Chapter 17
“Stay on. Take our slot—seriously.” Teddy flicks a hand toward the rehearsal room door.
“You’re sure, mate?” Ollie frowns. Sam’s shoulders sag, the relief almost audible. Looks like their session didn’t go great.
“Yeah. Just came to grab this.” Teddy snatches up a tambourine from the corner and presses it into my hand. It jangles awkwardly as I fumble, then catch it.
“Acapella with a tambourine?” Ollie raises a brow. “What song are you doing, man?”
“Nah, tambourine and piano. There’s one in the ballroom.” Teddy shrugs. “And a song you haven’t heard yet.”
He threads his fingers through mine and pulls me past a bewildered Ollie. His hand is warm, steady. I don’t let go, though I probably should. No idea if Sam noticed, but I don’t need her putting two and two together. After all her teasing about liking Teddy, I’d hate to prove her right.
In the ballroom, just as he did yesterday, Teddy drops into place at the piano like it belongs to him. I lean against it, tambourine dangling from one hand, not sure what I’m meant to do.
My palm still tingles from his grip. The chill from the morning ride is gone now, replaced by something warmer.
Closer. Maybe it’s the heat still clinging to my skin from the shower, or the scent of him that won’t quite rinse away.
I tell myself it’s only soap lingering, not him.
Label it chemistry, not feeling. Or maybe it’s the memory of last night, sitting quietly like a breath held between us.
I slide it into the file marked ‘One Week’ and tuck it away.
Somewhere in the dark, Teddy stopped being just a distraction. That wasn’t the plan. Liking him wasn’t the plan. Call it proximity, and carry on.
Teddy rolls his shoulders, stretching, then plants his hands on the keys.
“What song are we doing?” I ask. “And what do you actually want me to do?” I lift the tambourine and give it a playful shake. Its sharp tingle cuts the hush of the empty ballroom.
“The final song for the next album,” he says. “Mine.”
“The one you said you weren’t sure about?”
“The one I’m sure about now.” He glances up. “Thanks to you.”
I blink. “I don’t see how me flailing a tambourine is going to add much.”
“It will. Just having you there. Knowing you believe in me. In this. It’s enough.” His eyes hold mine. Quiet. Unflinching.
He hesitates, then goes on, voice lower, like he’s afraid to name it out loud. “That I’m talented. That I’ve got something. You didn’t say it like it was a compliment. You said it like it was a fact. You don’t hand out bullshit, Rachel. So when you said that…I don’t know. It stuck.”
He sits up taller at the piano. Not cocky, not casual, but settled. Centred. Like he’s shaken off the version of himself that used to second-guess.
“When I saw myself through your eyes…I thought…I might actually be good enough. Maybe the song could be too.”
I should say something. A joke. A quip. Anything to pull the focus off me, because I’m not used to mattering this much.
But I just nod, because the look on his face—as if I’m the answer to a question he’s been asking for years—has me rooted to the spot.
Maybe I am the difference.
“So,” he says, like it’s already decided. “You and I are doing this song tonight. And I’m taking it to the others. For the album.”
I prop a hip against the curve of the grand piano, my palm flat on the cool lacquer like a torch singer waiting for her cue. But I’m not the main event. He is.
The melody starts out simple, almost tentative.
A few quiet notes, played like he’s not sure he wants anyone to hear them.
Then it builds, gathering weight and urgency, the rhythm tightening as it goes.
I feel it through the heel of my hand—wood humming, a soft pedal thud.
I close my eyes and let it pull me under, the sound all-consuming for a moment, until it cuts out.
No warning. Just silence. Then he plays the opening again, soft and steady, like it was never anything else.
“Teddy, it’s beautiful,” I say as the final note shimmers in the air. It doesn’t feel like enough. But how do you put words to something that pulls you apart and puts you back together in under three minutes? And that’s before I’ve even heard the lyrics.
“So, where do you want me?”
He pulls a crumpled piece of paper from the back pocket of his jeans, unfolds it with care and hands it to me.
It’s covered in a scrawl of blue ink. Underlines, crossings-out.
As I read, it feels like opening his diary.
Even after only a few days, this feels raw.
Honest. Something I doubt he’s shared before. I swallow hard.
“Fuck, Teddy,” I say, trying to pretend I didn’t just see this guy’s soul laid bare, “with handwriting like that you could have been a doctor.”
He smiles up at me. “Just as long as you can read the parts I’ve underlined. Throw in a bit of harmony. I can handle the rest.”
We spend the next hour practising. Well, I do. Teddy already knows exactly how to deliver this song. His voice wavers in the top notes, so fragile and vulnerable it raises goosebumps. My own voice finds its place next to his without effort, like it knows how to fold itself around him.
As I open the ballroom door to leave, Haley’s there.
“Oh!” Her eyes widen. “Sorry, I wasn’t spying or anything.
” She giggles, and for a second, I just want to pull her into a hug.
I love this girl and, thanks to all the challenges, I haven’t seen her enough this week.
“It’s just…I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.
Don’t tell Christian there’s a Stellar Riot song I don’t recognise right away. And it better not be one he wrote.”
“No, you’re good,” Teddy says with a grin. “It’s not one of his.”
Two hours later, the ballroom we’d had to ourselves is almost unrecognisable.
Chandeliers glow low and buttery over rows of wheelchairs and tartan lap-rugs; peppermint humbugs crack between dentures while Loreena distributes pencils and scoresheets.
Laughter ricochets off the garland-draped walls, filling the room with a festive bustle.
The residents of The Oaks Retirement Village could power the fairy lights with their applause alone. Every performance earns whoops and whistles, then furious pencil-scratching as they score us on Loreena’s sheets.
Our ‘Little Drummer Boy’ duet is a crowd-pleaser. Teddy’s lead is nothing like a Bing Crosby croon, but the rough warmth suits the room. My voice isn’t Bowie either, but I hit the high notes of the ‘Peace On Earth’ countermelody spot on.
During the interval, while our guests are guzzling eggnog heavy with whisky and slabs of boozy Christmas cake, Teddy hooks a finger through mine and tugs me behind a potted spruce.
“That was unreal. You should join us for a couple of numbers now and then.”
Heat floods my cheeks. He means it; this isn’t empty flattery to puff me up before round two. My pride flutters at not embarrassing myself, but this is definitely a onetime thing.
“Courtrooms, yes. Stadiums? Not a chance. Besides, imagine the hate mail when the fans realise I’m hanging out with the Stellar Riot boys.”
“Then maybe just studio work—backing vocals, a harmony here and there. ‘Deep End’ for starters. Just you and me.”
Even the title of his song feels like a dare to jump in with him. “Maybe,” I say, which sounds a lot more like yes than no. His smile answers before I can take it back.
After the interval, the sugar-and-sherry high hits our audience.
Walkers shunt aside so two silver-haired rebels can bop in the aisles while Ollie, Sam, Garrett and Liv rip through some Stellar Riot anthems. Christian and Haley reel them back in with a tender rendition of ‘Untouchable’, the song he secretly wrote for her, clearing the way for ‘Deep End’.
At the opening chords, the other members of the band exchange puzzled looks that morph into appreciation as Teddy hits the first line.
His voice never falters, but builds, layer upon layer, as he spills these secret pieces of his soul in song.
My voice slots into Teddy’s as though the notes were built for us: the boy bent on fixing himself, the girl filing smooth her own jagged edges.
Meet me in the deep end
No lifelines, no lies
No wall between us
The truth in my eyes
Each chorus wraps tighter around my heartbeat
Meet me in the deep end
Where we lose the ground
Weightless and reckless, we can’t turn around
Breathing feels different when you’re this far down
Without thinking, I lean into Teddy’s mic on the final refrain. My voice isn’t show-perfect, just steady enough to slip above his in a thin ribbon.
If I fall, let me fall with you
If I fall, let me fall with you
On the last note, I lean in and kiss him. Fifty strangers cheer; my friends’ eyes pin us from across the room, but for once I don’t weigh the consequences. Let them think it’s showmanship. I’m not falling. Right?
Teddy threads his fingers through mine, and he leads me off the stage. We slide in beside our friends. No one mentions the song, the kiss, the hand-holding, but the questions sit in their eyes, bright as the fairy lights.
Ollie breaks first. He leans in, elbows on knees, eyes fixed on Teddy. “Yeah, what was that?”
Christian’s brows lift. “New one?”
“It could be,” Teddy says. “If you want it to be.”
One of the rest home staff bounces up to the mic and starts a singalong of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’; everyone belts out the figgy-pudding bit while Tommy and Loreena whisper-argue over the points.
As the last bars fade, they head our way, tally sheets clutched like shields.
“Small snag,” Tommy mutters. “You two won.”
Teddy and I trade baffled looks. How is winning a problem?
Loreena’s voice lowers. “The rules said ‘one Stellar Riot song’. That wasn’t one of them, was it?”
“No. It will be.” Teddy’s answer is quiet and steady. “But not yet. So I guess we broke the rules.”
“I’m sorry. I have to disqualify you.” Relief flickers behind Loreena’s apology; she’d rather muzzle a controversy than spark one. “Your charity—”
“It’s fine,” Teddy cuts in. “The real prize would be getting it on the album.”
He turns to me. “Rachel?”
I look at the tally sheets—the neat columns I used to live for—and let them go. The only score that matters is his song.
“Singing it tonight was prize enough,” I say, and mean it.
Loreena exhales, grateful. “Thank you. The song-challenge win goes to the runners-up—Haley and Christian—and with it the twenty grand,” she reminds us gently.
“It’s okay,” Teddy says. “Memories That Matter has a few friends with deep pockets.”
I have a feeling he might be one of them.
Loreena’s smile tilts. “And to soften the blow, Tommy and I won’t let the other charities walk away empty-handed. Five thousand pounds each—you earned it with the way you all threw yourselves into the fun.”
No one objects when Haley and Christian’s names are called; Teddy squeezes my hand as The Oaks residents applaud, pride still bright in his eyes.
After the prize giving, the band crowds in.
“Where did you get that song from, mate?” Ollie asks, grin fighting a frown. “I mean, it was fucking awesome…Since when did you write?”
Christian’s look is steadier. “Why didn’t you tell us, mate?”
I bite back the urge to answer for Teddy. He told them in his way. They missed it.
Garrett claps Teddy’s shoulder, gentler for once. “Did we make it feel like you couldn’t?”
Teddy rubs his jaw. “I didn’t… hide it. I just—” He exhales. “You two were the ‘songs’ guys. I was the drum guy. It got noisy in my head. I didn’t want to be the drummer who suddenly has a song and makes it a thing.”
One beat. The hurt flickers.
Christian nods, owning it. “We should’ve made room. Sorry.”
Ollie’s grin falters. “Look, I know we take the piss. Sometimes we forget it gets under your skin.” His mouth quirks back into its usual playful curve. “For what it’s worth, I’m equal parts buzzing and bricking it. Might be surplus to requirements soon.”
Garrett squeezes Teddy’s shoulder again. “So we fix this. Bring us the tune tomorrow.”
Teddy glances at me, then back. “If you’re in, I want it on the album.”
“We’re in,” Christian says, simple as that. “Wish I’d written it myself.”
“That’s the album closer sorted.” Garrett says, reading the room with a slow look round; one by one, the lads nod. Decision made.
“Now we just need her on harmonies,” Teddy says, brow cocked my way.
“Fine—if Ollie takes the tambourine,” I grin.
Christian laughs. “Give him something to do when he’s off lead vocals.”
Ollie bows. “I will jingle with dignity.”
“I need bed.” Sam stifles a yawn behind her palm.
There’s a ripple of agreement. Goodnights go round, and we filter out of the ballroom.
Tomorrow’s a big day—the band’s last chance to work together before the wedding, and Christian disappears on honeymoon.
The She Said Yes crew will be here in the morning, trailing the bride and us bridesmaids and turning it into must-watch reality TV.
By afternoon, the families will be here for the wedding rehearsal, and then it’s straight on to dinner.
But my mind isn’t on tomorrow. I don’t want today to end.
At the foot of the stairs, I hesitate. I should let Teddy head to his ground-floor room alone. Fairy lights pulse along the bannisters, casting his hair in a festive glow; his eyes shine. The hallway is empty; no one to see us.
I’ve fallen off this sleigh twice already. Might as well enjoy the ride while the bells are still ringing.
I lace my fingers with his, and he guides me towards his room.