Page 39 of Two Hit Wonder

It wasn't the old days. She wasn't nineteen anymore, reckless and thirsty and certain that nothing could touch her. She was thirty-four and sober and terrified. Iona had a daughter. Maeve had fifteen years of wreckage behind her.

Things had changed.

She stepped off the stage and headed for the exit, letting the cold air clear her head.

The show had been good. Better than good. For three songs, she'd remembered who she was. For one moment, holding Iona, she'd felt something crack open in her chest, something she'd kept carefully sealed.

And then reality had come crashing back in, as it always did.

She was still sitting there when Iona found her ten minutes later.

"Mo's fine," Iona said, dropping onto the bench beside her. "Just wanted to complain about being stuck at her dad's. Apparently Shepherd's idea of dinner was reheated curry and she wanted pizza."

"Sounds rough."

Iona sighed. "The show was incredible. You were incredible."

Maeve didn't answer. The whiskey smell was gone now, replaced by rain and car exhaust and Iona's coconut shampoo. But she could still feel it, a memory lodged in her sinuses, a warning.

"Maeve?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

"Then don't look at me."

It came out sharper than she meant. Iona didn't flinch, just sat there, patient and steady, that infuriating sunshine warmth radiating off her even in the Manchester drizzle.

"We were good up there," Iona said finally. "All of us. Together."

"I know."

"We could do this. The album. The come back. Whatever. All of it. We could actually do this."

"One thing at a time," Maeve said. She stood up, brushing raindrops off her sleeves. "We did one show. That's all. Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

Iona looked up at her. In the dim light from the pub windows, her eyes were very blue.

"Okay," she said. "One thing at a time."

But her smile said she knew something Maeve was trying very hard not to admit.

And Maeve turned away before Iona could see that she knew it too.

Chapter Fourteen

The rehearsal space still looked suspiciously like a cold crime scene, but today Iona didn't mind. Something had shifted after Manchester. Not that anyone was talking about it. God forbid they actually address whatever was crackling in the air between them all like static electricity before a storm.

Instead, Maeve was being pleasant.

Which was, in a way, worse.

Or at least novel to deal with.

"Your B string's sharp," Maeve said, and then added, "I think," as if she wasn't entirely certain of her own expertise.

Iona stared at her. She didn’t think she’d ever heard Maeve qualify a musical observation. The woman had once told a Grammy-winning producer that his mix sounded like "a cat being drowned in a blender" with absolute confidence. She'd reduced a sound engineer to actual tears at a festival by describing his work as "competently mediocre."