Chapter Twenty-Five
Iona made pasta. It wasn't fancy pasta. It was the kind of pasta you made when you hadn't been to the shops in a week and were working with whatever sad vegetables remained in the crisper drawer.
But Maeve was sitting at her kitchen table, wearing one of Iona's oversized cardigans because her own clothes were still somewhere on the bedroom floor, and suddenly the pasta seemed like the best meal Iona had ever cooked.
"You're staring at that courgette like it owes you money," Maeve said.
"I'm deciding whether it's too far gone."
"It's a courgette. It was too far gone the moment it was born."
Iona laughed and chopped it anyway. The kitchen was small and cluttered with even more half-finished craft projects, a stack of magazines she kept meaning to recycle, a fruit bowl that contained exactly one wizened apple and a rubber band of unknown origin.
It wasn't the kind of kitchen you'd see in a magazine.
But Maeve was in it, and that made it feel like exactly the right kitchen.
She caught herself thinking that and immediately told herself to calm down. It had been one night. One very good night, admittedly, but still. She wasn't going to be the person who started planning a future after twelve hours.
Although.
Maeve had found the mugs without being told where they were.
She'd made tea while Iona showered, leaving it on the bathroom counter saying, "Drink this, you look dehydrated.
" She'd complained about the state of Iona's spice rack and then reorganized it alphabetically while Iona watched in bemused silence.
It felt like something. It felt like the beginning of something, anyway.
"Lunch is served," Iona announced, sliding a bowl across the table. "Please note that I'm not a chef and adjust your expectations accordingly."
Maeve examined the pasta. "Is that the courgette?"
"What's left of it."
"Brave." But she took a bite, and her expression softened into something that might have been approval. "Not bad."
"High praise from the woman who once ate a four day old pizza slice off the top of an amp."
"That was years ago. And it was delicious."
They ate in comfortable silence for a while. Iona found herself watching Maeve, the way she hunched over her bowl, the way her hair fell across her face when she leaned forward. The way she looked up and caught Iona staring and raised an eyebrow but didn't tell her to stop.
After lunch, Maeve helped wash up without being asked. She stood at the sink, sleeves pushed up, scrubbing at the pasta pot with more vigor than strictly necessary. And she started humming.
It took Iona a moment to realize it was a song. Not one she recognized. Something new, something still taking shape. The melody was simple, but it hooked into her chest and wouldn't let go.
"What's that?" she asked.
Maeve stopped humming immediately. "Nothing."
"It didn't sound like nothing."
"It's not finished." Maeve attacked the pot with renewed intensity. "It's barely started, actually. Forget I did that."
Iona came up behind her, close enough to feel the warmth of her through the borrowed cardigan. "I liked it."
"You heard four bars."
"They were good bars."
Maeve made a dismissive noise, but she didn't move away. Iona went up on tiptoes and rested her chin on Maeve's shoulder and watched her scrub the already-clean pot for another thirty seconds.
"I'm sorry," Iona said quietly. "Again. About the whiskey thing. I know I already apologized, but I keep thinking about how I made you feel, and I hate it."
Maeve set the pot down. Turned off the tap. Stood very still for a moment.
"It's okay," she said finally.
"It's not, though. You've worked so hard, and I looked at you like you were about to throw it all away. That wasn't fair."
"No. It wasn't." Maeve turned around, leaning back against the sink. Her expression was hard to read. "But here's the thing. I'm always going to be an alcoholic. That's not something that goes away. It's just a question of whether I'm practicing or not."
"Practicing?"
"Like being a Catholic." The corner of Maeve's mouth twitched. "You can lapse, but you never really leave. The guilt follows you everywhere."
Iona laughed, surprised. "Is that how it feels?"
"Sometimes. Mostly it just feels like being very, very tired of thinking about it." Maeve shrugged. "I've made my peace with it. You're going to have to make yours too. I can't spend the rest of my life proving I'm not going to fall apart. At some point, you either trust me or you don't."
The rest of my life. Iona noticed the phrase and tucked it away somewhere warm. "It takes a strong woman to realize her faults and fix them," she said.
Maeve's eyes darkened. "It takes a stronger woman to make a strong woman beg and moan."
The kitchen went very quiet.
"That's a terrible line," Iona said, but her voice had gone rough.
"It worked, though."
"It didn't work."
"Your pupils are dilated."
"That's just the lighting."
Maeve kissed her, and Iona stopped pretending.
REHEARSAL THAT AFTERNOON was a disaster.
The good kind of disaster, where nothing actually went wrong but Iona couldn't concentrate on anything because every time she looked at Maeve she remembered exactly what Maeve's hands had felt like in her kitchen, and on her kitchen counter, and against the kitchen wall.
"Iona." Cam snapped her fingers. "Earth to Iona. You missed your cue. Again."
"Sorry. I was thinking."
"About what? Rainbows and butterflies and the general wonderfulness of existence?"
"About the chord progression."
"Sure you were." Cam grinned, sharp and knowing. "That must be why you've been making eyes at Maeve for the last hour. Very musical, those eyes. Very focused on chord progressions."
"I haven't been making eyes at anyone."
"You've been making eyes. Ellie, back me up. She's been making eyes."
Ellie, seated on her amp and restringing her bass with careful precision, didn't look up. "I haven't noticed anything."
"Ellie."
"I'm very focused on my instrument. I’m deliberately not noticing anything."
"You're the worst liar in this band," Cam said. "And that's saying something because Maeve's here and she once tried to convince a journalist she was actually triplets."
"That was a strategic misdirection," Maeve said flatly. "And it worked."
"It did not work. They printed it. We had to issue a correction."
"They printed a retraction. That's different."
Iona caught Maeve's eye across the room. Maeve's expression didn't change, but something flickered there. Something warm and private that made Iona's stomach flip.
Cam caught the look and groaned. "Oh my god. You two are disgusting. Just so you know. Absolutely disgusting."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Iona said.
"The pining was bad enough. This is worse. This is actively nauseating."
Ellie finally looked up, a small smile playing at her lips. "Cam."
"What?"
"Your phone's buzzing."
It was. Cam's phone, abandoned on top of her drum kit, was lighting up with a string of messages. She grabbed it, and something shifted in her face. Something soft and unguarded that Iona had never seen before.
Ellie watched her an eyebrow raised. "And who's that?"
"No one."
"That's not a no one face. That's a someone face."
"It's not a face. I don't have a face."
"You've been checking your phone compulsively for weeks," Ellie said slowly, and Iona could see the pieces coming together. "And disappearing for calls. And being weirdly secretive about your evenings." She sat up straighter. "All of which means even if I’m trying not to notice things, I’m still noticing things. And what I’m noticing is that you, Cam, are teasing the trousers off Iona and Maeve because you’re a hypocrite. You’re seeing someone, aren’t you? "
Cam's silence was answer enough.
"You are." Ellie sounded satisfied. "Since when? Who is it?"
"It's not… it's complicated." Cam shoved her phone in her pocket. "Elijah isn't ready for things to be public. He wants to keep things quiet for now."
"Mmmhmm," Ellie said. "Well, maybe take it down a notch when you’re teasing these two then, and we might let you have a little privacy of your own."
"Eugh. Fine. That’s fair. I suppose."
Iona laughed. "Looks like we’re all getting settled. That’s not quite how the whole rock band thing is supposed to work."
"Yeah, well, we can always pretend we’re not," Cam said.
Maeve put a hand on Cam’s shoulder. "Be careful out there, eh?"
"Not all men are arseholes," Cam said.
"Just most of them," said Maeve cheerfully.
"Lesbians," Cam said, shaking her head.
"I’m straight as a die and I thoroughly agree with her," said Ellie. "So be careful."
"I'm always careful."
"You once set fire to a hotel room trying to make toast."
"That was one time. And the toaster was defective."
They got back to work. And something clicked.
Maybe it was the lingering warmth from the afternoon, or the way Cam threw herself into the drums like she was trying to forget something, or the way Ellie's bass line wound around Iona's guitar like they'd been playing together for years instead of weeks.
But the song they'd been struggling with suddenly made sense.
The pieces fell into place. It sounded like something real.
When they finished, Shepherd, who'd walked in halfway through, nodded with an expression that might have been approval. "Not bad," he said. "Actually good. I'm cautiously optimistic about Lakeside."
"Cautiously?" Cam demanded. "That's all we get? Cautiously?"
"It's the highest praise I'm capable of. Take what you can get."
After rehearsal, Maeve helped Iona pack up her guitar. Their hands brushed over the case latches and neither of them pulled away.
"I should tell you something," Maeve said.
"That sounds ominous."
"It's not. It's about Mo."
Iona went still. "What about her?"
"Um yesterday, the limo thing. See, the thing is, she texted me. She was having trouble at school. Some girls didn't believe she knew me." Maeve's voice was carefully neutral. "So I picked her up in a stretch limousine and drove past the school gates at four miles an hour while she waved at them."
Iona stared at her.
"It was her idea," Maeve added. "The slow drive. I just provided the vehicle."
"You hired a limo to pick up my daughter from school."
"It seemed like the thing to do."
"To impress some fourteen-year-olds."
"They were being little shits. She was upset."
Iona tried to be annoyed. She really did. But the image of Maeve, grumpy, antisocial Maeve, sitting in the back of a stretch limo while Mo waved regally at her stunned classmates, was too much. She started laughing and couldn't stop.
"It's not funny," Maeve said, but her mouth was twitching.
"It's extremely funny."
"She asked for help. I helped."
Iona kissed her, quick and fierce. "You're ridiculous. You know that, right? Absolutely ridiculous."
"I've been told."
They finished packing in comfortable silence. And Iona thought about Maeve and Mo in that limo, about the way Mo had grinned when she came home, and she hadn’t known it was possible to be any happier than she already had been.