in Stacey's face at her bandmate's outburst.
Bill shrugged it all off as a joke and Seven Sisters left the stage.
I'd never really thought of Flame-Grilled Steak as our main competition. Dray and his band were talented, but they didn't hold a candle to Seven Sisters or us. But you should never underestimate the underdogs, especially when they're competitive shifters.
They swaggered onto the stage and began singing their chosen track, The Rolling Stones (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. They'd performed most of the song when suddenly the band placed down their instruments. The audience went quiet, looking at each other wondering what was going on. Marianne, whose band it was, stared smugly at the other judges as their expressions of ‘what’s happening’ struck their faces, even though we knew that nothing that went on stage hadn’t been totally agreed beforehand.
And then Flame-Grilled steak began to dance. They took off their shirts, turned and shook their arses, and ran their hands down their body like they were in Magic Mike and the crowd went insane.
Stacey was standing a few people away from me and I turned and looked at her. Her cheeks were puce and she shook with anger. “Betrayed again. Yet another man puts his music over me. The absolute bastard.” She stomped off, one of the other band members trailing after her. Dray would be lucky if that was the only cursing she did after his performance.
With one song down each, there was still everything to play for. But rather than be focusing on our next performance, all I could think about was Stacey.
There was a live performance from Carmela up next, so while I had the opportunity, I decided I'd go and check on my ex.
But it wasn't to be.
“Right, lads.” Bill came walking towards us. The guy had a presence and seemed to bring a sense of power in with him, but he didn’t smell of magic. It just seemed to be a genuine charisma. “That stunt Marianne pulled. I knew it was coming, but honestly, I thought they’d look ridiculous. Didn’t expect it to be such a success, so what are we going to do to get this back on track and you winning this thing?”
Rex opened his mouth, no doubt to make a suggestion, but Bill was talking rhetorically. “I’ll tell you what. You’re going to sing Stay by Shakespear's Sister as if it’s the last song you’ll ever sing to your terminally ill wife on her death bed. I want collapsing on your knees and tears streaming down your cheeks, Zak. Then the others come crowd round you. Let the audience think there’s been some past lost love and the song has reminded you of it. Okay?”
“Will it get me women falling at my feet?” Zak asked.
“They’ll be queuing, mate.”
“Done. Prepare to send it for consideration for a BAFTA.” He shook Bill’s hand and we got quickly changed and then we were back and they were calling our name to take to the stage for the final time if we didn’t win through at the final phone vote.
Stacey
“I’m going to kill him.” I was pacing backstage. “They stole our signature moves. He watched us at the rehearsal, and he pinched our idea, transferred what we were going to do with the final song into their first song.
“So now what do we do?” Meryl asked.
“We carry on as planned, but we take our dance out. Instead, this is what we’ll do.” I explained my plan. “I’m going to quickly run it past Carmela.”
I noticed Donna was keeping quiet. I'd planned on calling her out on her ridiculous outburst until Drayton had pulled that stunt. Now there just wasn't time and I had to hope she kept her mouth shut from now on except for singing.
We made our way back to the stage where The Paranormals had just walked back on. I watched from the shadows. Zak Jones worked the audience like he was a snake charmer and they were a pit full of adders, but my eyes kept straying to the guy on bass guitar. The first time I let my eyes wander, his gaze snapped to mine and I realised my guard was down. Fuck. I quickly shut my mind down, locked it in a vault he had no access to. His eyes seemed to dull, and he returned to giving his all to his performance
They were singing an emotive song and the audience were mesmerised. Marianne was wiping her eyes. Once again, The Paranormals