Where We Were [ON HOLD]

Chapter 3

The screams from the fans were a distinct sound from those cries of the cameramen. Though they both lined the border of the red carpet, the fans vastly outnumbered the cameramen from where they stood behind. Bobbi set her eyes above the flashing lights and did her best to focus instead on the multitude of lit up faces.

Waving out towards the crowd, her own name being shouted right back at her, Bobbi paused after stepping out from the limo. She only started to move when Alex had joined her by her side and nodded towards where he date stood waiting.

Bobbi was the one to bring him back down to reality as he stood smiling up at the crowd, waving, soaking up all the attention. She barely slipped her arm through his and dragged him along as she stepped into the neat corridor. Alex stepped between Bobbi and the camera's to quickly position her dress and date into the correct image, then stepping away and releasing them to the blinding lights.

Another round of cries, matching, the same one she had received when she had stepped out of her own limo, erupted as another car was brought forward. Turning so the camera's caught her profile, Bobbi smiled as Alfie and Sam stepped out of their car and buttoned their jackets, pausing to wave to the crowd before being guided to where they were needed to be as Alex came to get them.

The crowd barely had time to refill their lungs as another nondescript black town car pulled up and Theo climbed out. Bobbi's eyes immediately fell to him, past Alfie and Sam as they came to join her. His bright smile flashed out onto the crowd and the noise level only continued to rise as his name filled the air.

His scowl set in as he turned his attention to Bobbi and the date hanging onto her, still posing for the cameras despite Bobbi's lack of focus.

"Aaron, we'll meet you inside."

Bobbi's date was then immediately disposed of as no one would dare to defy the tone thick in Alex's voice. Bobbi allowed her eyes a rest from the lights, trying to focus on the ground and moving herself into the correct position as Alex was instructing her to do. Every time she looked up, she kept her gaze sideways, away from the lights and always landing on Theo.

She barely met his gaze before he would look down and follow his own set of instructions. Bobbi shook her head to keep her camera-ready smolder in place. After a few minutes of fidgeting, Alex was finally content with their layout. With one final attempt to tame Alfie's wild curls and one final check that Sam's man bun was intact, she stepped aside and let them loose on the hoard of cameramen.

The flashes gained momentum, bringing with them a borage of questions, each of them like bullets thrown towards where the Wild Wallflowers stood. Each member of the band stayed where they were placed and stood tall against the verbal attacks that flew their way.

"Theo! Where's your girlfriend? You guys done already?"

"Bobbi! Who's this new boytoy?"

"Think you even have a chance at winning?"

"You guys breaking up or what?"

********

Bobbi leaned her head back as far as she felt she could go without falling backwards and crashing down onto the hot black floor beneath. Theo's final guitar chord rang out, follow Alfie's bass as Sam's drums came to a complete holt. For the briefest of seconds, just Bobbi's voice rang out into the atmosphere and all around them, the surrounding amps helping carry it out to where it needed to go.

When the air within in her lungs was sufficiently wasted and she felt a tug within her chest, she opened her eyes and stood back up straight, bringing her note to a close. Staring out into the crowd, the mass of thousands she had just been performing for dwindled back down to the small crowd of nearly two hundred that had stopped by their stage to watch them perform. Their lack of numbers of was almost completely unnoticeable. Their shouts and screams sounded the same and lifted up the soul within Bobbi just as the thousands she saw within her mind would have.