42 Kate liked your post

Mark

The four of us filed into the dressing room and dutifully sat down. Burt cleared his throat and politely asked the stylists to leave us alone for a minute. Michelle was already outside and didn't follow us in.

"Thanks," he smiled at the girls and locked the door.

I cleared my throat and decided to be the one who apologised first since I was the one who got really nasty and broke character first. I felt horrible from the second Jamie and Steve turned on each other and none of us could do anything else but watch. "Burt... listen, I... I'm..."

Without warning, Burt knelt in front of us on the floor, his head down. "Guys, I'm really sorry," he said. "I failed you all as the person who's supposed to take care of all of you. I was useless and pathetic and I apologise."

We all stared at him. We had no words.

"I keep thinking that there are a lot of things that will work themselves out so I don't have to go fix them or whatever," he went on, "and you guys are old enough to not be assholes to each other, but I was the biggest asshole to assume that. We are all here to work, and we all have our own opinions on how to get the work done, but we also do this work from our hearts and it's not something we can easily separate."

He sighed. "I know where this song is coming from. Okay, some of it is for Missy, but I know some of it was for Jamie. We all knew, though whatever it was exactly that each of us knew, well I don't really know. But what I do know was Jamie wanted to vote against it and maybe I should have supported that. Or maybe I should have made Steve own up to why this song exists in the first place. What I'm saying I didn't do my job, and this is where we are now."

"It's not even about that..." Steve started to say, but Jamie suddenly interjected with "Shut up."

Jamie stood up and helped Burt to his feet. "It's not your job to keep us in line, old man," he said, softly. "I'm sorry we're assholes, you don't deserve this."

"I'm sorry too," LJ said.

"I was sorry first," I exclaimed and immediately wanted to kick myself.

"And I voted for this song in the end," Jamie said. "We don't put a song in if one of us don't want it. But it's a great song. It's its own thing, now. Let's just leave it at that."

A bit overwhelmed, I put my arms around Burt and Jamie. Burt patted my back but Jamie pulled away from our huddle and said, "I have to go, I'll see you all tomorrow."

"Jame," Steve said, but Jamie didn't look back at us as he picked up his bag and left. I put my arm around Steve. "I'm sorry, man." Then, I pulled him into a tight headlock. "So when did this thing with Antonia happen, exactly?"

"Fuck, Mark, let me go," Steve tried to struggle free.

"So you guys really had sex? Like all the way sex?" LJ was suddenly beside us.

"And whose idea was it?" I added. "It was yours, right?"

"Did she go down on you?" LJ asked.

"Please say it was your idea," I said.

"Guys, stop," Burt said, sternly. I let Steve go. First thing he did was fix his hair and then punched my shoulder.

"Burt, you're no fun," LJ moped and went to the mirror to wipe his make up off. I rubbed my shoulder and would have whined at Steve but he was going through his things already and not looking at any of us.

The door opened and Michelle popped her head in. "I saw Jamie leave, are we all done? If you guys are okay removing your own make up, I'm gonna go ahead and get the baby," she said to Burt.

He nodded at her. "I'm gonna get a beer first." She nodded back and blew him a kiss.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked for notifications. Three missed calls from Missy.

"Hey, Steve, Missy was calling me, do you have any idea why?" Missy doesn't usually call me directly.

This prompted Steve to check his phone and saw he had missed calls from Missy as well. He pressed her number, put his phone to his ear and walked out the room.

"Missy called me too," Burt acknowledged, looking through his phone also. "And a text asking if I was with Steve." I scanned the rest of my notification bar and saw a similar text. And...

A message from Kate! Then, I realized it wasn't a message, it was an alert that she liked my social media post. Oh wait, this is Jamie's phone. Oh shit, he never took it back. I opened my bag and pulled mine out.

2 missed calls from Missy. I guess she was trying to call all of us. If this Jamie thing wasn't happening, Steve would be over the moon.

No messages. Neither from Missy nor Kate nor anyone.

I looked at Jamie's phone again. He posted the snap I took of him, Steve and Burt waiting by the window while Luke was shooting LJ and Angela. They were all half smiling at me.

[Kate GoddessA liked your post.]

I opened my phone, opened my message inbox, opened a blank one.

~[Hey. Can we talk please? I would really appreciate if we could talk right now. Thanks.]

I sent to Kate. I took a deep breath and grabbed LJ's wipes from him so I can get the make up off my face.