They had a very nice dressing room at the venue in Philadelphia which all of them used to get ready for that night's gig.

"Can you hand me that hair brush, please?" Momoko asked Jude.

"Yup." He picked it up and passed it her way. "You ever thought about why certain things have modifiers like that?" he asked her. "Like why is that called a 'hair' brush? Merely to differentiate it from other kinds of brushes? I mean it looks nothing like a toothbrush, not very likely to confuse the two, are you?"

Momoko laughed as she brushed her hair. "I suppose it is a bit redundant," she acquiesced. "Like saying, 'You have nice food lips, Jude,'" she said, smiling at his reflection in the mirror.

"Please," he said, giving her a look. "These are 'breast' lips, Peaches." He leaned around and planted a kiss on her breast, making an emphatic "mwah," sound as he did so, making her laugh.

"How do I look?" she asked, doing a little twirl.

"You look absolutely smashing," he assured her.

Tonight she was wearing skinny jeans, stilettos and a pink suede form fitting top.

Dane, who'd been onstage messing with his keyboard, came into the dressing room to get ready. "Guess who's here?" he began.

"Who?"

"Harris Nealon," he answered with a grin. "He must've raced over here after he finished his show. And I don't think he came to see any of us guys, you know?" He shook his head cheerfully. "He came to see our gorgeous lead singer, I think."

"The DJ came to see our show?" Sullivan asked, looking up from where he was looking at his phone on the sofa.

"In the flesh," Dane said, nodding. "I think he wants to hook up with Momoko."

"He does not," Momoko protested, leaning forward to work on her makeup. "I'm sure he came to see the band."

"Right, Miss Gorgeous Porcelain Doll, he came to see all of us." Dane hooked her around her waist and spun her around. "Hon."

"Dammit, Dane, you're going to make me fuck up my eyes, and I'm going to have to go out there looking like I got punched in the face," Momoko complained.

"Sorry, sorry," he apologized, contrite. He carefully set her down where she was.

Tommy emerged from the bathroom and picked up his sticks, hitting them on every available surface, higher than a kite. "We ready, guys? We gonna knock 'em dead?"

"The Live Drive at Five DJ is in the house," Sully informed him.

"Ooh," Tommy chuckled, drumming on Momoko's shoulders. "I think someone has a crush on our pretty singer."

"Shut up, Tommy, I have to finish my makeup and I only have, like, three minutes to do it," Momoko admonished.

"Leave her alone," Jude added, flopping down on the sofa. "Seriously, it doesn't matter how we look, but she has to look good."

"Thank you, Jude," Momoko said from her place at the mirror.

"Especially tonight, her boyfriend's come to see her and all," he added.

The boys erupted in laughter.

Momoko shook her head, and finally turned to face them. "What am I going to do if he wants to go out after the show?" she asked. "You guys going to be laughing then?"

This silenced them.

The door opened, and someone stuck their head in. "Five minutes," she said with a smile.

"Thanks, Chris," Momoko said, smiling back as she put in her earrings.

Kay entered, effectively shutting down their conversation. "You guys ready?"

They nodded.

"Harris Nealon is here," she told them. "I guess you made quite an impression on him. He knows lots of people, up and down the Eastern seaboard, so that's nice." She looked at her phone. "Oops, time to go."

They filed out ahead of her and took the stage. Momoko felt the rush she was starting to feel every time she heard their name announced in the blackness, when she heard the people begin to cheer for them. Then the lights went up and everyone was looking at them, faces upturned, and she could see their mouths forming her name, and it was a whole different kind of high.

Midway through the show, she saw him, Harris, off to the side, standing with the manager of the club, and he smiled at her, holding up his drink in a salute.

She smiled back as she sang, knowing that at least Jude and Sully had noticed.

She flicked her eyes over to Sully.

What am I going to do?

She could see him give a slight up and down motion to his shoulders.

I don't know, sweetheart, I don't know.

She got to the end of the show and introduced everyone in the band, noticing that Dane was getting pretty good about actually standing up behind his keyboard and taking a bow before sitting down instead of just nodding without rising, like he used to.

Then the show was over, and they were backstage, hugging each other, shouting as they pulled their earpieces out and let their hearing adjust to normal conditions once more.

They were all dressed and nearly ready to head back to the hotel, and no one had come backstage to see them. Momoko was starting to think she'd dodged a bullet.

"Maybe he just wanted to see the show, you guys," she said hopefully.

"No way, he was eyeballing you the whole show," Sully said, shaking his head as he tied his shoes.

Just then Kay opened the door. "Momoko? Everyone? You all decent? Someone's here to see you." She entered with Harris Nealon behind her.

"Hullo," Jude said, striding forward with his hand held out. "Thought I saw you in the house during the show. Thanks for coming!"

"Hey you guys," he responded. "Great show! Truly outstanding, I'm so glad I came."

"Thank you," they responded, nodding and smiling his way.

Momoko turned so Dane could zip up her dress.

"I was hoping I could take you out for a drink, maybe?" His invitation was made to the room at large, but it was to Momoko he spoke, and he was looking only at her.

"Well, this is a happy coincidence," Dane said, surprising everyone. "We were so happy you came to the show, because we wanted to take you out as a thank you for having us on your show this afternoon, and on such short notice, as it were." He looked around at everyone else. "We have to get on the road so early tomorrow morning, but we have a few minutes now for a quick drink out front if that's okay? I don't think they close for another hour, right, Kay?"

"Right," she answered with a smile.

"Sounds great," Harris answered with a nod. "Though you have no need to thank me. Mentoring up and coming talent is part of my job, I think, and that's definitely what you guys are."

They went out front, where a few fans were waiting for them, and Momoko and the boys spent a happy few minutes signing autographs and taking selfies with them. During all of this, and while they found a table and and ordered drinks and got some food, Jude, Dane, Sully and Tommy made sure that two of them were always on either side of Momoko, and that she didn't end up next to Harris when they sat down.

They made easy small talk and drank and talked music for a polite twenty minutes or so, while they ate and thanked Harris over and over for making time for them.

No one could accuse them of not showing gratitude or courtesy.

Kay was proud of them.

She also noticed that, under the table, Momoko was holding hands with Sully and Dane, who were sitting on either side of her, and that at different points in time they had their arms draped intimately over her legs, and vice versa.

How interesting.

"Well, I suppose we'd better get going," Jude said after about half an hour. He sounded genuinely regretful. "We have a long trip tomorrow, and we have to be on the road agonizingly early, don't we, Kay?"

"We do," she said with a nod.

Everyone rose and headed for the bus, which was all loaded up, and, like before, Momoko was always in the middle of at least two of the boys.

"Well, look, here's my card," Harris finally said. He handed one to Kay, and pulled out another one. This one he turned over, and wrote on the back of before handing it to Momoko. "This is my personal cell number. If you're ever back in Philly and want to get together, or you need something, please, give me a call, okay?"

Momoko accepted the card with a smile. "I'll do that. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to meet you, and thank you for everything you did for us, Harris, truly, we're so grateful." She stepped back into Dane's arm, and Jude quickly put his arm around her from the other side.

They turned and got on the bus, waving merrily to him as they did so.

"Wow, thanks guys, that wasn't so bad," Momoko said. "I mean, I could easily have just shut him down with a hard 'no,' but that would've made everything so awkward professionally, you know? This way we don't have to feel bad if we see him again, and we definitely thanked him enough, I think, don't you?"

Everyone laughed.

"You weren't interested in him?" Kay asked curiously. "You didn't find him attractive?"

Momoko shook her head. "Besides, even if I did, we're leaving tomorrow, what did you expect me to do, hook up with him tonight and then leave town?"

Kay was nonplussed.

Everyone looked at her in the semidarkness of the bus as it rumbled through downtown Philadelphia. Obviously, that was what she expected Momoko to do.

"I don't usually do hook ups," she told Kay. "I don't like them, because I can't help getting emotionally attached, and then my feelings get hurt and all that, you know?"

Kay nodded. Again, she was impressed.

"Kay? That kind of goes for all of us," Jude told her. "We like to party and all, but that probably won't involve sex, yeah? So don't worry about trying to procure women for us, okay? It's not who we are. If we want women, we'll find them on our own, and we'll want to date them properly and all that."

"Um, okay, noted." Kay looked around at all of them. "I must say, I've never managed a band like you before in my entire career."

"Well, there's a first time for everything, isn't there?" Sully said, leaning over the back seat and planting a kiss on her cheek.