Twenty minutes later, the photo session was over. After listening to Talia complain about having shit contestants who couldn’t even make it into the finals and March gripe about his sex life, I excused myself from the judges’ lounge in order to see how my contestants were holding up. The j
udges had unanimously agreed to let the four remaining contestants pick one song of their own choice for tonight’s challenge. All of Steffi’s contestants had been voted out, so that left March and Talia with one each and me with two.
On hearing what the semi-final competition would be, Wynne immediately searched me out. We’d spent the better part of two afternoons trying to find the best song to highlight her voice. I’d spent those same two afternoons with a serious case of blue balls.
From the moment I first heard Wynne Benfield sing, I knew she had it, that special mixture of voice and personality. At twenty-eight, she was one of the older contestants in the competition. Having had no classical training made her raw, gritty, unrefined, and real. With Melissa Etheridge’s depth, Janis Joplin’s grit, and Ann Wilson’s power, she was a force to be reckoned with. She was also sexy as fuck. She wasn’t just gorgeous to look at, she was smart. She knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to go for it. For the first time in years, I was actually excited about something. Wynne was going all the way to the top and I was taking her there.
On the opposing side of the coin was Bueller, better known as Ferris Leon. Ferris had spent years hopping around different art schools. He was classically trained, or so he claimed. I wasn’t so sure. Ferris rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was because he was a twenty-four-year old entitled prick. More likely it was because he made no pretenses about wanting to get into Wynne’s pants. If anyone was getting a piece of Wynne, it wasn’t going to be Ferris.
When he informed me that his selection was a country song, I advised against it. His voice was more Juice WRLD or XXXTentacion in nature. To sing a Kane Brown song was just plain laughable. Of course, the dumb fuck didn’t listen. I could hear him practicing all the way outside in the hallway. Like I said, it was laughable. The music stopped when I entered the room.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked. I thought about telling him the truth, then realized I’d already gone that route and he’d chosen not to listen.
“It sounds great,” I lied. Fenton, our musical director and resident piano player cut his eyes at me. We both shook our heads and shrugged. Like me, he’d tried to talk sense into Ferris. If the kid made it to the finals, it would be because of his previous track record and not tonight’s performance. I hung around for a few more run throughs before heading down to Studio B and Wynne.
Like Ferris, I could hear her from out in the hallway. What set Wynne apart from all of the other contestants wasn’t just her voice, but her natural ability to take a song and make it her own. She wasn’t simply a one trick pony. She also played guitar and wrote her own music. She was the full package, a package I planned on spending the next week unwrapping.
Fuck management and fuck the rules. I was Sander James and I could damn well do as I pleased.
“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”
Wynne
“Wynne, darling—”
“I know, I missed my cue. Sorry. Can we please start again?” I was starting to get frustrated.
“Why don’t we take five?” Fenton was working with Ferris today which left me with Saul. Fenton understood my need to make the song mine. Saul, however, did not. He kept arguing about the song’s integrity, but the goal was to stand out, and in order to achieve this I needed to put my own personal stamp on it. Sander understood this. In fact, he encouraged it. I glanced across the stage to the audience doors. Speaking of Sander, where was he?
Returning my eyes to the grumpy man in front of me, I said, “I don’t need five. I need you to hold the introduction a few extra beats and to slow down the tempo just a bit.” I followed it with a “Please.” If I was playing my guitar, this wouldn’t be an issue.
At Sander’s suggestion I was singing without my guitar tonight. He wanted me to break out of my shell and show the world a different side of Wynne Benfield. He wanted me to show them what sassy Wynne looked like. I could be soulful. I could even do vulnerable, but sass? So far, on a scale of 1-10, I was batting zero in the sass department. I tried to tell Sander that it wasn’t really my thing, but he was adamant. He was also really hard to say no to. So here I was, missing my cues and singing off tune. Why? Because I was trying to be someone I wasn’t. It didn’t help that I was both mentally and physically exhausted and had no clue what to do with my hands. All of this was compounded by the fact that next week was Christmas and I was spending it in freezing cold Colorado with a bunch of people I didn’t much care for, instead of at home with my mom in Florida. Then there was tonight, the biggest performance of my life, and all I could think about was a warm cup of coffee, a hot bath, and fifty hours of uninterrupted sleep.
“Christina comes right out of the gate full throttle,” Saul argued.
“Yes, but I’m not Christina,” I explained for the thousandth time.
“Is there a problem?” a voice called out. Not just any voice, but the voice I’d been waiting to hear for the past hour. Thank you, Jesus, I thought as my eyes jumped from Saul to the man sauntering down the aisle in our direction.
It was hard to describe Sander James. Coach and collaborator were words I used when talking with the other contestants. Alone with my thoughts, he was something else entirely. He was an extremely opinionated, beyond talented, sinfully sexy rock god. Sadly, he was nine years older and completely off-limits, but that didn’t stop me from fantasizing. I wasn’t the only one, either. All the female contestants were obsessed with Sander James. I’m pretty sure a few of the guys were, too, and with good right. My fellow contestants considered him an enigma. I found him to be a beautifully charismatic force of nature.
While pretending to listen to Saul whine about how I wanted to change the song, I studied Sander. His dark hair held traces of auburn with a few strands of gray peeking out at the temples. His beard, not quite full, but more like the shadow of one in the making, helped to soften his jawline. Today he was wearing black pants and a charcoal gray sweater. My fingers itched to see if it was cashmere. I bet it was.
The sound of my name caught my attention. An embarrassed flush spread across my cheeks as my gaze lifted from his sweater to his face. Big, brown eyes, somewhere between bronze and russet in color, stared back at me.
A dark eyebrow shot up in question as a melodically rich voice, a voice that I looked forward to hearing each day and dreamed about in my sleep, asked, “You okay?” Talk about a loaded question. Over the past three months, I’d watched more than one contestant go home, not because they performed poorly, but because they weren’t considered team players. In other words, being shitty to the band members was equivalent to telling one of the coaches to go fuck themselves. I needed to tread carefully.
“I’m not sure this arrangement works with my voice. The beginning is kind of fast. I would like to try slowing down the tempo and then build up from there,” I calmly explained.
“As in more of a chant?” he asked.
“Exactly!” I knew he would get it. Sander turned to Saul and snapped his fingers. Without so much as a blink, Saul handed over his guitar. My pulse shot from zero to a thousand as Sander pulled the strap over his head. Black ink appeared on his forearms as he pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. Ink that had been discussed throughout the contestant house time and again. Just because I chose not to join in the discussions didn’t mean I didn’t hear them. The house was like living in a college dorm. It was rife with rumors and innuendos.
Three months ago, I barely knew who Sander James was. If I listened to the rumors, he was a still-in-the-closet drug addict who couldn’t carry a tune to save his life. Also, according to rumor, this show was a last-ditch effort to save his career. The fact that no one had seen him pick up a guitar or sing a note since we’d arrived only fueled the already flaming-hot rumor mill.
“How do you want to do this?” he asked. “Are you thinking slow like this?” He played the first few chords of the song before nodding to Marc, the drummer. Marc joined in, but it was still faster than I wanted.
“Slower,” I called out. Sander slowed the tempo and Marc followed suit. He then nodded to Saul, who was now positioned at the piano, and in perfect tandem, they played the introduction to Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter.”