Page 69 of Doc Rock
Ford laughed and pointed.“Second door on the right.”
“Thanks.”Sie's eyebrows drew down.“Shit, I left my handbag in the shed. I’m blind as a bat without my glasses.”
“It’s by the front door,”Donnie called from the open-plan kitchen as he rifled through the fridge.
Ford chuckled. Their manager was so used to picking up after the band that he did it now without thinking.
“Thanks,” Sie replied.
His eyes didn’t leave her as she walked across the room, retrieved her bag and headed for the bathroom.
It only took her a couple of minutes, and when she came out, he couldn’t help but smile at the image she presented. She was dressed like Sie, had makeup like Sie, but the pink glasses and blonde curls were all Mai, the doctor.
“You wear glasses now?”Joel exclaimed around the sandwich he was stuffing in his mouth.
“Yeah, and my eyes aren’t violet,”she replied.
“What!”Joel put his sandwich down and walked over to Sie, looking into her face, which made Ford’s heart race in a bad way.“Shit. No way! Blue. Scotty, Sie’s eyes are actually blue!”
“What can I say. I was young and didn’tknowthe terrible eye infections you'd catch if you constantly wore contact lenses.”Sie shrugged, grinning ruefully.
“That’s wild. What else don’t weknowabout you?”Joel asked.
Sie said,“My name isn’t really Sie Harrington.”
“We know that,” Scotty interjected. “It’s Maisie Harrington.”
“Nope. It’s Maisie Jones.”She laughed, a sound that Ford wanted tohearevery day for the rest of his life.
“Shit. No way! Is that why we couldn’t find you?”Joel stepped away from her.“You just went by your actual name, and you were gone.”
“Yeah.”Guilt crossed Sie's face.
Ford spoke, not wanting her to start apologising again.“Can you play your song?”
Sie’s blue eyes swung to him, and she nodded.“Sure. Do you mind which guitar I use?”
“No, you can use any of them.”Heknewthe other two would be staring at him in shock. He never let anyone play his guitars—not even his bandmates.
Sie ran her fingers over the neck of two of the guitars before her hand closed around the third. His favourite. The one he’d owned for twenty years and wrote so many songs on with her. Back then, they would pass it back and forth, taking turns to pick out bits of the melody until they’d created a song.
She looked up at him under her lashes and grinned, that eye contact making Ford sure she was sharing the same memories as him. The times they would sit in her bedroom at her parents’ house and play whenever the adults were close to her room, and then when they weren’t, they would be kissing.
She took the guitar and sat on the sofa, propping her notebook on the coffee table. When she began to play the song, youcouldhavehearda pin drop in the living room.
Her voice was crystal clear and vulnerable as she sang the chorus about loss, then soared as the verse promising redemption rang through the house.
When she stopped singing, she blinked and pushed her glasses back up her nose.
The room was silent.
Ford could only stare at her.
Donnie was the first to talk.“Sie, if Ford is staying retired and Midnight Thunder don’t want that song, I alreadyknowwhich of my bands I want it for.”
Ford blurted out before he thought for more than a millisecond,“Midnight Thunder want it. It’ll be perfect for our next album, and a great opener on our next tour.”
Scotty and Joel exchanged looks.“We’re touring again?”
