Page 24 of Going Solo

“You’re on verse three,” Felicity said. “Take it from the top.”

Ninety seconds later, it was over for me. Taylor’s voice was rich and mellifluous. It slipped into the group even more seamlessly than Taylor had himself. The five of them already looked bedroom-poster-ready. Taylor was the last piece of the boy band jigsaw puzzle. When the song ended it was obvious to every single person around that pool that we’d witnessed a moment of musical history.

ChapterTen

That evening, I was lying on my bed back at the hotel, bawling my eyes out, when Cole slunk in through the door. He locked it behind him, crawled up the bed towards me, and folded his arms around me. I felt the warmth and weight of him.

“Are you OK?”

That made me wail like a grieving widow on the TV news. I couldn’t help it.

“Is that a no?”

He combed his fingers through my hair. His big brown eyes looked so sad. He kissed my forehead, my nose, my chin, my lips.

“I’m a bit snotty, babes,” I said.

“I’m a farm boy, Toby. It takes a lot more than snot to gross me out.”

I laughed, and a snot bubble formed on my nostril and popped. I sniffed heavily and wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“But congratulations, you found a way to do it,” Cole said. “I am absolutely grossed out.”

I snorted. “If you can’t handle me at my nose-bubbliest, you don’t deserve me at my butt-bubbliest.”

“It’s going to be OK. You know that, right?” Cole said. “You’re doing a duet with one of the girls now, right?”

I was singing “Islands in the Stream” with Emily, whom I’d only met that night. It was Felicity’s choice. All of it. My voice was all wrong for the song. “We’re the leftovers they didn’t know what to do with.” I sniffed. “It’s going to be a disaster.”

There would be three elimination shows—one for each judge’s group—pre-recorded in front of a studio audience. Our group was going first. We’d have all tomorrow to rehearse our songs in our final arrangements, before performing onstage in front of the judges and our first live studio audience tomorrow night.

“Everyone loves a bit of Dolly and Kenny,” Cole said. “It’s a classic. You’ll be great.”

“We’re a novelty act, babes. We’re being sent home.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that.”

Cole put his arms around me, pulling me into him. He nuzzled his head down into the pillow beside mine, his warm breath on my neck.

“Someone smart once told me that we should get to decide how our story ends,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “I know how these shows work. It’s over for me, Cole.”

“Don’t go down without a fight, Tobes.”

An hour later, when I’d cried out all my tears and felt comforted by his cuddles, Cole casually mentioned that he had some news.

“I came out to my dad.”

I sat upright. “What? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You had stuff on your mind.”

“You let me bleat on like that for hours, and all this time—” I shook my head. “How’d it go, babes? What did he say?”

Cole smiled, and his eyes sparkled.

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