"Call and Response"

Josh angrily slammed the hotel room door behind him. "FUCKING HELL!!" he screeched, stomping into the room and tossing his messenger bag at his double bed. It hit the wall behind the headboard and fell onto the pillow before rolling onto the floor and landing with a soft thump. 

"Hey! Shut the hell up! Someone is gonna hear that scream of yours and think you're being killed in here." The stylist looked up from her book, alarmed by his entrance. It had been the only quiet afternoon she'd had in a week, all because she'd had to endure the first few excitement-inducing days of tour on a cramped bus with seven other guys. Then when the bus had a scheduled overnight stop-over on the way to the first show, she had drawn the short straw and was stuck sharing a hotel room with the one and only obnoxiously loud, bouncy insomniac of a lead singer for the pop-punk band Marianas Trench. She had been happily enjoying her solitude until Josh burst through the door. 

"I need...," he trailed off, looking around the room. 

"What? What do you need?" she asked, sliding off the bed and setting her open book face down on the night table. 

"I need to fucking break something! That's what I fucking need!" He was raging by now, visibly shaking. The anger was intense and he was barely hanging on. She was afraid he would have a heart attack right there in the middle of the room if she didn't do something to help calm him down. His eyes were dark and terrifying and his hair fell wildly across his face every time he moved. 

"No! We can't break stuff! The money comes out of your pocket." She moved across the room to get out of his path, as he had started to pace, covering nearly half of the open floor space in a single step.  

"I don't fucking care! I need to break shit. I can't stand this anymore!"  

"Josh!" She stepped in front of him and grabbed his sweatshirt sleeve to stop him. He was nearly oblivious to the fact that she was even there, so she barely slowed him down before he broke out of her grasp and continued over to the window. He raised his hand to shoulder level and the stylist panicked, expecting the worst. "NO! If you put your fist through that window, you're going to be the one to explain it. NOT ME." 

He turned around slowly and glared at her with an incredulous look on his face. "Do you really think I'm that stupid?" He reached up to shove his hair back out of his eyes.  

Inwardly breathing a sigh of relief, she was embarrassed that she had even thought that he would do something so crazy. But this wasn't about her. "No. You're one of the most intelligent people I've ever met in my life. I also know that you're not exactly thinking straight right now. I've seen the kind of damage you can do when you're angry, so forgive me for trying to talk you down, at least a little, before things get...umm...out of hand." She was referring to the one time that Josh had gotten overly heated at a long list of minor things about two years ago. The band was having a small get-together at Josh's house to celebrate the release of their newest video from the latest album and had thoughtfully invited the stylist. She was new to their group, but she had worked for them on the video and it was their way of asking her to tour with them. She didn't know what had finally set Josh off, but he had gotten so worked up that he picked up a light wooden kitchen chair and tossed it through the back door of his home and out into the yard, splintering it to pieces. At least that was all he had done. He had calmed down directly after that and retreated to his bedroom for the rest of the night. It was incredibly rare to see him that mad. In fact, until the stylist had seen him throw that chair, she didn't know that he even had the ability to become angry, but it wasn't something she had let herself forget.  

Josh leaned back against the window after hearing that and crossed his arms, seeming to remember the same incident. Staring down at the ground for a bit, he took a deep breath and looked up at her. "Fine. Forget it. Never mind. We have to get to the bus. Our one luxury night in an actual fucking hotel is over." Josh pushed his body upright, walked past her and grabbed his messenger bag off the floor before walking out the door and leaving her wondering what had sparked that fury in him.