the band was sitting in the board room at their record label's building, all sorts of emotions floating in the air. there's was really only two common denominators in this entire situation.

1. they were all pretty pissed at tommy. and 2. they were all extremely tired.

neither situation was really ideal for anyone in the room. the party hadn't ended for 12 hours yet and there was already lots of mislead information out on the internet about the band, so they could only assume the reason they got called into the office at 8 am was to address it.

"guys, i'm scared." evangeline speaks up for the first time since they sat down.

"we all are, angel." tommy sighs. everyone's eyes snap to his, but only cierra spoke up.

"shut the fuck up, tommy." she spoke bitterly. tommy raises his eyebrows at her hostility, even though he was fully aware of why she was mad at him.

he knew that abandoning leilani at the party was wrong, but alexa had called him in urgency, so he had no choice but to leave.

as everyone sits in silence for a few more minutes, that's when nathan, the head of their management team walks in, no expression on his face. "morning guys." he speaks, everyone muttering some sort of greeting.

"let's not sugarcoat or stall, the entire internet is judging you guys hard right now." he says bluntly. dylan sinks in his seat beside evangeline, while a hungover leilani sighs, holding head in one of her palms.

"we didn't think this would happen." cierra says, trying her best to defend them. nathan sighs, shaking his head slightly in disappointment.

"i know, but that doesn't mean it didn't." he purses his lips. "let's start off with dylan, what the hell was going on with you?"

dylan looks around, and when his eyes finally meet evangeline's, he's instantly struck with guilt, but he shoves it down for no one to see.

"i just got caught up in myself, and i guess some people got videos of me being.....a little rowdy." he explains the multiple videos circling the internet of him and with multiple girls throughout the night.

truth was, after his talk with evangeline, he became overwhelmed and was in severe need of a distraction, so that's exactly what he did. he distracted himself with alcohol, and dancing with multiple girls while evangeline sat on the couch at the party with cierra, envying those girls the entire time.

"that's an understatement from what i saw, but that needs to never happen again, or there will be major consequences." nathan says, nothing but seriousness in his voice.

nathan wasn't usually one to get extremely mad, and the band knew this, but it was visible that he was in a bad mood because of everything they caused.

"next, leilani, since when did you become queen of alcohollandia? you're 18, not 21, you know that right?"

"yes, i'm not dumb." she says with an attitude, her ponding headache not functioning correctly. when the band brought her home the night before, they put her through a very heavy detox, which was not fun might i add.

"then what happened?"

"i'll tell you what happened. i asked tommy to her and make sure she didn't do anything stupid and he abandoned her and left the party without telling anyone so she got shit faced." cierra jumps in, anger clear in her tone.

"so moral of the story: this is all tommy's fault." she adds, leaning back in her chair, glancing back at him.

"is that true tommy?" nathan questions the brown haired boy. he responds with a small nod, making cierra scoff lowly.

tommy rolls his eyes at her, which provokes her even further. she already had a bad day the day before, she spent the entire party thinking about jack, she was extremely tired, and now her anger at her best friend for putting leilani in danger was the cherry on top.

"do you have something to say? because if so i'd love to hear it." she turns to face him. the rest of the band glance at each other, knowing this wasn't going in a good direction, but hesitated to jump in because if they were being honest, they wanted to hear tommy's excuse just as bad as cierra did.

"alexa called me because of an emergency." he says, but that just gets an eye roll from cierra.

"an emergency severe enough where you had to abandon an 18 year old girl when you knew this would happen?"

"her car broke down on the side of the highway." he defends.

"that's what triple a is for, dumbass." she counters, which would've made leilani laugh in any other circumstance, but a small smile appeared on her face nonetheless.

"she said they would be a while and she didn't feel comfortable sitting there by herself on the side of the road." he explains, realizing that maybe his reason for leaving wasn't as urgent as it seemed at the time.

"you're fucking pussy whipped, dude." dylan chimes in.

tommy looks over at him, his eyebrows furrowed. "no, i'm not. how can i be pussy whipped when we haven't even done anything like that, we're literally just hanging out."

"it's a thing, man, trust me." dylan shrugs.

"you sound dumb as fuck." he sighs, dismissing the boys words, even though they were slightly true.

"says the one who left a 18 year old to fend for herself at a party." cierra scoffs.

"cierra shut the hell up, if you actually got over your dumb commitment issues and actually got a boyfriend, you wouldn't be judging me so hard." tommy blurts, the room falling into a thick silence.

everyone knew how much cierra liked jack, everyone also knew how hard it was for her to trust people, hell it took her a few months to fully trust the band, much less a boy she liked, so his comment hit her deep.

cierra doesn't respond at all though, she just nods her head to herself, grabbing her phone off the glass table.

"cici, i'm sorry i didn't—"

he's interrupted as cierra gets out of her seat to leave the room. "fuck you, tommy." she spits back at him before making her exit.

as the door slams, the room is silent, and evangeline and karly make eye contact with nathan, who was leaned against the wall watching the entire altercation.

they silently ask if it was okay to go after her, and he nods his head in the direction she just left, a sigh falling from his mouth.

the girls quickly get up from their seats, hurrying to catch up with cierra.

now it was just the boys plus leilani in the room. tommy looks around at everyone, his face showing nothing but guilt.

nathan pushes himself off of the wall, walking towards the door.

"meeting adjourned."

ʟᴇʏ's ᴛᴇᴅ ᴛᴀʟᴋ
yayyyy drama i love it sm, and don't worry there's more to come😙.

also just letting y'all know i'm picturing nathan as some fine like mid 20s business man with brown hair, like he's so fine in my head😩😩 but picture him as you wish🤞🏽.

see next chapter w more mess🫶🏽🥰