Page 105 of Take a Moment

‘OK, fine. But is someone going to tell me what’s going on here?’

‘Thought I’d leave it to you.’ Matt raises an eyebrow at Sammy.

‘I got this,’ says Sammy, and to my utter befuddlement, he gets down on one knee in front of me. ‘Alex, we’ve only known each other a few months, but I feel like what we have is really special and I can’t imagine a future without you in it…’

He pauses dramatically and I glance around at the others, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. All I’m met with is a collection of stifled sniggers.

‘Alex…’ Sammy continues and my attention snaps back to him. ‘We’ve all missed you so much. Will you be our lead vocalist again?’

I’m so baffled by this peculiar turn of events, I find myself speechless. After letting Sammy’s words sink in, framed by an anticipatory silence from my onlookers, I kick into gear.

‘I… err… Sammy, that was a lovely “proposal”—’

‘For future reference, that’s how it’s done, mate.’ He gives Matt a pointed wink, then focuses his attention back on me. ‘I’m sensing a “but” here. Are you really going to reject me, here in front of all these people?’

I look around at the hopeful faces and I can hardly bear to let them down. ‘Sammy, what are you doing to me? I’d love nothing more than to be singing with you guys again, but it’s not that simple. I’m not reliable—’

‘We can work around that.’

‘More importantly, I need to look after my health and hold down a job. It’s not just about my career, I need to be able to pay my bills too. I’m sorry, it’s just not something I can do. I also can’t face having to let you down all over again.’

‘You don’t know that that’s going to happen, Lex.’ Matt puts a supportive arm round my waist. ‘You didn’t have a relapse. You had the flu. Everyone gets winter bugs. It just hit you harder.’

‘Matt, I love that you’re encouraging this, but I just can’t.’

Matt looks at Sammy, then at Sasha. ‘Are we in agreement that it’s time?’ They both nod. ‘All right. Bring out the secret weapon.’

‘The secret what?’ I’m beginning to think they’ve lost the plot. Then out from behind one of the changing room doors walks Emmanuel.

‘What the…’ I gasp. ‘Emmanuel, what are you doing here?’

‘Hi, Alex. Matt expected you’d have this reaction because of your job. So, I’m here to tell you that you can do this.’ She seems quite pleased with her supporting role in this little charade.

‘But—’

‘No buts, Alex. You love singing with the band, right?’

‘I do, but—’

‘What did I just say?’ She smiles at me. ‘When something like that makes you so happy, it’s good for your health, not the opposite. Work is important, but so is having a life and living your dreams. It’s even more important for you to be able to do that now. You have my full support for this. And if you decide you need to improve the balance in your life, we could talk about reducing your hours. But only if that’s something that would work for you.’

‘I’ve never thought about doing something like that.’

‘Well, it’s open to you if you want to explore it. There are plenty of people with challenging, successful careers who don’t work full time.’

I take a moment to think about what Emmanuel’s just said. Between this, and Sammy and the band being happy to work around my illness, I have no reason to say no any more.

‘OK, I guess I’m in.’

There’s a collective whooping cheer.

‘So, I’ll see you at rehearsals next week to get started again?’

‘Actually, we were kind of hoping you would sing with us tonight,’ Sammy replies.

‘Tonight?’

‘Just a few songs you know well. So we can reintroduce you. We’ve got an hour to practise and warm up before the gig.’

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