Hey there. So I'm taking a break from I May Be in Love With Spiderman; the ideas just aren't coming. I happened to be looking back through some of my old ideas and came across a very old version of this. And I mean very old. So this is what's been in the works. I'd love for any of you to drop a comment, just to let me know what you like, what you don't like. I can't promise any major continuation because this is just to channel in excess ideas that don't apply to my 'main squeeze'. BUT if I get enough comments, maybe I'll make an effort to continue this (and actually think of an ending!). I'd really like that, because I hate leaving stories unfinished. But I can't do it without motivation!! (You're my motivation *nudge nudge*)

Summary: I used to be lucky. I used to be loved. Now, I'm an underpaid tabloid journalist stuck on tour with the new top-of-the-charts band. My job to expose the deepest secrets of the bandmates-- what makes them tick and what gets them into those infamous, bratty rock star fits. This gets a little complicated when those secrets just happen to be about my twin brother and my ex-boyfriend. Of course, my once-fat-and-dorky brother is now the international sex icon who accomplished his wildest dreams while mine are being slashed everywhere I turn. As expected, a month-long tour with five very horny rockstars is bound to be interesting and drama filled. But somehow, even with all the crazed fans throwing themselves at their feet and the hired groupies put there to look beautiful, every single guy in the band (except my brother... we don't do that) turned their sexually charged attentions on yours truly. This is bound to get interesting.

Chapter One

Faded Beginnings

Jonnie was always the one person I could always count on. Chubby Jonnie: my adorable, lovable twin brother. Who would’ve known that things would turn out this way? Fading Into Fall was going on their first international tour and I was requested as a groupie. Touring with my twin brother and ex-boyfriend/best friend? Could life get any weirder?

“Charlie, come on!” Jodi shouted from the kitchenette.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I grumbled from my bedroom. I was busy throwing boots and bras into my suitcase, trying to account for all the toothpaste and tampons I would need for the next month and a half.

“Jesus Christ, Charlie…” Jodi sighed as she stepped into my room. “It looks like a hurricane just hit this place.”

“Well, yeah…” I breathed, putting my hands on my hips and surveying the damage. Bras and underpants were hanging over my bedside lamp, my bedspread was nearly visible under layers of jeans, leggings, graphic tees and sexy clubbing shirts and my floor was hidden under anything else I considered to pack. “Hurricane Jonnie… Hurricane Kevin… not sure which is worse.”

“Come on, Charl,” she chided. “You and Jon used to be so close. What happened?”

“I don’t know, Jodi…” I moaned. “Life happened.”

“Ooh, deep musings from Charlotte Moore,” she teased. “Now, if only you could turn that into a masterpiece, you could stop working at that dead end magazine of yours.”

“Hey!” I cried, following her as she left my room. “There’s nothing wrong with Flash.”

She gave me a look.

“Oh, alright,” I perched on a barstool and took the orange juice she offered. “So it’s not The New Yorker, but it’s something. It pays the rent.”

She lifted a delicate eyebrow.

“Well… a fourth of the rent…”

“Yeah, how long is that going to last? Your parents aren’t going to pick up the slack forever,”

“Hey, as far as I figure, Ella has ten years until she starts college. That’s ten years for me to a) get promoted b) get a new, better-paid job or c) find some filthy rich guy and seduce him mercilessly,”

Jodi rolled her eyes, “You and your plans,” she laughed and glanced at the clock “Jon said he’d be here to pick you up at ten. You better get your bag and get your butt outside.”

“How di-“

“He called when you were in the shower,”

I smiled, “You’re a lifesaver,”

“Yeah, yeah. Skidaddle,”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come? I’m sure there’s room,”

“Honey, I’d love to. But there’s not enough room, not enough time. Besides, I’ve got lots of work to do,” she started putting pots and pans away from her breakfast. “Anyways, Brian and I are going out on Friday. I wouldn’t want to miss that for the world!”

“Right! I can’t believe I’m missing it! They grow up so fast!” I teased. “You’ll call me and tell me all the dirty details, right?”

She giggled and rolled her eyes, “If there are any. Now go!”

I scampered out and dragged my huge duffle from my room. I plopped down on the couch to wait, dragging out a copy of The New York Times and flipping through the front section. I was halfway through an article on the dangers of drug trafficking in Asia when there was a knock on the door.

“Coming!” I shouted obnoxiously, kind of like my mom used to do every time the phone would ring. I wrenched open the door, looking around for my tote, “Hey Jonnie, I’ll just be a second.”

Jonnie cleared his throat and I looked up. So. Not. Jonnie. It was Keving, my ex-boyfriend, albeit from high school, my brother’s best friend, and Fading into Fall’s drummer.

“Hey, Charlie,” he said with a grin. “You look great.”

“Oh, hey… Kev,” I mumbled. I hadn’t seen him since Thanksgiving when we all drove into town for dinner at my parents’. That had been awkward enough without me having to meet his girlfriend of the week, some rich girl from the rock bars they hang out at now. Awkward levels increased when Jonnie informed me that I had to go on a month-long tour with them and that I had no way of getting out of it.

“Wow, you look great,” he remarked lamely.

“Uh, yeah… so do you,” I smiled cautiously. “Um, where’s Jon?”

“Downstairs with the limo,” he replied flippantly. “You got everything?”

“Uh, yeah. My bag’s um, just uh, over here,” I turned around distractedly, only to walk into the table next to the door where we put our keys and junkmail, banging my knee loudly on the leg. “Let me uh, just... Um… yeah, right.”

“Do you want me to get that?”

“Could you?” I asked weakly. “I just… Um… Jodi!”

“What?!” she called from the recesses of our tiny apartment.

“Uh, band’s here. I’m leaving!”

“Okay! Have fun! Be safe!”

“Yeah. Right. Tell Brian I say hi!”

“Will do!”

I walked out of the apartment and locked the door. I led the way to the elevator and when the metal doors slammed shut, I was finally alone with Kevin.

“So what have you been up to?” he asked.

“Uh, nothing really,” I said nonchalantly, fidgeting with the strap on my bag.

“Oh? Any boyfriends?”

“Uhm… no. Just a lot of work,”

“What do you do again?”

“I’m a journalist,” I said proudly.

“Really? Funny,” he commented. “We all thought you were going to be a professional soccer player.”

“Yeah well, pro women are hard to come by,” I remarked bitterly, recalling the night he crushed those dreams. "Do you really think you have a chance?" he said nonchalantly, offering me his usual half-smile; it usually made my heart melt, but that night it turned my heart to ice. "I have as much of a chance as you do," I argued. "Do you think you'll become a rock star?" His icy gaze pierced mine and he smiled, "No," the corner of his lip lifted even further as he drawled: "My point exactly."

“Who would’ve thought?” he chuckled.

“What?”

“Well, it’s just that…” he looked nervously at me. “Everyone thought that Jon’s dreams and mine were just bullshit. I mean, c’mon, was it really that likely we’d get discovered and signed? Hell no. But everyone thought it was a done deal for you to play.”

“Things change, Kev,” I sighed irritably. “What do you want me to say?”

The elevator doors dinged open and I stalked out, leaving my bag behind with Kevin. I stepped outside my building, taking in the sight of the long, black limousine parked on the street. The side door clicked open and a designer loafer peeked out from the car.

“Charlie?” Jonnie said as he stepped out of the car. The sun glinted off his silky hair and leather jacket, shining like a halo around him as he stood with his arms spread, just for me; if he hadn't been my twin brother, I would have said he looked like a Greek god; I've always been this modest, I swear. “God, Charls, you look great!”

“Please, Jonnie!” I exclaimed. “Look at you!”

I had seen Jonnie a few weeks before, but it never failed to amaze me just how skinny he had gotten and how fantastic he looked.

Jonnie had the grace to blush and nod his head, but underneath the pink tinge in his cheeks, I could see the glow of pride, confidence and self-worth, something, even after being skinny for six years, I was unused to in my brother.

“Shall we?” he gestured to the car.

“Sure. Just one question?” he looked at me “Why’d you send Kev?”

He chuckled and climbed in after me.

“Charlie, you remember the boys, right?”

I looked around the dimly lit space, my eyes lighting on the rest of the bandmates, two additional people of whom I had no recollection.

“Uh, yeah, of course!”

“Nice, sis,” he laughed. “You shouldn’t. They’re the latest additions.”

“Oh,” I said lamely. “What happened to Max and Steve?”

A cloud passed over his sunny face, “Things just weren’t working out,”

“Oh. That’s a shame,” I murmured.

Max and Steve had been Jonnie’s loyal friends throughout grade school. They were always there to get him out of whatever pickle he got himself into: getting shoved into lockers and trash cans, stuck having to reinflate all the footballs so that he didn’t have to do the football teams’ homework. I didn’t really understand how Jonnie could just ditch them like that, but then again, I didn’t understand his glamorous rockstar life.

“This is Gavin, our new guitarist, Tristan our new bassist, and Wyatt,” he pointed at three men sitting next to one another. “You remember Wyatt? Our manager.”

“How could I forget?” I grumbled. Wyatt had been Jonnie’s roommate at Julliard and had hit on me ceaselessly at each family Christmas party since graduation. He was a ratty man, who's bad eyesight, completely unremedied by the thick glasses he used to wear, caused him to squint and give him deep crows' feet by the age of twenty-four. He wore thin ties and tweed jackets in college, but I could see then that he had sold out and went mainstream; he was all silk: thick silk tie, silk shirt and a silk lined coat, all Nieman Marcus (I had gone birthday shopping for my dad and had hoped to get him something almost identical to Wyatt's ensemble, but I figured it was tacky to ask your dad for a loan to buy him his own present; my gift to him was I paid my entire half of the rent by myself and let him get himself something nice with the monety he saved).

Kevin climbed in and grinned woflishly at me before we sped off.

“So, where are the rest of the fangirls?” I joked, half-expecting half-naked, frenzied groupies to pop out.

The other bandmates and their tag-a-longs looked up quickly, checking over their shoulders out the tinted windows, making sure that none of the dreaded fangirls were following the limo.

“Charlie, are you kidding me?” Jonnie asked exasperatedly. “We don’t say the ‘F’ word in here.”

I raised my eyebrows and nodded silently.

“Fuck!” Wyatt, the manager shouted at his phone. “Your opening band for the Vienna gig just cancelled.”

“Shit,” Jonnie hissed under his breath. “What now? What’d they say?”

“Apparently they all came down with some weird stomach thing,”

“Oh?”

“Yeah…” Wyatt paused, his lips lifting in a quick, quirky smirk. “Something bad in their weed.”

The rest of the limo chuckled, before returning their focus to the severity of the issue.

“Can we get another band?” Kev questioned.

“I don’t know,” Wyatt sighed. “I’m looking into it. I’m going to see if there’s a local Viennese band to play.”

“I’m sure they’ll be shit,” Jonnie muttered. “Right, well. Uh, thanks Wyatt. Just keep us updated, aight?”

Wyatt nodded and began fiddling with buttons on his Blackberry.

“… he better… paying him… fortune… ass in gear… by time… concert… fucked,” Jonnie was whispering angrily to Kevin, trying desperately to keep the rest of the limo from hearing.

We pulled in front of the terminal three hours before our flight left.

“Miranda, check,” Jonnie ordered to a girl who had been sitting on the opposite side of the limo from us. A stick thin, blonde woman approached me. She pulled on my sweater and jacket, adjusting lengths and bulges here and there. She flicked my hair out and smoothed my bangs to the right. She ran fingers across my eyebrows and pulled on my eyelashes. She pinched my cheeks and pushed my ears back to my head so that my hair fell in a curtain over them. She looked at Jonnie and nodded wordlessly before retreating to her corner.

I looked at Jonnie quizzically.

“Our stylist,” he said. “Here, put these on,” Jonnie held out a pair of chic, Dolce & Gabbana black sunglasses.

“What?” I asked dumbly.

“Just put them on,”

“Why?”

“You’re one of us now. We’re trying not to be noticed,”

I took them delicately from in between his fingers and slipped them over my eyes, reveling in the anonymity. I soon realized it wasn’t because I didn’t want reporters to get my picture—hell, I had been out here in the rain hounding Bono and Beyonce for pictures countless of times—but because I didn’t want to recognize myself with this pompous ass of a brother.