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Fuck.
The YouTube from the fan club show was on a loop. He had it playing on his phone, and projected on the eighty foot television in his apartment.
Again and again, he watched the sap on the screen sit in front of the girl with the blond hair. He’d kissed her hand for fuck’s sake.
In front of people.
Of course, he’d rewound that one part of the video at least eighty-seven times.
How the hell was he going to do this? It felt like there was a boulder on his chest. On top of the boulder was regret and a car-sized stack of mistakes.
Ones he’d made since the age of seventeen all the way through last night.
He swiped his hand over his buzzed head. The ultimate bade of stupidity. Not that he would take it back now. He was glad he’d given his hair to a worthy cause, even if it had shocked the crowd into silence. There had been a bunch of screams after the first track of scalp had been revealed on the screen behind him on the stage.
But replaying that night, he only remembered the worry and loss in Lauren’s eyes from the front of the stage. The disappointment had been the worst part.
He’d never wanted to see that on her face.
Never wanted to bring his great steaming pile of issues to her door.
But he’d put them on stage and stomped on them like a spoiled toddler.
And now he was alone, just as he’d deserved to be.
His phone buzzed in his hand, but he flicked the message away. He didn’t want to hear from anyone. As day faded into twilight, he slept in snatches. Each time awakening to her smile filling the screen within a few seconds of concert.
His door shook off the hinges sometime after sunset. “Open this fucking door.” He heard voices arguing on the other side of the door, then another mini-quake as two hands pounded on the security door.
“Fuck off!”
“Michael needs you, you piece of shit.”
“Jules?” West rolled off the couch and landed in a pile of magazines and chip wrappers. He stumbled to his feet and weaved from lack of water or coffee. He hadn’t gotten to binge drinking yet. He figured he could go down that road tomorrow.
But all the hazy moroseness of his own problems sharpened and shifted as he rushed to the door and unbolted his door. “What the hell, Jules?”
Tristan and Sparks were hulking behind her with menace in their eyes. Tristan’s eyebrow went up. “Are those Cheetos crumbs?”
West wiped them away with orange stained fingers. “What about it?”
Juliet gave him a disgusted grunt and pushed him in the door. “Get in the shower and get dressed. You can have your existential breakdown tomorrow. Right now Michael needs everyone at the hospital.”
“What? Why?”
“Chloe went into labor and it’s bad.”
“What?”
“I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”
West scrubbed his head with his hands. “I haven’t paid attention to my phone.”
Juliet glanced into the living room and saw the videos. “I don’t know what you said to her, or what you did, but I can’t worry about that right now. I only have room in my head for one emergency.”
West pulled his shirt off and grabbed a fresh one from his laundry basket that he hadn’t bothered putting away.
“Shower. You can take five minutes for a shower. You smell like burnt ass.”
