— THADDEUS TANDY ; a dive bar somewhere in Seattle.
Rocky had been mingling amongst the crowd, striking up a conversation with another guy who seemed as out of his element as he was, when the lights inside the dive bar dimmed and the stage lights glowed back to life. The stranger quickly excused himself, disappearing through the crowd. Rocky assumed he was re-joining his friends stood around a table or crowded inside one of the booths. He probably should have been doing the same, but he'd lost track of the other interns he had come out with tonight over an hour ago and the band was about to take to the stage.
He gently pushed his way through the crowd towards the front of the stage, picking up bits and pieces of different conversations—one couple was celebrating a night away from the kids, another guy was trying his best pick-up line on some unsuspecting woman and three girls were glancing at somebody nearer the bar and giggling amongst themselves. The one that had caught his interest the most, however, raising the hairs on the back of his neck as he passed by was a girl and a guy discussing the band who were almost finished setting up, a band that Rocky knew all too well—Asteroid Cows.
His ex-boyfriends band.
"Son of a bitch!"