“Paul, right?” Ashley clarified, sharpie hovering in the air.

“Love of my life works too,” the frat boy fan said dreamily. “Just sign my face already!”

Ashley really hadn’t thought she’d skyrocketed to face-signing levels of fame, but apparently this six foot something dude emblazoned with Greek letters was an openly enthusiastic fan of happy, melodic country pop. He was currently crouched in front of her so the sharpie could actually reach his forehead, as requested, and Ashley signed a quick ‘McKenna ♥ Paul’ as best she could.

To his credit, Paul immediately backed away – his face still overcome with awe in the same kind of endearing way a six-year-old looked at people dressed as Disney princesses – and left Ashley to navigate her way into the club. It was full to the brim with gaggles of sorority girls, all at various stages of completely-out-of-it, surrounded by plenty of guys in same similar states… maybe even worse. It was exactly what Ashley had expected. She was mostly just here to check in with Dana and Cory, maybe try and catch some other friends depending on who was in attendance.

The place was rammed, so she’d have to find them purely by chance.

As it happened, the first person she ran across was Cory, who was leaning against the bar like she owned it while she waited for a drink. Ashley waved from behind a duo of particularly tall, model-esque girls and slowly pushed her way towards Cory, apologising profusely as she did so.

“Hey!” she said, finally reaching Cory’s side. “You made it!”

Ashley took a second to remember who Cory would be buying spritzers for, and then she grinned understandingly. “Girl has terrible taste in drinks, trust me. She might even think you’ve put something extra in to spice it up. Just put a pretty straw in and it’ll be cool.”

Dana was having the time of her life picking dance battles with unwitting strangers, and Ashley watched as Cory did her best to communicate by improvised sign language. Dana seemed to understand, though she didn’t catch a glimpse of Ashley just yet. Ashley would have realised immediately if she had because alcohol turned Dana’s enthusiastic shrillness setting up to 11. Big time.

“I know right? Adorable,” Ashley laughed, picturing Dana actually pouncing on her like some uncoordinated, inebriated kitten. “And hey, I can never turn down Dana’s invites. Marcus… Uh…” Ashley pondered for a moment – she hadn’t heard from him recently. “He might be here, I dunno. I’ve pretty much arrived, signed a dude’s head and run straight into you! Why, you wanna see him?”

She looked over to check on Dana and realised swiftly that Dana had tired of her waiting for her refreshments and had joined a crowd of people around a table who – judging by the raised hands – were just starting a rousing game of Never Have I Ever.

“Oh man,” Ashley said wryly, nodding her head in Dana’s direction. “You should see this. Dana aaalways loses.”

Ashley did her best to hide her jubilation at Alice’s decisiveness, instead opting to peer jealously through the doorway at Alice who was already making herself at home on the rather creaky bed. She looked the room up and down, eyeing the extra window with excessive envy.

“Awww no fair, you picked the best one,” she pouted. “But… I guess you can make it up to me with breakfast-in-bed some time, right? And I want pancakes,” Ashley added with a jab of her finger. “Fluffy ones.”

She joined Alice on the bed, acutely aware of how bare the room seemed.

“Will you need help moving your stuff? Or is your old place furnished?” Ashley gasped suddenly, looking excited. “We should do an IKEA trip! Or, or, like a thrift store hunt for used furniture, or something.” She looked excitedly at Alice. “I need some new stuff anyway seeing as I can’t just take all my folks’ furniture. Rude, right?”

Ashley was secretly glad that her parents were insisting on keeping her room as hers, rather than turning it into a gym or office as some empty-nesters were prone to doing. She’d claimed a few essentials – the glittery shower curtain, her stuffed animals, her music and audio equipment, her favourite bedspread – but had left enough there to keep the space distinctly Ashley-esque.

She’d also promised to visit lots. Equally, she’d made them promise to attend some of her out-of-town shows so she could treat them to a VIP experience. What was the point of having a famous singer as your child if you didn’t capitalise on the fancy hotel rooms? Okay, maybe McKenna wasn’t quite at the stage of fancy hotel rooms all day, everyday. She could dream.

The journey of emotions travelled across Alice’s face in no time at all, but it had been slow enough that Ashley had allowed herself to get excited at Alice’s more joyful reaction. She’d begun to rise to her feet but, upon Alice’s sudden mood change, had dropped back to the ground with an ungraceful thud. She frowned.

“You can’t?”

It wasn’t specifically that she didn’t want to. Alice wasn’t so tactless as to make that obvious anyway. The way she’d phrased it and the initial euphoria that had begun spreading across her features showed that it wasn’t a case of lacking desire, but ability.

Ashley didn’t want to make it too obvious, but she guessed it was probably money. She hadn’t told Alice how much this place cost and it definitely was on a whole different level to Alice’s tiny little studio that Ashley had poked her nose around a couple of times all that time ago. It had been months since she’d seen it – maybe Alice had found somewhere else and not told her. More likely, however, was that her budget hadn’t changed all that much and she was just reluctant to even consider this apartment in case it was out of her reach.

In fairness, it probably was, but Ashley was willing to split the rent rather unevenly in exchange for the delight of having her best friend as a roommate.

“It would mean a lot to me if you would consider it,” she said eventually, still sat on the floor amongst her teddies. Ashley was struggling to think of how to persuade Alice without actively making an overtly charitable offer. “The deposit’s already covered so like, no rush,” she explained. “I just really don’t want to live alone and, while I could afford to… I just figured that it would be nice for me to live with my best friend. You know?”

She pulled a toy monkey close to her, setting it in her lap and smiling hesitantly up at Alice. “If there’s any issues I can help with, you know I will. Pleeeease?”

There was a nervous flutter in Ashley’s chest as she waited for Alice to make the quick journey across town. Although she knew that Alice would love the place, it was still something that they’d only discussed in fantastical, hypothetical conversations. Why yes, we would make amazing roommates! Sure, I am also a big fan of kitchen islands and open-plan living spaces! Wouldn’t it be fun if we lived together?

She wasn’t even sure what was going on right now for Alice in terms of living arrangements – she’d stayed at hers for a little while but then she’d stopped, so Ashley had figured that whatever had been keeping her out of her apartment had been solved, but then she hadn’t actually visited Alice in her apartment for a long time. They’d both been busy, true, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t hung out at Ashley’s. Maybe it was because Ashley’s mum was so fond of Alice – her enthusiasm was enough to make anyone feel welcome.

Ashley gasped internally, Alice was secretly set on being besties with her mother! She took a moment to giggle at her own silliness, and then Alice’s text came through to signal her arrival.

Are you outside the building? I’ll buzz you in. Go up to the fourth floor and look out for number 16. She followed her text up by a series of progressively wilder and more abstract expressions of excitement, then slid off the barstool to go and wait excitedly by the door. The flat was still pretty bare – it came with some furnishings, like the beds and the stools, but it was still a way off from feeling like home. Hopefully Alice could help out with the decorating, if she could tear herself away from the shiny kitchen.

Finally she heard a knock, yanking the door open before Alice could even finish.

“Surprise!”

Ashley threw her arms wide, backing into the space so Alice could see inside. “I wish I had confetti, but these will have to do.” She waved her arms enthusiastically. “What do you think? It’s hella nice, right?”

It was impossible not to notice the catch of concern in Ashley’s voice there. Please like it here.

In so many ways the world had been turned upside down in the last six months and, yet, the wheels of Ashley’s own personal sphere of existence just kept on turning undisturbed. Actually, things seemed to have shifted up a gear or two, and Ashley was feeling more and more like she wasn’t actually in the driver’s seat at all but was perfectly delighted to experience the rush as a passenger.

The album had been put together in the almost immediate aftermath of the Event. There was an obvious hesitancy about going forwards with publicity and release in the new, uncertain world that was forming around them, but Ashley had pushed for a quick release. The album was heavy in songs about faith and hope, and the lead single was so incredibly well-received that McKenna Chase had gone from minor internet phenomenon to regular airplay practically overnight.

She wasn’t topping the charts or being hailed as the new Adele, or whatever, but she had certainly been thrown headfirst into a whole new realm of fame and notoriety. People were buying her music, eagerly anticipating the album, and when it was eventually released a month later Ashley found herself with a whole new fanbase teeming with demand for a tour.

Thankfully her manager was giving her a little breathing room and letting her have a solid few weeks of down-time after all the beautiful chaos that had surrounded her album release. Supposedly, with McKenna Chase’s new success, they couldn’t afford to break her. Time to rest and recover was certainly much appreciated, even if it did speak volumes of all the hard work and excitement that loomed in her near future.

For now, though, Ashley was doing her best to just be Ashley. She was catching up with friends, spending quality time with her parents and taking the opportunity to reconnect more consciously with God. It had been a good two weeks so far and, as her freedom drew to a close, Ashley had finally bitten the bullet and put down for a two-bed apartment in the city. Nothing fancy, but nothing cheap, either. It was perfect for a first place, really, and missing only one important detail: a roommate.

Of course she had thought about advertising the spare room but she didn’t think putting her address out there was a great idea. That, and the room had already belonged to someone else the second she’d laid eyes on it. Or – more accurately – when she’d first laid eyes on the kitchen.

Her phone buzzed, and Ashley smiled with gentle amusement at the message on the screen.

Sounds like fighting talk, missy!

She tapped mindlessly against the side of her phone, wondering how to segue.

This town ain’t big enough for the both of us. Meet me at this address, and bring your abs! It’s showtime!

If there was one thing Ashley had figured out rather swiftly about Cory, it was that she had a terminal case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. A lack of tact combined with a seemingly atypical moral code – certainly different to Ashley’s in any case – was the perfect recipe for disaster. Rather than leaping to assure Ashley that she was of course going to do right by her dear friend, she was instead insisting that it didn’t mean anything. Sure, she’d promised not to screw her over, but her attitude still brought a wry smile to Ashley’s lips.

Damn it, she’d been trying so hard to keep a serious expression on her face. It hadn’t helped that Nugget had developed a keen intuition for understanding human conflict and, in the process, turned on his master in support of Ashley’s faux outrage.

“Casual? So my friend means nothing to you now, huh?”

The impact of her words were lost in the struggle to hold herself back from grinning, and she gave up on the charade, laughing at Cory’s grave expression. It reminded her of those moments in movies when the plucky young hero came up against a shotgun-wielding father and had to make a solemn promise not to defile his love interest. Jeez, had Ashley been so convincing? Maybe she’d have to talk to that agent about acting work after all…

“C’mon, it’s fine, I’m not her mother. I know Dana’s a free spirit and I know you’re not, like, some kind of predator or whatever,” Ashley giggled. “How did that even happen? Dana just told me she’s been running into a chick in clubs – she didn’t think to mention it was you. Did she win your favour with a bouquet of straws?”

The image of Dana presenting Cory with a carefully selected bunch of crazy straws was actually kind of sweet, and Ashley found herself jotting it down on her notepad. She had no doubt that there was nothing sweet about the casual hook-up arrangement – Dana in it for attention, Cory in it for… what? – but she could always make up her own imaginary romance to fit a song more in line with the McKenna Chase brand. Dana would love it, even if the number of details changed would make it entirely unrecognisable. It would be just another thing to brag about to her sorority sisters.

Straws were kind of drunk-Dana’s thing, after all.