Thank fuck this was actually one of their songs I’d practiced and recorded for Frankie a few months earlier, so the notes were familiar. Even if my focus scattered some, divided between keeping track of Frankie and where the band was, I followed their lead guitarist with pleasure. The man could play.
So could the girls. Yvette had her own guitar out, and so did Aubrey. They were digging deep for every note, heads bobbing in time to the rhythm set by the drummer. Fuck my heart when we reached the first refrain and then returned to the top of the song, because Frankie opened it by belting out the first lyrics.
The strength her voice carried, but beyond that was the joy in her eyes when KC let out a scream over the first lines.
“Yes!” she shouted. “Let’s do that again, we want to hear more from them, don’t we?”
The surge of voices rising together seemed to rush over the stage, and we answered it by taking the song right back to the top. KC glanced over at me and jerked her head forward to join them, so I moved up.
When we kicked off the first verse this time, I fell in with all four of them.
I think I had a new favorite song.
I definitely had the best girl.
Coop
Honestly, even after listening to Frankie and Ian perform all those times and sing together, nothing could have prepared me for what it would be like to see them hit the stage, a real stage, in front of an audience of thousands. Frankie’s terror morphed into something akin to joy, and I had both fingers at my lips to let loose with whistles for them.
Yeah, we weren’t supposed to cheer from the sidelines. Fuck. That. Jake was right there with me, and Rachel about blew one of my eardrums out with her scream, but I didn’t even mind giving her a hug when she clutched onto me abruptly as they segued from “Reckless” to “Pure Gold.”
I glanced down and bit back a smile. There were tears sliding down Rachel’s face, and I tightened my arm around her, keeping her tucked against my side. She was half hiding her face as she swiped at the tears.
I wouldn’t comment. This was our girl out there, looking and sounding fucking amazing, with one of my best friends and a band that once seemed kind of just wild to admit we knew and now I kind of wanted to look after ’cause they were so exhausted.
Next to me, Jake had his phone up, and so did Archie. I kind of wished we could get footage from the front. Archie had even debated bringing in a drone, but they were filming this concert—all the ones in London apparently—as part of a farewell package to air in a few months.
We’d at least get to see it again, but I’d bet money Archie was already plotting how to get his hands on the footage. This was one of those moments we would never forget.
Instead of only a couple of songs, Frankie and Bubba—Bound Hearts, I liked it—stayed out with them for a full set of six songs leading up to their last. When they finally walked off, sweat slicked Frankie’s face and her hair was damp. Bubba’s shirt was damn near see-through, but they looked so fucking dazed and happy.
Jake scooped Frankie right into a hug, even when she complained about being all sweaty. Yeah, like that would keep our hands off her. The tears on Rachel’s face were gone by the time Frankie turned to her, and I got out of the way for the girls to hug, even as Archie clapped a hand on Bubba’s shoulder.
They were both panting, but the joy rolling off them was contagious. I passed a water bottle to Bubba as Archie pushed one into Frankie’s hands. The crew had offered us some for them, but we’d brought our own. No offense to anyone, but Frankie wasn’t taking a drink from anyone.
With Jake rubbing her back slowly, she gulped down half the bottle, then lowered it with a wild grin on her face. “Did you like it?”
“No,” Rachel deadpanned. “It was horrible. Now half the world is in love with you, I’ll never get my shot.”
The perfect delivery shut all of us up, and then Archie dragged Rachel into a hug that had her squealing, even if it didn’t carry over the music booming from the stage. He gave her a sloppy kiss on the cheek.
“Don’t worry, they don’t have a shot either,” he informed her, and Frankie collapsed into Jake with a hand over her face as she laughed. Rachel slugged Archie in the arm as he smirked and then flipped him off.
Still, we shut up because out on the stage, the girls were winding it down with one last song. The stage darkened, the music slowed, and the crowd even seemed to hush. I tangled my fingers with Frankie’s as she leaned into Jake, Bubba bracketed us, and Archie tucked Rachel between he and Jake too.
One by one in perfect acapella, KC, Yvette, and Aubrey sang their very first hit without any backup whatsoever. It took what had been a rock pop song that Frankie had danced around her bedroom to more times than I could count and turned it into a haunting, if brilliant goodbye.
The humming next to me pulled my gaze, and I glanced down as Frankie mouthed the words alongside them. Her eyes were glittering, even in the half-light cast by the three spotlights that drew together as the three members of Torched closed the distance between them, until it was just the three of them in a single spotlight.
And on the final note, the stage went dark and the girls were striding off toward us. We fell back as they grabbed water bottles, and beyond, the crowd began to scream and cheer.
There wasn’t a dry eye among us, though Rachel seemed
