For all The Cows

Ch. 4

‘Man, you’ve got be kidding! How can you have eaten all of the poptarts already. There was three boxes of them in the cabinet!’ I heard Ryan yell from the kitchen. I was laying in my bunk on the bus. We were doing our first tour and Ryan and Blake had to come with us so we could continue to write while being on the run.

‘Ow you dick!’ I heard Ethan say. ‘Em ate most of them. Go punch her!’ I laughed. I got off the bunk and made my way to small kitchen. i sat on the end of the round table bench by Blake and rested my head on his shoulder.

‘Yup. I ate one box all on my own. Don’t hurt the poor boy.’ I laughed. He turned and scowled at me. He punched Ethan once more and walked all the way to the end of the bus and closed the door of the little room in the back.

It’d been 6 months since we’d been signed on to ELR and things were still the same. Paige hated me because I got a lot of attention and Ryan hated that he had to help us. The only change was that Luke and I started drifting apart. I became really busy with recording often and playing bigger pubs and he’d gotten accepted to Leeds, so he had left for uni two months ago and forgotten about what we had.

‘What’s up his ass today?’ i asked Blake.

“i don’t know actually. Last night after we got in from the pub he was a bit drunk. Maybe he’s just hung over.

I got up to start the coffee maker while Ethan and Blake turned on their video games and ignored me. The song writing for our first album had not been going very well considering the fact Ryan had his own album to finish in a couple weeks. He was falling behind and Felix had been on his ass lately about producing something worthwhile so he was not dropped.

I guess Ryan had slipped for a couple months because of a family emergency, and the album that came after that had many mixed reviews, and that made the company look bad.

Blake was the back up singer for another band Felix had found in a pub in one of his visits to New York. He cosigned them along with Columbia Records before the fame got to them. They had become one of the best alternative rock bands in America. The lead singer had issues with drugs and alcohol before, but it came back when the pressure for them to be the best ruined them.

One night in a hometown concert, they got in a fight after the show, and when the police came, they were found intoxicated and put into rehab for that and many other drug violations. Blake had left them right after that show and flew to London, where he told Felix everything and said he was done. Felix then just left him as a producer.

I poured myself some coffee and decided to knock on the door of the back room and see what was wrong with Ryan.

"What?" He responded.

"Can I come in?" I said softly.

"Nop."

"Please? I just want to talk." I said.

"Alright, but you better make it fast." He said, but it surprised me that he sounded clam.

I opened the door and closed it right behind me. He was sitting in the bed just staring out the window with his guitar in his lap. We were in South Wales this weekend for a couple shows, and  it was pouring. I sat on the other side of the bed with my legs crossed.

"So what's up?" He asked.

"Well you walked back here and just slammed the door. What's up?" I said. See, the thing with me and Ryan was that he was mean to me around everyone else but when we were alone he was a sweetheart. Yes, he hated helping us because it took time away from his own record, but I don't think he minded that much. Over the last six months I got to know the Ryan that he hid.