Looking Back From L.A. by M. B. Feeney Page B

anger rising, I turned on my heel and made my way to the green room backstage to try and calm down.
    “Hey, Weston.” Eli had followed me.
    “Oh, they send you to kick me out?” I couldn’t stop myself from raising my voice.
    “No. Chill out will you.” He sat on the old couch next to me. “Look, there’s no way they’ll cut you, but you need to stop with the random hookups man. You’re starting to let them get in the way of the band, and that’s not cool.” He looked me in the eye, and I started to feel a little guilty. “Plus, you’re a total dick to those girls. Just cool it yeah?”
    “Okay man, I get it. I’ll slow my roll.” I stuck to my word. I stopped checking out the girls at the shows, and went to bed every night alone. While it might have been a lonely existence, it did wonders to heal the breaches I hadn’t realized existed between me and the rest of the band.
    Then we arrived in Houston.
     

 
Three Years Later… :
    Thud... thud... thud.  Callaghan threw a pillow at me to stop me wearing the plush carpet down with all my pacing.
    "Dude, chill." His voice was relaxed, which seemed to irritate me even more than the stress I was under.
    "Did I tell you to ‘chill’ when you were stressing about Karina?" No answer was the reply. "Yeah, I didn't think so." I carried on pacing, my bare feet making audible sounds on the floor, my agent Nina Gold kept herself to herself as she sat in the corner of the room fielding emails. The woman never stopped working, but I appreciated her all the more for it. I’d never told her, but I looked up to her like an aunt, and couldn’t ever imagine not having her on my side.
    Hearing Callaghan sigh to himself made it hard not to turn and snap at him. I never got impatient with him on his wedding day, not that there was enough time for anyone to react to the news.
    To calm myself down while we waited for the other guys to turn up, I turned my thoughts to Charlotte. I couldn't believe how my life changed because Callaghan needed the bathroom that night in Texas. If he hadn't drunk so much in the SUV, we would have gone on to another bar, and my life wouldn't be where it was now.
    "Here he is, the happiest man on the planet... today anyway." Drew and the rest of the band, minus Diamond, walked in. "Huh... you don't look very happy."
    "He's nervous." Callaghan grinned. If he didn't shut the fuck up, I was going to knock him flat on his ass; and I was seriously beginning to regret picking him over Drew as my best man.
    "Yeah, that's natural; I remember you throwing up." I laughed at the sudden lack of speech my so called best friend possessed. "Numerous times." Naturally, I couldn’t help but think back to Matt’s wedding day that had been sprung upon us all. He spent most of his time before the ceremony in the bathroom. Drew threw his arm around my shoulder. "Dude, it's all gonna be okay. It's not like she's not gonna show. After all, you know where she lives and can hunt her down." He and Matt laughed, due to the fact that Charlie and I had been living together for almost eighteen months.
    "Not helping." I clenched my teeth. What was it about my friends and their innate ability to make me feel worse? It was clear they were trying to relieve the situation, but it was having the opposite effect. Walking across the hotel room, I opened the window of the hotel and lit a cigarette, ensuring my smoke drifted outside. Usually, when I felt nervous about anything, I would wrap my arms around Charlotte and immediately feel better, but as she was the cause of my nerves this time, I doubted thinking about her would help this time.
    Closing my eyes, I couldn’t help but cast my mind back over our entire relationship.

    We had been in Houston for almost three hours before any of us decided to go and find a decent bar, maybe one that had live music. A night off for us was rare, so we decided to make the most of it before hauling our asses on stage the following evening, and