the band, Bobbie was forced to lean in close against the shell of Noah's ear, something about her getting some air.
Every nerve in Noah's body felt alert. Keeley had been something of a flight risk lately, and when she wasn't in bed listening to sad girl pop, she was slamming doors behind her and disappearing for hours at a time. He knew she was taking this whole Théo thing pretty hard. It was as though she were making up for all the years she was jetting around the world when should've been experiencing teenage heartbreak. The whole situation had left him pretty sour towards the Moreau kid. As much as Noah liked Elodie - and his dislike of her twin was likely to put him in her bad books - he wouldn't hesitate to put the fear of God in him should he show his face.
Noah parted from Bobbie with a quick squeeze of her hand, his eyes finding Poppy from across the stage. She was deep in some kind of riff-off with Diego, the corners of her mouth turned up into that sunny Poppy Martin smile. She wouldn't even notice if he slipped out.
He pushed his way down corridors littered with roadies and influencers holding VIP passes and made his toward the exit, eyes peeled for the bright carrot-top of his littlest and most annoying friend.
He didn't have to look for long. The door practically swung open on the gangly form of one Keeley Whitefield, slamming open so fast it reverberated off the wall with a resounding crash.
"The fuck?" he growled, taking in the scene before him.
His Keeley, the sight of her clutching a joint completely contradictory with the image he had of her, playing Pokemon fucking Go and doing cartwheels for fun. He was the first to admit his view of her was biased, she could be sullen and grumpy and outrageous and deliver the coldest fucking takedown of you in two seconds flat, but Noah still thought of her - sometimes ashamedly - as his kid sister.
And right now, someone was giving his kid sister drugs.
"Are you fucking stupid?" he spat, tactful as ever, snatching the joint from between her lips. Gesturing towards the guy (the asshole with the nose piercing, really, Keels?), he made a show of crushing it under his foot.
"And you, man, are you fuckin' stupid? She's practically barely legal."
