25. Mai
Mai
She really should have taken the wig off before they started playing, but then the photographer caught her attention, and she was glad she hadn’t.
Even now that they’d stopped, the woman had her camera up to her eye, about to take a photo of her, and Mai said, “Please don’t. I’d rather not have any without the wig.”
The photographer hesitated for a moment, looking across at Donnie, who nodded.
Mai rolled her eyes. It was clear who was in charge in this room, and it wasn’t the band that made millions of dollars a year. Donnie grinned back at her, silently acknowledging the fact that they all knew he ran the show.
“Why don’t we get the picture done now, and then break for some lunch?” Donnie stepped away from the door frame he’d leaned on while they played.
“Ah shit, I shouldn’t have taken the stupid wig off. Give me ten minutes, and I’ll go and put it back on.” Mai grabbed her wig off the microphone stand, but Ford got there first, snatching it up.
“Stand still, I’ll do it.” His voice sent a shiver through her, and she froze as he reached for her, his fingers touching the side of her face as he manoeuvred the dark hair back onto her head.
She wanted to close her eyes and savour his touch, but managed to keep them open and fixed on him.
Holding her breath, she waited until he settled the hair back over hers, then she ducked her head, fighting to stop her pulse from racing when he gently tucked the rest of her hair back up into the wig.
“Thanks,” she muttered, still not looking up. Not wanting Ford to see the desperation in her eyes.
His hands were on her again as he adjusted the wig, his fingers grazing over her cheeks.
Her heart raced. She needed to step away from Ford—she couldn’t concentrate standing this close to him.
Mai asked the photographer, “Where do you want us?”
She moved away from Ford, ignoring the cold that washed over her when he was no longer touching her.
“Right over there. I love the light.” The photographer indicated that they should stand in front of the instruments, the light streaming in through the open door of the shed highlighting them.
Mai stood between Scotty and Ford. The drummer slung his arm around her shoulder, but she heard a quiet growl from Ford, and he pulled it back.
She gazed at Ford, but the singer stared resolutely ahead, not acknowledging the fact that he just growled—again—to stop one of their bandmates from touching her.
Did he hate her that much that the thought of his friends touching her upset him? Then her mind flitted to his gentle fingers as he put the wig on. That didn’t feel like the actions of a man who hated her.
Mai shoved her confusion aside, instead staring down the lens of the camera, channelling Sie Harrington, and the slightly angry look she was known for.
The only photos from her time with the band of her smiling were when she wasn’t looking at the camera; it was when she was staring up at Ford in adoration.
She’d downloaded all of those pictures and kept them in a folder on her computer. She occasionally allowed herself to look through them and remember a time when she was happy. Before she lost her parents, and when Ford occupied her every waking and sleeping moment.
If she were honest, it was the last time she had ever been truly happy. She was fulfilled now; her job was everything she hoped it would be—every day she made a difference in someone’s life.
She loved her tiny house, which was all hers.
She was growing to love her new friends, who, despite all being a little barmy in their own rights, were proving to be incredibly loyal.
And she loved Burra Creek, the funny town in the bush that she never expected to enjoy living in, having chosen the job to stay hidden and away from the big cities.
But true happiness? That was something she lost sixteen years ago when she walked away from the man standing next to her.
“That’s great. Thanks, guys,” the photographer called.
Mai started; in her musing, she’d forgotten they were doing a photoshoot that was going to be shown to the whole world.
Stepping away from the band, she pulled the wig off again, hoping this time she was done with it, as she definitely couldn’t cope with Ford helping her put it on again.
Strolling over to her handbag, she stuffed the wig in, then rifled through it until her hand closed around her pink, sparkly notebook.
Pulling it out, she tugged the pen from the spiral where it always lived and began to quickly scribble down the lyrics that flitted through her head while she thought about being truly happy.
“Are you writing lyrics?”
She started in surprise. Ford stood next to her, his gaze trained on the notebook in her hand.
“Yeah.” She wrote the other two lines that were floating through her head down, then shut the notebook and was about to put it back into her bag when he held his hand out.
“Can I?”
Mai hesitated for a moment, her mind racing through the lyrics she had been jotting down since Midnight Thunder came to town. Her writing had taken a turn to the wistful, thinking about loss and love, but he would have no idea the change in tone corresponded to his arrival.
“Sure.” She hesitantly handed it over.
“You stole my colour.” He examined the front before he opened it.
Mai couldn’t help the grin that crossed her face. “I did.”
She went to the shops one day to buy another black notebook, then saw a pink one—the same as Ford used—and she couldn’t stop her hand from closing around it.
“Have you written the whole time?” Ford asked as he turned to the first page.
“Yeah.” Mai nodded her head. “Not much for a long time, I was too busy. My focus was wholly on medicine, exams and training. But in the last couple of years, I’ve written a lot.”
Some of the things she wrote were only snippets of lyrics that would need a lot of work to transform into songs, a process that used to be so easy with Ford. But there were also so many fully formed songs that just needed the right singer or band to bring them to life.
Ford’s eyebrows drew together as he flipped through the book until he stopped on a page, and his lips moved as he read the lyrics to himself.
Mai shuffled from foot to foot. Why was she nervous? It didn’t matter to her what he thought.
Even as she said that to herself, she knew it was a lie. It mattered to her.
“Play this one for me.” He tapped on the page, then passed the book back and reached down, snatching hold of her hand and tugging her toward the door. “My acoustic guitars are in the house. I need to hear this song.”
Mai didn’t even notice the other four people in the shed. Her whole world had narrowed down to Ford and the hand holding hers. It was something they had done a million times, and then one day, it was the last time she held his hand, before she walked away.
In the years that went by, she never once let herself imagine that she would be standing with him again, let alone touching him.
When he tugged on her hand, she allowed him to lead her, and by the time they reached the front steps of the house, their fingers were entwined.