He felt all the eyes in the room look over at him. He soaked up the attention, his eyes rolling to the side as he tried to keep from laughing out loud from the absurdity of it all.

Marshall snapped at the chance to show off how mature he was. “Do you have something to add, Jamie?”

The way he said Jamie was the same as a father might call out his son. Jamie tsked, the sound barely heard over the creak of the chair under his weight.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Marshall frowned. He was about to say something when Sam shook his head.

“It’s alright,” he said. “I just want you all to know that it would mean a lot to me if we did this.”

Grant the happiest out of all of them. He was smiling and nodding his head like this had been his wish all along. “This’ll be great! Right guys?”

The goofy look on Grant’s face was hard to look away from. It was a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. Jamie wished he could snuff it out so that it wouldn’t bother him anymore.

"You guys can't be serious, right?"

All eyes in the room moved toward him. His first reaction was to cringe away from the attention, but that wasn't who he was. He took up the confrontation, comically straightening up and rolling his eyes. He knew how he must have looked. The suit didn't make him look more professional or grown-up. He looked like some bum that had been picked up off the street to play the role of a businessman. The last thing Jamie was was a man that had one ounce of professionalism in him.

"Jamie." Marshall gave him a look that bordered on full-out glaring. Though, that would be unbecoming for Marshall when their agent and some exec lady was in the same room. He wouldn't dare step out of line when they were around.

That made his stomach twist with a fit of anger. He pursed his lips, agitation sinking well into his arms and legs. If he didn't have to catch a ride with Marshall, he would have stormed out of this meeting.

"I'm right. We can't be thinking about this when we've been gone for three fucking years. We can't stand each other, the fans don't give a shit about our music, and not to mention one of is practically a fucking veg-"

"Don't. Jamie, don't." Marshall's face finally gave in to the anger Jamie knew was always brimming on the surface. He just never expected that he would see it over something they both knew was the truth.

The room fell silent. His eyes flickered over each face sitting at the table, knowing full well that they had to know the same thing as he did. Heath was gone. He was never coming back and if they had that nightmare hanging over their heads as they went back into the shark tank, then they were never going to survive. It would be all that anyone talked about. Music would be nothing. Their voices would be nothing. The whole thing would tank, their album would burn, and the last of their memory would be trampled upon.

If that was what Sam wanted, then that would be what he got if the band got back together.

Jamie let the shock at Marshall’s unchecked anger fall from his face. He hoped no one saw it, didn’t see the mask he was hiding beneath fall away for that one second. He wasn’t someone to be felt sorry for. What he’d done made them angry enough. His only purpose now was to remind them every aching second that he deserved to rot away in prison for it. It was only too bad that the judge had given him a slap on the wrist instead.

The media would be all over that too. Jamie would be burned at the stake. The band would push him to the side, turn him into some kind of mock mascot that meant a ghost memory of a past that they would never get back.

He hadn’t meant to look at Sam then. If he was being honest, it had been a reflex. His eyes had seeked out the dirty blond, blue-eyed man without question and without thought. Their eyes met.

It was like being struck by lightning. He almost jumped in his seat at the blank look in those once bright eyes. Sam looked good. He was dressed expensively as he always did as he was the most fashionable out of all of them. Even when they hadn’t started pulling in the big bucks, he’d styled his clothes perfectly to form and enhance his assets.

He looked the same. But he was different.

Jamie didn’t want to see it. He hated change as much as he hated these games the music industry had to play.

The look sent him back. Back to a time when it was so much easier.