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Her preshow ritual consisted of three things:
1) Munching on the brownies/cookies/cupcake/whatever it was she baked the night before
2) Blasting her adrenaline-building, good luck-granting playlist
3) Charging her battery

Mackenzie nibbled on the last of her chewy, dinosaur-shaped brownies, savoring its chocolatey goodness. Not to toot her own horn or anything, but these were preeetty great. Like, even stoners would prefer these over pot brownies kind of great. She thought she had mucked up the recipe when she added a tablespoon more of Hershey's cocoa than was prescribed, but it turned out to be a happy accident. [i]Anyway.[/i] First one down, two to go. Completing her ritual was a must. Laugh at her for being superstitious, but she'll have you know that there was a precedent to all this. That one time she skipped on eating her stress-baked baked goods (because she was having a really bad case of stage fright back then and eating would have been a terrible idea), she tripped over the mic stand and almost crashed into Levi in the middle of his guitar solo.

So. Time for number two—er, not [i]that[/i] kind.

Pulling out her red wireless Beats from her backpack, Mackenzie sat upside down on the couch, feet immediately tapping out a rhythm against the wall as soon as the tracks played. Music blared out of her headphones; a muted melody to anyone that was not her, but a crashing wave in her ears, drowning out all ambient noises in the Green Room. It was easy all too easy to get lost in the upbeat riffs and the hypnotic tempo. 

For a moment, she saw the band on stage. Bright lights flashing, the crowd erupting in cheers. 

Mackenzie grinned.

No matter how many shows they've done, the preshow jitters never went away. It starts days before, planting dozens of little caterpillars in her stomach that metamorphose into butterflies right before the curtains were drawn. Some shows, it gets really close to a full-blown panic attack. Other shows, it's barely there. But what she learned was that the more it happened, the better she became at converting those jitters into pure energy. She let another three tracks play, letting the music wash over her, until it swept away her thrumming anxieties and only a growing excitement remained.

Now for number three.

Mackenzie rolled off the couch with flourish, newly awakened vigor very much apparent, and slid her headphones down to her neck. Now, the last part was the most important. Every performance gets emotionally-charged really fast—it was one of the perks of being a walking, talking marquee of expressions—and that means it gets draining just as quickly. She needed her dose of assurance.

Her eyes searched through the room and locked onto a target. One tried and true and ever effective.

Mackenzie bounded toward Mikayla, giving Levi a light head-ruffling as she passed him by. The bottle in his hand made her playfully wag a finger at him. Beer probably did nothing to his amazing guitar skills, but she had learn to dislike the drink after it had dried up her throat after only a couple of sips.

[color=#ffa6ae]"Miks!"[/color] Mackenzie was careful not to interrupt until the camera dinged, signaling the recording was over.  Then her hands flew up and around her best friend's neck, in a Max-patented tacklehug from behind. [color=#ffa6ae]"Charging time!"[/color]

The red LED numbers projected on the wall started a countdown. There were only minutes left until Miami Over Moon took center stage.