***Chapter 3- Sophie pov***

And so it began. Originally when we came to Australia, we thought we'd take a few months to settle in, and then buy tickets to one of Short Stack's concerts.

Now, after a grand total of two days, we had been told that not only were we going to a concert in two days, but we would be meeting the band.

Sufficed to say we all panicked quite a bit.

The next morning Emily had us awake and out of the apartment at 8.30am with the intent of buying everything we would need for the next day. Tensions were high. Anna and I almost had a fist-fight over what a size 5 shoe size was in Australian and Emily was reduced to near tears by the what shoes would go with her new top problem.

But eventually when we fell into the apartment almost ten hours later, we had everything we needed. We hadn't even stopped for lunch.

"Oh god." Anna flopped on the sofa and put her arm over her forehead. "My feet are in so much pain right now."

"It'll be worth it when you look hot in front of Bradie tomorrow." I said, laughing weakly.

"I'm hungry." Emily said. "Anna, it's your turn to cook."

"I'm not cooking anything. I can't even fucking move right now."

"How about we just get pizza?" I suggested, sensing another war coming on. When I say we 'argue', they're never actually proper fights. We disagree over things, call each other names, throw stuff and then laugh about how ridiculous we all are. We'd never actually had a proper fight. We were just too close for that.

I ordered the pizza and we spent the rest of the evening drinking cheap wine, eating pizza and talking about the following night. I think we were all pretty confident.

The next night was a very different story.

"I feel sick." Emily murmured, "I'm going to up-chuck on their shoes and then get tossed out by security."

"You'll be fine Emily." I decided not to tell her I was feeling queasy myself.

Anna's hands shook as she picked up her glass of water. "When are we leaving?"

"When Aliesha calls." Emily said.

Right on que, there was a knock on the door.

I opened it. Aliesha was standing there with a tall guy I'd never seen before. "Hey Soph! Ready to go?"

"We're all set!" I said, glancing behind me at Emily and Anna.

"By the way," Aliesha said as we walked out of the lobby. "This is my boyfriend John." John just nodded silently. He had long dark hair, and dark eyes. He looked like he belonged in some weird rock band. Definitely not my type.

The ride to the venue was virtually silent except for Aliesha. The three of us, squashed into the back of the car, were too nervous to talk, and apparently John wasn't the talking type. I didn't even know what Aliesha saw in him.

***Anna pov***

When we arrived at the venue, it was already packed, despite the fact doors didn't open for another firty-five minutes.

The five of us, Soph, Emily, Aliesha, John, who I didn't like, and I, had to battle our way through hoards of screaming fans to get to the ticket booth, where we showed our VIP passes (Aliesha had given us them the day before), before we were ushered in by a lone security guard who looked minutes away from a mental breakdown.

When we were inside, Aliesha said "We should probably try to find Andy." Turning to John, she said "Do you know where he'd be?"

To our surprise he muttered "Probably in the green room."

Aliesha nodded and started walking off. We followed, since we had no idea of what else to do.

"Oh my god." Emily hissed in my ear. "Anna, is that Shaun Jumpnow?"

"What? Where?" I hissed back. Then I saw him walked towards us. He was the tour manager, we recognized him from Short Stack TV. We loved the crew just as much as we loved the band members.

So when Jumpnow walked towards us, I nearly had a panic attack. It was just so real.

"Hey Allie!" he said, hugging Aliesha. "Did Andy get you tickets after all?"

"Yep! For me and some friends." She motioned to us. "This is Sophie, Emily and Anna. And this is Jumpnow."

We already know that

"Hey, it's nice to meet you." Jumpnow shook each of our hands.

"Hi!" Sophie managed to squeak. Emily and I seemed incapable of talking. God knows what would happen when we met the actual band.

"Where's the band?" Aliesha asked.

"In the green room, getting ready?"

"Good. Shaun owes me money from a bet."

Jumpnow snorted. "Yeah, good luck with that."

"Don't worry, he knows not to fuck with me." She winked at him before dragging us off, taking us to what I assumed was the green room. We passed a large curtain and through the gap I could see the huge venue and thousands of people. Aliesha was saying hi to everyone we passed, but we only recognized the minority.

Finally we found a door which had a sign saying green room. It was slightly ajar, and Aliesha peered in the gap. Then without warning, she grabbed the handle and burst in with a yell of "Diviney! You owe me $20!"

All three of them were in there. Shaun, the lead singer and guitarist, was lying on the leather couch, writing in a notebook. Andy, the bassist and backing vocalist, and Bradie, the drummer, were sitting on the ground, playing Xbox on a massive TV.

"Dammit, I was hoping you would have forgotten about that." Shaun said, standing up.

"It's nice to see you too, Aliesha." Andy said sarcastically, not taking his eyes off the TV.

"Money before family, Andy. You know how it is." Aliesha said, smirking. "By the way," she said, shoving the three of us forward. "These are my friends, Sophie, Anna and Emily. They're huge fans."

All three of them glanced at us, then all three did a double take at the same time. I felt like Bradie was staring right at me, but I was probably imagining things.

Shaun handed Aliesha some money, but his eyes were fixed on Emily's She was staring back at him, looking strong and determined. But she was standing beside me, and I could feel her shaking. We all were.

"Shaun, are you aware you just handed me $50?" Aliesha asked, sounding like she was holding back laughter.

"What? Oh…" Shaun mumbled.

Andy bounded forward and grabbed Sophie's hand. "Hi! I'm Andy!"

"I'm Sophie." She squeaked, her cheeks going slightly pink.

"Cute accent." Shaun said, grinning. He was still looking at Emily, who had went crimson.

"Thanks! It's Northern Irish!" Soph continued. She always handled stuff like this the best, but I could tell she was petrified.

Bradie came forward and shook my hand awkwardly. "I'm Bradie."

"Hey Bradie. I'm Anna." I almost laughed at his awkwardness, he was so darn cute!

The six of us made awkward small talk, while Aliesha talked to John smirking at us every so often. I was going to kill her.

The Lewis poked his head round the corner of the green room. "Uhm, Aliesha. The concert's about to start. I would go to your seats."

"Okay!" Aliesha said cheerfully, taking John's hand. We were just leaving when Shaun reached out and grabbed Emily's hand.

"Hey, are you guys coming backstage after?" he asked.

Emily grinned. "Sure! I mean…" she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. Fucking flirt. "If you want us to."

"Hell yeah we want you to!" Andy said, actually winking at Sophie, whose eyes went wide.

Bradie didn't say anything, just gave me a small yet special (at least to me) smile.

When Because They Can, the support act, where performing, Aliesha yelled over the screaming fans to me "Well, backstage went very well!"

"Did it?" I asked/yelled.

"Yes!" She looked at me and smiled. "Bradie couldn't take his eyes off you."