Page 45 of Two Hit Wonder

"You don't. Not really. You just reach a point where you stop fiddling with it."

Mo considered this. "That sounds frustrating."

"It is."

"Then why do it?"

Because the alternative is worse, Maeve thought. Because the songs come whether you want them to or not, and if you don't let them out they eat you from the inside. Because sometimes it's the only way to make sense of things that don't make sense. "Because it's better than not doing it," she said instead.

Mo nodded, slowly, like she was filing this information away. "Cool."

That was apparently the end of the conversation. Mo pulled out her phone again and started scrolling. But there was something different in her posture. Something slightly less hostile. Maeve caught herself almost smiling and stopped immediately.

Cam, who had apparently been watching this entire exchange, sat up in her chair. "Oh. My. God."

"What?" Maeve said.

"I think she likes you."

Maeve rolled her eyes. "She does not."

"She definitely does. That's the most words she's voluntarily spoken to anyone who isn't her mum in weeks."

"Cam," Iona said, a warning in her voice, but Mo had put her headphones back in.

"I'm just saying. Mo actively sought out Maeve for a conversation about art. That's unprecedented. That's historic. I should be taking pictures."

Mo didn't look up from her phone.

Then Maeve looked at Iona.

Iona was watching Mo with an expression that made something twist in Maeve's chest. It wasn't just love, though there was plenty of that. It was worry and hope and fierce protectiveness, all tangled together. It was the face of someone whose entire world was contained in another person.

Mo was the most important thing in Iona's life. The most precious thing. That was obvious, had always been obvious, but Maeve had never really thought about what it meant until now.

It meant that whatever Maeve felt about Iona, whatever was stirring between them, Mo came first. Would always come first. And that should probably scare Maeve or annoy her, or make her want to run. But instead she found herself looking at Mo differently. Seeing not just the sullen teenager but the kid underneath. The one asking questions about songwriting because she actually wanted to know.

The kid who, for whatever reason, had decided Maeve was worth talking to.

"Right," Ellie said, standing up with visible effort. "Should we actually rehearse? Or are we just going to sit here until we dissolve?"

"It's so hot," Cam groaned. "My drums are going to warp. My sticks are going to melt. I'm going to melt. They'll find me in a puddle and no one will ever know I was once a person with dreams."

"You're being dramatic."

"I'm being accurate. This is how I die. In a rehearsal space that smells like feet and dead people."

"It doesn't smell that bad," Ellie said.

"It smells exactly that bad. Maeve, back me up."

Maeve considered the air quality. "It's not great."

"See? Even the grumpy recluse agrees with me."

"I'm sure we can manage one run-through before anyone melts," Ellie said patiently.

"I'm really not sure we can."