City of Stars - A La La Land Story (UPDATING SCHEDULE SUCKS! SORRY!)

Here's to the Mess We Make

As Seb's hands moved across the board, a sweet melody enveloped the room in a seemingly heart-wrenching but sweet tune that filled your ears and then made your heart open up bit by bit. It was our melody. Our melody. It was more upbeat than the variation he played when I came oh, so many years ago with Chet.

After he finished playing, Seb stood up and took the microphone from its stand next to the piano.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen," he said, looking around in the audience and earning a few awkward screams from the fangirl group. "I just wanted to thank The Messengers for preforming tonight and our special guest, a very good friend of mine, actress Mia Dolan, for dropping by with me today."

The audience looked around until their eyes landed on mine. I gave a smile and a small wave before returning my attention to Seb. I hated attention like this, it always makes me uncomfortable.

"Thank you once again, and enjoy the show."

Keith hopped on stage alomg with a couple of his bandmates and they started rearranging the stage, bringing out microphones and a drum set.

Keith started playing and it took me a while to realize he called me his very good friend. Good friend, what's that supposed to mean? Was I just friendzoned?

I spent the next two preformances pondering this. If he just wanted to be friends, why was he flirting with me earlier? I circled back to when we first reunited and replayed what happened in my mind again and again.

I gave up thinking about it at the start of the third song, Start a Fire. Men are strange creatures, and I don't have it in me to figure them out right now. I let myself be enveloped in the familiar tunes and lyrics and soon found myself in the "mosh pit", which was just a clear area next to the bar, bouncing and singing along with the fangirl group.

At the end of Start a Fire and lots of applause, Keith took the microphone.

"We're going to have a short intermission, so please get a drink and we will come back in fifteen minutes. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen."

People slowly got up from their seats to order snacks and drinks, and I went back to my seat to check on Belle. I had kind of ignored her texts, even though I had felt the notification buzzes, and I felt really bad.

I scrolled up to the first text, which was just some winky faces responding to when I told her I was with Seb. The next couple texts were about sleeping arrangements for Annabelle and Caitlin, and then she sent an article. I clicked on the link, sort of freaking out. Belle hated sending news articles, she thinks the media is rigged, so her sending me one must mean it's serious. As I scrolled down the article, my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. Chet had posted a picture saying I hadn't payed child support and wasn't intending on doing so, going on and on about how I don't care about Jill and how her crying keep him up at night. It had over one million views. So that's what Belle meant when she said Chet was going to screw up my career. The article was the last text from her, and I quickly reponded, saying that I'll schedule a meeting with Lynnie tomorrow. I had missed fourteen calls from Lynnie, and twenty texts trying to schedule a time. I franctically texted back a confirmation and explanation of where I was.

I decided it was time to head back and ran out the club and tried navigating my way through the boxes and instruments backstage. I found Seb in the dressing room, taking a break and eating a bag of chips, and I tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped up and turned around, shoulders relaxing as he saw it was just me.

"What's going on?" He threw away the empty bag of chips and dusted his hands off in the trash can. "Have a song request? We take those during the show, not -um- backstage."