Same Day, Ruby's House, 1:52 PM...

Regardless of the shenanigans that happened to take place earlier in the day, Shane knew that Saturday afternoons were for band practice. So, despite only getting a few hours of sleep due to Dean and Becky surprising him, the always punctual Price boy had made sure that he arrived at Ruby's home at the designated meeting time they all agreed upon. He was greeted by Riott herself at the front door, who immediately recognized the fatigue on his face as she let him in.

"Hey, Shane. What's up, you seem kinda out of it." She stated concerned.

Shane attempted to mask it and pretend like he wasn't as exhausted as he seemed to be.

"Oh don't worry about me, Rue. I'm alright, trust me. I just didn't get a lotta sleep last night."

"Well that's not good. Do you need to rest or something? You can crash on my couch for a little while. We've got all day today and tomorrow to practice."

"Mmm mmm, no sir. I came here to work, not lounge around. Thanks for the offer though. Now, where's the rest of us?"

"Riiiight here!" A voice called out.

That voice of course, belonged to a certain blonde named Liv, who was running at full speed toward Shane. Ruby, sensing exactly what her best friend was going to do, tried to stop her with words.

"Liv, wait! That's not a good idea right-"

Before she could even fully get her sentence out, Liv did what she always did when she saw Shane, and jumped onto the boy, expecting to be caught. However, since Shane was dirt tired, his reaction time was a little... off. By the time he realized the situation, Morgan was already mid flight. Not wanting her to take a hard fall, Shane tried his best to catch the girl, and although he stumbled quite a bit, he managed to eventually maintain a stable position. He let out a sigh of relief before looking Liv in the face and giving her a weak smile.

"Hi, Liv. Nice to see you... What's wrong?"

The mischievous cheerleader was smiling, but she was also blushing, which was not something that usually happened.

"Nice to see you too... Um, ya feelin' frisky today, honey?"

"Huh? What do you... mean.."

The Irish boy suddenly understood exactly what she meant, when he realized where his hands were. It looked like Shane had inadvertently... grabbed a handful of Liv's... cake.

Price immediately put her down and now was red as a Crip's worst enemy. The apologies flowed out of this man so quick it was ridiculous.

"Shit, Liv. I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sooooo, sorry. I just... and you came flyin' at me, and I didn't know, I mean I didn't mean to do it... fuck... Please don't tell Alexa."

While Shane sputtered out his nervous retractions, Rhea had come into frame, and she couldn't help but chuckle at the scene before her.

"What are you spazzing out for, mate? What'd I miss?" She asked smiling.

Liv's short lived shyness had completely disappeared by this point, and she saw a golden opportunity to fluster the poor boy even more.

"Shane's willpower finally broke and he couldn't resist me anymore. Had a nice handful of my...assets."

Rhea's raised her eyebrow, obviously intrigued.

"Oh? You bein' a naughty boy now, mate?"

Price then frantically tried to clear up the situation.

"What?! No, it wasn't like that at all, I swear! I-I just didn't want to drop her, and my-my hands slipped! That's it, honest!"

All the girls started laughing at his display of nervous energy. Even Ruby, the usual voice of reason, couldn't help but let out a little chuckle.

"Not you too, Ruby."

"I'm sorry, your reaction is just too funny not to laugh at. Especially since we all know you didn't do it on purpose. We trust you, Shane. We know you'd never do anything to hurt us. If we didn't, you wouldn't even be in my house right now. There's no need to be all jumpy." The punk girl calmly stated.

"Yeah, honey. You're completely fine. I understand it was an accident." Morgan followed up.

"Also, if you were some kind of a perv, I would've knocked ya into next week ages ago. Be easy, mate." Rhea finished.

The positive words from his bandmates managed to calm Price down.

"Uh.. thanks guys. I appreciate the kind words. I'm just not all there right now admittedly."

"Now that ya mention it, you do look bloody exhausted." Ripley pointed out.

"That's because he is. I already told him he could lay on the couch and nap for a while if he wanted, but he said he was fine."

The brazen Aussie took a closer look at Shane's facial features. She automatically noticed that he definitely wasn't at a hundred percent.

"Nah, I don't think he's fine. Why don't ya just rest for a bit?" She asked him.

"Cause today is practice day. I treat this the same way I treated football. I never missed that, so I can't miss this either. Plus, I know how much you guys wanna win this competition, and we don't have a lotta time left. What is it, in like 2 weeks? I don't have time to rest."

"Aww, Shane. That's sweet, but you got it all wrong. Yeah we wanna win, but we're mainly doing it for fun. Me and Rue Rue always wanted to start a band together, and then you came along. In turn, you brought in Rhea. And altogether, we have fun every time we jam out together. So 75 percent of the goal is already complete. Winning the battle of the bands at this point would just be an added bonus." The cheerleader said sincerely.

The other two girls nodded in agreement, and Shane soaked in Liv's words.

"I guess I have been kinda taking this a little too seriously. Damn. You guys are making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

And then he stretched and let out a relatively strong yawn.

"Now, can you please get some sleep? We need our frontman at full power." Ruby pleaded.

Price shrugged.

"Sure, why not?"

Rhea then had an idea.

"Alright, mate. Up ya go."

"Up? Whaddya mean, u-"

The strong guitarist lifted the boy with the greatest of ease, and jokingly started rocking him back and forth like a baby. This made Ruby and Liv lose it. She then walked over to the couch and gently put him down, before sitting down next to where his head was. After the initial shock had worn off, Price joined in on the laughter.

"Ya know what's funny? I've carried Alexa like that so many times. How the tables have turned. Damn. Thanks, Rhea."

Ripley ruffled his hair.

"Anytime, anytime."

"Oh my god, you're like his big sister. That's soooo adorable, aaaaah!" Liv happily exclaimed.

"Dude I'd be happy as hell if I had a badass sister like Rhea... oh shit I said it again didn't I?"

Rhea let out a hearty laugh.

"I take the badass thing as a compliment, stop worrying about it."

The blush had returned to Shane's face regardless.

"Imma just... imma just go to sleep."

"Hold on, let me get you a pillow first. Ruby insisted.

However, Rhea stopped her.

"He don't need a pillow."

She then patted her lap.

"Go on, lay your head here."

"Uhhh... ummm... are you sure?" Price asked cautiously.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Gotta take care of my little brother don't I?"

Price couldn't and didn't wanna argue with that logic, so he took the path of least resistance and laid his head on his bandmate's thigh.

"This is... this is oddly comfortable."

"You do understand that I'm taking pictures of this, right?" Liv said matter of factly.

"Please don't." Shane begged.

Unfortunately for him, Liv had already taken out her phone and started getting snapshot after snapshot.

Price sighed.

"What am I gonna do with you girls?"

"Oh stop it, you love us." Rhea said.

"That I do, Rhea. That I do."

"