Page 85 of Two Hit Wonder

She picked up her pen. Put it down again. Picked it up. Put it down.

The words wouldn't come. Every time she tried to focus, all she could see was Iona's face. The way she'd looked when Cam said it. The fifteen years of silence in her eyes.

After an hour of staring at nothing, Maeve gave up.

She went outside and sat on the front step of the cottage, looking out at the loch. The sky had finally decided on rain, a fine mist that settled on her hair and face. She didn't bother going back for a jacket.

Eejit appeared from somewhere, trotting across the garden with her usual air of having important sheep business to attend to. Maeve tensed, waiting for teeth.

But the sheep just walked over and stopped beside her. Stood there for a moment, as if considering something. Then, very gently, pushed her woolly head against Maeve's arm.

Not a bite. Not even a nibble. Just a soft, warm nuzzle.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Maeve whispered.

The tears came then, finally, hot and unstoppable. She sat on the step of her cottage with a sheep pressed against her side, and she cried.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The flat was too quiet. Which was ironic, because Mo had been stomping around it for the better part of an hour like a very small, very angry elephant, but somehow the noise only made the silent parts louder.

Maeve was gone.

Not just gone from London. Gone gone. Checked out of the hotel, phone going to voicemail, probably halfway back to Scotland by now to feed that horrible sheep and glare at the loch and pretend the rest of the world had ceased to exist. Which, knowing Maeve, was exactly what she'd do. Retreat. Barricade. Convince herself that she'd been right all along, that getting close to people only led to getting hurt, that fifteen years of isolation had been the smart choice after all.

Iona sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea she'd made forty minutes ago and hadn't touched. It had gone cold. A skin had formed on the surface, which was disgusting, but pouring it out would require standing up and walking to the sink, and she just didn't have it in her. Her whole body felt heavy. Like someone had filled her bones with wet sand while she wasn't looking.

She should have told her about the punch.

The thought kept circling back, a vulture that wouldn't land. She should have told her. Years ago, maybe. Or when Maeve first came back. Or at any point during the weeks when they'd been circling each other, testing the waters, falling back into something that felt terrifyingly like hope.

But when? When exactly was she supposed to have said it? Over breakfast? In the middle of rehearsal? Hey, by the way, remember that night you don't remember? You hit me. Just thought you should know.

What purpose would it have served?

Iona had known, even then, that Maeve hadn't meant it. She'd known that Maeve was drowning, that the alcohol had turned her into someone else, someone desperate and thrashing and lashing out at anything within reach. It had hurt. God, it had hurt. Not just the physical pain, though that had been bad enough, but the look on Maeve's face afterward. The blank confusion. The way she'd stumbled back and then just… left. Without a word. Without even knowing what she'd done.

Iona had carried it for fifteen years because it seemed kinder than making Maeve carry it too.

But she hadn't understood. She hadn't realized how much honesty mattered to Maeve. How the not-knowing was worse than the knowing. How finding out from Cam, in the middle of everything else falling apart, would feel like the final proof that everyone had been lying to her all along.

She'd screwed up. And now Maeve was gone.

Her phone rang.

She stared at it for a moment, heart lurching stupidly, but the name on the screen was Shepherd, not Maeve. Of course it was Shepherd. Maeve wasn't going to call. Maeve was probably busy feeding her stupid sheep.

She answered. "Hey."

"How are you holding up?" Shepherd's voice was careful, the way it got when he was worried but trying not to show it.

"Brilliantly. Never better. Having the time of my life."

"That bad?"

"That bad." She rubbed her eyes. She heard Mo's footsteps thudding from her bedroom to the bathroom and back again, a small thunderstorm of adolescent displeasure. "What's going on?"

Shepherd sighed. "I've just got off the phone with the Lakeside organizers. They're nervous."