There was a knock on the door.

“What?” The low growl was muffled by the fluffy material.

“Are you…” Marshall stepped into the room. He cautiously stood over the edge of the king-sized bed. “Are you okay?”

Jamie bit the pillow. “I’m fine.”

What he wanted to do was scream until his throat was bleeding and raw. He wanted to punch Marshall in the face, choke the hell out of Eddie, and drown Sam in a river.

He couldn’t say that though. Marshall might start thinking about admitting him to a psych ward.

There was a beat of silence. In those floating seconds, there were many things that crossed Jamie’s mind. He thought about how Heath would have found his torture enjoyable. He also thought how his life would have been so much easier if he’d stayed in that one night. It was a fight that turned his and everyone’s life upside down.

But he couldn’t just blame it on that one instance. It was the aftermath as well. One mistake turned to two and before he knew it, he was standing in a sea of mistakes he couldn’t make right. He’d been in over his head and too fucked out of his mind to think straight.

That was how he’d ended up here.

Here just might be the hell he’d been waiting for. Maybe if he paid his dues, he could suffer in silence.

That’s what he deserved.

“…I’ll leave the keys on the coffee table. Call me if you need anything.”

Jamie gave a mock salute.

The door closed.

He didn’t let out his held breath until he heard the front door shut. Then, he let it out. He counted the seconds from the rise to the fall of his chest. The pounding of his heart against his rib cage made his head swell.

The memories were coming back. They were pounding at his skull, screaming to be let out.

He closed his eyes and let them take over.

Just this once.

Just. This. Once.

***

Heath jumped down from the bunk, landing on the array of different pillows on the ground. Grant let out a yelp as Heath pulled him into a headlock. He had his phone in his other hand and held it up to Grant’s surprised face. His green eyes tried to focus on the small screen but Heath kept moving.

“Look! That’s us!”

Jamie looked up from his own phone. He’d just crashed on FlappyBird and was thinking about smashing his own phone into the pole of the bunk bed.

“What’s us?” Sam stepped out from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. He still had his toothbrush in his mouth.

Marshall was on the opposite bunkbed reading a book as thick as his own head. Jamie snickered as he remembered Marshall’s face when he told his own joke a few minutes before they settled down for the night.

Jamie looked up. He caught Sam’s eyes. He looked back down at his phone. Pretending to restart the game, he tried to settle his racing heart.

“On Billboard! They’re featuring us!” Heath launched himself off the ground. Grant fell back onto the mountain of pillows, hair ruffled, and his eyes sleep deprived. He was always the first one to hit the sack.

Heath waved the phone under Sam’s nose. He plucked it from his fingers. His eyes went wide as he read the article. Jamie watched from the ground with a curious gaze.

Marshall finally put his book down. “What’s going on?”

“Us. On. Billboard.” Heath took the phone from Sam’s hand and showed Marshall. He was all over the place, feet barely letting him spin fast enough to his liking.

Jamie laughed under his breath as Heath almost lost his footing. Sam laughed along with him. They met eyes again. Something in Jamie’s stomach fluttered.

He made it a point to act as if he didn’t notice.

It was no big deal.

Marshall sat up on the bed. “Woah.”

He and Heath stared at the phone in question.

Jamie stood up and walked over. He was curious now. Since their album dropped, there hadn’t been any time for them to do press releases. There had been some online interviews, just some little magazines phoning them and asking them generic questions. But Billboard was big. They were the start of artists’ careers in the U.S.

This could be a game-changer for them.

The article in question came into view as he settled down beside Marshall.

“Let me see,” he said. Heath turned the screen so that it faced him.

“The new post-punk-pop band Live Warnings turning the tides for boybands for a new generation”. It was a pretty long title if he ever did see one. It made him almost proud though they could have gone with something a little shorter.

The only one who hadn’t seen it yet was Grant. He walked over to them and looked at the phone from above. All five of them stared at the screen.

It was only now sinking in for Jamie what this could mean. They were going to be bigger than they thought. He still couldn’t quite wrap his brain that they were a band and they had a legit album released into the world that wasn’t tanking.

Heath yelled. “Fuck yes! We’re the greatest band on the earth!”

He bounced on the bed, kicking his legs out, and then hit his head on the wall.

They all laughed.

And Heath simply grinned back, basking in the attention.

***

It was morning. The sun shined through the large windows beside the king-sized bed. It was not his own. Too soft. Too clean. And there wasn’t a bottle of brandy on the nightstand.

He laid there for some time, glaring at the window. He tried to will the sunlight to disappear, but it was out of his control. As most things were, it seemed.

Things came back to him slowly. The call from management, the flight to LA, and the fight with Marshall. It was a blur for the most part, but he did remember falling into this large bed. Falling asleep had come quickly for which he was thankful. The thing now was that he had to get up. He had to be presentable. They had a fucking meeting today and no one liked it when they could smell him across the room.

As he sat up in the bed, the comforter pooling around at his sides, he heard a rustle from the front of the hotel. He stilled there, hand on the side of his head as his morning headache came on. Usually, he would wash down the pain with a couple of pills and a cigarette, but Marshall had taken all his Lucky Strikes.

Bastard.

There was another sound from the living. Or was it the kitchen?

It was sharp clang that barely made it through the hall, but it was there. He hadn’t lost all of his hearing. Just out of his left ear.

He stumbled out of the bedroom and made his way into the kitchen.

Right when he crossed the invisible line separating the hallway and the kitchen, he smelled fried eyes. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.