This Turbulence is Beautiful.

After three weeks of working at the bar, John moved my shift around so that I would always be working the Monday daytime and Thursday afternoons I had been covering whilst someone was away. I thought this holiday was a bit extreme, and I was starting to get annoyed, but then I realised that said ‘holiday’ was actually maternity leave, and I couldn’t resent an unborn baby; especially since I had come to like working in the afternoons.

Josh walked to work with me in the morning and had a coffee before we were technically open, but John and Josh got along just fine, so it was no added trouble. Lunch times were occasionally busy, occasionally dead, and afternoons were normally empty.

The exception to that normally was that every afternoon I was working, Hayden would pop in. He would sit down, drink a couple of coffees, we would chatter for about an hour, sometimes more, and then he would leave. I was really growing to like his company; he was easy to talk to and he always made conversation, although it hardly ever ran dry so either of us would have to really try. We seemed to have so much in common.

There was also the added bonus that he was dead attractive.

Then came the fateful day he decided to visit the pub with an agenda. That’s what he said to me as soon as he came through the door: “Rosie, I have an agenda today.” At first, I was completely confused, but he said he couldn’t stay long and gave me a sheet of paper.

___________Rosie:
_______I was wondering if you’d like to go out to town with me this weekend.
___If you would, please call me on 07845693759 and let me know what time
___would best suit you. I would really love it if you did, but please don’t feel
___obliged.
___________________Hayden x

Oh good lord. Hayden had practically ran out of the bar now and I was more than glad. My cheeks were hot and probably bright pink and I felt giddy. Was this a date?

Was it bad that I was thinking romantically about his writing? I mean, Taylor probably didn’t even know what the word obliged meant, and he definitely couldn’t have made it sound romantic like Hayden seemed to. He just had a way with words that made me feel weak at the knees. That was such a tragic thing to think, Rosie.

And he had asked me out of a date.

Actually, he never technically used the word date- but either way I was claiming this as a point to me. That makes it one all, Taylor. You can fuck your secretary, but I get to go on a date- something you never did for me- I don’t count the crappy film.

Max was picking me up from work today as Josh was stuck deep in his room working on the lyrics that had been plaguing him for the last fortnight or so. It was starting to get to us all, because apparently when he had lyrics in his head that he couldn’t quite get out, he was moody as hell- he couldn’t talk to anyone in case he lost his train of thought, or something.

As soon as he came through the door I practically leapt on him, pulling him into a hug, my boss laughing in the background.

“Max, look! Look what I got!” His eyes scanned over the note, before he grinned, pulled me back into the hug and kissed my forehead.

“Oh Rosie, that’s brilliant! Josh was saying that he thought that guy had a thing for you… or something like that,” he looked confused by his own phrasing, but shook his head, “Anyway, let’s get on. The guys will be proper proud of you,” he smiled warmly, holding out his arm. I looped mine through his, and we wandered home, me chattering non-stop about how excited I was.

Thinking it through, I don’t know what I was really so excited about. I felt like a teenager with a school-girl crush, that was just how Hayden made me feel; I got nervous around him, I felt my cheeks burn pink when we made eye contact because I wasn’t quite used to it yet and I found myself sort of miss him when I wasn’t with him. I thought about him properly as well- I remember when I was younger, I read something in a magazine that after people have been together for a long time, they start forgetting what they had in common in the first place and start considering their differences, and that was why they normally fell apart. I starting thinking about how long it would take for me and Hayden’s similarities to run dry, and it made me nervous to think about it.

But either way, this was a date, and that was what I was truly excited about. He cared about me enough to take me out to places. I wondered about whether he would pay for lunch, or whether I should take loads of money just in case we went somewhere more upper class than I was used to- which, at the moment, was Dominos Pizza on a Friday night.

I realised, half way home, that Max hadn’t really said a word since the start, despite my constant babbling about nothing in particular.

“What’s up Max?”

He looked at me, almost shocked, “Eh?”

I frowned, “You just seem a bit quiet. Normally you’re non-stop talking along with me.” He smiled at my remark.

“Well, I met this girl today…” he stopped, looking unsure of what to say and plunged his hands deeper into his pocket, “Well no, I’ve met her before, sort of. Whenever I have to do the food shop,” he stopped here, pulling an unimpressed face at the fact that he had to visit the supermarket today, “I always stop in the coffee shop near by, and she works there. She’s real pretty, like really,” he reddened at this.

I cooed, “You have a crush! That is so sweet. What’s her name?”

“This is the problem. I don’t know anything about her. She doesn’t even know anything about me, apart from the fact that I always order a vanilla decaf latte, and she always laughs when I order. So today, I walked in, and she asked me if I wanted the usual. I got all giddy because she remembered me, and couldn’t really speak that well. But eventually I managed to ask her if she wanted a coffee, so she nodded, took her break and we sat down and drank our drinks together.”

I smiled, “you talked to her! So you do know something about her, surely.”

He smiled, but it wasn’t a real, happy smile, and shook his head softly, “I still don’t know her name; all I really know is that she’s pretty and has a slight Australian accent.” Max stopped talking as we had reached the house. When we walked into the house, the boys were sat around the table, acoustic guitars scattered across both Chris’s lap and the sofa, Dan sitting with a plastic rubbish bin turned upside down, and Matt with a bass in his arms. Josh was sat cross-legged on the floor in nothing but a pair of grey jogging bottoms, his hair messy and not even brushed from the looks of it. Max smirked at me, amused at the sight of the confused look on my face.

“Alright guys,” he smiled, jumping over the back of the sofa and picking up the outcast acoustic guitar. The boys looked up at me and smiled, carrying on their discussion. I walked into the kitchen, filled the kettle and switched it on, and then walked back through, leaning on the doorframe between the kitchen and sitting room and watching them as they worked stuff out between them.

“Okay, so Josh, you come in straight away…”

“No, Dan comes in first, I reckon.”

“Yeah, I agree, maybe with Max. Max, play Josh that little bit of guitar you had earlier, see if it fits with his ideas.”

“That’s perfect mate. Fit’s brilliantly, it’s better than I could have imagined. So we just need to push it for a verse, chorus, verse, chorus?”

“Chuck in a middle?”

“The when we die, do we feel alive is the middle, yeah. Least that’s how I saw it, right Josh?”

“So take us through the chorus, Josh. Like the tempo you see it and everything.”

Josh looked up from his notes, popping his pen out from between his teeth. He looked at the boys, and then looked at me. Without him saying anything, I realised that he didn’t want me in the room; I didn’t understand why he was so unsure about me hearing him sing, but I exited anyway. I was staying with the boys out of their own generosity, and I didn’t want to push any buttons.



An hour and a half later, and the boys felt like they had worked enough for one evening. Matt came up to my room to tell me it was “safe”, so I laughed and followed him. We spent an evening crashed out on the sofa, watching old movies and eating too much junk food.

“So guys,” Max practically announced whilst Josh was switching the DVDs, “Rosie has some good news.”

I blushed, hiding my face behind my hand but trying to make it look like I was doing so casually. It didn’t fool any of them.

“Good news?” Matt smiled, “And good news that makes you blush? That has got to be something to do with a lad!”

I smiled, pulling out the paper from my back pocket, and showed it to him. He proceeded to read it out in an overly dramatic fashion and with an extremely prim and proper voice. The boys all let out a wolf whistle in a pretty much synchronised way. They had clearly had practice at this.

“I told you Max! I said he liked you,” Josh smiled at me proudly, before jumping onto the sofa and settling down to watch the new movie he’d picked.

I laughed. “Now before I go to bed, guys, ask Max about his good news.”

Josh looked away from the television instantly, “it’s about that chick from the coffee shop!” I nodded, and he pride flickered across his face once again, like a child who’d got a math problem right. Whilst the boys starting grilling Max on whom the “chick” was, I said goodnight and headed upstairs.

Within two minutes of me getting into bed, I heard a knock on the door, and Matt pushed through. I switched on my lamp, “These nocturnal visits are becoming regular, Matthew!”

“I just wanted to ask about this Hayden guy. Josh said he was alright, but I don’t really trust his judgement on what alright is because he’s generally a bitter person when it comes to love,” he laughed. I just smiled, not really sure what to say. I didn’t really want to spill a load of crap about feeling young again, especially not to Matt. He would be able to tell what I was thinking anyway.

“So you really like him then?” he mumbled after I had said precisely nothing, smiling at me and rubbing his hand on my knee. I nodded, biting my lip slightly.

“Well, not really like him. I like him enough to spend time with him,” I mumbled the last bit, trying to play down how I was feeling, although the pink on my cheeks probably gave that away.

“Do you like him enough for him to be your one way ticket to getting over Taylor good and proper?”

“I’m not using him, Matt. I like the guy.”

Matt nodded in what he probably imagined was a knowledgeable way, “What does he do?”

“He works in an office. Basically, like I used to do in London, but a bit higher up the food chain. I’m not really sure what he exactly does, because it’s not exactly flirtatious to ask in depth questions about work, really.” Matt laughed at this.

“And he’s single?”

“Well he bloody asked me out, didn’t he?”

“I was just joshin’ you, Rosie,” Matt laughed again, although this came out as more of a giggle- pretty much the most unmanly laugh I’d ever heard.

“What is it with you lot and that phrase?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, I am going to fucking kill Josh. That’s the third time today I’ve said that. I don’t even really understand it, but he says it all the time. Thinks it’s humourous to use a “well-known” saying with his name in, I suppose,” He stood up, before leaning down and giving me a small hug, “I’m real happy for you Rizzle.”

I breathed deeply, appreciating the hug immensely, “Me too, Matty.”



When I came back from my trip out with Hayden, I felt a little bit floaty. Not only was there the fact that we’d had an amazing time out, and that he’d paid for lunch and pretty much anything we did, but he had only gone and kissed me as he dropped me off at the house. A pretty good kiss too- the kind of kiss that made you want to straddle someone’s lap and stay there for a long time, doing nothing but make out and smile and then make out some more.

As I walked up to the house, ready to tell the boys everything, I heard music coming from the front room. I slipped my spare key into the lock, and opened the door as quietly as I could. Matt looked up from his bass, winked at me, but said nothing as I stood there, slightly shielded from the open door.

Once they actually started playing and getting a bit more into it, despite the fact that it was acoustic and probably toned down a fair bit, I felt like it was loud enough for me to close the door and stand there without being noticed. I watched them all, but especially Josh. He was looking down at his scraps of paper that had been cut up and sticky-taped back together, and from the looks of it even ripped apart at one point.

The music dropped and for a second I thought I was going to get caught, but then I realised the only one who didn’t seem to want me to hear anything was Josh, and he was sitting, looking down at his paper and occasionally closing his eyes.

He took a deep breath once the guitars had been reduced to basics and Dan’s tapping on the plastic waste bin was mellowed, closing his eyes, breathing out and then in again.

Josh hummed along to the first part, occasionally filling in lines under his breath, but not loud enough for me to hear. Just then, he took a deeper breath than he had done before, and his eyes squeezed shut in a similar fashion to when he saw the ride drop at the carnival fair, before he relaxed them again.
And then he started singing, and I forgot what I was even doing.

“It’d be safer, to hate her, than to love her, and lose her; it’d be safer, to hate her, all around,” he looked up from his paper, and saw me smiling towards him, and instantly stopped, “You weren’t supposed to...” he trailed off, sighing and mumbling, not even fitting a comprehensible sentence together.

“I know, you don’t want me to hear you sing, I get it,” I practically giggled. I walked through to the kitchen, still feeling slightly giddy from my date. Matt and Max came through, and instantly starting asking questions about Hayden; what we did and where we went. I answered with a small smile on my face the whole time, trying not to ramble on too much, which was hard because I felt like I could talk about Hayden for a very long time without stopping, not even for breath. To be able to talk about him made me feel an almost euphoric feeling. It felt like so long since I’d really fancied someone, even Taylor. Love didn’t feel the same as a crush; love as I had known it felt intense at first but then it sort of dulled out to a fizzling in the pit of your stomach that only seemed to come alive when things got a little heated, and even then nothing felt as exciting as it did at the start.

The thing is though, Rosie- it’s not been a long time since you really fancied someone, at all. Remember those butterflies from the carnival fair? Remember when you had that bath weeks ago and you’d left the door unlocked, just in case it happened again? And then to top it all off, remember how nice his ass looked in those jeans?

But this was the first time someone had made an effort to show me they cared. Taylor didn’t even take me out when we were first dating, after he told me he loved me, or even when we were engaged. I was completely and utterly bowled over with flattery.

Max ordered pizza as I sat down with the rest of the boys. Josh was sat in front of me on the floor, whilst I lay on my side on the armchair, my head resting on the sofa arm. I let my arm fall and started playing with his hair, and laughed when I heard him sigh comfortably. As soon as I did so, he pulled away, looking back at me with a mixture of shock and anger.

“What are you doing, Rosie?”

I looked at him with wide eyes, “There’s no need to snap at me…”

“Oh piss off, Rosie. Just piss off,” he muttered, before I’d even had a chance to explain myself. He stood up, grabbing his keys and music sheets and notes from the table. I stood up along side him.

“What is up with you? You’re off with me just because I heard you sing? I don’t get what the problem is. You’ve been doing this all bloody week, and weeks before that, even.”

Josh turned around from his mission towards the door, “You really don’t get it, do you?”

I felt the colour rising in my cheeks, “No, too fucking right I don’t. What’s the big deal here Josh?” Anger was bubbling inside me and I wasn’t even really sure why. I think the fact that Josh had snapped at me for no reason at all, and the fact that he’d been off with me all week was really starting to get to me. He seemed so livid that I’d walked in on them practising earlier and for no good reason.

He turned his back to me once again, making his way towards the door. I followed him, the boys swivelling in the sofa and watching us, not even trying to be subtle about it.

“It’s not the singing, Rosie. You want to hear me sing, you can go buy a CD…”

“So what the hell is it? I asked you to sing the other week and you said no, and got all protective. You try and break down my walls with your ‘what is there to tell’ bullshit and then block me off with your own bloody fortress.”

He swiftly span on his heel, “Are you that fucking stupid?”

I felt my eyes filling with sharp tears- tears that burnt my worn out eyes and tears that I didn’t want to be there, “I’m not stupid, Josh.”

“But you don’t understand me, do you? So stop trying.”

“And what, pray tell, is there to understand?”

He took a deep breath, shutting his eyes tightly in the same way I’d seem tens of times now- the way he shut his eyes when he wanted to hold everything back but couldn’t quite manage to stop talking or thinking, “The lyrics, Rosie- my lyrics. But you’re too wrapped up in your own shit to get it,” he opened his eyes, and pushed his hand to his forehead, “Whatever. I’ll see you later guys.” He twisted and exited fast, leaving me standing there and doing nothing. Without a word to anyone, I went upstairs and got into bed, not even bothering to take my clothes off from my day out.

I pulled my phone from my cardigan pocket and read a text from Hayden: “Today was amazing. I’ll see you soon, I hope. Sleep well beautiful x”. I smiled a weak and lacklustre smile and tried to shut my eyes and sleep, and even though it took a few hours, I got there eventually.