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He scowls, but a hint of a smile lifts the corner of his lips. “Yeah, I’m gonna be awesome, right?”
“Of course you are.” I pat his arm with mock condescension.
A studio runner pokes his head around the corner and beckons Dylan. He kisses my head, and as he strides off, I slap his ass in retaliation for earlier.
“Good luck and watch out for the exploding panties!” I call.
He pauses and looks round. “Sky Morgan, you are in a lot of trouble later.”
I blow him a kiss. “Looking forward to it,” I call after him.
I sneak around to the back of the TV studio and slide onto a chair in the audience, with Rhys on my knee. The last time I saw Dylan play, he was with the band in Europe, and his heart still wasn’t in the music. This time he’s different.
Rhys looks in the direction of the music, quiet, already recognising his dad’s voice. The session musicians fade into the background, Dylan beneath the lights with his guitar, the distinctive voice holding the excited audience in rapture.
I’d hoped the first track Dylan played me, “Evermore”, would be his first release and it is. The emotional ride he takes the listener on in this song, carried by Dylan’s distinctive voice, ends with exploding vocals, which can’t fail to move people.
This is the song people will ask about. What do the lyrics mean? Who did he lose? I choke back proud tears I promised myself I wouldn’t spill as he sings his heartache and hope, from our lost baby to his fear and joy over our second pregnancy. The song, written before Rhys arrived, quashes any industry doubts he’s fooling himself he can produce the same musical quality alone.
Something injects the song with a different beat and rhythm to Blue Phoenix. Dylan confided in me one reason he chose this track is because Jem liked it, and the pair worked on chords together. Even when Dylan goes alone, he still returns to his beginnings, to Jem.
We don’t see the band members often. Quinn, five months older than Rhys, already has a personality to rival that of her parents. Rhys’s relaxed nature changes with his frustrated determination to stand and move, or communicate. Quinn and Rhys will grow together. It’s inevitable, and we joke one day they’ll be as close as Dylan and Jem. One thing’s sure, they’ll bond through the privileged life they’re bound to have. Ella’s protectiveness over the two children she sees as her own siblings also grows.
Despite Dylan’s decision to step away, the Blue Phoenix family of misfits move forward together, rather than apart.
