Page 82 of Going Solo

“You’re on your second warning, soldier,” Cole said. “Three strikes and I’m going to have to kiss you.” His trademark smirk lit up his face, and his eyes sparkled. My heart was pounding so loudly in my chest, the ancient bones in the dirt beneath us would have been within their rights to complain to the council.

“Was… this whole album… forme?”

Cole laughed gently. “Not quite,” he said, leaning towards me. “You’re getting closer, though.” He bopped my nose with the soft, bristly end of the grass. My mind raced, putting the pieces together.

“Calling it the Flame Tour, draggingPop Reviewalong, that was all because, what? You’ve loved me all this time?”

Cole leaned in closer, his lips almost touching mine. His breath was sweet, like berry-flavoured Haribo. His leg hooked over mine, rolling my hip towards his. He was so near now, so inside my personal space, that I could see the thousand ways the sunlight caught the amber in his eyes. He wassobeautiful.

“That’s three strikes. Would you like to collect your prize now, Tobias?” Cole’s eyes glimmered with mischief, lust, and hope, and I could resist him no longer.

“Yes, please.”

Before I could close my eyes, the heat of Cole’s lips found mine. He kissed me tenderly at first—delicately, like he was savouring this thing he had yearned for, like this kiss was a precious gift and he meant to unwrap it slowly. His hand slid around my waist and pulled me towards him, closing the gap between our bodies. A lock of Cole’s hair fell against my cheek, tickling it. I flicked it back for him, gently raking my fingers through his thick black hair. The tenderness of the gesture seemed to awaken something in us both, and we kissed deeply, passionately, urgently. I held Cole’s jaw in my hand, the bristles of his stubble rough against the soft flesh of my palm. Cole rolled me back onto the grass, letting me feel the weight of him on top of me. Breathlessly, he pulled away, stopping only to look at me, like he was seeing me for the first time, like he was drinking me in. It was how he used to look at me, all those years ago. Cole said more with the hungry flickering of his gaze in that moment than we’d ever managed with words. He ran his thumb gently across my lips, tenderly cupping my jaw with his fingertips, before weaving them up into the blond tangle of my hair.

“I’ve wanted to do that for so l?—”

A heavy shadow blocked our sunlight, cutting Cole off mid-sentence.

Mitch cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Mr Kennedy, Miss Kennedy says to tell you playtime is over and you’re needed in Birmingham.”

Cole sighed. “Oh, all right.”

“Estimated time of departure, twelve twenty-three. Two minutes’ time,” Mitch said. “Travelling in delta formation, as before.” Mitch nodded, turned, and walked down the barrow towards the cars.

“You make your security guys call you Mr Kennedy?” I asked.

Cole rolled his eyes. “It’s not my rule, it’s theirs. Something to do with their union, supposedly. Truthfully, I think they find it funny.”

Cole got to his feet, brushed himself off, and reached a hand down to pull me up. We walked back to the van hand in hand.

ChapterThirty-Three

The air sizzled with anticipation as the opening notes of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” reverberated around the Arena Birmingham. The crowd screamed. The hairs on the back of my neck would have been standing on end, if I hadn’t made certain there weren’t any. I’d seen Cole’s gig half a dozen times now, but never from the wings of the stage. Nick whacked me on the leg and offered up his beer bottle for me to cheers. High above us, Cole was dressed only in his underpants, his legs straddling a cello. I felt jealous of it, to be honest.

“I can see right up your boyfriend’s arse,” Nick said, looking skyward.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I protested for the hundredth time. Since the moment we’d arrived, Nick had been relentlessly pumping me to explain why Cole and I had been so late getting the van up to Birmingham.

“He’s got glutes like two baseballs in a sock,” Nick mused, still looking up. “But you probably noticed that while you were banging him in a lay-by on the M5.”

“I keep telling you, nothing happ?—”

The full orchestration of the opening number filled the auditorium, making it impossible for Nick to hear my response. Suddenly, Cole was right beside us, untangling himself from the rope he’d used to fly down from the rafters. He was stunning, wearing nothing more than tiny black briefs, a microphone pack, and mascara.

“Jesus, he’s got the bat tucked in at the front, as well,” Nick said. I slapped his shoulder in warning. Cole’s eyes found mine. A team of three women bustled around him, fabric flying everywhere, but his eyes never left mine. Ten seconds later, Cole Kennedy was completely dressed and ready to get back out onstage to sing the verse. He had maybe eight seconds. Nine max. But he strode towards me with determination on his face, scooped me up in his arms, and kissed me like he wanted his Haribo back. Before I even knew what was happening, he was gone, but his voice was singing the next verse. A few moments later, he came up through a trapdoor in the centre of the stage with his guitar, his vocals drowned out by nearly sixteen thousand screaming fans. Nick glared at me, eyebrows raised—proving it’s possible to call out someone’s bullshit in at least three Scots dialects using only the top half of your face.

“Nothing happened, my aunt Fanny.”

“Shut up, will you? If the press gets a whiff of this?—”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Oh, I wish you’d said something sooner, I’ve already faxed Rupert Murdoch. You daft bawbag.”

An hour or so later, Nick went off in search of an accessible loo. I needed to go, too, but I knew Cole was coming up to “The Flame,” and call me sentimental, but now that I knew it was “our song,” I wanted to hear him sing it. In fact, it had become a bit of an earworm since Cole sang it to me in the field. I’d found myself humming it quietly as we drove up the motorway, and when Cole heard me, he’d looked over, smiled, put his hand on my leg, and joined me in singing it. Soon, he was singing the verses and I was joining him for the chorus. Then we started playing around. He’d sing the chorus and I’d harmonise, or I’d sing a verse and he’d riff off the melody with vocal interpretations. We must have spent half an hour mucking around with the musicality of the song—singing to each other, singingwitheach other, playing together, pushing each other, experimenting, learning, and falling deeper, and deeper, and deeper into whatever this was.

The music had stopped, waking me from my thoughts. Onstage, Cole was standing at the microphone. He looked like he was going to speak. I’d seen every single show of this tour, and Cole had never spoken before singing “The Flame.”

“Who here has ever been in love?” Cole asked the crowd.

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