As October began, Kayla Anderson soon became a morning (and sometimes evening) regular at Hollywood Diner.
She was lovely; she always had a minute to help someone out, always up for a chat if you were feeling down and her laugh, well even on Roxy's worst days, that could cheer her up tenfold.
One of Kayla's favourite things to do, however, was to wind up and argue with Brian May.
It was always in the morning when nobody is actually awake enough to be able to put up with it that she does it; reads the same article as him in the paper and unable to help herself, she has to make her opinion known and that always rubs the guitarist up the wrong way.
"Can you not do something about her?" Brian pleads, reluctantly handing the paper up to Kayla, Roxanne watching on in amusement as Kayla waves goodbye as she disappears out the door.
"Like what?" John asks as Freddie comes into the diner and Roxanne grins, quickly coming around the counter so she can throw her arms around him.
"I've missed you!" she cheers as he twirls her around. l
"Oh, I've missed you too, darling!" he grins, kissing her cheek and Roxanne looks at Brian once her feet are back on the floor.
"And yeah, what do you want me to do? Ban her?"
His eyes light up, "Can you do that?"
She shakes her head, "Sorry, bub. Not my area."
He deflates as Doug comes out of the kitchen to go out for a smoke, "Would he do it?"
She shrugs, "You'd need to ask him."
"Maybe when he comes back in."
"I don't get it," John shakes his head, "She's lovely."
"Lovely?" Brian splutters, "She argues with everything I say, talks about the stupidest things, which you can't get her to shut up about...oh, and she eats my food. Just comes in and helps herself."
"Sounds to me that someone is carrying a torch for our new friend," Freddie grins, sliding onto one of the stools while John and Roxanne nod in agreement.
"I barely know the woman!" he cries and when she raises an eyebrow at him, he scoffs, "Piss off."
"Oh, Brian, relax." John rolls his eyes, "We're just messing with you. Onto a more pressing matter, where is Roger?"
"I was going to ask that," Roxy frowns, "I haven't seen him since Friday."
"Bri?" Freddie asks, "You see him this morning?"
"He was gone before I was up," he nods at their surprised expressions, "My thoughts exactly."
"Does he have classes this early?" Freddie asks, "Surely we would know."
"Does anyone have classes this early?"
"Well," Roxanne mumbles, "I'm giving him five more minutes before I eat his pancakes myself. Does anyone want more coffee?"
Roger arrives just one minute before his time runs out and she reluctantly slides his breakfast across to him as Brian looks at him expectantly, "What?"
"Where have you been?" John asks, "Rox was getting ready to send out a search party for you."
She nods in agreement.
"Oh," the blonde climbs up onto his usual stool, "I had to go see one of my lecturers. Why he couldn't wait till tomorrow when I have his class I don't know. Would have been here ten minutes ago but I ran into Kayla. She can talk, can't she?"
Brian holds up a hand as if to say see! and Roxanne laughs, leaning over to ruffle his hair.
"I also ran into Joe from Crossed Peels. He says there's a slot for us tonight if we want it."
Freddie immediately perks up, "Fabulous! We've been so concentrated on this bloody album that we haven't played a gig in ages."
Roger grins as Roxanne tops up their coffee, "Good thing I said yes then, isn't it?"
"Tagging along, darling?" Freddie asks and she nods, which surprises Brian.
"Yeah?"
She nods again, "I'm off tomorrow and I can't spend another night in the flat, I'm going to go crazy. Besides, I think I'm ready."
John reaches over to rest his hand on top of hers and Freddie claps his hands.
At least she thinks she's ready.
++|++
Walking into the pub later on that night, Roxanne (for some stupid reason) feels as if everyone in the building is staring at her which was ridiculous. This wasn't even where it happened.
As if sensing her nervousness, John squeezes her hand lightly, which relaxes her.
She wasn't alone in this. John was here, Roger was here...her friends were here.
Mary was waiting for them in a booth and when she saw Roxy was with them, she lit up and let out a squeal.
"You came!" she cheers, getting up so she can hug her.
"Hi," Roxanna grins, wrapping her arms around her, "Feels like I haven't seen you in forever!"
Roxanne is grateful for Mary Austin. When she first met her, she wasn't sure how they would get on or if they would get on at all but when it became clear that she was the only other female that seemed to be a constant around the boys, they had just kind of clicked.
"Right ladies," Roger claps his hands, "What are we having? Nessie? Gin?"
"Can I have a beer?" she asks, "Ask if we can have the bottle?"
"Of course," he nods, ruffling her hair as John climbs onto the small stage to start setting up.
Freddie goes with Roger to get the drinks and while Mary and Roxy converse quietly on stuff that they can't exactly talk about with the guys, Brian strums away on his guitar, occasionally looking up at the door when it opens so he can get a feel for the audience and his hand stills when he hears a familiar voice call Roxy's name.
"You have got to be kidding me."
"What?" Roger asks as he sits back down, handing a beet over to Roxy and leaning back to pass one to John, "Oh..."
It was Kayla and she was heading straight for their table, leaving two other women who must have been her friends.
"Kayla!" Roxanne grins, standing up to greet her popular.
"What are you lot doing here?" the young woman asks after she's been introduced to Mary.
Roxanne gestures to the boys, "We're here to watch this lot play."
"I didn't know that you guys were in a band! W-"
"Well now you do," Brian interrupts rudely and her face falls, "So you can go now."
"Brian!" Mary gasps, not used to hearing that tone of voice from him and he shrugs.
The woman stood by their table tries to give them another smile but Roxy can see that she's hurt, that she doesn't quite know what she's done to annoy the guitarist so much.
"I'll just," he nods towards the two women she had left, "I better get back to my friends but it was nice seeing you all. Good luck, guys, I'm sure you'll smash it."
As soon as she's out of earshot, both Taylor's are glaring at Brian while Mary still looks somewhat shocked.
"What?"
++|++
Since there was no other bands booked for the night, Queen could stay on for however long they wanted.
They played mostly originals for the first forty-five minutes before Roger was announcing into the mic that they were going to take a twenty-minute break.
All through their performance, whether she be dancing with Mary -drink safely in hand- or sitting in the both, Roxanne couldn't help but look at Kayla's table, noticing that she didn't look as happy as she did when she first said hello.
Fucking Brian.
She and Mary had just returned from the bar with new drinks, she feels comfortable to move onto gins and when she takes her first sip, Roger chooses that moment to crash into her side before she can sit down.
"Roger!" she yells, barely able to stop the drink from spilling on her shirt, "Will you please wa-"
"It's her," he breathes, sitting down in the booth before pulling her down harshly beside him and this time, the drink does spill on her, "Nessie, it's her!"
"Who?" she hopes its Alyssa. She's had a few drinks and neither Brian are John are here to stop her this time, "Who?"
"That girl," Roger mumbles, looking over the back of the booth, "The really pretty one, she's here."
Roxanne peeks over her shoulder, "Which one? You think a lot of girls are pretty, Rog. You're going to have to be a little more specific."
"Both of us can't look!" he hisses, pushing her down further into the booth, "And you know the one I'm talking about. She was at that recording studio, the one who was on reception but wasn't the receptionist."
She barely remembers what she had for breakfast the other day and he expects her to remember this? Roxanne is starting to think that maybe her cousin doesn't know her as well as he says he does.
"Dark hair," Roger continues when he realises she doesn't have a clue, "You spoke to her? The-fuck I can't remember her name."
"Ohh," Roxanne suddenly remembers and his eyes light up, "Yeah, I think I know who you're talking about. Joan?"
"Yes!" he says excitedly, "Wait, no. That wasn't her name."
"I'm pretty sure it was,"
"I can assure you, it wasn't." he argues, "No, it was something else."
"What are we talking about?" John asks, smushing into the booth on Roxy's other side and with a fond smile, she reaches up to sort some of his hair that's fallen out of place.
"Shh," Roger mutters, chancing a glance over the booth again towards the girl.
"Don't shush him," Roxanne hits his leg, following his lead to finally get the chance to see who he's talking about.
When she sees her, she does recognise her a little. She recognises her face, her hair -although it was up in a ponytail the last time-.
"Who's that?" John asks again, this time keeping his voice down so he doesn't anger Roger.
"She works at one of the recording studios we went to when looking for you guys. I told you about her, remember?" Roxanne explains and John nods, "You don't, by any chance, happen to remember if I told you her name, do you?"
"You told me a lot of names, love," John replies, "But if you're talking about Ablestar, then I'm pretty sure you said her name was Rebecca."
"Rebecca!" both she and Roger cheer loudly and to their horror, the brunette in question turns at the sound of her name.
"Oh shit," Roger quickly ducks back down in the booth and Roxanne hides her face in John's shirt, making him laugh.
"Is she still looking?" Roger asks, not moving his head in case she sees him and John nods.
"Yep."
"How about now?" Roxanne peers up at him.
"Still looking around," he murmurs, "Still looking...okay, she's stopped. What are you doing?"
Roxanne turns in her seat to see that Roger is looking at himself in the window's reflection; fixing his hair and sorting the collar of his shirt, "'m going to speak to her."
She grins as he gets up. Watching Roger flirt can be fun; will he get lucky and get the girl's number or will he get a drink to the face? Who knows but she is definitely going to watch and find out.
"You got this, Taylor!" Roxy cheers and he turns around to grin at her and give her a thumbs up.
"I'm glad to see that he's bounced back," John murmurs as she settles back against his chest, watching as Roger approaches Rebecca and she nods.
"He deserves better than Alyss-wait, what is he doing?"
At the last possible second, he'd changed course and is instead heading to the bar.
"He's bottled it," John snickers and her mouth falls open.
This was the first time, in all the times she's seen him approach a woman, that he's given up, or in John's words, bottled it.
"Well," Roxy murmurs, picking up her glass as John kisses the back of her head, "I guess that there's a first time for everything."