"Noah…"
"I know. Nothing's changed." He replied, and then he looked up at me sharply.
"What if I did, Stacey? What if I quit right now, left it all behind?"
"Pardon?" I was hearing things.
"What if I went back to the guys now and quit? Would you give us a chance?"
I wanted to say yes. I really did. But it was the wrong time and the wrong place again for us. I'd seen him on stage. It was in his blood. He would not be happy at a life without music. And I wasn't ready to give myself over to anyone right now. I needed to find my own path. Find out what I wanted to do after the competition.
"Oh." Was all he said.
"I'm not saying we can never happen, Noah. But I don't want this right now. Us. It's not the right time for me."
I got up off my stool. "Thanks for the coffee."
He nodded and then I walked out of the door, calling for an Uber to take me home from the street outside his place.
Feeling like I'd just made a huge mistake.
Noah
I threw myself into rehearsing for the live performances because it took my mind off Stacey. When I saw her, she'd smile at me like you would a friend, but she continued to hang around with Drayton. Looked like she'd made her choice. Why had she left me with hope, saying never say never? It twisted me up worse than being in the vicinity of kebab sticks.
"Look at this." Zak beckoned me over to look at his phone. "There's a piece in today's Daily Mirror about one of those women that said they were press. Apparently, she has set up a fan club with a newsletter and it's got fifteen thousand subscribers in two days."
I took the phone off him and sure enough there was a picture of Erica holding up a press photograph of us.
"Bill says he's getting his PA onto it and that he'll make sure that Erica lets us see what she's posting before she posts it, and in return he'll cover her costs and send her merch, tickets, etc. We might have to answer some inane questions he says, but it's all PR."
"She seemed a really nice woman." I told him.
"Bloody naïve, she was, thinking she could hoodwink us into believing she was press."
"They got backstage and all the way to our dressing room." I reminded him.
"Yeah, well security leaves a lot to be desired here. I mean the fucking presenter disappeared, let's face it."
"I wonder what did happen to him?" I pondered out loud.
"I dunno. Maybe Harley being a better presenter got to him and he's crying in a corner somewhere?"
Then Zak screamed, "Ow," and smacked at his arm.
"What?"
"Something nipped me hard. Or maybe it was a sting. It was bloody weird."
"Maybe Dan's dead and it was his ghost punishing you for your stinging comments. Get it? Stinging. Anyway, it wasn't that long ago we were crying in corners, Zachariah. Remember where you came from."
"God, do you have to remind me? Though I believe I'm between a rock and a hard place, and by that I mean I used to have rocks thrown at me at school, and now I'm constantly having to be hard."
"Look, you have a reprieve from Don and then after the competition, let's have a think about your next options."
"There won't be any. I need to face facts. I made a deal with a demon and I'm going to have more access to souls than ever."
"The thing with demons is they get greedy and they like deals. We just have to find something that tempts him more than you. But right now, let's concentrate on rehearsing, okay?"
"Yes, boss."
The next few weeks were a constant merry-go-round of rehearsing, eating, and sleeping. Then the semi-finals approached. There were four bands left. Us, Seven Sisters, Flame-Grilled Steak, and RokUrWorld: a human act with a singer, a cello player, and a synth player. They were all male and worked an EMO style. Being Irish and looking like they should be the lead in teen movies meant that they'd received a solid vote week after week from their country and from teenage girls.
My life had become nothing more than music, as once again I pushed my feelings about Stacey down somewhere deep inside myself and threw everything into the band. If I walked into the canteen and saw her with Dray, I'd nod at them as if I didn't give a toss and then ignore them and concentrate on my friends. I kept my desires satisfied by working my way through the female staff on the show. I was feeding off their blood and then Zak was appearing in some of their dreams at night to take a piece of their souls.
For this reason, there were rumours of a virus going around the catering staff and runners. As they were almost all female, no one had noticed that the male staff population were largely unaffected. Yup, sometimes one had flirted with Stacey, and being pathetic, I'd bit them and made them too tired to flirt any more. I wasn't proud of my behaviour, but well, bite me.
We had two tracks to perform for the show and Bill was taking a keen interest now in our performances. He'd made us change one song this week which put additional pressure on us to learn our altered performance quickly.
The pressure was on and it could be witnessed as the atmosphere now in the canteen during breaks was no longer frivolous. There was an underlying tension and it was as if there was a rope being pulled tighter and tighter, ready to snap at any point.
And people were acting weirder.
Harley stood in the queue for food behind Dray, who stood behind Stacey. I was standing behind Harley.
Dray turned around to Harley beaming widely, while rubbing his right arse cheek.
"Hey, hey, hey, Harley Davies. Keep your hands to yourself, cos my missus might get mad."
Harley looked at him like he was deranged. "What are you talking about?"
"You felt my arse several times. Wanna ride me, Harley?"
"No, I don't, and I didn't feel any part of you, and especially not your bum. That would be sexual harassment; a bit like what you're doing now asking me if I want to ride you. I suggest you quit this, unless you want throwing out of the competition."
Drayton stood up to his full height and growled. "Hey, lady. You clearly touched me. Let's not accuse me of something I'm not doing. I'm with this chick." He pointed to Stacey, who was looking around at the audience we now had from the rest of the canteen. Dray's inner bear was coming out as his voice boomed a deep bass that carried around the place.
"Harley didn't touch you, Drayton. I'd have seen it."
His head shot around fast so he was glaring at me. "Really, dude? Because every time I look, your eyes seem to be on my missus."
"Drayton. Lower your voice." Stacey hissed under her breath. She moved so she was next to Harley and rolled her eyes in Harley's direction.
Harley turned to me. "Thanks, because I really didn't touch him. He's far too alpha for my liking."
"No problem." I said, but my mind was starting to think about the weird shit happening lately. Zak being pushed forward, Marianne's weird outburst, Zak's feeling of being pinched, and now this. Something was going on, but what? With a missing presenter and these weird occurrences, we needed to keep our wits about us, because something wasn't quite right.