Piper and Rochelle already had everything loaded into their dad’s truck by the time I got there. The only thing not in the truck was my guitar, which always traveled everywhere with me. I took it out of my backseat and put it in the bed of the truck, between two amps so it wouldn’t move around too much during travel. I also put my acoustic in, just in case.

“Remind me not to call on you for an emergency. I could have had a pizza delivered before you showed up.” Rochelle said as she buckled into the driver’s seat. Piper sat in the cab while I got into the passenger seat.

“Sorry, there was a big riot at the Starbucks.” I explained everything that had happened. When I mentioned the name on the side of the bus, Piper and Rochelle both screamed, causing my hands to fly up to cover my ears. Piper grabbed onto the two front seats and pulled herself up so that, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think she were sitting up front instead of in the back.

“Which one did you fall into? Was his hair straight or curly?”

“Uh…Curly. But it was parted on the side.” Did she expect me to know the guy’s name?

“That was Kevin! And he’s not married! All three of them wear purity rings, just like yours.” Piper pointed to my left hand. Why had that not crossed my mind? I looked down at my silver band with music notes engraved into it. My mom had called it manly because it didn’t have a gem in it, but I thought it was very dainty.

We made our way to the Performing Arts Center and parked around back. When we got to the stage door, the manager told us we only had an hour until we had to clear out. We had no problem with that. Any stage time was good. We quickly unloaded and set up, taking only fifteen minutes. Once everything was set, Piper went back to set her drums so they were just right, Rochelle finely tuned her bass, and I did the same with my guitar.

“Jessie, is that a new guitar?” Piper called out. Rochelle looked up, too.

“Yep, just got it last night. Gibson Les Paul. Jace even gave me a free pick with a four leaf clover on it. Maybe it’ll be lucky!” We all laughed at that. None of us claimed to be superstitious, but we also never said we weren’t. “Ok I wrote a new song after our last rehearsal, should we try to get some music for it?”

“Well read off the lyrics first.” Piper suggested.

“Ok.

Piper ended the song with a cymbal drum roll. I knew it was obvious to them that the song was about my biological mother. I had just found out I was adopted the year before and I couldn’t get it out of my mind ever since. We spent about twenty minutes getting the music to it. Rochelle even suggested I take a guitar solo, which she normally hates. Once we had it all together, we added some backup lyrics. By the time we were ready to play through it all, we only had five minutes left for our hour. We played it as if we were playing to a full house. We ended on a loud beat which I jumped for and matched with my guitar. As soon as we ended, there was applause coming from backstage. Surprised, I turned to see Kevin and two of the other guys from the coffee shop.

“Aren’t you the girl from Starbucks?” The guy with straight hair asked.

“Yeah.” I looked over at Kevin. “And aren’t you the guy I was pushed into?”

“Yes, but most people just call me Kevin.” He laughed as he spoke. “These are my brothers-”

“Joe and Nick.” Piper finished for him. “My sister and I are big fans. I’m Piper. That’s my sister.” She ended by pointing to Rochelle over her shoulder. Her eyes never left Nick.

“Hey, I‘m Rochelle, but you can call me Chelle.” She walked over to shake hands with them all, but I noticed she shook Joe’s hand longer than the others’.

“I’m Jessie. I don’t mean to sound rude or anything, but what are you guys doing here? I mean the Pac never has big concerts.” It was just too big of a coincidence that I had run into them twice in one day.

“Well, we’re doing a small set for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. A bunch of the kids wanted to go to one of our shows, so we agreed to do one just for them, then do pictures and stuff afterwards for each of them.” Kevin explained.

“Hey.” Joe looked at me. “Do you know ‘We Got the Party’?” I remembered the song from when Piper refused to turn her stereo down for a week. It was one of her favorite songs, and because I had been forced to listen to it every time I had gone over to their house, I did know it…word for word.

“I don’t know how to play it, but I know the lyrics. Why?” Where was he going with this?

“Hey great idea!” Nick said, looking from Joe to me. “You do have a great voice.” They didn’t want me to…no way!

“Hey, yeah! Would you sing it with us? Miley couldn’t make it, so we thought we’d have to scratch it from the set.” Kevin was looking more excited than a kitten with a big ball of yarn. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Rochelle and Piper both looked at me, shocked. I couldn’t tell if they were shocked I had been asked, or that I hadn’t already said yes. That question, however, was soon answered when Piper told them I’d be glad to.