It was at least five before they finally left the department store. Isaac stretched and yawned.
“Well, that’s that sorted,” he said happily. “It was actually quite fun.”
Brookie shot him a disparaging look. “I’m getting you a Barbie for your next birthday.”
“Admit it.” Isaac grinned at him. “You enjoyed it too. Hey, Frankie, where are you going, girl?”
Brookie turned to see Fran wandering away from them down the street. She glanced back.
“The car’s this way,” Brookie said, pointing behind him. “And you shouldn’t be wandering about on your own. It’s dangerous. What if somebody recognises you?”
Fran preened her auburn wig and smirked. “Would you like to come bra shopping with me, then? I need a decent bra if I’m going to wear a nice dress.”
Both boys went scarlet.
“I’ll pass,” Isaac muttered. “I need to get back to Aaron, anyway. He’ll kill me if he finds out I’ve been shopping without him.”
Brookie lobbed his wallet at Fran. “Don’t spend too much. Just get what you need. I’ll be waiting at the car.”
Surprised, Fran caught the wallet. “Thanks.” She started to rifle through it. “Can I get myself some makeup as well? If I’m going to doll myself up, I might as well do it properly.” She suddenly snorted. “Brookie, your driving license photo is atrocious. I thought you were widely recognised as the most photogenic male in the country.”
“I am photogenic!” Brookie protested.
“Modesty abounds!” Isaac said loudly. “Well, toodles, guys. See you on Sunday, Brook. Will Frankie be coming too?”
Fran stopped snickering at Brookie’s photo and looked up. “Coming to what?”
“Probably,” Brookie told Isaac before mouthing “later” at Fran. “See ya, mate.”
They went their separate ways.
For a venue that wasn’t in London, the concert hall was a lot fuller than Fran had expected. There were already people standing at the back when they arrived, and there were journalists everywhere. Brookie somehow managed to avoid them all until they reached the VIP section, when a young man with a camera popped up, grinning brightly, and asked for an interview.
“After,” Brookie told him distractedly, looking for their seats. He and Fran both flinched as the camera flash flared brightly.
“Just one question, then,” the man said. “Who is this charming young lady on your arm?”
Fran looked at him as though he’d turned into a cobra and tugged on Brookie’s arm to get away. She and Brookie hadn’t even decided on a fake name to give if people started asking who she was. They were saved by the lights going down.
“Sorry.” Brookie smiled tightly. “We need to get to our seats. My friend’s playing and I don’t want to embarrass him by making a disturbance.”
“Of course.” The journalist looked hugely disappointed.
“We’ve just ruined a major scoop for him,” Brookie muttered as he led Fran to the third row from the front and they sat next to somebody Fran recognised from a popular TV series. “Enjoy the limelight of lemons.”
Fran snorted loudly and the woman beside her turned to shush her irately.
As classical music went, it was pretty enjoyable, even though everything was from the baroque era as the concert was in celebration of Bach’s musical genius. Fran recognised snippets of the violin concerto that Rico played because she’d seen him practising, but seeing and hearing him play the piece in full was absolutely mind-blowing. The sound he coaxed from his instrument was phenomenal, and there were several moments that Fran was convinced had to be pre-recorded, or at least played by more than one violin, because they just seemed too complicated and fast to be produced on only one solo instrument. Her favourite, though, was the concerto with four pianos. Rico had somehow managed to land one of the piano parts as well as his earlier solo. The concert could quite easily have been an hour longer and she wouldn’t have minded.
“Why is Rico so talented?” she whined as the final applause died away.
“If he wasn’t, you wouldn’t have enough of a crush on him to sit through two and a half hours of a music genre you normally hate,” Brookie reasoned. Fran pouted.
“Not true. He’s handsome enough for me to just sit here and drool.”
Brookie had to cover his mouth to hide his laughter, but Fran thought she caught a flash of jealousy in his eyes. He got to his feet.
“Shall we see if our VIP privileges allow us backstage?” he asked. “Hang on a second.” Frowning, he dug his phone out of his pocket. His expression quickly turned to frustrated amusement. Fran stood up and tried to peek over his shoulder, but he was too tall.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Bruno thinks you brush up well.” He passed her his phone.
Bruno had sent a screenshot of a blog post, which displayed a photo of her that evening grinning at Brookie. Who is Brookie’s mystery girl? ran the caption of the photo. He’d better hope Frankie doesn’t see.
Fran couldn’t help a grin at the irony of the situation, but then she caught sight of the text that Bruno had sent after the photo.
If that’s genuinely Frances, she looks f*cking hot. Are you sure all you do at school is share a room?
F*ck you, she wrote back. Brookie had a girlfriend when I joined the school.
The reply was instantaneous. You were the one who split them up, weren’t you?
“Don’t argue with him,” Brookie advised, peering at the screen. “You’ll never win.”
Fran mock-glared at him. “A girl always wins her arguments, whether she’s right or not.”
Brookie raised his hands in surrender and backed off. Thirteen texts later, Fran admitted defeat.
“I can’t beat his innuendoes,” she admitted sadly. “I didn’t realise there was such an art to finding an innuendo in absolutely everything.”
“It’s not an art,” Brookie said. “You just have to have a mind so perverted that even erotica authors would blush if they could read your thoughts.”
Fran shook her head. “I still can’t believe I’ve actually met him.”
“Is it Rico or Bruno you have a crush on, now?”
“Bruno’s my celebrity crush.” Fran handed the phone back. “He has been since I saw his first film.”
“Now I feel totally side-lined,” Brookie muttered. He was smiling, but Fran got the feeling that he was only half-joking.
“Let’s go find Rico,” she suggested before she could start feeling guilty.
They had to avoid a bunch of journalists to get backstage, but it took surprisingly little to convince the guy guarding the door through to the musicians to let them pass.
“Are you Brookie Denvers?” the man asked after looking at Fran. Brookie stood up a little straighter.
“Yes, I am.”
The man smiled and opened the door without even asking why they wanted to get through. “It’s so nice to see the youth of today taking an interest in classical music. You’re a shining example to your peers, if I might say so.”
Brookie rubbed a hand self-consciously through his hair. “I’m flattered.”
They spotted Rico not five metres away chatting to the conductor, his violin and bow still clutched loosely in his right hand. He was swinging them gently from side to side and gesturing animatedly with his other hand. A mischievous glint entered Brookie’s eyes and he pressed a finger to his lips, warning Fran not to attract anybody to their attention, before sneaking over. Fran trailed after him.
The second he was within striking distance, Brookie grabbed Rico’s shoulders from behind.
“You’re it!” he crowed.
Rico whipped around, nearly sending his violin flying.
“Jesus Christ!” Then he saw who it was, recognised Brookie, and realised he’d just been tagged. “You absolute mother*cker, Brookie! This is so unfair!”
Brookie doubled over laughing. For an instant, Rico looked like he might hit him, but then he shook himself and his usual grin appeared. Fran couldn’t help smiling when his dimple showed.
“D*mn you, Brookie,” Rico said, this time more amiably. “Did you just come to the concert to tag me?”
Brookie was shameless. “Pretty much.”
Silence fell around the room and people turned to look. There were several stifled gasps from the girls.
“It was a good concert, though,” Brookie added as Rico jabbed him in the ribs with his bow. “It’s nice to see you play, for once.”
The sound of his voice cleared any doubts that anybody might have had about Brookie being the upcoming star of Stonehelm, and the room erupted into cheers and squeals.
“Autograph! Autograph!” was audible as everybody seemed to forget their instruments and they stormed towards Brookie.
Brookie glanced quickly at the door to see if he could escape, realised that it was already blocked off, and snatched Fran’s wrist to pull her out of the way of several rabid fan girls.
“Sh*t. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Rico look at Fran as though he’d only just noticed she was there, and glanced at Brookie’s hand on her arm. He raised an eyebrow, but made no comment. Instead, he stepped forward and brandished his violin.
“Hey, hey!” he shouted. “Priceless Stradivarius here! Back off or break it!”
Whatever he mean by Stradivarius, Fran thought, it certainly did the trick. The stampede dribbled to a halt. Brookie smiled tightly and waved at the orchestra.
“Can we go somewhere else?” he asked Rico between clenched teeth.
“Sure. I need to put my violin away, in any case.”
There were murmurs of disappointment as he led them through the crowd and into a separate, much smaller room, which was dotted with empty violin cases. Rico closed and locked the door behind them.
“Why do you constantly insist on attracting so much attention when you know what will happen?” he demanded sharply. Fran was surprised: she hadn’t seen this side to him before. “Brookie, you’ve known for a while now that you can’t live your life as you used to do. You need to be more careful, seriously. Also, who’s the girlfriend?” He nodded at Fran.
Brookie grinned brightly at him and put his arm around Fran’s shoulder. “This is my foster sister.”
Rico raised an eyebrow. “What, another one?”
“Yup. Rico, meet Theresa. Theresa, Rico.”
Rico looked at Fran again, this time actually taking her in properly. Fran had to resist the urge to yell “ta da! I’m Frankie and I’m a girl!” as his eyes found hers. He hesitated a little, and for one horrible moment, Fran thought he’d recognised her, but then he gave a little smile, just enough for his dimple to show, and held out his free hand.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. “Sorry your brother thought the best way to introduce you to the public would be to drag you along to a concert.”
Fran took his hand and shook it.
“Oh, no, it was great,” she babbled. “I really loved the concerto with four pianos. Bach’s one of my favourite composers.”
For a moment, she thought she saw a hint of confusion in Rico’s brown eyes. Then he turned to Brookie in fake surprise.
“Brookie, your new sister’s actually cultured.”
Brookie hit him good-naturedly on the shoulder. “What do you expect, coming from my family?”
“A caveman, frankly. Did Christina get her hands on her? You look lovely, Theresa,” he added, turning to Fran.
“Nope. Christina’s still in London. This was all Theresa’s own doing,” Brookie said, but couldn’t help tacking on, with great pride, “but I found the dress.”
Rico stared at Fran, absolutely speechless. He only seemed to regain his wits when he nearly dropped his violin.
“Brookie, you shouldn’t be adopting her into the family; you should be marrying her. Anybody who can convince you to go shopping without complaint has to be some relation to Wonder Woman.”
Fran struck a superhero pose and they all exploded into laughter. It was some time before any of them sobered up enough to speak.
“Match-making aside,” Rico spluttered, still trying to hold back giggles, “are both of you going to be coming this Sunday?”
“Coming to what?” Fran asked.
“Dunno,” Brookie replied, but to Rico rather than Fran. “I need to discover if anybody’s needed to babysit the other cavemen first.”
“You can’t leave Bernard to steal all the glory in a paintball fight. C’mon, now.”
“Maybe.” Brookie glared at Fran, silently warning her not to say anything, because she’d already opened her mouth to respond with an enthusiastic yes. She’d never been paintballing before, but it sounded great fun.
“Anyway,” he continued, “we probably ought to go before there are too many journalists hanging around outside for me to make a getaway. Great to see you again. You did fab.”
Rico held up a hand and listened at the keyhole of the door they’d come in by. After a couple of seconds, he pulled a face.
“Take the other door,” he advised, pointing to the other side of the room. They did.
“Sister?!” exploded Fran the instant they were out of earshot. “Why on earth did you tell him I was your foster sister?!”
“Keeps your options open,” Brookie reasoned, tugging her along after him. She dug her heels in. He stopped and faced her. “What, did you want him to think you were already taken?”
“No, but you could have at least told him who I actually was! Now he’s probably going to think he’s never going to see me again.”
Brookie snorted. “How tragic. He comes over to my house every so often; he knows he’d see you around.” His expression grew more serious. “Do you actually want him to know who you are? I thought you didn’t particularly want everybody knowing.”
Fran opened her mouth to say yes, but then paused, confused. The more she thought about it, the more confused she got. She did want Rico to know who she really was, but she got on with him so well as Frankie that she was worried about creeping him out if he did know she was actually a girl. Granted, Brookie and Isaac had taken it quite well, but Isaac was a total oddball and she’d had no choice with Brookie because he might have sent her to the police. Rico was… well, Rico. And she hadn’t had a crush on the other two, either.
“Seriously,” said Brookie, jerking a thumb back down the passage, “I can go back and tell him now, if you want.”
Fran bit her lip. He was totally sincere, not in the least bit irritated or mocking. If anything, there was a slight hint of worry or concern in his tone, as though he wasn’t sure he was doing the best for her. She looked down, suddenly feeling very small and very unglamorous in her dress.
“No,” she mumbled. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”