Page 67 of Two Hit Wonder

If Maeve drank, it would be Iona's fault. Iona had gone to Scotland. Iona had made the pitch. Iona had pulled her back into the lights and the chaos and the bottles of whiskey sitting on dressing room tables, waiting.

Her phone buzzed. Cam, probably wondering where she'd gone.

She turned it off and unlocked the car.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The bottle was Glenfiddich 21. Someone had tied a ribbon around it, pale pink satin with a little bow, like it was a present for a baby shower rather than a liquid time bomb.

Maeve stared at it in the mirror. The fan had been so pleased with herself. Young, maybe twenty-five, with a Stage Girls tattoo on her forearm and tears in her eyes when she'd pressed it into Maeve's hands backstage. "I read an interview where you said this was your favorite," she'd gushed. "From before. I've been saving it for years, waiting for a chance to give it to you."

From before. As if Maeve's drinking years were a charming vintage era rather than a slow-motion car crash.

She should have refused it. Should have said something kind but firm about being sober now, about the gift being thoughtful but impossible to accept. Instead, she'd smiled and taken it because the girl looked so hopeful, and Maeve had never been good at disappointing people to their faces. Only at disappointing them later, spectacularly, when they least expected it. And the girl had looked a little like Iona. There was that, too.

She hadn't opened it. Hadn't even considered opening it. The seal was intact, the ribbon still perfectly tied. It was sitting on the dressing table because she'd put it down to take off her stage makeup and was intending to hand it over to Cam. At least someone should get some enjoyment out of it.

And then Iona had walked in.

Maeve watched it happen in the mirror. The way Iona's face changed when she saw the bottle. The flicker of something that looked like hope dying, replaced by doubt, then fear, then something worse. Something that said: I knew it. I knew this would happen. I knew you couldn't be trusted.

Fifteen years. Fifteen years of sobriety, of meetings and sponsors and white-knuckling through every bad day, of rebuilding herself from the ground up. And one unopened bottle was enough to erase all of it.

Iona didn't say anything. She just picked up her gear and left.

Maeve sat very still for a long moment after the door closed. She could feel her walls going up, brick by brick, the old familiar architecture building itself around her heart. Fine. If that was what Iona thought of her, fine. She'd been an idiot to think things could be different. She'd been an idiot to come to London at all.

Then the door banged open, and Cam burst in, still buzzing from the gig. "Where's Iona? I've got champagne and a guy who wants to interview us for some podcast, he's got like three million listeners, we need to…" She stopped, taking in Maeve's expression. "What happened?"

"Nothing."

"That's not a nothing face. That's a something face. That's a big something face, actually."

Ellie appeared behind Cam, quieter, watchful. "Is Iona still here?"

"I don't know where she is." Maeve stood up, grabbed her jacket. "And I don't care."

"You definitely care," Cam said. "You're doing the thing with your jaw. The clenchy thing."

"I'm leaving."

"Maeve."

"I said I'm leaving."

She pushed past them both and didn't look back. The corridor was still crowded with people, fans and friends and industry types all wanting something from her, but she kept her head down and her shoulders squared and made it to the back exit without anyone stopping her.

Outside, she hailed a taxi, gave the driver her hotel address, and spent the entire ride staring out the window at nothing.

HER PHONE RANG the moment she walked into her room. She checked the screen, expecting Cam or Ellie, but it was Glinna. Of course it was Glinna. The woman had some kind of sixth sense for when Maeve was about to spiral.

"You're calling late," Maeve said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"I had a feeling." Glinna's voice was calm, practical. "The children are finally asleep and Neil’s watching something about tractors. Talk to me."

Maeve opened her mouth to say she was fine, that nothing was wrong, that Glinna should go back to her tractor documentary. But the words wouldn't come. It had been fifteen years, after all, she knew the process better than that, she knew that she had to talk, had to let it out.

"A fan gave me a bottle of whiskey," she said. "I didn't open it. I wasn't going to open it. But Iona saw it, and she looked at me like I was already drunk. Like nothing I've done matters. Like I'm still the same person I was fifteen years ago."