Page 48 of Two Hit Wonder

He nodded slowly. "Alright. Fair enough. Just… be careful. Please. For Mo's sake, if nothing else."

WHEN THEY RETURNED to the rehearsal room, Cam was attempting to teach Ellie some kind of victory dance that involved a lot of hip movement. Ellie was tolerating it with the patient resignation of someone who had been friends with Cam for too long to be surprised by anything.

"Right," Maeve announced. "We need to get on with things, don’t we? Double rehearsals from here on out. Time to buckle down and all that."

"Actually…" Ellie stepped back from Cam's attempted choreography. "I, um, need to take the boys to get new school shoes. They've got massive feet suddenly, I don't know what I'm feeding them."

Iona thought for a second of Mo. Tried to imagine suggesting a shopping trip, the two of them, mother and daughter, looking at clothes or books or anything really. The face Mo would make. The elaborate sigh. The "I'd rather literally die" delivered with maximum teenage contempt. The way she'd find an excuse to stay in her room instead, headphones on, door closed, the distance between them growing wider every day.

They used to be so close. Mo used to want to do everything with her, used to climb into her bed on Sunday mornings and demand pancakes, used to hold her hand in public without embarrassment. Now Iona felt like she was losing her, inch by inch, and she didn't know how to stop it.

Ellie left, Shepherd walking her out.

"You alright?" Maeve had appeared beside her. Iona hadn't heard her approach.

"Fine. Just… thinking."

"Later," Cam said, phone already in her hand, typing away as she left without looking at them.

Maeve's hand closed around Iona's arm. It wasn't a grip, exactly. More like a question. Iona looked up and found Maeve watching her with an expression she couldn't quite read.

"Ellie," Maeve said. "What's going on with her?"

"What do you mean?"

"She's lying. About the shoes. Which is a weird thing to lie about." Maeve's voice was low. "Couldn't you tell? She had the same face she used to make when she lied about her homework. Guilt and defiance, all mixed up. She'd hand in some half-finished thing and swear she'd done it properly, and then the teacher would call her parents."

Iona felt something cool settle in her stomach. She had noticed something, hadn't she? The way Ellie had been lately. Just… not quite Ellie. "I'm sure it's nothing," she said.

"You don't sound sure."

"It's probably…" She cast around for something plausible. Something that would make the worry go away. "An affair? Maybe she's sneaking off to meet someone."

Maeve's eyebrows rose. "Ellie. Sensible, responsible, devoted-to-her-husband Ellie. Having an affair."

Iona puffed out a breath. She had a point. "People surprise you."

"Not like that, they don't."

Iona didn't have a response to that. Maeve was right. Ellie having an affair was about as likely as Cam taking up crochet.

"Something's off," Maeve said. "I don't know what. But something."

They were standing very close. Iona could see the faint down on Maeve’s cheeks. For one wild, breathless second, Iona thought Maeve was going to kiss her. Maeve's gaze dropped to Iona's mouth. Her grip on Iona's arm tightened, just slightly. The air between them felt charged, electric, like the moment before a storm breaks.

Then Cam's voice cut through. "Oi! Someone’s clamped my car."

Maeve stepped back. "Shouldn’t have parked it on a double yellow then," Maeve called back, and her voice was perfectly steady, as if nothing had happened. As if Iona had imagined the whole thing.

Chapter Seventeen

The producer's name was Aria, and she had the kind of energy that made Maeve want to take a nap. Which was inconvenient, because she was supposed to be singing.

"From the top," Aria said, snapping her fingers. "Give me the chorus again. I want to feel it in my teeth."

Maeve exchanged a look with Iona, who just shrugged and adjusted her guitar strap. Easy for her to be relaxed. Iona was good at people. Maeve was good at avoiding them.

They'd been at this for two hours now, in a proper studio that Shepherd had secured. White walls, expensive equipment, the smell of fresh coffee, and someone's attempt at aromatherapy diffusers that wasn't quite masking the underlying tang of bleach. Aria had arrived in a leather jacket and combat boots, taken one look at the four of them, and declared that she could work with this.