Page 59 of Doc Rock
“Donnie. I’m not back. I’m living and working in Burra Creek. I’m not a member of Midnight Thunder.”
“Give it a bit of time. The boys will want you back. Even Ford.”
Mai laughed bitterly, her free hand pulling the necklace that now contained her and Ford’s wedding rings out from under her shirt.“Donnie. Ford will never want me back.”
“Let’s give it some time and revisit that statement,”Donnie said.
“I have a life. I’m not rejoining Midnight Thunder. I can’t.”Even thinking about performing with them gave herpalpitations, the old stage fright about playing a stadium rearing at just the thought of it.
“You don’t need to work anymore. You’ve got enough money to last you fifty lifetimes.”
“Donnie. IknowI don’t need to work anymore, but I’m not giving up my job. I like working. I make a difference.”She'd worked too hard to give it all away.
Donnie scoffed, and Mai’s anger began to rise. Was he putting her job down?
“You help, what, a handful of individuals. Your music, it’s touched millions. Hundreds of millions of people’s lives have changed because of your music. The messages of hope, love and life that you send them.”
Mai shook her head vigorously.“It’s not real. None of that is real. What I do every day is real. The babies I treat and their parents, they’re the ones who matter.”
“I’m not trying to minimise your job. Iknowit’s amazing. I’m trying togetyou to think of things on a bigger scale. With Midnight Thunder, youcouldaffect lives on a global scale.”
Mai thought for a moment about what he said, and a seed of an idea planted in the back of her mind. Maybe with all the money, shecouldstart to affect lives, at least on a national level. She pushed that thought aside and refocused on Donnie.
“It doesn’t matter. Ford will never play with me again, even if I wanted to. So what are we going to do about the press release?”
“I’ll speak to the boys. Make sure they’re on board, but like I said, the best course is, we will address the rumours that Sie Harrington has been spotted, and confirm that this is the case, then we’ll imply we’veknownall along where you are and have supported you in being a private citizen and request that your privacy is respected.”
“Will we need to release any photos?”Mai couldn’t think of anything worse than photos of her being plastered everywhere.
“Yeah. We should release one. It’ll decrease the desire for people togeta photo of you if they have something official from us.”
“Fine,”Mai sighed, her mind already whirling. The fans of Midnight Thunder would want toseeSie Harrington, not Maisie Jones, so she was going to give them the rock chick they wanted.
“I’ll talk to Ford, Scotty and Joel and let youknow.”
“Thanks, Donnie. I appreciate this.”
“No problems. Talk soon, Sie. Bye.”
“Bye.”Mai hung up and threw her phone down on the sofa next to her.
Shit, this is not what she wanted. She didn’t want to be resurrecting a young woman who she left behind, but the alternative was to show the whole world who she was now, and she didn’t want to do that either.
Grabbing her phone, she opened a web browser, searching for a long, dark wig.
Chapter 22
Ford
Ford slammed the door of his rental car.
“Fuck.”He pounded his fists on the steering wheel.
What the hell just happened?
He’d kissed Sie; that’s what just happened. Then fought with her.
His lip quirked up as he recalled her shouting at him. That was the Sie he remembered. She was mild most of the time, but piss her off, and she wasn’t afraid to tell you. She always held her own around the band.
