Chapter Thirty-Five
Backstage was still bedlam. Iona could feel the music in her chest. Actually, she could feel a lot of things in her chest. And she could feel Maeve’s lips on hers, the faint memory of it making her blood pound.
Someone shoved a bottle of water into her hand. Someone else was crying. Cam was doing some sort of victory dance that looked like she might be having a medical episode, and Ellie was wrapped up in Jake's arms so tightly that Iona wondered if she'd ever let go.
Ellie's kids were there too, all looking vaguely traumatized by the fact that their mother had just played to forty thousand people and also that two of their mother’s oldest friends had just made out on stage.
Matt, who was twelve, kept making exaggerated gagging noises until Jake reached over and flicked his ear.
"That was incredible," Jake said over Ellie's shoulder. His eyes were wet. "You were incredible."
Ellie just held on tighter.
Cam appeared at Iona's elbow, phone in hand, grinning like a shark who'd just found a particularly slow swimmer. "You have to see this."
"See what?"
"Elijah's article went live the second we hit the stage. Automatically scheduled, the absolute moron." Cam turned the phone so Iona could see the screen. "Look at the headline."
Iona squinted. "'Stage Girls Reunion Implodes at Lakeside: Sources Say Band Finished Before Final Song.'"
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Cam's smile was the smile of someone who was savoring every moment of her revenge.
"Except we didn't implode. We triumphed.
And now every music journalist in the country is retweeting his article with laughing emojis.
His editor's already put out a statement distancing the publication from his 'unverified reporting.
'" She made air quotes with her free hand.
"He's finished. Completely and utterly finished. "
"Cam…" Iona didn't know whether to be impressed or concerned. "You’re a dangerous lady, do you know that?"
"Me?" Cam pressed a hand to her chest in mock offense. "I simply told him what he wanted to hear. It's not my fault he was too stupid to verify his sources." She glanced at her phone again and cackled. "Oh, someone's made a meme. Hold on, I need to screenshot this for posterity."
She disappeared back into the chaos, still cackling.
Iona stood there for a moment, water bottle in hand, trying to process everything that had just happened. The set. The song. The kiss.
The kiss.
Forty thousand people had watched her kiss Maeve MacDonnell. It would be all over the internet by now. Probably already trending. Her mother was going to have opinions about this. Mo was going to have opinions about this. Everyone was going to have opinions about this.
She didn't care.
"Iona."
She turned. Shepherd was standing there, looking slightly rumpled in a way he never usually allowed himself to look. His tie was loosened. His hair was mussed. He'd been in the crowd, she realized. Actually in the crowd, not in some VIP section, watching them play.
"Shepherd."
He stepped closer, and for a moment neither of them said anything. They'd been married for years. They'd raised a daughter together, or tried to. They'd been better friends than spouses, in the end, but they'd been good friends.
"That was something," he said finally.
"It was."
"You were brilliant up there. All of you." He paused. "Maeve especially."
Iona felt her chest tighten. "Shepherd…"
"I was wrong about her." He said it simply, without fanfare. "I thought she'd hurt you again. I thought she was still the same person who walked away fifteen years ago. But she's not, is she?"
"No. She's not."
"Good." He reached out and squeezed her shoulder, brief and warm. "Then I'm happy for you. Genuinely. You deserve someone who looks at you the way she does."
"How does she look at me?"
Shepherd smiled, and it was the smile of a man who had made his peace with something. "Like you're the only person in any room you're in. Like you always have been." He squeezed her shoulder once more and let go. "Be happy, Iona. That's all I've ever wanted for you."
He walked away before she could respond, disappearing into the backstage crowd to find Mo.
And then, suddenly, Maeve was there.
She was sweaty and flushed and her hair was a disaster and yet she was undeniably the most beautiful thing Iona had ever seen. She stood there, guitar still strapped across her back, and looked at Iona like she wasn't quite sure any of this was real.
Iona looked back at her and felt something slot into place. Something that had been missing for fifteen years. Something that felt, finally, complete.
???
At first, Maeve had found a quiet corner and called Glinna. It took three rings. Then: "Well?"
"We didn't die."
"I gathered that from the fact that you're calling me and not a paramedic." Glinna's voice was warm and dry. "I watched it online, you know. The whole thing. The kids too. Even Neil, despite the lack of tractors. I’d have had Eejit in, but she poos on the rug."
"You watched it?"
"Of course I watched it. I've been watching you hide from the world for fifteen years. I wasn't going to miss you finally stopping." There was a pause. "Was it worth it?"
Maeve looked across the backstage area, through the chaos and the noise and the crying and the celebrating. Iona was standing by the water station, talking to Cam, laughing at something. Her face was flushed. Her eyes were bright. She looked up and caught Maeve's gaze and smiled, just for her.
"I don't know yet," Maeve said honestly. "But I think so."
"Then you know what you have to do."
Maeve did. She'd known for a while now, really. She just hadn't been brave enough to do it. "Yeah," she said. "I do."
"Good. Now go. Stop calling me and go be happy, you ridiculous woman."
"I love you too, Glinna."
"Pfft." But she could hear the smile in Glinna's voice. "Call me tomorrow. I want details."
Maeve hung up and made her way through the crowd until she reached Iona. Then she stopped, unsure.
"Hey," Iona said.
"Hey." Maeve took a breath. "Can we talk? Somewhere slightly less…"
"Insane?"
"I was going to say loud, but insane works."
They found a spot behind a stack of equipment cases, slightly removed from the worst of the chaos. It wasn't private, exactly, but it was close enough.
"I need to say something," Maeve started.
"You don't have to…"
"I do." Maeve held up a hand. "I know you've forgiven me for the punch.
For running away, for all of it. But I need to say this anyway.
" She met Iona's eyes. "I'm sorry. For everything.
For who I was back then, for the way I hurt you, for the fifteen years I wasted being too afraid to come back.
I'm not that person anymore. I don't want to be that person anymore. "
Iona reached out and took her hand. "I know. That's why I renamed the band."
"What?"
"The Stage Women." Iona smiled. "We're not who we used to be. We're all different. But better, somehow. Don't you think?"
Maeve thought about it. About Cam, who had somehow turned her chaos into cunning. About Ellie, who was facing something terrifying and refusing to face it alone. About Iona, who had spent fifteen years carrying a torch and had finally set it down.
About herself.
"Yeah," she said. "Better."
"So." Iona squeezed her hand. "What now?"
"Don't you know?"
Iona laughed. "I have no idea. I only know one thing."
"What's that?"
Iona took a breath. Her eyes were very blue in the dim backstage light, very serious, very certain. "I love you."
The words hit Maeve somewhere in the center of her chest. She'd waited so long to hear them. Fifteen years. No, longer. Since they were fourteen and stupid and didn't know anything about the world except that they wanted to be in it together.
"I think I’ve been waiting forever to hear that," she muttered. "Maybe longer."
"Well, you should have answered the phone then."
Maeve laughed, joyous and bright. "I'm getting a place in London. My cottage is done, but if we're going to be recording an album, I'm going to need somewhere closer."
"You could stay with me," Iona said.
"I know."
They grinned at each other like idiots. Like teenagers. Like two people who had finally, finally found their way back to each other.
"I love you," Maeve said. The words came out easier than she'd expected. "I've never wanted anyone else. Not really. It was always you."
Iona opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, Mo appeared around the equipment cases, phone in hand, looking like a teenager who had just received the best news of her life.
"Mum! Maeve! Oh my god, guess what."
"What?" Iona said.
"Beau texted me. He saw the set. He said, and I quote, 'your mum is awesome.'" Mo's eyes were shining. "He texted me. Voluntarily. Without me texting first."
Maeve laughed. She couldn't help it. After everything, after the confession and the declarations, this was what mattered to a fourteen-year-old. Of course it was.
"So what are you going to do?" Iona asked.
Mo rolled her eyes with all the world-weary wisdom of someone who had been alive for fourteen entire years.
"Please. Beau had his chance. Besides, there's a new boy who just moved into the flat upstairs.
His name's Oliver and he's got the best taste in music.
" She flipped her hair. "He likes The Stage Women already.
I told him I could get him an autograph. "
"Mo!" Shepherd's voice carried across the chaos. "Come here, I need your help with something."
"Congrats, by the way," Mo said. "You know, the whole kissy thing." Then she waved at them and disappeared, already texting on her phone.
Iona leaned into Maeve's shoulder. Maeve put an arm around her and held on. "The whole kissy thing," she said into Maeve’s shirt, laughing. Then she stopped and looked up. "Do you think this will work out?"
"All what?"
"All of it. The band. The album." She paused. "Us."
Maeve turned to look at her. At this woman she'd loved since she was old enough to know what love meant. At this face she'd dreamed about for fifteen years in a cottage in Scotland, too afraid to reach for what she wanted.
She wasn't afraid anymore.
She lifted Iona's chin with gentle fingers. Kissed her, soft and tender, in the chaos and the noise of everything they'd built together.
"I have no idea," she whispered against Iona's lips. "But won't it be fun to find out?"