Page 56 of Going Solo

“I’m more than happy to leave the tour right here and now, mate, I ain’t bothered,” I snapped. “I didn’t ask for this. I don’t even know why I’m here.”

Denzil was going to kill me. Cole didn’t rise to it.

“You’re here because I wanted you to be here. I asked for you, specifically. You must have seen the contract. You must know I set this whole thing up.”

I leaned forward, putting my water down heavily on the coffee table. “Why, though? Is it revenge? Because you’re petty? Do you want to hurt me?”

“It’s because I’ve spent a long time wishing you were still in my life,” Cole said.

I scoffed. “That explains all the missed calls on my phone, the birthday party invitations, the Christmas cards.” I slumped back into the armchair. “You must think I’m an idiot, mate.”

Cole had the grace to look sheepish. “I was scared to call. I thought you hated me.”

“Did you work that out all by yourself, Poirot? Well, hold on to your knickers because, you ain’t gonna believe this, I still hate you.”

“We were kids, Toby.”

I spluttered, struggling to find the words. “Are you joking me? You abandoned me to become a national punchline while you went off to live my dream.”

“But look at you,” Cole said. “You wanted to be famous, and youarefamous. You’re part of the cultural fabric of this country now. People love you. You leveraged it, like you always said you would. You made it happen.”

I was fuming. “Famous? Do you know what I’ve been through? Did you hear the ‘marriage material’ jokes? Read the articles? Did you even know your ‘beautiful Kenneddicts’ graffitied the salon in homophobic slurs? Do you have any idea how traumatic that was? I dropped out of school. I lost all my mates. It ruined my life. Mum had me on suicide watch.”

“Toby, I’m so sorry, I?—”

I got to my feet, finger pointed squarely at Cole’s face. “Over and over again, I was humiliated. Every time you hit the headlines, they’d drag the pathetic ‘marriage material’ kid into the story for another kicking. It never ended. My whole life since I met you has been a cheap punchline.”

“Toby, I’m so sorry.” Cole’s brown eyes looked sad and sincere. “I didn’t realise. But… I want to hear about it.”

Something hot was burning my face, and I realised it was tears. I wiped my cheeks on my sleeve. Cole grabbed a box of tissues from the mantelpiece and handed it to me.

“Please, Tobes, sit down.”

I sat, plucking half a dozen tissues from the box.

“When you came out, it all went into overdrive,” I continued. “Photographers outside my house. Abuse from strangers in the street. You know there are entire subreddits devoted to how I turned you gay. Like I’m an infectious disease. Like being gay is contagious.”

“The fans do get a bit wild sometimes,” Cole said. “Teenagers can be… intense. I’m sorry.” He reached across and squeezed my knee, and I ripped it out of his hand.

“That’s bang out of order, mate.”

Cole held up his hands in surrender. “I can see this has all had a negative impact on you, and I want to say I’m genuinely sorry about that. If I could go back and change it, I would. It sounds like you had all the downside of fame without any of the advantages, and that’s shitty. Please, give me a chance to make it up to you. I want us to be friends.”

I laughed. “We are never going to be friends.”

For a moment, Cole looked crushed. Then he seemed to rally, like he didn’t believe that was possible.

“Fine, we don’t have to be friends, although I think that would be sad.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo.”

“I see age has made you rich with maturity.”

I opened my mouth to fight back.

“Sorry!” Cole said. “I didn’t mean that. Old habits. Turns out spending a decade in the sausage factory makes you incredibly sarcastic. It’s something I’m working on with my therapist.”

“Is that what this is about?” I asked. “Am I here because your therapist says you need some kind of closure?”

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