In This Starless City

The next day came quickly and after hours full of messing around, staying in high spirits, and trying not to think of the night’s events that had yet to come, the sun fell behind the horizon and the doors to the venue opened for the night’s show.

I was in our dressing room, seated in front of the mirror I had just done my makeup in, wringing my hands in my lap and swallowing every four seconds.

Nathan, Brandon, and Oliver were never really ones to get nervous before shows. They’d done shows in front of the harsh and sharply critical crowds of New York City and were used to it for the most part. And I supposed I should’ve been used to it by then too. But I wasn’t. Not even close. The butterflies were rabid in my stomach…

I continued to wring my hands feverishly as the crowd’s volume began to climb.

A woman poked her head in the room and said, “Two minutes, guys,” and then closed the door again.

The boys all took deep, hissing breathes behind me and I knew each of them were smiling toothily to the other. I stood and faced them and the beamed at me.

“Ready, loves?” I ask, my accent thick and causing their smiles to widen.

“After you,” Oliver mocks my accent, gesturing out the door and toward the stage. I took another shuddering breath and then sauntered toward the edge of the stage. And then, I stopped, my feet rooted to the spot as I waited for our cues to go out. The crowd’s screams were exciting the butterflies that fluttered around my insides and I had to keep myself from fidgeting.

Alex, Rian, Zack, and Jack all stood by us offstage as we got ready to go out, each of them wishing my boys and me good luck, but I couldn’t distinguish any of their words. The lungs of the kids in the mosh pit had my full attention.

Then, tearing my thoughts away from the exhilarated audience and causing my mind to go into overdrive, Jack had walked over to me and pressed his mouth to my ear. Thank God for the loudness of the crowd because I gasped in surprise.

“Knock ‘em dead, Charlotte,” his coarse, loud whispering voice echoed in my mind as I looked at him with both confusion and what I hoped he wouldn’t see as fear. And then, my boys walked out on stage and I followed mechanically until I stood in front of my mic, the crowd warm and roaring.

And then, my bass was hanging from my shoulders and any thoughts I had before then toned down to soft white noise. I could only focus on the music that was yet to flow from our instruments and speakers.

Oliver smiled at the crowd and looked at me as Nathan jumped into the opening chords of our first song. I followed suit and Oliver gave me a smile, probably happy that my fingers were not connected to my frazzled brain in that moment. Brandon’s bass drum thudded and vital organs throbbed in unison.

As the music played, I was pleased to see the people in the crowd bouncing to the beat of our songs. Some were even singing along.

My heart thumped in my ears louder than my bass and the pulse of the drums. I deserted my mic stand and sauntered across the stage, standing behind Oliver and beside Nathan, singing along to myself with a huge smile on my face.

Kids in the audience were getting more excited now and when our first song ended, the venue was roaring louder than it had been when we first came on stage.

Oliver thanked the crowd, adjust the mic stand distractedly, and I made my way back to my original position. “Now, my friends and I are just a little band from New York City called Charlotte Melancholic,” the crowd’s screamed amplified and goose bumps rose on my arms. “And we’ve never been west of Cleveland, Ohio before, so I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce each of us so you can all give us a warm Las Angelas welcome.”

The crowd bellowed again and I fiddled with the cable of my bass as the lights in the house went down and only one lonely white spotlight was showing on Oliver. He waved at the crowd, flashing a white smile and causing several girls to scream. “My name is Oliver,” he said simply. A red spotlight came on behind him and Brandon stood. “Behind me, we have our drummer, Mr. Brandon,” Brandon tossed a pair of drumsticks into the crowd at the sound of his name. Then, to Oliver’s left, a yellow spotlight flicked on and Nathan stood there, his eyes twinkling. “Our lead guitarist, Nathan,” Oliver gestured and Nathan bowed slightly.

And then, the moment everyone had been waiting for and that I had been looking to avoid: my spotlighting.

The spotlight came on above me and it was a bluish purplish color, and I knew they’d done so because my eye makeup was of the same shades.

“And last, but certainly not least, our bassist and Miss Melancholy herself. Introducing Charlotte Connery,” I smiled down at the screaming kids and I heard some guys whistle loudly. I looked down to fight a blush as I laughed slightly. “She’s ridiculously shy so why don’t you make her, as well as the rest of us, feel right at home here in Las Angelas.” And then, Oliver began the first riff of the next song and Nathan and I jumped in right behind him right before Brandon.

As the music continued to pump through the air, my nervous frigidity began to thaw away and I started to roam the stage more and more. I stood in front of the bass drum and then jumped off and traded positions with Nathan and even sang into Oliver’s ear, provoking a wave of screams to erupt from the crowd.

We were only scheduled to pay for half an hour before All Time Low and when our time was coming to a close, all four of us were rather sweaty, but all four of us were also incredibly happy and it showed in our stage presence. Nathan and I strode around the stage, fooling around with each other whenever we passed the other. Brandon was extremely charismatic on his drum set behind us, standing to slam his cymbals. Even Oliver was bouncing on the balls of his feet, smiling into the mic as his amazing voice worked its magic.

And then, our last song ended, and the crowd’s decibel count had increased ten fold, as did the goose bumps that crawled across my skin.

“Thank you, LA,” Oliver says as he raised an open palm. “Thanks so much! Have a great time and goodnight!”

I was the first off the stage and I pulled my bass off of my shoulders and placed it our band’s rack before grabbing a towel from the stack that was on the speaker case, making my way to our dressing room.

“First shower,” Oliver announced when he set foot inside the dressing room after me. I grinned at him as I grabbed another towel from the counter in front of the makeup mirror, and then, I made my way toward the restrooms of our dressing room, shutting the door and locking it behind me before peeling my moist clothes off of my skin.

I jumped in the shower, quickly washing my hair and body, and then jumped out and dried myself off, wrapping a towel around my middle and walking to the door of the bathroom, knocking on it once.

Nathan’s voice carried out. “The doors locked. You’re safe,”

I then walked out of the bathroom and Oliver zipped past me, closing the door right behind me like he had in the hotel. Nathan and Brandon sat on the couch, still sweaty.

I reached for my change of clothes and then gaped. “Where are my clothes?!”

Nathan and Brandon looked at each other and then cracked up. “You mean you don’t know where they are?” Brandon asks.

“Well, that would explain why I just asked where they were,” I say acidly, clenching my towel tightly around me, looking high and low for my missing clothing.

Nathan and Brandon laughed as they watched me. And then, Nathan asked, “Whose hoodie is that?”

I heard Brandon shift on the couch. “Alex’s,” he answers.

I froze, my hand gripping one of the couch cushions as I turned to look at Brandon. “Gaskarth was in here?”

“Well apparently, I mean, why else would his hoodie be here?” the wheels in Brandon’s head clicked together and he laughed aloud again. “You can’t seriously think that Alex took your clothes? He’s not that smart.”

“He doesn’t have to be smart. He only has to know they’re mine and that I’d be showing after our set,” I growled as I snatched Alex’s hoodie. “Two can play at this game,” I murmur as I held it.

“I’ll go to our bus and grab you more clothes,” Nathan volunteers, hoping that he would interrupt whatever I was planning in my head. “Anything specific?”

I was already way ahead of him and he didn’t even know it. “Navy jeans and my purple and gold shirt,” I answer and then thought about it. “Grab me my black boots too.” He saluted me and I murmured thanks to him as he disappeared out the door. I leaned against the wall and waited, picking at the threads in Alex’s hoodie.

Nathan raced to the bus for my sake and was back within just a few minutes. I snatched the clothes from his hands, still a little put off with my original outfit going missing. Oliver was out of the bathroom within the next ten minutes and I raced inside to change before Brandon had a fit. When I walked out, I heard the crowd chanting in one voice, “All Time Low, All Time Low,”

I pulled on the boots Nathan had brought upon my request and then made my way to the offstage area with Oliver and Brandon following me. All Time Low was waiting to go on stage and I wasn’t surprised that my eyes snapped to Jack the moment I saw the back of his brown-haired head.

I walked up to him and stood on my tiptoes against his back, pressing my mouth to his ear as he had done to me. “Knock ‘em dead, Jack,” I tried to mimic his voice as the way it still echoed in my head, the feelings I had before I went on stage earlier flooding back to me the moment Jack turned and his eyes met mine.

“You were great out there,” he says over the crowd’s chants, his dark eyes starry despite the dimmed lighting.

I made to thank him but before I could, Rian and Zack had tugged his elbow before they went on stage and Jack gave me an apologetic smile before following them.

I didn’t know if I wanted to continue to be pissed at that boy in that moment.

And then my eyes landed on Alex and bliss turned to outrage. There he stood behind his mic stand with his guitar around hanging from his shoulders…shoulders that were covered in my clothes!

My eyes widened and I gawked at him from offstage and Brandon and Oliver snickered beside me.

“I can’t fucking believe that boy!” I scream, though no one would’ve heard me except the two sets of ears to my left and to my right. I thought the ceiling of the building would blow off from the shrill screams emitting from the audience now that All Time Low was on stage.

“Don’t you dare do anything,” Nathan said when he stopped by Oliver’s side, looking me square in the eye and grasping my wrist as if to stop me if I had initially planned on going out on stage in that moment.

“I’m not going to,” I say bluntly, pulling my wrist from his grasp to cross my arms on my chest. Nathan eyed me for a moment longer and then turned his attention—along with the rest of us—to the show.

All Time Low’s stage presence was intoxicating. There could be kids in the crowd that came here to hate and to crash and will probably go home and illegally download all of the music against their will. Even I found it hard to keep my heart from skipping each time any of the boys on stage would do something adorable with their hair or their eyes or each other.

And then, after “Jasey Rae”, Alex swished his hair out of his eyes and looked at some of the boys in the front row.

“Not to seem rude, but I think I out-dressed you tonight,” he grinned, popping the sleeve of my shirt against his shoulder. I thought I felt my eye twitch.

“He stole those clothes from a girl,” Jack comments from his mic. “And not in the way most of you are imagining.”

Alex’s chuckles echoed through the venue. “It’s a real misfortune,” he says lightly, turning and looking at me, his eyes cunning. “Everything I’m wearing—with the exception of my shoes and unmentionables—belong to Charlotte of Charlotte Melancholic,” the whole crowd screamed at the sound of my—and my band’s—name. “And you should see the glare she’s giving me now: it could cut diamonds.”

I growled inaudibly as the crowd roared when they jumped into their next song after some clever wordplay. Finally, after deciding that I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing anymore, I walked back to the dressing room and grabbed an old hoodie that was on the floor. It was too small to belong to any of us and it had a grease stain on it telling me that it had been there a while.

And conveniently, it was the same color as Alex’s hoodie. So, I sprayed it with some of Oliver’s cologne and then departed.

I walked out on stage, ignoring Nathan’s hollers and welcoming the crowd’s jubilant screams with open arms. I stopped at Jack’s mic stand and pressed my lips to it. “Two can play at that game, Gaskarth,” I say, eying him wickedly while holding up the hoodie threateningly. I then turned to the crowd. “This is one of Alex’s hoodies. Who wants it the most?”

The crowd surged forward, screaming and reaching their arms out toward me while Alex gazed at me. Did he think I wouldn’t have the stones?

I chucked the hoodie as far as I could and watched the crowd dive and fight for it, yelling and screaming and wrestling until finally one girl was the winner. Alex stared at me, stunned.

“We’re even, love,” I say sweetly, blowing him a kiss as I walked off stage again. Jack, Rian, and Zack were laughing the whole time.

“I can’t believe you did--…” Nathan started but I walked past him.

“I didn’t.” I say shortly, pleased.

“Oh really? How are you going to talk your way out of this one, miss silver tongue? Everyone saw you throw that hoodie into that sea of fans.”

We walked into the dressing room and I snatched Alex’s actual hoodie from off the couch where I had placed it. “Well, the only logical solution would be to get it back,” I showed him the article of clothing.

He looked at it and then back at me. “You’re not planning on giving that back to him anytime soon, are you?” I shook my head, smiling and laughing playfully. “Aren’t you cunning?”

“Maybe these boys will learn not to cross me faster than you and Oliver and Brandon,” I foretell as I tossed the hoodie back on the couch. Nathan looked at me, his head tilted and his face obvious.

“I doubt it,” we said together and we both laughed in unison.