El Diablo

Speech? I had to give a speech? Fuck!

I turned to the others. They all were looking away, Luca was even whistling, making it clear that they didn’t want to do it as much as I didn’t.

I sighed.

As the frontman, I guess I have to talk.

“Ummm... Hi... I still can’t believe we are here. Ever since I was a child, I watched Solstice. One of my fondest memories is sitting in front of the television and watching Solstice at four-thirty in the morning. Watching it with the one I loved, that I still love. Marco, I love you!” I screamed the last bit into the microphone.

Immediately afterwards, I thought I was going to pass out. There was silence. You could hear a pin drop.

I looked up and saw on the monitors that my face was peachy.

The squeals that followed broke the silence. I couldn’t believe I had just said all those embarrassing things. I saw a quick flash to Marco, who was bright red as well. It seems my embarrassment was contagious.

I’m sorry Marco! I thought telepathically to him.

He didn’t get my message.

After my speech, our staging had been fully set up, and it was time to perform our song “Devil Inside” one final time, this time with far less stress. We went out and rocked. There was pyro, glitter, and love in our hearts.

─── ༻ ☼ ༺ ───

The show closed, and we hurried backstage. As the crowds were being kicked out, some of our fellow contestants congratulated us. Then, more gathered, and before long, we were surrounded.

I could see Marco at the back of the bunch, but everyone else also wanted to chat. Stephanie came walking over to us, and the crowd of contestants dispersed, allowing them to reconvene with us.

“Can we crash now?” I asked her.

“No”

“Okay, parties and stuff, I get it, but can we take our makeup off?”

“Please keep it on!”

“Why?”

“You have a post-winning press conference.”

Great! I thought

“Do we have to?” I asked.

“Yes” she responded

“Really?” Luca added.

“Yes.”

“Can’t we send you on our behalf instead?” Noah asked.

“No.”

“So, we have to do this?” Jet commented, though it was more of a question.

“Yes!” She said definitively.

“Fuck!” we all sighed in unison.

“Stephanie?” I leaned in.

“No! You can’t get out of this,” she replied, preempting my question.

“I wasn’t going to ask that.”

“Then what?”

“Can we get out of it?”

“You said...”

I cut her off, “I lied.”

She sighed.

“Hey Stephanie, I have a question.”

“What Luca?”

“When has any of our press conferences gone well?”

She paused to think.

“Fuck!” she screamed, grabbing her head.

“Yeah,” Luca replied.

We all looked amongst each other. No words needed to be spoken. We all understood.

“Alright, just do your best; the contest is over, so as long as you don’t cause any political outrage, it’ll be fine.” She turned to face me. “That goes especially to you, Blake.”

“Would I cause any issues?” I asked,

“Yes!” Everyone responded when I meant everyone, including Darcy, who read my lips and Marco, who was supposed to support me. The only person who did not join in was Pete.

“Thanks for throwing me under the bus everyone.” I made sure to look at Marco as I said this. “It is great to know you all think this about me.” I signed, deliberately looking at Darcy.

“You all should lay off. Blake has been under a lot of pressure. He’s done a great job. We won off his amazing vocals, after all.” Pete commented in my defence.

Pete thank you!

It was nice to know that I had one person on my side.

─── ༻ ☼ ༺ ───

We made our way to the press conference. The quicker we did it, the quicker we could get changed and head off to bed.

“Hi Jane, congratulations on winning. For those who are watching on, confused, you won Solstice. Can you explain why Australia is in Solstice and when?”

Great, we are doing this again.

“As Australians, we love the summer solstice. We are superfans who love to chase summer as much as possible,” Noah said diplomatically, using his charm to settle this argument. Well, at least until whoever the poor sap represents us next year. But that’s not our problem, that’s theirs.

The next reporter got up.

“Hi, so we know you are a crossdressing band, but not why. So my question is, why do you wear dresses on stage?”

I didn’t have a good answer to this, but luckily, I didn’t have to. Luca spoke up.

“I like the feeling of the dress going spinny,” his serious tone left the room silent.

“Right? I… see…" The reporter could not compute.

“Next question,” Jet commented to redirect the conversation.

“Since Australia can host the solstice competition in Australia next year, and given Blake’s relationship with Marco, will we be in Italy next year?”

“Oh that sounds good. Venice or Rome might be nice.”

“No!” Stephanie cried from the sidelines. Despite how far away she was, I could clearly hear her facepalm.

“I requested one thing!” I could hear her yell.

I think I may have done the impossible. I may have somehow made geopolitical drama. How could I mess up this badly with one simple question?

Quick, I must fix this.

“Um... what I mean to say is that... um... I think wherever it is, it will be great.” I stammered.

The press all laughed. I hoped this would be good enough. Based on Stephanie’s reaction, I may have just managed it.

“Any other questions?” Jet asked. He seemed awfully adamant about moving on to another question. I doubted it was for my sake. Perhaps he was jealous that he hadn’t been able to answer a question yet.

“Yes. I have a question.” A blogger raised their hand.

“Yes,” Jet replied over-enthusiastically.

“Luca, you recently won a baking contest. Is baking a hobby of yours?”

Jet looked devastated as Luca delivered a ten-minute answer about the joys of baking.

No other questions were asked, and we returned to the hotel to crash.

─── ༻ ☼ ༺ ───

End of Chapter 44