Reckless

Josh.

“Joshua, nice of you to join us!”

I shook my head at Max and flicked him off as I walked into the studio. All the guys along with the producers were all sitting in a circle, early morning drinks in their hands, and smiles on their faces. Just by the looks of them all, I reckoned I hadn’t missed much.

“There he is!” Matt O’Grady laughed as I joined Dan on a couch in the circle. “I heard you partied yourself out, eh?”

I pointed at Max. “It was this one’s idea. Not my fault he has an easier time with alcohol.”

“That’s not the only thing I have an easier time with.”

I turned to Max, who was giving me his classic cheeky smile, leaving me with no choice but to smile back. It wasn’t like the taxi ride was totally useless. Yes, it was utterly awkward, but I met a cute girl.

“So,” Peter, who was going to record the album, clapped his hands together and leaned towards us, “what have we got?”

The guys all looked towards me. I nodded. “Well, we want to show progression from Hold Me Down, and I think the guys and me all agree that we went to lean toward a heavy, louder sound. We already have a few songs going, and we have some ideas.”

Matt nodded. “Josh, show him the notes and lyrics from that song we came up with yesterday.”

I smiled, nodding quickly. I loved making an album. And this just felt so right, like we were ready for this progression. It was like a new chapter for You Me At Six, and the fact that we already had ideas felt amazing. At last, I felt like we were finding our own, unique sound and people were really responding to it. If anything, it just felt like we were going somewhere. And fuck it that was enough.

Looking down, I expected to see my brown notebook, full of all the lyrics and notes from the album.

But it wasn’t there.

“Um.” I said, looking under my seat and behind Dan. Fuck. “I think I might have left my notebook in the um, shit.”

I got up and walked towards the lobby, looking around frantically. Our entire band’s ideas were in that book. The album was that book.

“What’s up?” Max asked.

I ran my hands through my hair and turned to him. “I fuckin’ swear I took it from the hotel. But then I had to dodge for a cab and shit, there was a girl and I think I-”

“Slow down, a girl?” Dan laughed. “What the fuck morning did you have mate?”

“I um,” I sighed, “I have no fucking idea. But I think I left the book in the cab. Maybe it’s still there,” I poked my head back in the room and looked at Matt, “do you know who to call about losing something in cab?”

O’Grady shrugged. “There are so many cab companies in the city mate- it’s a bit impossible.”

I nodded slowly. “Well maybe the girl took it. Fuck, maybe her bitch mother has it.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“I hate you Max.”

Max gave me a face like he knew he’d done enough. I came back into the recording room where people were sitting and sat down. Fuck. I hated feeling dumb or bad about myself. I was usually fine with looking idiotic or being stupid, but right now, I had messed up the day for most of my band and everything was possibly gone.

Majority of the albums progress was either sitting in a dirty LA cab or in the hands of a prissy rich girl. Either way, we were fucked.

“Well,” Chris said, leaning towards the group, “we know some of the bits on the one. Loverboy, Josh?”

I nodded slowly, still beating myself up inside. “Yeah, I have some of that memorized as well.”

“Well that’ll do then!” Peter smiled. “We can see where we are sound-wise, Matt can do some mixing, and we can sort most of this out tomorrow. If we work from scratch, we do that.”

Max nodded. “You said it, mate.”

All the guys followed Matt and Peter into the recording space to set up the instruments. They would have to record before me anyway. Hopefully things would work out. I shook my head slowly. This situation actually had zero ways of working out. The book was gone. And even there was a hope that the Louisa girl would have it; there was no way of trying to find her. If I did, her mom would probably run me over with their Mercedes. This just sucked.

“Was there anything important in the book anyway, mate?”

I turned and shrugged at Dan, who threw his arm around my shoulders. “Just some notes and a few lines of things. But it was a start.”

“We’ll just start again, no worries.” Dan smiled. “And maybe you’ll find it. You never know, Joshua.” He looked down for a moment. “Has Hanna apologized?”

I didn’t want to look at him, so I just stared out the window. “Nah. And even if she does, I don’t think it’ll work anymore. So it doesn’t fucking matter.”

Dan nodded, looking at me as if he was listening, but knew I was full of shit. This time, I meant it though. I was done going back to Hanna after she cheated on me, and I was done being tied down by her in general. While I was in America, I wanted to have fun.

I deserved that.