Page 49 of Two Hit Wonder

Whatever that meant.

Shepherd had worked with her before, adored her, and, as far as Maeve could tell, wasn’t sleeping with her, which was generally a good thing in the music industry. Keep bodies out of it. Make it about the music. The woman had produced three platinum albums in the last five years. She'd also produced a documentary about urban beekeeping, which Cam had found hilarious and wouldn't stop mentioning.

"Ready?" Cam called from behind the drums, already bouncing with barely contained energy.

Ellie nodded from the bass position. She looked tired today, but she always looked tired lately, except whenever anyone asked if she was alright, she just smiled and said she'd been staying up too late binge-watching something.

Maeve had stopped asking about it. She still thought something was going on, though. Ellie was the quiet one, the sensible one. But then it was always the quiet ones, wasn’t it? She wasn’t like Iona, she didn’t think Ellie was having an affair. On the other hand, was Ellie a serial killer? How the hell would Maeve know? It had been fifteen years. Maybe Ellie had taken up new hobbies.

"Let’s go," Aria said.

They played. The song was one they'd built together over the past weeks, piece by piece, argument by argument. Maeve had brought the bones of it, a melody she'd been carrying around for years without knowing what to do with. Iona had suggested the key change. Cam had added that ridiculous fill that somehow worked. Ellie had grounded the whole thing with a bass line that felt like a heartbeat.

It wasn't perfect. But it almost was.

Maeve let herself sink into the music, the way she always did when things were going right. Her voice found the notes without her having to think about them. Iona's guitar wove around the melody, answering it, challenging it, making it better. Behind them, Cam and Ellie held down the rhythm like they'd been doing it their whole lives.

Because they had, Maeve supposed. That was the thing about playing with people who knew you. They could predict where you were going before you got there.

When they finished, Aria didn't say anything. She just stood there, arms crossed, head tilted to one side like she was listening to something none of them could hear. The silence stretched. Maeve found herself holding her breath, which was ridiculous. She'd performed in front of thousands of people. She'd had record executives tell her to her face that she was talented but too difficult to work with. She'd heard the word "no" so many times it had lost all meaning.

One producer's opinion shouldn't matter this much.

"Well?" Shepherd asked from the corner. He'd been pretending to answer emails on his phone for the past hour, but Maeve had seen him watching. His thumb had been hovering over the same spot on the screen for at least ten minutes.

Aria grinned. "I think we've got something."

The studio erupted. Cam whooped and threw her drumsticks in the air, then scrambled to catch them before they hit the very expensive mixing console. Ellie actually smiled, which felt like a small miracle these days. Iona set down her guitar with the careful reverence she always showed her instruments and turned to Maeve, her whole face lit up with something that made Maeve's chest feel too small.

"We did it," Iona said.

"Don't get ahead of yourself. She said we've got something. That's not the same as actually having something."

"Can you just accept that something good happened? For once? Just this once?"

Maeve opened her mouth to argue, but Iona was already hugging her.

It was brief. A few seconds, maybe. Iona's arms around her waist, her cheek pressed against Maeve's shoulder because of the height difference, the smell of her shampoo. Then it was over.

Except this was the third time now. Manchester, after they'd nailed the gig. The rehearsal room, when the song had finally clicked. And now this.

It was becoming a habit.

Maeve stepped back, putting a careful distance between them. She should stop this. She shouldn’t even think about it. After so long, there was no way Iona would be interested. Not after everything that happened. Not after Maeve had destroyed everything they'd built and slunk off to Scotland to lick her wounds.

Iona didn't seem to notice the distance, already turning to hug Cam, who was still bouncing around like an over-caffeinated golden retriever.

A habit, Maeve thought. Habits were dangerous. Habits led to expectations. Expectations led to disappointment. She'd learned that lesson the hard way, years ago, when she'd expected the whiskey to make everything better and it had made everything spectacularly worse instead.

She watched Iona congratulate Ellie, watched her laugh at something Aria said, watched her move through the room like she belonged there. Like she belonged everywhere. Iona had that gift. The ability to walk into any space and make it feel like home. Maeve had never understood how she did it. Maeve walked into spaces and made them feel like everyone should probably leave.

The kiss had been fifteen years ago. A lifetime. Half a lifetime, technically, which Maeve tried not to think about too hard because that meant she was getting properly old. Iona probably didn't even remember it. Why would she? It had been so brief, so fleeting, one moment out of thousands. One thing that Maeve had carried around like a bruise she kept pressing to see if it still hurt.

Which it did. It always did.

Besides, Iona had never come looking for her. Not once in fifteen years. Not a phone call, not an email, not even a message through a mutual friend. Maeve had made herself easy to find, relatively speaking. She'd stayed in one place. Written songs with her real name attached. Anyone with Google and five minutes could have tracked her down.

But Iona hadn't looked.