only ecstasy, original

chapter two: our little secret

THE TWO MANAGERS shook hands after finalizing all the terms of the contract for Meredith opening.

Luke, Meredith's manager, had always been good at negotiating so that Meredith could succeed without the fear of having something blow up in her face. They quickly became like family, Luke even would have her over for dinner's or to weekends with his wife and kids in the Hamptons.

His daughter absolutely adored her.

"I'm glad this all worked out, I know the band became really set on the idea of Meredith opening for them," Only Ecstasy's manager, June, said as she shook Luke's hand. The two had been meeting just to talk about the tour and how they were going to approach the media side of things.

"Yeah, I know Meredith is really grateful for this opportunity. How are the band's rehearsals going?" He asked out of curiosity.

"They're good, yeah. It's set to be a huge tour. I think their set is around two hours? I may be wrong though. How's Meredith doing? The rehearsal space worked out well?" Seeing as they reached out a month before Meredith was set to rehearse, Only Ecstasy's team paid for the space for her and her band to practice.

"She's liking it. Finalizing her set list, she's trying to pick songs with the widest variety topic wise and even genre wise. Wants people to see all she's capable of," he shrugged as he took a sip of his drink.

"I'm sure it'll work out just fine," June smiled.

Meanwhile, a very tired Meredith, had just finished rehearsing the opening song All-American Bitch. Since she just got off from touring the album, she wanted to keep the same opening track.

It was their second time running through the setlist, she just wanted everything to be perfect.

That's the kind of person she was when it came to her music.

Suddenly, in walked the tall, messy haired blonde boy who took on the role of the lead guitarist for Only Ecstasy, Max Bolton.

"Looking good," he complimented.

"Oh, hey. Don't you have rehearsals of your own?" She asked, stepping away from her band to approach him.

"We just kinda put together the set list and do a whole last minute week of rush. The rest of the time we just basically sit there and hangout," he shrugged.

"So, what're you doing here exactly?" Meredith looked him up and down.

"You and I are going out," he grinned.

"Huh?"

"Figured I should get to know the girl opening for us. All I know is what's seen online and I think we both know that there's little to no truth in that," he explained before leaning against the wall.

"Fair enough," she smiled at him.

"So? C'mon," Max half expected her to drop everything.

"I'm in the middle of rehearsal—"

"You guys are done for the night, good work!" He cut her off.

"It's only seven, we were gonna go for another hour or two." They had been there since four, it took an hour and a bit as she worked on finalizing the set list. Then another half an hour was taken up by Morgan calling her in regard to tour outfits so they had only just started their second run through.

"Take it from me, don't overdo it when you don't have to. You'll be back at it tomorrow."

"Okay, fine," she figured he was probably going to get his way regardless.