"Wasn't expecting this," he grumbled miserably under his breath. "I just wanted to clean myself off, change, hop the first red-eye back to California and see if I could get my shitty gig list back after that giant egg I laid before I left."

He sighs. Shit, the theatre. His manager. All of it. He probably wouldn't have been able to handle it, anyway. Maybe she's got a point. The hug around the shoulders reminds him of Bev, the way she used to keep them all together like some weird same-age team mom. A team mom who kept Camels in her overalls and threw rocks with the best of them.

"Look, I'm not going all gung-ho just because of this, but ... you might have something resembling a point." A pause. "Who the hell are you, anyway, random British shoulder barnacle?"