Bobbi glanced up from her phone when she heard her name being called.

"Bobbi, we're here."

Her smiled faded as she glanced from Alex sitting across from her, past her date sitting to her right. His gaze was locked on the scene outside as the limo rolled to a slow stop and barely looked back at her until Alex coughed and brought his attention back to earth. He ran a quick hand through his neatly styled dirty blonde hair and turned to face Bobbi, a sly smile breaking across his face as he ran his eyes over her body for the third time thus far in their short commute.

"You ready to go?" He asked.

The dark brown of his eyes forced Bobbi to swallow down a wince and looked instead down at her hands, letting her gaze absorb the glinting rings that adorned her fingers. His eyes remained the same color, despite her desire for them to somehow magically change into a nice blue. But she had managed a smile upon her lips and took a deep breath to prepare herself.

With a quick nod, his hand reached for hers and she found it suddenly enveloped in an embrace that felt too smooth and unfamiliar. She forced the thoughts of everything she wished to change about her life to the back of her mind to deal with a later time and gathered the skirt of her long black dress in her free hand.

The near silence that the three of them had ridden in the whole way to the theater was then was forcibly thrown out as a mass of screams and general red carpet ambience pierced the atmosphere as the driver opened their car door. With a quick glance in the rear view mirror situated up front and a nod from Alex that each strand of her dark black hair was perfectly in place, she was ready to go.

Taking a deep breath, she planted her ready-made smile onto her lips and stepped out onto the sidewalk, the volume level of the surrounding atmosphere erupting as the air filled with thousands of fans screaming her name.

**********

Bobbi found herself nearly losing brain cells only five minutes into the conversation with the parking attendant for the Brooklyn Music Festival the next day. Her hard-won cool manner was starting to wear thin as she continued to argue back in forth from the front seat of the minivan.

"We should be on the list. We're one of the performing acts. We have to be on some list somewhere!"

The young girl seemed just about Bobbi's own age but lacked any sort of comprehensive understanding of how to work with people. Her lack of information and qualification for the job of parking attendant was showing and painting her in a very bad light in Bobbi's eyes.

"Well, I don't know what to tell ya. You gotta have the pass to park backstage. That's the rules." Every other syllable was punctuated with the smacking sound of her bubble gum.

Bobbi glanced down at the clock, the time reading out their extreme tardiness. The sight only increased her desire to reach out and knock the girl flat on her back. She tried taking a deep breath to calm down, slicking back her hair and making sure her long brown hair was still high and tight in it's ponytail.

She turned to her co-captain where he sat in the front passengers seat, her eyes begging for assistance but hidden behind her glasses that kept out the high-noon sun.

"Any time you wanna jump in and help out, big bro, will be greatly appreciated."

"Hmm?"

Alfie looked from the visor mirror for the first time and seemed to just then notice that they had arrived at their destination. He had spent the whole drive from their motel to the venue trying desperately to tame the brown curls shooting from the top of his head. His green eyes turned onto Bobbi's own then past her at the attendant.

"What seems to be the problem?"

Bobbi didn't let the attendant speak.
"They won't let us park. Something about needing a pass."

"But we don't get the passes until we park."

"I know that. And I've tried tell her that. She just wont believe me that we're actually suppose to be setting up and going through a sound check right now."

Alfie glanced between Bobbi and the parking attendant, both staring him down. He tried to open his mouth to speak, then shut it, allowing his sleep clogged brain to a bit more time to think and problem solve.

"Teddy, you wanna take a crack?" Alfie said, through a yawn.

"Hmm?" Theo poked his head forward, leaning against the center counsel separating the two front seats.

He turned to Bobbi who then nodded towards the parking attendant. He gave her a quick nod of understanding, then with a quick yawn and shake of his head, he woke himself up enough to gaze past Bobbi at their cause of their current predicament.

"Hi, there." He said, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and making sure to smile.

"Hi." The girl's voice suddenly rose a few octaves higher and Bobbi turned away to hide her laugh as she saw a slow blush creep up her face.

Theo ran a hand through his perfectly styled short brown hair and glanced down at his hands. The kill shot came when he looked back up and smiled his most flirtatious smile, his bright blue eyes and perfectly symmetrical features doing their job.

"Look. We've really gotta go get ready to play. I know you take you're job very seriously and I can see you're really good at it. Do you think you could help me out?"

The high pitched giggle that resounded past Bobbi's window sent a roll of laughter up her own throat and she had to cough in an attempt to cover it up, making sure to keep her gaze away from the situation so she didn't break Theo's spell.

"I mean, I'm not suppose to. You really need your pass."

"And we're gonna get ours, I promise. We just need to get in first. Think you can tell us where we can park? You'd literally be the best ever."

Bobbi glanced up and caught Theo flashing an even brighter smile to seal the deal. He caught her eye and sent her her own wink, to which she replied with an exaggerated eye roll. Theo's light chuckle granted another giggle from the parking attendant and when she spoke again, Bobbi heard a resignation and willingness in her voice she hadn't before.

"Well...."

Bobbi looked up, her hand ready to switch gears and her foot hovering over the gas pedal.

"Sure. Go ahead. Take your first left. You'll see the rest of the crew already back there."
"Thanks. Thank you so much." Theo said.

"Yeah. Thanks."

Bobbi drove off and left the attendant behind before Theo's flirting became any more sickening. Hurrying as fast as she could, pushing a slow 15 mph driving over an uneven field among crew members as they wandered through their route, Bobbi soon enough found a spot to park and was yelling for everyone to get out of the car.

Quickly wiping the dirt off her black pants as she came around the back of the van, momentarily cursing the warm sun overhead for clashing with her punk rock aesthetic, Bobbi found Sam already reaching for the handle to open the tail gate.

"Not yet, Sam." Bobbi said, hurrying over to make sure nothing came tumbling out as the minivan was packed to capacity.

They had barely been able to find their luggage the night before among the mess of merchandise and instruments. It was even more difficult than they had been used to when the clock read out nearly four in the morning and the street lights outside their motel provided little help.

Theo and Alfie joined the rest of them, sunglasses on and already in search of a cup of coffee. Bobbi turned to Alfie first.

"Okay, Alfie. Where is this girl?"

Alfie's grabbed his phone and glanced down.
"She says she's here and will meet us with our passes at the check-in table."

"That's this way." Sam pointed back in the direction they had just come, towards where a white tent had been set up leading into the rest of the festival fairgrounds.

"You're welcome, by the way." Theo said, quickly hurrying up to walk along side Bobbi.

"For what?" Bobbi asked.

"I totally just saved our butts back there! God knows how long we would have lasted if you just sat there arguing with that girl."

"We're only late because you and Alfie got up late. And don't kid yourself, Ted. You just flirted with a girl. Not solve world hunger."

"Ouch! You're crabby when your stressed. You gonna be like this all tour?" Theo asked, a laugh hiding among his false sense of offense.

"She's just pissed because we're late. Hopefully with Alex, that won't happen again." Alfie said, coming to walk on Theo's other side. "You're a great singer, Bob. But I think we'll all be better off once we get a real manager."

"Who is this Alex anyways?" Bobbi asked.

"Recently graduated communications major with a focus in management in media, looking for a summer job." Alfie said.

"And?" Bobbi promoted.

"And she's the only one who responded to our craigslist ad, so in summary, she's the best we've got right now."

"I'm guessing that's her." Sam nodded to a tall blonde who stood by the registration tent, glancing every few moments from her phone to survey the different parties moving around her. She locked eyes with Alfie and nodded, making a straight line towards them.

"Alfred King?" She asked, turning towards Alfie. She extended her hand and Alfie took it. He winced under the pressure of her tight grip and nodded.

"You can call me Alfie. This is my sister, Bobbi, and Theo and Sam."

Alex gave a curt nod to each other but was then forced to glance back at Theo as he took a step forward.

"Hi." He said smiling, extending his own hand. "I'm Theo."

Alex did not return the gesture and looked him over once with her lips pressed together in a tight line.

"Yeah, no. Shut it down." She finally said, after a quite moment of awkward silence.

Alfie burst out laughing as Theo retracted his hand and rejoined their small line. Alex ignored Alfie's outburst and Theo's air of uncertainty as he stood with his hands in his pockets and turned to Bobbi.

"Alright. I'll take the reigns from now on. Nice work. You've gotten yourselves this far. I'm impressed."

She extended her hand out towards Bobbi and Bobbi glanced over at Alfie as she shook her hand, the compliment sounding strange in such a cool and formal tone. Alfie had settled himself enough but his mouth was still spread in a wide smile as he shrugged.

"Alright, Wallflowers," Alex said, taking a step back to survey the four of them.

"Actually, it's Wild Wallflowers." Sam said.

Alex opened her mouth to speak but then locked eyes with Sam for a long moment where he stood up tall and erect next to Bobbi, his hands clasped behind his back. His eyes were hidden behind his sunglasses and his short blonde hair swept back from his eyes by his baseball cap. But his lips resembled Alex's tight lipped grimace and she gave him a nod before speaking again.

"Okay. Wild Wallflowers. You are on in one hour and the third act to perform. You have a sound check scheduled on the Harrison stage on the NorthEast corner of the fair grounds in twenty minutes. I've got a group of crew members on standby to help unload and set up. Due to your late arrival, we don't have time to do it ourselves."

The four of them shared a quick glance and a few wincing expressions. But Alex's tone remained free of condemnation. In fact, it remained free of all emotion, her words used solely for the purpose of relaying information.

"You have an interview. Tomorrow morning. At Brooklyn's top alternative radio stations to talk about today's festival and your show tomorrow night to kick off your tour with 7 Ships. I'll need the name of your hotel to book another room for myself and Bobbi. As well as your social media passwords to document today's activities, as well as all future ones. The festival has provided catering and you can eat after soundcheck. Any questions?"

Bobbi didn't have to turn to her side to know that the expressions of her fellow bandmates must have mirrored her own, her jaw nearly to the ground as Alex stood tall in front of them, all stress and chaos seemingly under her complete control.

"I'll take that as a no." She said. "Let's get to work. We've got a show to do."