Page 12 of Going Solo (The Brent Boys #2)

Chapter Eight

R obbie Johnswagger shot me daggers and held up a hand. “Stop, stop. All of you.”

Seven male voices petered out.

“What the hell was that, Toby?”

I’d added a vocal flourish to Bill Withers’s “Lean on Me.” It was not my first mistake of the day.

“I thought?—”

“You’re not here to think, mate.”

No, I was here to win, and I needed to do something to stand out. Bafflingly, my prepared song, Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own,” had landed me in Johnswagger’s group. It meant I got to hang out with Cole all day, which was lush, but Robbie and I were not a good fit. We were three days into our ten-day-long group stage boot camp, and so far, I had managed to do nothing to impress him, nothing to stand out, and nothing to earn me a place in the live shows. I needed to do better.

“Never steal focus, it’s a golden rule,” Robbie said. “Cole is singing this part. You’re background, mate. Don’t get in the way.”

“Sorry, I?—”

“Never mind.” He rubbed his fingers over his forehead in what I took to be frustration. “Let’s all take a break for an hour, yeah?”

Indira, the producer I’d met on the day of the auditions, raised her clipboard.

“Before you all disappear, I have some exciting news—Dorinda is here!” A cheer from the boys. “She’ll be doing one-on-one interviews with you all, just to ask how you’re enjoying the group stage. She’s in the courtyard garden with crew number two.” Indira pointed at me. “Toby, you’re up first.”

I nodded, then looked over at Cole. Partly to apologise for standing on his solo, partly to check in. He smiled, flicking a hand over and linking his pinkie finger in mine for a nanosecond before letting it drop again.

“Cole, can I borrow you for a minute, son?” Robbie said.

* * *

In the courtyard garden, Dorinda Carter was all smiles. I was genuinely pleased to see her. She swallowed me up in a bosomy hug, then stood me on my mark. The cameraman called, “Rolling.”

“Toby, how are you enjoying the groups so far?”

“It’s intense, innit?” I said.

“But are you loving it?”

“They’re a great group of lads. It’s a lot of fun.”

“You looked pretty surprised to be chosen for Robbie’s group, why was that?”

“Obviously Robbie is amazing, and it’s a privilege to get to work with a rock legend.”

“Uh-oh, I can hear a but coming!”

It was clear the “but” was exactly what Dorinda wanted to hear.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m a more natural fit for Johanna’s group. You know I love my girly pop, my Scandi-pop. I’m not exactly a rock and roller. But I’m in Robbie’s group? I can’t get my head around it.”

Dorinda’s eyes sparkled.

“It means you get to spend more time with Cole, though. You boys have become close, haven’t you?”

This alarm bell could not have rung louder in my head if I’d swallowed the clock on my bedside table. Although it was common knowledge Cole and I were friends, we didn’t want anyone on the production to know we were shagging like rabbits every opportunity we got in case they split us up or sent us home. We were a duty of care nightmare. But, more than that, Cole was still not out to his dad, so we couldn’t risk it becoming a narrative for the show.

“We’ve hung out a bit,” I said.

“Do you think he’s going all the way?”

Ideally, you want the presenter of a television show on which you are a contestant to ask you if you’re going all the way, not if another contestant is going all the way. It was becoming abundantly clear to me Cole was the big favourite back in the Totally Television production studio. Felicity Quant had recognised his talent; she was going to make him a star.

“He’s extremely gifted,” I said. “He’ll be huge someday.”

“What would it mean to you to be in a group with Cole for the live shows?”

OK, this was definitely a narrative for the show, and it made me super nervous. I had to protect Cole.

“It’d be an honour,” I said. And left it. Dorinda’s eyebrows went up. I kept my face blank. After an awkward pause, she moved on.

“How are you finding living in the house? You’re rooming with Chase French, aren’t you? What’s that like?”

“Chase is great!” I said, meaning it. Chase was a rugby-fit lad with a voice straight from the Welsh valleys. What I didn’t say was I’d hardly spent any time with him, despite bunking with him. The producers had allocated our rooms, and Cole was up the hall with Yoshi Kawaguchi—a Japanese exchange student with an extraordinary voice who had auditioned on a dare by his host sister. Cole and I had tried to hide things, but Yoshi and Chase soon clocked what was going on between us and had been politely going to hang out in one room so Cole and me could make out in the other.

“What’s the best thing about living with Chase?” Dorinda asked.

The interview went on like this for another five minutes, asking about various contestants. Had I been reading too much into all the questions about Cole? I couldn’t shake the fear we were becoming a narrative for the show, and I had to warn Cole before he was outed on national television.

* * *

When I finally found him, Cole was sitting in the hotel dining room with Yoshi and Chase. I slid in beside him and stole a chip from his plate.

“Oi!”

“Ow, isshh hot.”

“A seagull doesn’t get to complain when he burns his tongue on the chips.”

I rolled the steaming-hot chunk of deep-fried potato around in my mouth, trying to cool it down.

“We’ll give you boys some space,” Chase said. He and Yoshi stood, picked up their plates, and moved to another table. Cole’s thigh pressed against mine.

“Hab you dub… your interbew… wib… Dorimba,” I said, forming the words as best I could around the hot chip.

“Yeah.”

“Dib she ars you a lob ob…” This was ridiculous. I swallowed the chip. It burnt all the way down. “Did she ask you a lot of questions about me?”

“About you?”

I nodded, stealing a sip of Cole’s water.

Cole shook his head. “No. She asked me about working with Robbie. Why?”

“I think they know we’re a thing,” I said.

Cole didn’t even blink. “They definitely know we’re a thing.”

“Oh.”

“That’s what Robbie wanted to speak to me about earlier.”

“What did he say?” I reached for another chip. Cole slapped my hand and I retracted it, shoving it inside the pocket of my hoodie.

“It was a warning. He said the producers have some storyline about us, he didn’t say what, but they’re trying to catch us on camera together whenever they can. Based on what he said, I’m surprised they’re not filming us right now.”

My eyes flicked subconsciously up to the CCTV cameras. “Why?”

“He didn’t know. Or, at least, he didn’t tell me. But he’s worried they’re going to turn me into part of reality TV’s first gay couple.”

“But you’re not out!”

“I know.” Cole looked down at his plate and began rubbing a chip through the sauce, making patterns. “But it’s not my dad I’m worried about. Robbie pointed out if they tell that story, that’s all I’ll ever be—a novelty. I won’t be known for my music, I’ll be the guy who had a teenage romance on television. Forever.”

I felt the crush of Cole’s words. He blew on his chip and bit it in half. As I watched him chew, the full potential of the opportunity we had in front of us dawned on me. My pulse quickened.

“If we lean into it, though—if you come out to your dad and then we let them tell this story—we could be famous forever. We’d have something to leverage a career out of. Forever. This could be our big shot.”

Cole met my eyes. “I can’t risk that, Tobes. I want a career as an artist and songwriter. I want to be a serious musician.”

What he meant was A novelty narrative might be your big shot, Toby, but it won’t be mine . And he was right. Deep down I knew I wasn’t going all the way in the competition, not in Robbie’s group, anyway. But Cole had a real shot. It wasn’t fair for me to ask him to risk that for me, let alone force him to come out to his dad so I could get what I wanted. I would have to use my charms and guile to stand out on telly instead.

“I know,” I said, sliding my hand onto his thigh under the table. “And you will be. I can feel it in me bones.”

Cole smiled. It lit up his face. He was so beautiful.

“Thank you for understanding, Tobes. I know how much your dreams mean to you too.”

“Of course.” I squeezed his leg. “I care about you so much .”

It was a masterful understatement. Care about him? This was love. Young love. First love. Body-engulfing, brain-soaking, intense-as-Shakespeare teenage love. I ached for Cole. I hated every minute I wasn’t with him. I would have done anything for him. I’d have opened my own chest and carved his initials into my heart with a rusty compass if he asked me to.

“I know.” His hand found mine under the table and squeezed it. “You know I care about you, too, right? Like, a lot .”

I nodded.

“I’m worried they’re not taking you seriously, Tobes. The way Robbie was talking, I feel like they’re disrespecting you.”

I pulled my hand away. “Did Robbie say something?”

“Nothing specific, but… why are you in Robbie’s group? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Clarity dawned. “It’s part of this romance narrative?”

It made sense. They needed us in the same group so we’d be around each other all the time so they could get us on camera together.

“Exactly.” Cole wiped his hands on a napkin. “You would have shone in Johanna’s group. Everyone knows it’s where you belong. I think you might be in Robbie’s group because of me. And I’m worried that’s ruined your shot. I’m sorry.”

I was fuming. Not at Cole. Not even at the show. I was angry with myself. I’d watched every single episode of Make Me a Pop Star . Reality TV was my religion. I had an honorary degree in trash telly. And I’d fallen right into the oldest trap there was. Well, two could play at that game. I would not be turned into this season’s Jamie Struff. I felt a plan starting to form.

“This show lives and dies on manufactured narratives,” I said.

Cole’s eyebrows went up. “I’m listening.”

“Every storyline costs time and money to film and edit. If Robbie says they’ve decided to tell our story, they know how they want it to end. And I think we should get to decide how our story ends—if it ends. We need to take charge of our narrative, babes.”

Cole’s thigh pressed into mine. “You’re very sexy when you’re worked up, do you know that?”

“They need us on camera together for this story to work. What if we refuse to give that to them?”

Cole nodded. “You mean if they don’t have the footage, they can’t tell the story?”

The best strategy, I suggested, was to keep our distance from each other on camera—to be aloof from one another. We could still hang out when the cameras weren’t around—I wasn’t going to give up our nights together after the crew had gone home and our overworked chaperones had passed out from exhaustion. But anytime we were on camera, or in a situation where a camera could easily turn up, we’d put a few good metres between us. If we were asked about each other, we’d be polite but evasive. No details. Absolutely nothing to indicate we knew each other so intimately that we’d permanently altered each other’s gut biomes.

“Are we agreed?”

Cole smiled. “Agreed.”