Ryan had a girlfriend. She'd been a dancer for one of their award show performances, elegant and definitely beyond all of the greasy ass band members but giving him the time of day nonetheless. All of them had been in pretty ridiculous costumes, and of [i]course[/i] Ryan so wisely chose to approach her in the stupid baroque, almost flouncy getup they'd put him in, picking someone pretty and blonde from the line and going with his impulse: ask one of the cute dancers out. It wasn't a great sentiment, but he was realizing he was young and being single was probably what made him so chaotic - he only had three other guys to turn to if he was having a rough time, anything that needed support. And anyway the only person he was attracted to, he also sort of majorly hated eighty percent of the time, so he needed to get over that. Or not get over it and just ignore the problem, whatever, same thing. A girlfriend might help.

Hey, he could even get something long term out of it - or he thought that could be a possibility at the time. But from everyone, he picked Keltie to ask, simply because she was the only one who returned anything close to a look of interest and acted telltale shy around him, and then when they actually started talking, they seemed to hit it off. She thought he was [i]precious[/i] or whatever - Ryan didn't get it, he wasn't 'strange and sweet' and hadn't been that to anyone before, he was just [i]him[/i] - and he thought she was witty, beautiful, talented, but that was about all they were to each other. It became clear within the first few days that that was all they would [i]ever[/i] be, too, but it wasn't causing any huge problems, and Ryan was having fun anyway, fuck 'long term' when he could experiment all he wanted now. Certainly Keltie was on the same page, because neither of them turned down opportunities for the other, or anything that would indicate something serious. Careers were still priority, they were in a safe zone.

She also served as something of a distraction, although that, of course, wasn't what he originally intended them to be. His life was normally dominated by having to create, create, create, or, inevitably, Brendon. Those were about the only two things that usually mattered. Either he was torturing himself over what the next 'big thing' was in his music, what was the next album going to be, how were they going to get bigger - or he was thinking about the little fucker that was probably, unfortunately, the answer to all of those questions. When Brendon joined the band he was obviously needed. Ryan could sing, he just didn't have a powerful voice. He wasn't meant for pop music or really anything beyond gentle acoustic sounds, something soft, easy listening. But when the kid they brought in to replace him without consulting him at all turned out to be both endlessly annoying and infuriatingly better than him at [i]everything,[/i] yeah, he sort of had an issue.

Ryan didn't always have much of a frontman's energy, but Brendon made him want it so desperately that he turned up the arrogance factor as far as it could go, so much so that he was now perpetually in competition with the actual frontman. Who could write the best lyrics (he always criticized Brendon's until he was genuinely upset), who could outplay the other (Brendon was a fucking good guitar player, too, so Ryan pretended to find fault with his chords until it hurt), who got the most credit on the album (which unfortunately extended to the other members, and Ryan only stopped nonsensically preaching about how he 'fucking did everything anyway' when Spencer was looking at him judgmentally), so on. If it wasn't that, they were bickering over who used whose coffee mug, or who took the last whatever, or who was getting a certain bunk even though it didn't matter at all. And the worst part that he was irritatingly attractive. Beautiful, actually, just about any positive physical descriptor, and it made Ryan so much angrier about everything.

He was funny, and his smile lit up the room, and his hair was pretty much always perfect even if he had some questionable phases of style there for a bit, and it all sucked big time. Ryan probably would've even done something about his attraction if he wasn't so soulcrushingly jealous about his role being taken, and being done so much infinitely better at that. On the plus side, he knew Brendon felt the same- or. Not [i]knew[/i], but he was very sure, and Spencer and Jon backed him up even if they laughed about their dynamic on the side. They'd cast tense, searching glances at each other when one wasn't looking, and behind every argument there was a fire that was definitely separate from the malicious one, etc.; it was clear to sense the subtext beneath it all, basically. Ryan knew it was awful to parade her around, but he knew if he brought Keltie to his attention, it'd [i]kill[/i] him. One more tally to add to Ryan's side of this unspoken competition.

So he did. It took her some convincing - '[i]no, the bus is so crowded, they wouldn't want me there,[/i]' '[i]oh, of [/i]course[i] they do, they've been dying to get to know you,[/i]' so forth - but he successfully got Keltie from her hotel to the tour bus in time to catch all three of the guys at once, although only one was really important to bear witness to his new relationship. Ryan made sure to step on with his elbow hooked around her waist possessively, hugging her close to his side once they were on. Spencer and Jon seemed to know it was best to stay protectively nearest to the door, like there needed to be some sort of wall between him and Brendon, so he addressed them first. [b]"Hey, guys. Keltie, this is Spencer, Jon..."[/b] Ryan smiled, well-mannered, while they stood to meet her, exchanging 'hey's in varied excitement and shaking hands, and looked over the trio to Brendon, gaze narrowing. [b]"...And this is [i]Brendon[/i]."[/b] His voice took on a cold edge that Keltie seemed to pick up on, because she didn't go out of her way to meet him in a handshake like she had with Spencer and Jon. Then, they'd done that for her - Brendon wasn't. Rude. 

Ryan met his critical brow with an equivalent one, awaiting whatever snark he had coming. [i]So, Ryan, you’re straight now?[/i] Ryan rolled his eyes, and aside, Spencer and Jon were dropping back to their seats, clearly melancholy. Thankfully they'd learned that stepping in was pretty pointless. [b]"Well, are you worried you missed your chance?"[/b] He still had on this polite smile, probably the only thing keeping a concerned-looking Keltie from bolting while he planted a chaste kiss on her forehead. [b]"Sorry. You don't seem like you would've been my type, anyway."[/b] He paused, tilted his head. [b]"Actually, Brendon, are you [i]anyone's[/i] type? You haven't dated at all since you joined. That's a shame, really."[/b]