Page 37 of Going Solo (The Brent Boys #2)

Chapter Sixteen

T ap . My microphone was live. The end of the potential next big hit for Manu Fernandez was fading out.

“What do we think, pop tarts? You know the drill.”

I hit the button that fired off the sweeper giving the chatline number. I was riding the faders on the desk, playing with the levels. From the corner of my eye, I saw Nick glide into the news booth.

“Use the hashtag Manu . This is Pop Review . I’m Tobias Lyngstad. Coming up after the news at three, the new one from Jocasta Rose. Big day for new music. Don’t go anywhere.”

Tap . I fired off the ad break. Tap . My microphone was off. The promo was still telling the audience that Pop Review takes… pop… seriously, when there was a crackle in my ears.

“Tobes,” Nick said. “It’s dropped.”

“Shit.” I looked up, meeting my best friend’s eyes on the other side of the glass. “Is it any good?”

“I don’t know, it literally landed five minutes ago, but it’s going to be bigger than Queen Victoria’s knickers, obviously. They sent a whole PR package, with audio and everything. I barely had time to write the bulletin and clip it up. You might want to prepare yourself.”

The news theme played out, and Nick’s smooth Aberdonian voice told the listeners it was three o’clock.

“Cole Kennedy’s highly anticipated first solo album since ditching the Go Tos three months ago has dropped,” Nick said.

“Called The Flame , the album features twelve tracks, all written by Kennedy himself, and a new rock-influenced sound.

“Kennedy posted on his social media: ‘I am reborn. I am free! Thank you so much to all my beautiful Kenneddicts for your love and support as we start this new adventure. This is for you.’”

I wanted to heave. His “beautiful Kenneddicts”? Cole’s fans were terrorists in velour tracksuits, keyboard warriors for a toxic pop culture cult.

“The first single from the album is called ‘Reborn,’” Nick said, firing off a clip of the track. I was hit by a wall of soaring strings and a solid rock beat. It was a sound to lift the soul. It was going to be a stone-cold hit, and I hated Cole for that.

“Former Buzzsaw frontman and Make Me a Pop Star judge Robbie Johnswagger has described The Flame as ‘a love letter to real music from a soul set free.’”

Nick fired off a clip of Johnswagger speaking.

“ The Flame is a soft rock / synth spectacle unlike anything we’ve heard from Cole since he stood on pop’s most plastic stage and served us Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ with an authenticity that would have had Kurt Cobain weeping with joy. To all the ‘Let Cole be Cole’ campaigners of the past decade, this is your reward. This album vindicates your belief in him. Cole Kennedy is a true talent.”

I put two fingers in my mouth and mimed vomiting. Nick, ever the professional, managed not to laugh as he finished reading his report.

“The pop star has also announced a worldwide tour, the Flame Tour, kicking off with a string of small UK shows in summer before heading to Europe, the US, and Asia, then coming home to close the tour with three big shows at Wembley Stadium in spring. Tickets go on sale on Monday.

“Kennedy has also signed a deal with WebFlix, giving the streaming service exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the tour, for a new documentary about the pop star set for release next year.”

The chatline was refreshing so fast I thought the screen might melt. Yet another Pop Review had been derailed. Why did Cole always announce things while I was on air? It’s like it was deliberate. I looked at my screen. Tarneesha had already dropped “Reborn” into the running order. As soon as I hit that button, straight after the news, I’d be playing Cole’s new song. I wanted to scream.

* * *

Three days later I was at work pre-recording some promos for the next weekend’s Pop Review when I was summoned by my boss. I made the grim trek along the threadbare carpet of the radio station’s only corridor and knocked on Denzil’s door. He was sitting behind his desk, reclined in a cheap Argos office chair that was definitely too rickety to hold his weight, with his feet up on the filing cabinet. The room smelt of Creed Aventus and Lucozade. His face was buried in a stapled bundle of A4 paper. Which surprised me, because who prints things anymore?

“You wanted to see me, babes?”

“Tobes, just the man!” Denzil swung his feet under his desk. “Come in, sit down.”

I plonked myself on the chair opposite him. Denzil put the paper on the desk and took his glasses off. That always unnerved me. Without his Coke-bottle glasses, Denzil was a dead ringer for Stormzy, and it wasn’t natural for your boss to make your knickers wet like that. He was well aware of the effect he had. There was a pause, heavy with the weight of expectation, and for a moment I thought he was going to sack me.

“Cole Kennedy,” Denzil said.

My mouth went dry. This was worse than sacking. “What about him?”

“You’re going on tour with him.”

I stood bolt upright. It was a reflex action from the adrenaline hitting the bloodstream faster than the hit of poppers that got Aunty Cheryl kicked out of a Soho pub for making out with a hatstand.

“I most certainly am not.”

Denzil threw the pile of papers over to me. They landed in a jumble against my stomach. “He’s paying a lot of money to make sure you do.”

“What are you talking about?” I found the staple and flicked the papers over.

“I’m talking about one million quid, baby!” Denzil shook his hand in a gesture I imagined was South London for making coin. “British. Pound. Sterling. Bruv.”

“What?”

“It’s all there in black and white.” He pointed to the papers. “Cole Kennedy is paying us one million pounds for Pop Review to broadcast live from every night of the UK leg of his first solo tour.”

I flicked through the paperwork, eyes scanning the words with growing horror. It was all there in black and white. Nightmare. This was Denzil’s worst idea since he turned up to a Soho pub with a bottle of poppers.

“I can’t have this,” I said.

“You can. I’ve done it.”

“No, you literally can’t do this to me. It’s in my contract. A contract you signed when I joined PureFM. I do not have to interview Cole Kennedy or any member of the Go Tos. If you want things in black and white, go look at my contract.”

Denzil waved a hand at the chair behind me. “Sit down.”

I sat. Heavily. The seat was hard, and it jarred right up the bit where only the best spray tans reach, but I managed not to wince.

“Do you like your job?” Denzil said.

“If you’re threatening to fire me?—”

He held his palms up towards me. “Whoa, calm down, Cardi B.” He stood, his chino’ed groin now at my head height. He was so incredibly, dreamily tall. He walked around me to close the door, then perched himself on the edge of the desk, his knees inches from me, his crotch close enough to use as a microphone. He picked up the remote control from his desk and pointed it at the small TV in the corner.

“I’d like you to watch something,” he said, pressing play. On the screen was a scene I instantly recognised—me, leaving the PureFM studios, through a clamouring scrum of reporters, photographers, and cameramen. It was filmed three months ago, on the day Cole Kennedy announced he was going solo.

“Any thoughts on your ex leaving the Go Tos?” a reporter shouted, microphone in my face.

I said nothing.

“Don’t you even want to wish him well, Toby?” a photographer barked. And when I didn’t reply, “That’s not very nice. Fame’s clearly changed you.”

Having endured years of this, I knew he was trying to provoke a reaction, so I swallowed a reply. I doggedly tried to force my way through them, but they were blocking my path—another tactic meant to piss me off and lead to great pictures.

“Any advice for Felicity Quant about how to recover after getting dumped by Cole Kennedy?” a reporter asked.

Still, I said nothing, muscling through them.

“You’re meant to be the country’s top authority on pop music,” another reporter said. “Don’t you have anything to say about the biggest pop star in the world leaving the biggest boy band in the world?”

Denzil paused the footage. He looked down at me. I looked up at him.

“The board has come to the view that this situation is unsustainable, bruv,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“This is the biggest story in pop music right now, and you know the biggest pop star in the world. Intimately. It’s our unique selling point, our competitive advantage, and you refuse to talk about him?”

“Yes,” I said. “That was the deal. That’s what the board signed up for.”

“Well, I was hoping, under the circumstances, you might reconsider.”

I laughed. “Why on earth would I do that?”

Denzil’s hopeful smile fell from his face.

“Between you and me, bruv?” Shit. This sounded serious. “The station is in real trouble. The whole network is on the brink of going under. Both PureFM and TalkUK. The board is talking about cutting their losses and selling us off.”

This conversation was well above my pay grade, but I couldn’t see what it had to do with forcing me to hang out with an arsehole like Cole Kennedy—and I said so.

“Who do you think is going to buy us if we get sold, Tobes? Some cashed-up sheikh? Some neocon nightmare from the States? Some asset-stripping hedge fund?”

The idea made me feel ill.

“Whoever it is, Tobes, we’ll all be out on our ears. Anyone who buys this place is going to slash costs, sack staff, and change the format completely. You think they give a shit about the R & B music that gives me life? You think they care about niche programming like Pop Review ?”

“Niche? I’m the country’s most popular pop music chat show!”

“Toby, you’re the country’s only pop music chat show. Every other station just plays the bloody music without yammering on about it. This is existential, little bro. Between streaming and podcasts, our entire business model is as fucked as… as fucked as…”

“My Aunty Cheryl?”

“Precisely, bruv.”

“What has this got to do with breaking your word on Cole Kennedy?”

“Cole’s money is a godsend. With that kind of swag, I can go to the board and say, ‘Look, we’re profitable, don’t sell us.’ That million quid keeps us in business, it keeps us on air. We can’t look a gift horse in the mouth. All you have to do is follow Cole up and down the country in an outside broadcast van for a few weeks. You’ll have to interview him a couple of times, there’ll be a few publicity photos, but that’s it. The rest of the time you’ll be talking to fans, doing what you do best—making great radio. If you do every show and fulfil the terms of the contract, we get paid, everyone keeps their jobs.”

I growled in frustration. I hated Denzil for doing this to me.

“Please, Toby?” He smiled that sexy, toothy grin that no doubt got him laid a lot. His eyes sparkled. He bounced one pec muscle. Then the other. Then he bounced them back and forth. He was like a bird on a nature documentary, hopping from foot to foot in front of a ladybird, trying to hypnotise me with his moves. I was glad we were back to the usual queerbaiting, but I would not be so easily blinded.

“Do you have any idea how miserable my life would be if I did this? It’s literally why there is a clause in my contract.”

“If there was any other way, Tobes. But we’re on our knees here. Cole Kennedy has bought our arses, and every last one of us must bend over for him. He’s got the cash, he gets to smash.”

I flicked through the paperwork, feeling powerless, defeated. It was either do this and save the station, or refuse, and we all lost our jobs. I couldn’t do that to Nick and Tarneesha. I reached the last page of the contract and stared at the signatures scrawled across it. Above Denzil’s totally baller signature was the name of Cole Kennedy’s lawyer: Fiona Kennedy, LIB.

Despite myself, I smiled.

“Oop, I see a smile,” Denzil said. “I knew you wouldn’t let everyone down.”

“But—”

“We’re sending out an embargoed press release tomorrow. You need to announce it and do your whole show about it on Saturday. You’re a champion, Tobes.”

Once again, I had lost control of my own narrative. Once again, Cole Kennedy was to blame. I was trapped.

“I want Nick as my producer.” If I was doing this, I was at least having my best friend by my side.

“The outside broadcast van isn’t modified for a wheelchair user to drive it, wouldn’t Tarneesha be a bett?—”

“Neesh can do the studio panelling back here. It’s Nick or there’s no deal.”