Page 46 of Two Hit Wonder

Iona held up her hand. "Actually, I think we sort of have to."

"Why?" moaned Cam.

"Er, because I talked to Shepherd," said Iona uncertainly. "And, um, he's working on something big. Won't tell me what yet, but he says he's coming to rehearsal tomorrow to talk to us all."

Silence.

"Big how?" Cam asked.

"He wouldn't say."

And then the rehearsal was really shot, because there was no way they were getting any work done when all they could think about was what Shepherd was going to say.

Chapter Sixteen

Shepherd was smiling when he walked in, which was immediately suspicious. Shepherd didn't smile unless he was delivering bad news gently or had secured something worth a genuinely indecent amount of money. Not that Iona would mind an indecent amount of money.

"Ladies," he said, setting his briefcase down with more care than usual. "I have news."

"Good news or bad news?" Cam asked. She was halfway through a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, her drumsticks tucked under one arm.

Shepherd grinned wider. "That rather depends on how you feel about the Lakeside Festival."

The room went very quiet.

Iona felt her heart beat too hard, her stomach shrink, sweat begin to collect. Lakeside was the festival. The one everyone watched, the one that made careers, the one where headliners became legends and support acts became headliners. She'd watched it on television every year since the band had split, eating ice cream and feeling sorry for herself and pretending she didn't miss it. She and Mo made a weekend of it.

"What about Lakeside?" Ellie asked carefully.

"Main stage. Saturday afternoon slot. Just before the evening headliners." Shepherd looked ready to split his own face with pride by now.

Cam slowly put her crisps down.

"You're joking," Iona heard herself say. Did her voice really sound like that?

"I am not." Shepherd's smile widened. "I called in approximately fifteen years' worth of favors, but it's done. The Stage Girls are playing Lakeside."

For a moment, nobody moved. Then Cam let out a shriek that probably violated several noise ordinances and launched herself at Shepherd, who caught her with the practiced ease of a man who had known Cam for two decades.

"Main stage!" Cam was yelling. "Main bloody stage! Shepherd, I could kiss you!"

"Please don't."

Ellie was laughing, actually laughing, her whole face transformed. She hugged Iona, then Cam, then Shepherd, which was so unlike her usual composure that Iona felt tears prick at her eyes.

And then… and then Maeve was there.

Maeve, who hadn’t said a word, Maeve who had to be terrified of all of this, Maeve who had been the one to dream, who had been the one that used to push them. Maeve was there, and her arms were wrapped around Iona, and Iona felt herself being hoisted into the air and spun around and then put down, but the arms were still there, the body was still there, the… the heat was still there.

Heat flooded through her. Her skin felt too tight. Her pulse was doing something ridiculous. She was suddenly, acutely aware of exactly where Maeve's hands were, the pressure of her arms, the faint scent of something clean and green, like rain on grass. The pulsing. Oh god. She’d forgotten her body could do that.

This was not good.

This was, in fact, very bad.

She was not attracted to Maeve. She refused to be attracted to Maeve. She had been attracted to Maeve once, fifteen years ago, and look how that had turned out. Two marriages, neither of them to the right person, and a permanent ache in her chest that she'd learned to ignore.

Carefully, she extricated herself from Maeve, who went on to crush Cam and then Ellie into bear hugs.