Better Mistakes

November 2016

2016 American Music Awards Set for November 20!

Old stars and new stars alike will see every one arriving for the American Music Awards this Sunday live from the Nokia Theater LA. As always at the American Music Awards, artists will be honored in the genres of Pop/Rock, Country, Rap/Hip-Hop, Soul/R&B, Alternative Rock, Adult Contemporary, Latin, Contemporary Inspirational, Electronic Dance Music, as well as categories for Top Soundtrack, New Artist of the Year Presented by Kohl’s, Artist of the Year and Single of the Year.

All eyes will be on some of the standout acts that will be performing including Five Seconds of Summer, newly solo artist Harry Styles and new comers Better Mistakes. The show is set to be explosive, tune in!

“Get the fuck out of bed. Now.” Violet threw open the curtains and a sharp beam of sunlight hit my eyes.

“Fuuuuck off, Violent.” I groaned as I rolled onto my stomach to bury my head under a pillow.

“You have point five fucking seconds to get out of bed or I will dump cold water all over you. I am not joking, Styles – we have a flight in three hours and you clearly haven’t packed.”

My assistant’s words were not empty threats; I’d learned that the hard way early on in her tenure so I dragged myself up, rubbing at my face tiredly.

“Here,” she grunted at me as she offered me a bottle of water and a small pack of aspirin.

“Thank you.” I said softly, my voice even lower than usual. I couldn’t remember the last time I woke up without a hangover so I don’t know why I was always surprised at feeling so terrible.

“Lou will be here shortly, she wants to cut your hair a bit but we can do that when we land in LA. I have most of your clothes packed but if there is anything special you want to bring, you’d best have it all ready to go in thirty minutes.” She rambled off then immediately started to pull the covers off my body and pulling at my hand, “Get in the shower – you reek of whisky. Maker’s again?”

Her words were light but they held a hard undercurrent and I hung my head in shame. Instead, I ignored her and stood up to stretch my hands over my head. I felt old, older than my twenty-two years and it was a struggle getting into the bathroom. I’d moved recently and it was still taking a bit to get used to the new place. I flipped the tap on to heat the shower first then turned to face my reflection in the mirror.

My hair was a wild, stringy mess. I had trouble remembering the last time I washed it as I ran a hand through the tangled, loose curls. My eyes were a dull, blood-shot green, rimmed red and there was a noticeable, tiny pinch between my brows. I looked like shit; Lou would have her work cut out for her. I stripped off and stepped into the warm stream of water, feeling my muscles relax exponentially. I stood there for longer than I should until Violet was banging on the door to get me out. Slowly, I dragged my limbs out from behind the frosted glass and hurriedly dried off.

Stepping out into my stark bedroom, I found Lou sitting atop the white duvet. “You’re in the papers again.”

I cringed slightly but shrugged, “Yeah well, sorry.”

“Haz, we’re all just worried…” she started slowly but I shot her a glare.

“I don’t want to hear it. I’m not talking about any of this. We have a lot of shit to do.”

She sighed but stood, “Soz for caring. Get dressed, car’s ‘ere.” Then she was out the door, leaving me alone again.

--

“Face – up.” Ollie hissed into my ear. I swung out at him wildly but the boys knew me too well and I only hit air. “Rehearsals are this afternoon but we have some scheduling and shit to go over before. Flynn’s outside too.”

I groaned and rolled onto my back. I blindly reached out for my phone, feeling the usual dread I felt every morning as I turned it on. The voicemail indicator pinged as it booted on and I felt the familiar sensation of bile rise up as I clicked on the app to see who it was from. Just as I was navigating to the messages, Flynn landed in bed next to me. He knew my morning routine so well he just quietly lay next to me. I could feel his fingers twitching to reach out for mine but he resisted the urge. As expected, the voicemail popped up from an unfamiliar UK number.

“He must have had to change his number again…” Flynn said quietly as he watched my hesitation. “Don’t listen to it, you know what it does to you.”

“What if it’s…”

“Joze, no. You know who it’s from – look at the time. Just delete it.”

I glanced up at him and sighed, “Yeah…you’re right.”

I swiped to the left and firmly pressed delete, watching the message disappear. I rolled into Flynn’s side, pressing against him as he hugged me tightly.

“Are you nervous for tomorrow?” He asked softly, breath floating over my head.

He wasn’t talking about the performance we were set to put on for the AMAs, he was talking about the fact that Harry would be there.

It had been a year since I’d last seen him; an entire year of working our schedule of touring to avoid being in the same state, let alone the same city as him. But with the album release, the critical acceptance and growing mainstream focus, it was about to become unavoidable. He’d gone solo nearly seven months ago and his first album was released a month before ours had been. Not only was he my ex-boyfriend, he was now my band’s main competition in sales.

“Fucking terrified.” I admitted against his ribs.

“I promise I’ll be next to you the whole time.”

I smiled slightly, tilting my head up to catch his warm, brown stare. My lips pulled up in a wry grin, “You know that will likely make it worse.”

Flynn wiggled an arm out to flex comically, “I’m not worried – I can take him.”

--

“We fell in love
Right by the ocean
Made all our plans
Down on the sand

“And from the tips of your fingers
Down to the soles of your feet
A glimmer in your skin
That I can't believe
And take a trip to the sea
Let your hair run, run free
You're a rebel in disguise
Is that the devil in your eyes

“I can’t really hear out of the right.” I paused so the sound could be adjusted.

After a few more run throughs, I was happy with the sound. There was a not-so-small cluster of people lingering just in the front of the stage listening. I caught sight of Violet off to the side who was making the ‘wrap it up’ signal and I knew my time was done and it was the next act’s turn.

I pulled out my in-ear monitors, letting them fall across my chest as I stood and shook hands with my band. There was a camera off to the side, filming everything and I was cognizant that I needed to be on the entire time I was in the theater.

I scanned the room, sighing lightly as Violet hurried forward to lead me to wherever the hell I needed to go next. I followed her dutifully, saying hello to people I recognized as we walked towards the front of the theater. Along the side, the next act was being led up. I wasn’t paying much attention to who it was until we’d just passed by them and I saw the mountain of a man leading the pack. My mouth felt dry at the sight, that wasn’t…was it?

I craned my head around, following the massive frame until a flash of reddish-gold caught the dim light and I could see the tiny form in front of him that he had been sheltering.

Josie…

“Fuck.” Violet hissed out in front of me and she whirled around at the show runner that was next to us, “You said Better Mistakes wasn’t doing their check until later.” Her voice was accusing and angry and I know she was lashing out at this poor guy because of me but I couldn’t bring myself to stop her. I hadn’t wanted to see her this way.

“They had to change per their publicist’s request!” The poor guy squeaked out, “Last minute interview ran over.”

“You keep her away from him, got it?” She spat at him. I wanted to protest; wanted to say I could handle seeing her in person and maybe even speaking to her, but I couldn’t. The small flash of her wild hair and I felt the tenuous thread of control I was maintaining on my sanity start to unravel.

One year.

One whole year without seeing her, feeling her, speaking to her besides her voicemail.

I couldn’t handle this; I couldn’t see her with him and be okay.

--

“Are you FUCKING kidding me?” I shouted once we were safely ensconced in the dressing room. “In what world did these assholes thing it was okay to put us on sound check after him?”

Meg fixed me with a bold stare, “This isn’t high school; get your shit together. People run into ex-boyfriends all the time and it’s been a year, get over it.”

My mouth dropped open in fury and I think I actually would have physically attacked her if Jack hadn’t cut in.

“Don’t, Meg.” He said warningly, “You don’t understand this. Face will be fine to perform tomorrow night and if they run into each other when it’s televised, she’ll do fine but that was a shitty move and you know you did it on purpose.”

Meg had the nerve to look offended for a minute but then she smirked, “Just needed to see if you could handle it. We need you to be better at shielding your emotions, you’re a fucking basket case half the time.”

“That’s not fair!” Ollie protested, a band mate again cutting in on my behalf. “You’re new around here and we appreciate the label hiring you but this isn’t something you get to have an opinion on. Joze does just fine in public; she won’t lose it.”

No, I wouldn’t. I never did but that didn’t mean the effort to hold it together wasn’t pure torture. It was physically exhausting to maintain a calm mental demeanor when we were in public. Making things worse is most every one knew me as ‘Harry Styles’ Ex-Girlfriend’. It had taken months of struggling together as a group to separate myself from the label of being Harry’s. Even before we’d broken up we’d been saddled with the One Direction curse. People expected a certain style of music from us and were disappointed when they didn’t get it.

But we had worked hard. The four of us spent hours and days and weeks writing and practicing and playing at shitty bars across both the UK and the US until we’d finally gotten a record label to take a chance on signing us. We’d released an EP of just six songs when we first started out but over the last year we’d fully written and recorded an album of seventeen songs and had a number one single in both the US and the UK.

Harry’s dream for me had come true. If only he’d known he wouldn’t be there to celebrate it with me.

--

November 2014

“Josephine! You’re going to miss your flight!” Flynn shouted from down below and I tripped over my own feet, tucking my guitar back in it’s case.

“Bye, boys!” I pecked kisses to Ollie, Jack and Spencer’s cheeks as I circled past them. “Next time I’m attending one of these shit shows I expect we’ll be performing at one.”

All three rolled their eyes at me but I could see Ollie’s eyes light up at the thought of it as he scribbled down another lyric.

“Better move it, Face or you’ll miss out on time with lover boy.” Jack teased and I playfully gave him the finger as I hurried down the rickety steps of Ollie’s flat to find Flynn waiting for me.

“Don’t get your knickers in a snit, Flynn.”

“I wish you would stop calling me that, it’s not my name.” He grunted at me, grabbing at my bag before carefully opening the door to step out into the street. His head was on a swivel, staring around as though some threat of a hoard of girls would pop out at any minute and attack. He’d been with me for the past five months straight and he wasn’t a huge fan of me.

I couldn’t imagine why.

“Fineee, I’ll use your real name.” I conceded and he grinned until I spoke again, “Now Eugene, are we going to be okay getting there?”

He groaned and I smiled cheekily at him as he pulled the door of the car open as he fairly shoved me into the back, “Get in, you pain in the ass.”

I was still chuckling to myself when he came around to join me in the backseat. Harry tended to go overboard when it came to getting me anywhere and today was no exception. He’d ordered a private car to take me to the airport even though I’d insisted that an Uber would be fine and I’d had to fight like hell to convince him I could fly commercial. Sophia and Eleanor had been heading out to LA as well so the boys had booked them a private flight but I was timing it so I was gone the least amount of time from the band. Harry wanted to just get me my own plane but I’d told him that was a ridiculous waste of money so he’d begrudgingly ‘allowed’ me to fly first class instead.

We started to move through the streets towards Heathrow and I flipped through my phone distractedly as we went. I had two texts from Harry wondering where I was and rather than text back I called him quickly.

“Beez!” He yelped slightly.

“Hullo, boyfriend!”

“You didn’t miss your flight, did you?” He asked suspiciously.

With the whirlwind that my life had been in the past few months, I’d missed at least two flights that would have brought me to Harry while he was on tour. I’d be offended but he was right to ask.

“Of course not,” I answered easily before catching sight of the time. “Well…at least not yet.”

“And Ryder is with you, yes?”

“Of course, the big oaf doesn’t leave my side. He loves me.” I teased, catching Flynn roll his eyes as he realized I was talking about him.

“Preston seems to think you drive him mad but as long as he protects you, I don’t care.”

I groaned slightly, “Seriously Haz, I’m fine. I wish you’d stop worrying.”

He snorted into the line, “Baby, if you think that’s possible, you’re an idiot. Now hurry up and get here, I miss you.”

“Well someee of us don’t release albums to massive accolades and press events, you’re just too successful for me.” I teased.

“Some times I wonder why I love you so much…” he said slowly and I made a disgruntled noise. “Teasing! I’ll see you soon, I love you Beez.”

“Love you,” I murmured softly. “See you soon.”

We sped through the streets and pulled up to my terminal with only a few minutes to spare for us to be within the window where British Airways would let us on the flight. I’d become so used to traveling that I had TSA pre-check and Harry liked to sneakily upgrade me so I could get through with ease. Even with all the added perks we were just coming to the gate as they were making the last call. Flynn and I boarded, him holding my bag for me and me holding onto a bag of snacks for the pair of us.

It was weird that I had my own personal bodyguard but it was impossible to convince Harry that I shouldn’t have him with me. The rest of the band treated him almost like he was a boyfriend while he liked them well enough. It was me he wasn’t a big fan of. To be fair, I didn’t make it easy on him but I felt trapped when he was around. Security was necessary when I was with Harry but that was because he was Harry freakin’ Styles; I was no one, my own bodyguard wasn’t necessary.

Flynn didn’t like me rather he tolerated me and barely that. I knew I annoyed him with my constant chatter and ADD so I was struggling to win him over. Not calling him Flynn would likely be a good start but once I nicknamed someone I couldn’t quit it.

I shot a quick text to Harry that I’d made the flight then flipped my phone to airplane mode and snuggled down into the little private pod, putting the divider down so I could address Flynn.

“Do you want some snacks?” I offered.

“What do you have?” He grunted at me, not looking up from his phone.

“Your favoriteeeee,” I sang as I shook a bag of Maltesers and a large bag of Walkers’ prawn crisps.

Try as he might he couldn’t hide his delight as he took the offered goodies, “Thanks, Little One.”

I smiled slightly. Nicknames were good; nicknames were progress.