Shannon threw her leather jacket over her shoulder and ruffled her short, black hair with her free hand before glaring over at the person on her left.

 

“You sure are taking your sweet time,” she muttered faking sincere anger. Kyle, the drummer in her rock band, shrugged and purposely moved slower earning him a genuine glare from her. She wanted to get going but he had insisted on the two of them grabbing a bite to eat after the show and, well, she was hungry. He had even promised to treat her and she was never one to pass up a free meal, but she hadn’t bargained on getting held up so long.

 

“Alright, alright. Let’s go,” he finally said with a chuckle. He was always the last to arrive and the last to leave. Shannon couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out why it always took him so long to get ready and gather his things. It was especially puzzling to her since his look never changed and it was relatively simple. Sure, it suited him well and served to drive their younger, teen girl fan base wild, but his look was nothing extraordinary that took hours of styling. He walked ahead of her and she shrugged.

 

They walked down the street to a local burger joint the old band had frequented after gigs back in the day. As she stepped inside the front door and heard the closest waitress welcome them, she recalled how long it had been since she had been there. Now, it didn’t really hurt her to look around and see memories everywhere, but there had been a time when it crippled her. She had moved past it now, at least to some extent, but they didn’t eat at the burger joint much anymore. Not two minutes after their food arrived, a familiar face came into view.

 

Mikey, as they called him, slid into the booth next to Kyle and obnoxiously shoved three of his fries into his mouth. Kyle looked at him, obviously annoyed.

 

“Can we help you?” Kyle asked.

 

Shannon couldn’t blame her band mate for being rather dry toward Mikey. He had pretty much stopped supporting the band after the incident and Kyle never quite forgave him for it, especially because he had grown to consider Mikey a close friend of his. Shannon almost admired the gall Mikey had to just act like nothing had ever gone sour between them all and to completely ignore history. But she was too tired to call him out on it then and possibly cause a scene– he wasn’t even worth it.

 

Mikey looked at the two of them. It was very obvious there was something he wanted to say, but was debating whether or not it was a good idea. Shannon’s heart sank to the pit of her stomach; she knew exactly what it was about, rather whom it was about, and the last thing she wanted that night was to hear anything about him.

 

Just then, Mikey’s gaze settled on Shannon and she could almost swear she saw a slight smirk playing at the corners of his lips. It was as if whatever he was debating on saying gave him some pleasure to hold over her head. She wondered why he would even want to hurt her. After all, what had she ever done to him?

 

“Nah,” Mikey finally replied. He tapped his hand on the table and left his seat just as quickly as he had come.

 

“That was weird,” muttered Kyle, clearly still annoyed. Shannon knew he still was hurt about everything that had gone down and the way it effectively ended his friendship with Mikey. What hurt him the most was thinking that Mikey had never truly been his friend. He leaned back and practically threw his burger on the plate making it clear to Shannon he had lost his appetite. The truth was she had lost hers also. Just trying to guess at what Mikey almost said made her gut wrench.

 

The two of them silently packed up their food in to-go boxes and parted ways, Shannon slowly walked down the dark street about fifteen minutes to her studio apartment. Despite it being a Friday night, the streets were rather quiet and lonely, something she was grateful for right at the moment. The last thing she wanted was to deal with the ruckus of Friday night crowds and risk running into yet another person she knew, one who might not stay quiet on the topic of her ex-boyfriend.

 

Despite more than two years having passed since her relationship with Ash ended, people found it necessary to bring him up. This was especially true to people who knew both of them before he left, Mikey included.

 

She dropped her food box on her kitchen counter and slumped down on her couch, staring directly out the window at the few glittering lights of the town. She shut her eyes almost immediately. The memory of Ash’s arm draped over her shoulder as they looked at this exact view was too vivid. Although she had moved past it there were some nights, like this one, she couldn’t ignore it.

 

 It was impossible for her not to think of him when she had gone to their old burger joint and ran into an ex-mutual friend who seemed a bit too eager to give her some sort of news that could potentially hurt her. She glared at the radio.

 

“Not tonight,” she muttered. She couldn’t risk hearing one of his songs and there was only one station she liked listening to– unfortunately that same station was likely to play one of his songs. Just then her phone buzzed with a new text message. It was from Mikey.

 

 -Are you okay? -

 

“No,” she muttered at the screen of her phone. She hated this feeling. She hated that she absolutely had to know whatever it was Mikey had on his mind. If his phone number was still the same she would take it as a sign it was meant to be for her to know what was going on. She closed out Mikey’s message without responding and opened up her list of contact. She selected Mikey and pressed the phone to her ear. As soon as the ringing sound came through, her heart started beating faster.

 

“I knew you’d call,” was his greeting to her. She bit her lower lip. How disgustingly predictable am I, she wondered. But she said nothing and just waited for him to continue talking. At the very least she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of saying the words he probably would get a kick out of hearing. There was a brief pause, a short chuckle, and then he finally started talking.

 

“You must be on the edge of your seat wantin’ to know the dirt I’ve got on ol’ Asher.” He was far too smug for her taste and she had the urge to abruptly end the call but she couldn’t pull herself away from the conversation. Unfortunately, he was right.

 

“Look, if you have something to say, spit it out. I don’t have time for your games,” she responded harshly. She was a pro at putting on the tough act.

 

“Looks like your boy—”

 

“He’s not ‘my boy’,” she cut him off.

 

It was extremely annoying for her to hear those words directed at her. Could she help it that her curiosity had been sparked? No. Did that mean she was still super hung up on him and lived with delusional ideas? Not at all. They were two completely different things, but people still didn’t seem to separate the two of them in their minds.

 

“Right,” he said sarcastically.

 

She let it slide. The sooner he spilled whatever supposed info on Ash he had, the sooner she could end the call. “Looks like Ash has gone the way of too many rock stars, you know. That lifestyle got to him and word is he isn’t-”

 

“What?” Her heart sank. It couldn’t be true. The Ash she knew, the one she had known, would never get lost to that sort of lifestyle. Then again, the Ash she knew wasn’t the one that was part of a best-selling, highly popular rock band based out of the big city. She clenched her teeth. She hated the single tear sliding down her cheek.

 

“You really surprised?” He sounded positively gleeful to deliver this painful news to her.

 

She wondered what had gotten into him. The Mikey she knew would have never done this, much less gotten such a kick out of it. She sighed. Everyone had changed so much.

 

 “I’m not surprised,” Mikey started, “I saw it comin’ but nobody wanted to buy it. Ol’ boy Ash is lost in the rock star party and drug life. Least it isn’t gettin’ in the-”

 

“Shut up!” There was silence.

 

Shannon’s outburst had taken him by surprise. Suddenly, she became acutely aware of how hard she was breathing so she ended the call without another word. She had never been fond of cutting people off that way, even in the middle of a heated argument, but it couldn’t be helped in this case. She didn’t want to hear Mikey anymore, much less wanted him to hear her break down.

 

She slammed her closed fist on the arm of the couch, flung her phone to the other corner of it, and stood up to pace up and down her living room. Her gaze fell on a bottle of vodka, still half full, sitting in the corner of her kitchen. She swallowed a lump around her throat. Getting stupidly drunk, alone, at that moment wasn’t the answer. And then reality smacked her hard, sending her crumbling to the ground.

 

There was no answer to this. Ash was no longer in her life and it was far from her responsibility to save him. More than that, she knew she couldn’t save him– not after the way things had ended and not with all the physical distance between them.

 

The following morning Shannon learned that while she had been battling herself at home not to drink, Kyle had run off to a local bar with the intention of getting completely wasted to bury all his own pain. His night turned out entirely different than he had planned.

 

“Her name is Lidia,” he told Shannon over a cup of coffee. He was sprawled over two of her dining chairs, a sight she was very much used to by now. “At first I just thought she was cute so I started talking to her. Then she scared me because she knew my name.” He took the final swig of coffee and loudly smacked his lips. “Turns out she’s been to more than one of our shows and, well, she really likes us.”

 

“What does that mean?” Shannon tried to steady her heart and not get any hopes up. This was unlikely nothing big and nothing to get worked up about. Kyle changed her mind about that. He went on to tell her that Lidia was an executive from a small label in the big city and she really thought their band had something special.

 

“She wants us to go up to the city and play for the higher-ups, a first round sort of thing.”

 

“An audition, you mean?”

 

“Sort of,” Kyle said. He wet his lips with his tongue before going on. “It’s more like a mini showcase for her superiors. It, uh, takes quite a bit to even get to that step, but she’s hooking us up.” Shannon eyed him suspiciously. Just as she opened her mouth to ask what he had gotten up to, he rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Nothing happened between us. Relax. We didn’t even flirt.”

 

Shannon’s heart was racing despite her not wanting to get her hopes up, but hearing those words from her band mate, it was impossible. An executive, whatever her rank was, got them in for a small showcase. Now there was a chance, even if only a tiny one.

 

As she mused on it the realities hit her. If it did work out, the whole band would have to move to the city. That meant uprooting the entire lives of four people at once… And living in the same city as Ash, potentially working the same scene as him. She tapped the table and walked to her kitchen, pouring a glass of vodka for each of them.

 

Without question or hesitation, both of them downed the straight drink. She cleared her throat after the burn, but her mind was focused on the prospect of moving to the city to seriously pursue a full music career.

 

Would the other two guys be willing to take the risk?