The concert was a bigger deal than Jimmy imagined it to be. Entire armies of men flocked around carrying banners and equipment, all under the watchful eye of a short black woman screaming her lungs out. Most of the times at them, some of the times into a headset that seemed to be an extension of her.

At first, he started carrying things like he usually did during these jobs. And he was needed since there was a butt-load of very big black speakers that needed to be arranged into a wall on the sides of the stage.  He'd barely moved two of them and an amp when the woman's wrath descended upon him.

"You!" she yelled. "What are you doing?"

Jimmy halted, the third huge speaker shaking in his arms. "Bringing this speaker up on stage." It was insanely heavy which made the fact that it was just for the sake of old rock and roll décor even more annoying.

"You're the tech guy, aren't you?" the woman insisted, snapping her fingers at him. Her nails were impressively long.

"I guess."

"You guess?"

God, she should really take a chill pill. Jimmy put the speaker down and leaned his elbow on it. "Okay, I'm sure it's me." At least he was around 90% sure. "Do you need anything tech-y?"

"If you're the tech guy, I won't waste you lugging stuff around," the woman declared. "I'm paying a fortune for you. "

Good to know since Jimmy himself wasn't getting any of that fortune. "Sorry about that."

"No sorry. Just go check the equipment and prepare everything for sound check. I have a lot of other incompetent people who can move this stuff around."

"Okay, sure." 

Not like he enjoyed moving heavy things in particular and the woman was right.  He was half convinced there was more than one company involved, because he'd never been part of such a large ensemble. For a moment, he wondered who was playing, but he'd never cared about that stuff. Plus, he was so out of the loop, he probably wouldn't recognize any names anyway.

So he abandoned the speaker next to the entrance and headed inside again. The people in the room seemed to have multiplied in the few short minutes he was out as they struggled to build the two massive speaker walls on either side of the main stage.

Jimmy had no idea why there was so much fuss for a pop act that didn't even have a proper band. But it seemed as if someone would be playing some instruments because two electric guitars and the amps had been brought on stage while he'd been out. So he grabbed one of the tool boxed from next to the speaker wall, headed that way and started plugging everything in.

Afterwards, he strummed the chords of the guitars to check that the sound was perfect. Except it wasn't. He frowned and strummed again. It was hard to tell with all the noise of banging, yelling and cursing, but there seemed to be a mild tremble in the speaker that shouldn't be there. Just to make sure, he dropped the guitar, headed for the amp and took out a screwdriver to open it up. Yep, there was some dust on it which need to be cleared out.

With careful moves, he cleaned the equipment, checked for anything else that might be wrong with it, then pawed around for the screwdriver to close it back up.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

He jumped at the angry voice and glanced over her shoulder. He half expected the short, screaming woman to be there, even if he'd already gotten used to her screeching voice. Instead, a girl with orange curls running down her back glared at him, her fists on her hips, her green eyes blazing.

She had orange hair. Like literal fire. He'd never seen that shade before and he found himself wondering if it was dyed. Then he wondered how long her hair would get if he pulled on a curl.

"Get away from my amp," she yelled.

Oh, that. She was yelling. "I already fixed it. I just need to--"

"What part of get away don't you understand?"

Jimmy stood from his crouching position, trying to focus on her words rather than her appearance, but damn, the way her hair and eyes clashed was magnificent. And red and light blue were definitely her colors, even if she only wore faded ripped jeans and a simple t-shirt.

Her eyes widened the slightest bit as she probably realized that he was taller than she had anticipated, but they narrowed again with anger. "No one is allowed to touch the instruments."

He rolled his eyes. Yes, of course. Pop royalty wouldn't want their instruments touched. Could they even play them or were they props? Because if they were, there was definitely no point bothering to fix them.

"Don't roll your eyes at me!"

"Then go away and let me work."

"You get away from the amps first!"

"That other crazy woman told me to test them and fix them."

"Other crazy woman? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think you can figure that out for yourself." He stopped himself before he told her to go away again. 

If the staff was this harassed, it usually meant the performers were jerks. He'd seen it before so many times coming from people who sang glorified karaoke. Maybe the poor girl was just unloading on others after getting her own butt whooped. It was a sweet butt, though. He could tell that without even looking much. If only she'd stop glaring.

Something crunched above their heads and they both turned to look. One of the scrawnier movers had misplaced one of the speakers three row up and almost sent it falling on top of them.

"Maybe we should move," Jimmy suggested.

The girl didn't listen. Her eyes blazed again and in the blink of an eye, she left his side, climbing up the speaker wall like monkey. The moment she reached the top row, next to the mover, she started screaming her lungs out at him and giving him directions. Jimmy couldn't understand what she was saying with all the noise, but the dude looked strung out as fuck.

He mumbled something, stepped forward and back, raised his hands as if he expected the girl to smack him in the face. Her body language did show that she was half a second from doing just that.

"You're drunk?" he heard her shriek even from that distance.

Shit. Jimmy stepped forward, expecting chaos to ensue. Either she threw him off the speakers, or he threw himself or one of the speakers. Whichever alternative played out, he'd obviously need to catch something to prevent it from smashing against the ground. What he didn't expect was for her to move past him and drag the speaker back, placing it perfectly aligned with the others. The mover guy wobbled away, obviously uncoordinated. And bumped into her. Hard.

With a yell of surprise she toppled over and down. Jimmy rushed next to the wall and reached out his arms. She plummeted into him, so much heavier than he'd expected, and knocked him down. His back landed over the toolbox and a burning pain shot up his spine.

"Fuck." He'd definitely pulled a muscle.

"Oh, God," she moaned, rolling over his stomach.

He wanted to tell her to get off, but it was obvious that she couldn't right then.

"Shit," she said between her teeth. 

Finally she managed to roll off him and onto the floor. She sat up at the same time he did, rubbing her shoulder. He rubbed his lower back, too, trying to dim the soreness. Good thing he didn't have to carry things anymore because this was going to hurt for a couple of days at least.

"You okay?" he asked.

"I think I pulled a muscle," she said through her teeth. "Great, just great."

"Want me to try and help you?"

"Help me how?"

She was still snapping, but he didn't care. He scooted over and cupped her shoulder, digging the heel of his palm into her sore spot and massaging it. She let out a groan, but didn't pull away, probably recognizing it was useful. 

"You don't have to do that."

He knew he didn't, especially because she was a bit of an asshole, but he continued moving his hand in a circular motion. As he massaged her, he realized why she was so heavy. The girl seemed to be all muscle and soft skin. She had a fresh smell, reminiscent of lime.

"That's okay, you can stop now." She pushed back to her feet, rolling her shoulder.

"You could say thank you, you know."

This seemed to surprise her as she looked down at him. Some of the fire in her eyes dimmed as she considered his statement.

"Jessie, what happened?"

The first screaming woman was back, a clipboard in her hand, the headset on, as usual.

The Jessie girl turned to her. "Oh, I'm fine."

"Did you fall?"

"I said I was fine, Macy." She threw him a fleeting glance. "Just please, no one touches our equipment." And she walked away, towards the back of the stage, probably to find some other people to yell at.

Jimmy couldn't help watching her as she retreated. Yep, he'd been right. She had an amazing ass. Which was a pity really, seeing how she was too high and mighty to even say thank you. Not that he needed it, but he'd almost broken his back catching her. 

"You heard her," Macy said, sounding exasperated. "Just... Do the sound check for the rest of the equipment. Leave the amps. God knows I'm sick of them. Also, let me take you to your tech room for the concert. You'll be under the stage, taking care of everything and I really don't want any more screw ups. I already want to kill the banner people. And the speaker people. And the trailer park people. And..." She hesitated, eyeing him up and down. "I guess I'm not upset with you. You seem fine."

He just nodded, getting back to his feet, making a mental note that the mysterious yelling, climbing, flying through the air Jessie was in charge. And as he stepped out of the way to avoid a falling banner, he realized why.

Her for-once smiling face was plastered over the thing.

She was the pop princess. 

🌗🌗🌗

I know I'm taking a tiny break from Kyle and Kay, but this is fun. And it will be even more fun when Kyle and Kay get intertwined into this because who doesn't love good ole fashion confusion?

Anyway... Demon Jessie is fun. And a bit of a jerk. And Jimmy seems to really like her hair. And her ass. This needs more exploring! Onward!

Thanks so much for reading and don't forget to vote and comment.