Chapter 1
Something was thrumming in her veins. Pent-up energy coiled like a snake waiting to strike its prey. She could almost feel the weight of the strings under her fingers, the weight of holding the instrument.
Shauna fucking loved this feeling.
While people liked to poke fun at her (excluding Nat, who genuinely got on her nerves sometimes about it) being an introvert, keeping to herself and reading books older than the dinosaurs, the truth was that Shauna loved the stage as much as any of her band members. She got pre-show stage fright, sure, but the second the instruments began to play she got lost. Lost in the rhythm of Van’s drums creating a steady beat. Lost in Lottie’s voice entrancing the crowd. Lost in Nat shredding on the guitar. Lost in her own bass lines that kept her grounded.
So, yeah. Shauna loves the feeling of being on the stage. But you probably wouldn’t believe that now.
She sat on the bar stool, the one she proclaimed as hers-with one wobbly leg that always threatened to give out (Ben had asked her many times if she wanted a better one, but something about the stool felt familiar. Losing it would be like losing an old friend). Fingers tapping on the surface of the bar, eyes darting around the room. The bar wasn’t particularly busy on a good day, but on a Tuesday night it was especially vacant. Shauna hated this more than a full house. Something about less eyes felt like more pressure on her to not fuck up.
A glass placed in front of her yanked her out of her thoughts.
“Everything ok, Shauna?”
Ben (aka Coach, as they had affectionately named him) was the closest thing to a father figure most of the band had. Despite being only a decade older than them, he had this sort of presence about him that was comforting. He was the one who had taken a chance to book Yellowjackets for their first gig, and liked them enough to keep them coming most weekends (and some weekdays, evidenced by tonight). He stood in front of Shauna, motioning to the glass in front of her. Shauna downed half of it before answering.
“Yeah, you know, just the usual.” He nodded. Shauna was notorious for hiding in her shell before a gig. “I heard Jeff’s finally bringing the girlfriend around tonight.” That got a weak smile from Shauna.
“Let me guess. Natalie,” Shauna said.
Nat and Ben got on really well. Natalie on a good day was bitchy and closed-off. However, around Ben, she always seemed to just deflate a little in his presence. They probably trusted him more than they trusted their band members. Personally, it always upset Shauna a bit, but Lottie had recently helped her realize that Nat just enjoyed gossiping with Ben, which was fair enough.
“You know she tells me everything, especially about Jeff’s love life,” Ben chuckled.
Jeff, Shauna’s proclaimed ‘bestie’, was somewhat of a…serial dater. He had about as many girlfriends as Van had broken drumsticks (and Van had a lot of broken drumsticks). It wasn’t like he was trying- Jeff’s claim to fame was that he’d never broken things off with any girl. He was genuinely nice, not like one of those ‘nice guys’ that leered at girls and complained on Reddit about them. He just had too big of a heart and tended to fall in love hard and fast. Shauna had spent many nights with Jeff when girls broke up with him, helping him find more matches on Tinder.
“I don’t know, he says this one is different. Which, to be fair, he has said about the past 7 girls,” Shauna mused.
“I wonder how he convinced her to come to a punk show,” Ben said.
The Yellowjackets were kind of, sort of, maybe if you squint, a punk band.
They weren’t super punk-but Nat had definitely had an impact on their sound. Nat proclaimed themself as ‘the most emo motherfucker on the planet’. Nat grew up listening to dad rock in her trailer and moved up to FOB and Panic! when they were a teen. It just spiraled after that into anything Nat could get her hands on. Shauna herself was more of a Midwest emo fan than anything; she loved the slow, sadder stuff. Lottie listened to absolutely anything and everything and could remember any lyric from any song you asked her, and Van had never outgrown their dad rock phase.
So, maybe they kind of are a punk band. Probably still more pop-punk than anything, but still.
They only did covers for now. Nat had an entire notes app section dedicated to lyrics they came up with during her ‘3 am sad hours’. Lottie had sheets of paper that she somehow never lost floating around. Shauna was the main proposed lyricist of the band, but she was private about that stuff. Sue her. Song lyrics are personal, which is why Shauna kept them in journals buried in her room for only her to see (at least, for now. They had to grow out of playing only covers eventually).
“Well, you know Jeff. Probably made one of his jokes again with that puppy-dog look on his face,” Shauna joked.
Jeff could make girls swoon with his lame ass jokes and cherub face. Well, except Shauna, but he had barked up that wrong tree a long time ago. It was how they had met- Jeff asked her out and Shauna told him that she was ‘very much gay’ and Jeff had immediately backed off and asked to be friends instead and the rest was history. Shauna often lovingly (begrudgingly) called Jeff her emotional support himbo. He was harmless, and always came to every single Yellowjackets show (it helped that he liked that kind of music- he came to pick up Shauna one day and when she went outside, he was sitting in her driveway headbanging to Last Resort by Papa Roach).
Someone slipped into the barstool next to her and rasped, “Head out of the clouds Shipman, we gotta go on in half an hour.”
Shauna groaned and turned to the one and only Nat Scatorccio. “You always come at the worst possible times.”
“My bad,” Nat grinned wickedly, then dimmed it down a bit because showtime was relatively serious. “We do kind of need to finalize our set and set up still, so you should probably hurry your ass up.”
Nat saluted at Ben and then walked off towards the backstage area.
“I should probably go then,” Shauna sighed. A little bit of anxiety was creeping in now; Jeff was usually there around the same time they started getting ready, and he was always calming and eager to help them set up. Shauna felt a little lost without him (not that she would ever admit that to him, but he probably knew anyway). Shauna looked at her phone (9:31 pm; they were on in 29 minutes) and willed a text from Jeff to appear saying he was on his way.
“He’ll be here. He would never ditch a show, no matter what girl he’s into,” Ben gently reminded Shauna. “I’ll get Travis to at least help you guys set up.”
Travis, who had been a little ways away down the bar, perked up and went backstage. It helped that he was whipped for Nat (who he didn’t realize would never be giving him the time of day).
Shauna weakly smiled at Ben and followed Travis to the backstage area, preparing herself for the rush of chaos.
Shauna almost, quite literally, ran into Lottie. Lottie was drinking the drink she usually made for herself before shows. She had never told anyone what was in the drink, but her singing voice had never failed her, so they trusted whatever was in the cup.
“What’s the status, Lot,” Shauna attempted to joke, falling a little flat (yeah, her stage fright was definitely kicking in).
“Well, I’m ready for absolutely anything, Natalie is probably running away from Travis as we speak, and Van probably snuck off somewhere with Tai and they both will mysteriously return 5 minutes before showtime,” Lottie snickered.
Taissa Turner was their manager, and a damn good one at that. When she wasn’t managing all of them, she was off pretending her and Van weren’t totally infatuated with each other. Tai handled most of their bookings and stuff like that (she was smart as a whip; with both numbers and sweet-talking people). Tai was the most responsible 20-something year old the band had ever met, and they were literally the same age as her. It meant Tai liked to have fun too though, not just be strict and uptight all the time, which is why they liked her.
As if on cue, Natalie rushed past them into a room backstage, and Van and Tai emerged from a different room, looking flustered (but relatively early for once).
“Someone get Travis out of here before Nat breaks her guitar on his head, please. We have 20 minutes, 20 minutes until showtime!” Tai commanded to the 3 people in the room, then smiled shyly at Van and headed back out to the bar, probably to tell Ben to get Travis away from Nat.
Ben yelled from afar for Travis, who sheepishly walked past the girls. Natalie poked their head out from behind the door of the room they stepped into, and upon seeing no Travis, joined the rest of them.
“Alright, set list?” Nat questioned. “We could use a high-energy opener, maybe another one or two high-energy songs, a slower one, maybe an acoustic one, and then play a crowd pleaser for the finisher.”
Van glanced at Shauna out of the corner of their eye (what was up with that, Shauna would have to ask Van later) and answered.
“The Rock Show, Blink-182 for the opener? Pretty well-known and it fucks hard,” Van smiled cheekily.
“Affirmative on that, Palmer. Alright, what else?”
They discussed and eventually had a decent setlist, and went to the stage, where the curtain was closed.
Lottie positioned herself in front of the microphone stand and picked up her Les Paul and strummed, seeming pleased with the tuning. To the right of Lottie, Nat adjusted the strap (which was all black with skulls on it-very Nat) of her hot pink (Lottie’s influence) Telecaster. Behind everyone, Van picked up their new pair of drumsticks and spun them around in their hands.
Shauna headed to Lottie’s left, where her dark Fender Precision Bass was waiting for her. Her pride and joy. She picked it up and it was like someone flicked a switch. She felt like she could move mountains. The weight of it in her hands grounded her.
The 4 band members looked around at each other and grinned as they could hear Ben yell “Wilderness patrons, the Yellowjackets have entered the forest!”
A cacophony of noise emerged. The song started out fast and loud. No matter who was in the crowd (a few teenagers clearly not of age sitting at the bar and a few adults scattered around at tables), the Yellowjackets always gave it their all.
Lottie’s voice entranced the crowd; she was no Mark Hoppus, but she had a way of making every song her own. Shauna could see Nat out of the corner of her eye already spinning around like a top. Shauna couldn’t see Van, but knew they were going hard on the drums.
Shauna plucked her bassline and looked into the crowd; still no sign of Jeff. She didn’t care about that as much anymore, because she was falling into the song. No matter what they played, the band could all agree that there was something about the way a song sounded that just drew them all in. Shauna knew they were playing like a unit- like they were all Power Rangers forming a Zord.
Shauna geared up for the chorus. Lottie was just beginning to sing and Shauna was ready to back her up, but then Jeff walked in.
Shauna’s world stopped spinning on its axis. She completely missed her backup vocals and could feel Lottie glancing at her confused, but barely noticed it. She almost completely flubbed the baseline of the chorus.
The most beautiful girl she had ever seen had just walked in the bar with Jeff. Suddenly, Shauna realized that was the reason Van looked at Shauna. Van just knew Shauna would go weak in the knees. Shauna hadn’t even realized Van knew what Jeff’s girlfriend looked like (later, Shauna asked Van this, and Van had just winked and said “Bro code”).
As Lottie sang about falling in love with a girl at a rock show, Shauna stared into the eyes of the prettiest girl in the room and knew one thing.
She was fucked.