Hopelessly Devoted to Holden Finn by Tilly Tennant Page A

right.’
    ‘You know, the eighties singer with huge hair?’ Paige explained.
    Holden looked to his band mates for help, but they all shrugged helplessly.
    ‘I’m sure you’re all far too young to remember Bonnie Tyler,’ Bonnie explained, laughing nervously. ‘I am too, come to think of it.’
    ‘I’ve got some Bonnie Tyler somewhere,’ the DJ cut in. ‘I could play it for you on-air.’
    ‘It really doesn’t matter…’
    ‘It’d be no bother,’ he insisted.
    ‘It’s not me that’s the fan…’ Bonnie said, her sentence trailing off as she realised that the DJ was already scrolling down a tracklist on his monitor.
    Then the engineer wagged a finger at them to indicate the countdown to being back on-air and they all fell silent, the boys watching the DJ expectantly and the girls grinning like maniacs.
    ‘Right, that was your daily dose of Lily Allen, there,’ the DJ purred into the mic in typically smooth DJ style, ‘and we’re back with the boys of Every Which Way, along with some VIP guests: the winners of our competition to meet the boys…’ he looked down at his clipboard, ‘Paige Cartwright and Annabel Frost.’ He grinned at the girls who both looked as though they might explode at any moment. The DJ continued, ‘we’re going to give Paige and Annabel the chance to ask the band some questions ina short while, but first, here’s a song specially requested by Paige’s mum, who is lurking in the background here in the studio and is a big Bonnie Tyler fan…’
    Bonnie groaned inwardly as the opening bars to Total Eclipse of the Heart kicked in. Now she looked like a middle-aged saddo in front of the gorgeous, young, and very far from sad Holden Finn. The DJ gave a gormless thumbs-up to Bonnie as he turned the volume down and took off his headphones. She tried to smile back gratefully but even he must have been aware of just how forced it looked.
    ‘Ok guys,’ Raveena said to Paige and Annabel, sounding vaguely like a holiday camp entertainer. ‘Have you got your questions ready, because it’s nearly time.’
    The girls nodded enthusiastically while the band looked on, every inch professional courtesy and indulgent smiles. They’d done this a million times before and it showed.
    Bonnie suddenly wondered how they’d react to the question burning to escape her lips, the one that would be directed to a particular band member, and would, considering the circumstances, be highly inappropriate.
    ***
    The interview had gone very well, with Paige and Annabel asking the same sorts of questions expected from the majority of Every Which Way fans: how did you get together (Nick had stumbled into the wrong audition) what’s your favourite food (a mental note to make sure that one jar of peanut butter a week was sent to Holden’s agent to pass on), who snores the loudest (Brad, by a mile). The answers had been given with a great deal of humorous banter, and the Q&A was then followed by another set of songs performed live by them. Bonnie was struck by how good they sounded together. She had always assumed that the snobbish belief held by Henri and countless others about ‘manufactured’ bands not being able to sing at all, and their wailing only made palatable by studio tinkering was true. But Every Which Way could really sing. And their harmonies were so achingly beautiful that they made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
    Once the set was over and the DJ put on his last record, there was a goodbye piece from the DJ to wrap up.
    ‘So, girls… you’ve enjoyed your day?’
    ‘Oh yes!’ Paige and Annabel squeaked almost in unison.
    ‘There’s one more surprise for you,’ Brad cut in with a broad smile crinkling his ice-blue eyes. ‘We thought you might like VIP tickets to the first date on our sell-out arena tour next week.’
    Raveena handed him a pile of what looked like slips of card and laminated passes and he gave one of each to the girls.
    Bonnie thought that Paige might