Her Song

27 - Come Fly With Me

**Van**

"Drink this you tosser, it'll make you feel better."

I accepted the luridly blue bottle of liquid skeptically and took a sip. After a couple of minutes I realised that Josh was right, on both counts. I was a tosser and the vaguely radioactive looking drink did make me feel better. Of course the added hydration improved my ability to think, something that had been sorely lacking when I'd awoken earlier and rolled straight off the edge of Josh's bed. He hadn't needed to laugh quite so heartily in my opinion. And my chances of puking my guts up on our flight to Los Angeles had diminished significantly. I'm sure I wasn't the only one thankful for that improvement.

There I was sitting in the departure lounge at JFK Airport using my newly rediscovered ability to think to ponder the utter immensity of my previous evening's fuck up. I'll admit that my behaviour was nowhere near the car crash levels of my brother's usual antics and in a sliding scale of bad behaviour based on Vienna Boys Choir to Mötley Crüe I was probably hovering somewhere near Ed Sheeran but still even my mildly outrageous antics were something I'd thought I'd well and truly grown out of. Beside me Josh was scrolling away on his phone and in the row of seats opposite me Ace and Gray were chatting in low voices with only the occasional disgruntled glare being thrown my way by Gray. Josh and Ace were clearly taking their instructions to keep Gray and me separate seriously. As if I'd take a swing at Gray sober.

Well I was pretty sure I wouldn't anyway. Just so long as he didn't look at Kim.

And if it had been one of the other three guys thinking along the same destructive lines as I was I'd have his shirt clenched in my fist as I told him that he'd need to get his shit together because the band was more important than anything else. Could I give myself a slap? I really fucking needed it.

As for Kim she was pacing at the end of the row of seats talking, or pretending at least, to talk intently on her phone. I didn't doubt for a second that she was avoiding me. I'd tried to talk to her as we waited in the hotel lobby for the van to take us to the airport but she'd proven particularly adept at avoiding me. I couldn't blame her. She'd actually apologised again at the reception desk when we were checking out for the disturbance we'd created. The apology I'd offered up at the reception desk when Kim had scurried outside to watch for our van hadn't made me feel like any less of an asshole.

I was going to have to man up and apologise to Gray but at the hangover level I was functioning at speech was still a difficult proposition and didn't really want to waste it on anyone who wasn't Kim. Plus Gray had taken Kim back to his room. Innocent or not, he wanted her and I couldn't stand the thought that she'd turned to him when she was upset about something to do with me.

I'd sat in silence pondering my own stupidity for a while when Josh looked up from his phone and gave me an assessing glance. "That's better," he said approvingly, "You don't look like you're about to puke anymore. They might even let you on this flight."

I gave him a slow nod, not yet game to make any sudden movements. "Yeah, thanks for that."

He grinned at me. "All good, mate. You've helped me through a hangover or three. Rough night last night, huh?" He glanced back at his phone.

"Sorry you had to deal with my drunk ass." I ran a hand through my hair. I didn't need to look in the mirror to know that it was sticking up in random tufts. The best I could hope for was that it looked intentional.

Josh shrugged. "Not the first time one of us resorted to punches."

It was true, Josh and Ace had thrown down with each other more than once, although as quick as they were to anger they were quick to forgive and forget. Even Gray had been lured into the occasional half-hearted shoving match with one or the other of them. None of that consoled me. "Yeah but it was the first time I have." In fact the only person I'd ever seriously come to blows with in the past was my brother and not one of those fights had been half-hearted. Truth be told Gray may have flipped my rage trigger the night before but it was Rich I'd really wanted to take a swing at.