Push to the Limit (the sixth book in the Glee series)

Chapter 3: New Faces, Same Places

"Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year," said Bree as she stood in Julie's bedroom with her. "And this year I get to be super huge for it."

"Marley was at full term last year," Julie reminded her. "You'll survive. But I'm sure you can find something in my closet."

"Me, too," Bree laughed. "Your whole closet is full of costumes, you weirdo. Hopefully there's something cute that my kid won't get in the way of."

Julie nodded and let her look through her belongings. When her phone started ringing, she groaned loudly and said, "I'm so sorry. It's my agent again. She keeps calling trying to set up things for me to do this week and—"

"Take the call," Bree urged her. "I'll be fine."

While Julie lied down on her bed and answered the call, Bree disappeared into the closet. As she looked for clothes, she heard Julie say, "Hi again... No... Wait what? But why? They know I didn't mean it like that. But they're not even a boy band! Fine, I'll call Courtney and do whatever we need to do to fix this. Thanks for letting me know. Ok, bye."

Bree walked back out of the closet. "Is everything alright?" she asked. 

Julie shrugged, unsure. "Yesterday I was responding to tweets and someone asked me who my favorite boy band of all time was and I said Jonas Brothers of course. Because a) it's the truth and b) I'm on tour with Nick freaking Jonas."

"So what's the problem?" asked Bree, confused.

***

"The problem is now the press is having a field day with this," Sebastian said, pacing in front of John, Sam and Alex. "It's the headlines of every trashy celebrity gossip tabloid. 'Juliet Vasquez Disses Crystal Army.'"

"We're not a boy band, though," said Alex. "We're a band."

"And she's touring with Nick," John added. "Why would she say us when she's under his label and doing music with him?"

"I don't care," Sebastian told them. "All I know is now people are saying there's some sort of feud going on, which will only have them digging into your relationship as parents, as friends, as everything. So we need to do something about it."

"We're not going to start fighting for press," Sam rolled his eyes. "Look, Julie and I are just starting to agree on things. The last thing we need is some fake feud."

John nodded. "I agree. Plus, she made those comments. Her team can handle it. We need to focus on our album, remember?"

"Have it your way," Sebastian shrugged. "Blaine isn't here today but you guys can feel free to write or if you want we can record something new."

"We don't have anything new," Sam admitted.

"Besides," Alex said, standing up. "Tyler is still with his family in California so we have to wait for him to record new material."

"Of course you do," Sebastian said.

"Anything else?" John asked as he and Sam also got up.

Sebastian hesitated but couldn't think of any other reason to keep them. "Guess not. You're free to go."

The guys did not take their time getting out of there and once Sebastian was alone in his office again, he sat back down on his chair and tried his best to think. 

He had lost on of his biggest artists almost a year ago and despite working on new artists to make up the difference, his numbers had fallen. This Crystal Army record was his best hope for showing Loud Motion Records that Blackbird was a needed branch or he would get shut down, his artists all sent to L.A..