Chapter One
Bang The Doldrums
My toes were nearly frozen solid by the time I had reached the ticket counter. For days, every Fall Out Boy fan in the Chicago city area had camped out for the concert of a lifetime. Only 1000 tickets would be sold and the concert was to be held in a tiny conference room inside of the Arena. I had to be the 947th person in line or something because as soon as I arrived, there were already at least 900 people in line stretching from the ticket office down six city blocks.
"How many tickets?" the ticket lady asked through her fiber glass window. "Just one," I replied, taking out the money for the ticket. "That's good news, because you are the last person to receive a ticket," she replied with a cool smile. "Wow, really?" I asked, handing her the money. The ticket lady handed me back my ticket in exchange for the cash and said, "You sure are! Tickets closed!" With the slam of the ticket counter window shutting, people started to give me very angry looks. I just backed away real slow, hoping that they would get off my backs about the last ticket. But, as I had not hoped for, they approached closer to every slink away I made. "Hey guys, leave her alone," said a voice to the right of me. The crowd's eyes became swelled with excitement. I looked to my right and low and behold stood a bundled up Patrick Stump. The crowd immediately left me alone and pulled out cameras and papers for autographs and photos. Patrick took my arm and led me the other way into a fancy looking apartment building.
"Thanks for saving my life back there," I said, once safely inside the confines of the warm building. The fans were swarming at the doors, but security was doing a superb job of holding them down. "It's no big deal. I had figured the tickets might sell out today and the last person or people to get the tickets would be swarmed upon, so I came over as crowd control you could say," Patrick replied, leading me to an elevator. He pressed the top floor, so I knew he must live in the penthouse. "So, what is your name, receiver of the last ticket?" Patrick asked with a slight snicker. "It's Roxanne, but everyone calls me Roxy," I replied, taking off my jacket and gloves as the elevator doors opened to the top floor.
The living room was a brilliant shade of terracotta and a fire place was cackling with flames as we entered. There were two couches of a deep mahogany leather and an oak coffee table in between. Many artsy, black-and-white looking photos of the band were placed about strategically in the room. "Would you like something to drink?" Patrick asked me. "Um, if you have any hot cocoa, that would be nice," I replied. I thought it was awfully awkward that the lead singer of Fall Out Boy just took me to his apartment and invited me for a drink. "So, um, what am I doing here? I mean I don't think you pull fans off the street everyday and invite them for hot cocoa," I said, picking up a picture album on the table. "Well," Patrick started from the kitchen, "It's complicated. Pete sort of wanted to have a secret contest that not even the fans knew about and that the last person to buy a ticket for this specific concert, could spend a day with the band." I flipped through a few of the photos in the album before replying, "So today is the day?" Patrick came back in with two cups of cocoa, steaming hot and piled with whipped cream. "You sure know how to make hot cocoa," I said, licking some of the whipped cream. "Mmhmm," Patrick replied, "and yes, we figured since the tickets would sell out today, we met as well place the day on this day as well." I flipped through some more photos of what appeared to be a younger Patrick. He looked to be about thirteen and he was busy playing guitar in his room, which was surrounded with posters of Blink-182, The Offspring, Green Day and many others. "Is this you?" I asked, pointing to the photo and placing my hot cocoa on a coaster on the coffee table. Patrick made a sheepish smile and said, "Yeah, that was me when I was fifteen."
I was about to say something when the elevator doors opened and out popped Pete, Andy and Joe. "What's up?" Joe said, plopping himself next to me on the couch. Andy sat down in a chair in the corner of the room, waved a brief "Hello" and immersed himself in a book. Pete gave me a quick look before sitting across Joe, Patrick and I on the other couch. "So this is the one," Pete remarked, with a slight sarcastic tone to his voice. I was a little taken aback by his sudden apprehensiveness towards me. "Yep, Peter," Patrick said sternly, "and her name is Roxy." "Nice to meetcha, Roxy, I am Joe, as you probably already know," Joe said, shaking my hand quite vigorously. "Nice to meet you too," I smiled. "I'm Pete," Pete said with a "that's-obvious" look. Andy was too into his book to even introduce himself. "Well that's that," Patrick said, "What do you wanna do?" All eyes turned on me as I was pressured to make a decision. "I don't know...I mean this is all really sudden and pressuring," I replied. Patrick opened his mouth to say something of comfort when Pete interjected, "Well why don't I show you our instruments?" "Okay," I replied, taking an enormous gulp of hot cocoa before getting up. Pete arose with a graceful move and led me down a hallway which led to a small room, filled to the brim with instruments and lyrics. "This is our personal instrument space," Pete explained picking up a bass and examining it. "Wow, it's very nice... Would you mind me asking why you were so rude out there?" I asked coldly. Pete looked at the floor and his cheeks went a little pink. "I didn't know what to expect, so I went with a rude attitude to protect myself," he replied. "Oh, wow," I said, giggling a little. "Are you afraid of your fans or something?" I laughed. "Not funny! Some of the chicks and sometimes dudes, are freakin' nuts! Seriously, they are psychopaths," Pete said, strumming a chord.
Pete was about to play another chord when the door to the instrument room burst open. "Hey Pete! We're on TV! Apparently we broke some World Record!" Joe said, grabbing Pete by the hood of his hoodie and dragging him into the living room...
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