First In The Queue

"And then I froze and just...legged it," Rae explained, describing her most embarrassing college moment so far. Even more mortifying, she had decided, than the moment she and Finn had been caught together in the disabled toilet. "So that's it, I'm never singing again."

She cast a meaningful look in the direction of the oblivious, but well-meaning red headed girl sitting opposite her, but having brought up the matter in the first place, Izzy just wasn't taking the hint.

"So what were you singing?" asked Finn.

"Doesn't matter," Rae said quietly. "I hate performing, I should never have bothered."

At this point Izzy cut in. "She's brilliant, though! She got loads of cheers in rehearsals. Oh, and the song was 'Nothing Compares 2 U'."

"Izzy!"

"Stop being so modest, Rae. You've got an amazing singing voice."

The other lads were staring wordlessly at her. It made Rae feel uneasy. Chloe had yet to say a word, which was understandable. The conversation did revolve around a time in which she had gone AWOL, after all. That solo had belonged to her in the first place.

"I do not," Rae replied, attempting to shrink down in her seat.

"She does, actually," Chloe suddenly announced to the rest of the table. "We used to do choir together when we were younger." Their was no bitterness attached to her friend's voice. In fact, she sounded pleased. Had Rae not made the decision to read Chloe's diary, she probably never would have picked up on the subtle ways her best friend found to pay her a compliment.

Despite this, she still refused to continue the discussion, and was grateful when Finn steered the subject onto something else. She thought it might all be forgotten about until she felt her boyfriend's finger spelling out a message on her leg, underneath the table:

To be continued.

And this time there was nothing appealing about that sentence.

It was hours before they left the pub, full of alcohol and giggling away at each other as they walked hand in hand back to Finn's place, where Rae was staying the night. They were drunk, but comfortably so, in a way that still enabled them to have a conversation that made sense.

Again, she had hoped he'd forgotten about her massive concert failure with all the other things they'd talked about during the evening, but in her quiet, brooding state Finn gently tugged on her hand. "Rae?"

"Mmm?"

"Are you really never going to sing again?"

She watched his face carefully, but it was fully composed, totally serious and it clearly wasn't going to change until he heard an answer.

"No one wants to hear that anyway," she said finally.

"Well, according to Izzy-"

"Izzy was just being kind, like always," Rae interrupted softly. "I was only ever standing in for Chloe. It was a one-time thing and I couldn't even do that."

He stopped dead on the pavement, moving to stand in front of her when she also slowed to a stop. "I want to hear it, Rae."

"You what?" she squinted at him, thinking that maybe she was more drunk than she realised.

"I want to hear you sing."

She laughed then, loud and merry but with a tinge of overpowering disbelief. "You do not."

Finn didn't laugh with her. "You are not starting that again."

Rae scrunched up her face in confusion, but didn't respond.

"You don't get to tell me what I want, or what I don't want. Okay?"

"But I-"

"Okay?"

She huffed out a sigh. "Okay. But it doesn't mean I'm about to sing anytime soon."

"That's...it's alright, that's up to you, that's your right. I'm just saying, if you ever did want to. I'd be first in the queue to listen."

Looking at him for a long minute, Rae couldn't help but picture it in her head, a sort of 're-do' of that awful concert. One where Finn was there, sitting right at the front and giving her the strength to actually perform for the first time in her life.

But God no, she didn't want to do it. Even the thought of singing in a secluded space made her feel sick. Or maybe that was just the beer.

"Finn. It's cold, can we...?" and she gestured for them to start walking again.

Without another word, he took her hand in his again, and they continued the short journey back to his house. When they got there, he took out his keys, drunkenly dropped them on the ground, picked them back up again and somehow managed to unlock the door, letting Rae inside first. He led her up the stairs and as soon as they got to his room, they both kicked off their shoes and fell clumsily onto his bed.

She was feeling sleepy now, and by the looks of it so was Finn, but he managed to stay conscious enough to turn his head towards her. "Love you," he said, nudging her nose with his own.

Rae felt the familiar fluttering in her heart, and smiled. "Love you too."

He closed his eyes with a smile to match, and she followed suit. Waiting until he descended into sleep, and suddenly unable to help herself, she sang one line of a certain song under her breath, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"'Cos nothing compares to you..."