No One But You

9

Madison

"Queen?" I ask. "Like royalty?"

"Precisely my dear," Freddie tells me.

I lean back on the couch I am sat on. Roger comes out from the kitchen with beer in his hands, and plants himself next to me.

"I like it," I say. "It's catchy. Short and sweet,"

Freddie frantically shuffles through a pile of papers on the table behind him before picking one up and showing it to us. I feel like I'm at show-and-tell back from primary school.

"Oh, it's a - it's - what is it?" Brian, who sits on my other side, asks. He holds a puzzled expression and sits forward in his seat, pointing a finger at the drawing.

"Our logo, darling!" Freddie exclaims. He turns back around, taking a pencil and writing 'QUEEN' underneath it, and then presenting it back to us.

"He's been up all night for days working on it," Mary tells us. She sits on the floor in front of me, leaning against my legs. "Every time he went to fall asleep he'd get another idea for it,"

"But what is it?" Brian asks again.

Freddie points out various different parts on the paper he holds with this elaborate drawing on it.

"In the middle is a 'Q', for Queen obviously, with a royal crown in it and a phoenix looking over everything. Then there are two lions, one for Deaky and Rog since they're both Leo's. Then there's a crab up here for Brian since he's a cancer. Then down here, I'm a virgo so that's why there are two fairies-" Freddie explains.

"Why are there two of them?" Roger asks, cutting Freddie off.

"For Mary and Maddie of course,"

I choke on air.

"Why?" I ask. "I mean, sure we're pretty amazing," I joke. "But why include us?"

"Because you two were the first to really believe in me. We barely even knew each other too. I mean Maddie you believed in me when we first met that night in the bar, and Mary you believed in me when I came into Biba's that one day looking for you," Freddie laughs. "It felt right to include you. Plus now it's symmetrical with the lions,"

"You're sweet, Freddie," I tell him.

"I agree with Fred," Brian says. "You two have been with us from the beginning,"

It's definitely a big deal to be included ever so slightly in the bands logo. Queen is going to go places, I just know it, so to be recognized in that discreet way is amazing. They're already on their way to success. They've been writing their own songs and they came up with four demo's to hopefully get some record label to sign them. The only thing was they needed a name for a band, so here we all are at two in the morning to listen to Freddie.

"It's beautiful Freddie," Mary says. I'm almost certain she has a tear in her eye.

"So what's next?" I ask.

"We go to record labels. Tell them who we are and give them our demos and we hope that someone will pick us up," Freddie explains.

"When do you start that process?"

The boys look around at each other, shrugging.

"Tomorrow,"

...

"We've been rejected by them all," Roger complains to me on the phone. I sit on my bed, playing with the phone cord, as I talk to him. I like how he's been calling me more and more lately.