Mai
Her chest tightened, her breath caught in her throat, and tears sprang to her eyes. She'd stood in the same room as Ford, and he hadn’t recognised her.
He hadn’t recognised her.
She should be relieved, but it stung that there hadn’t been a trace of recognition in his eyes.
When she’d thrown herself into his arms, goosebumps rippled everywhere he touched her skin, and yet, after all the hours she'd spent in his arms, he didn’t even know it was her.
And that was the whole idea. He wasn’t meant to know it was her.
In fact, it wasn’t her anymore. She wasn’t Sie Harrington.
She was Doctor Maisie Jones.
There was no going back.
Sniffing one final time, she shoved thoughts of Ford out of her head and concentrated on treating the steady stream of people needing first aid.
She handed out water to the dehydrated and put on some Band-Aids.
Hel had been right, these were all things she could do easily despite being a paediatric doctor.
The tent was empty when the music stopped, and Ford started talking into the microphone.
“Thank you so much for your support tonight. We usually finish our show with the next song, but we decided to do something different. We’re going to slow it down for a few songs as, after twenty years, we’re now old men and need a break.”
Ford waited for the ripple of laughter to spread through the audience at his joke, and he didn’t speak again until they quietened back down.
“Seriously, I feel like the luckiest man in the world that a band my three best friends and I formed when we were kids has gone on to become the band you see before you today.”
Mai froze.
He was talking about her.
She jumped when Janine, the nurse working with her, grabbed her arm and tugged, saying, “Let’s go and watch while the tent’s empty.”
Mai’s breath stuttered. It would make it so much harder to leave if she saw him again, but her legs were walking, even as she argued with herself that she shouldn’t.
“Okay,” she said, letting Janine drag her.
“I would love a piece of that lead singer,” Janine cackled, nudging Mai in the ribs.
Mai stared up at Ford on the big screen as he moved. He wore jeans and a singlet, his corded muscles and tattoos on display. He had his leather straps wrapped around his arms, hiding the ink she caught glimpses of earlier.
She was glad he didn’t wear the leather trousers anymore. When they were kids, she hadn’t been able to stop staring at him in them, but when he still wore the same pants at twenty-seven, she would shake her head at the television and suggest he needed some more grown-up trousers.
Not that she had too much time over the years to watch television. While he was on talk shows and playing in eighty-thousand-seat venues, she was studying and working eighty-hour weeks.
Her breath caught.
He had just been handed her guitar. The one she left behind all those years ago.
Tears sprang to her eyes, and one trickled down her cheek. Her hand flew up to mop at it before Janine noticed.
She knew what he was going to play from the first chord.
As their first hit, Summer Days, filled the arena and the crowd sang along, she mouthed the words.
Words that she could still remember singing for him one summer afternoon when they were kids.
It was the song she wrote when she silently longed for Ford.
The song they were working on when they had their first kiss.
Mai jumped when Janine clutched her arm.
“That’s my favourite song!” Janine squealed. “I’m so pleased I got to hear it live.”
“Mine too,” Mai agreed.
“What do you think happened to the girl?” Janine asked.
“Who?” Mai knew exactly who the nurse was talking about, but wasn’t about to say it.
“Sie. She was in the band before Ryan. They were madly in love, her and Ford. Then, poof, one day, she vanished. What do you think happened to her?”
Mai had read so many theories about her whereabouts over the years. Some claimed she was dead. Some that she moved abroad. Some creative ones said she was in witness protection—she didn’t even know if that was a thing in Australia.
“Maybe she just went and lived a normal life out of the spotlight,” Mai suggested.
“Pffffff,” Janine snorted. “Who would trade that?” She waved her hand at the stage, where Ford played Before The Dawn, another song they wrote together. “Who would trade him?” This time, she pointed directly at Ford. “For mundane lives like we have.”
“Me,” Mai whispered too quietly for Janine to catch over the noise of the crowd. “I don’t know,” she said loud enough for the other woman to hear.
When Mai left the concert, her heart wrenched like it had when she left Ford sixteen years ago. To have been so close to him and not able to acknowledge him—and for him not to know her—it broke something inside her.
At home, she stared at her guitar for a long time before she took it in her arms and began to play everything she had ever written with Midnight Thunder. Singing as her heart tore, until her voice was hoarse and her fingers bled.
When she finished, she laid the guitar down and gazed at the wall.
She missed Ford.
She missed music.
She missed performing—not in a stadium, she would never do that again—but she missed the small, intimate crowds.
Mai took a large slurp of coffee as she walked along the corridor to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, sighing with happiness as the caffeine hit her bloodstream.
She wasn’t concentrating on anything but getting to work when she heard a man’s voice call.
“Sie.”
Luckily, she didn’t break stride and kept walking to the door through which she worked, ignoring Donnie, who sat on a chair where relatives usually waited.
“Maisie,” he tried again.
This time, she was forced to stop as he used the name which was prominently written on her work badge.
She turned to face him, a puzzled expression on her face.
“Can I help you?” Mai maintained her neutral tone, even as her heart hammered wildly.
Donnie didn’t say anything as he stood up. He stepped forward, his shrewd eyes examining her face.
Mai fought the urge to shift under his scrutiny and maintained a bland look on her face as if she were confused about why a man she had only met once would be at her work.
“It’s been a long time,” Donnie finally growled.
She didn’t pretend she didn’t recognise him. That would be stupid.
“The concert was only on Saturday night. Two days ago.” She shrugged and took another sip of her coffee, not wanting a drink, but needing to hide her face behind her cup for a moment.
“Don’t bullshit me, Sie.” Donnie’s voice was harsh.
Mai controlled the flinch that his angry words caused, and tried to brazen it out.
“Sir. I don’t know who you think I am. But I am not ‘bullshitting you’, as you so eloquently put it. I’ve met you once in my life, at the concert on Saturday. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m late for work.” She turned away from him.
“You left us and became a doctor.” Donnie’s words were quiet now. He sounded so sad.
Mai’s shoulder slumped. She'd expected anger, not sadness. She turned slowly back to him.
“Yes. I’m a doctor,” she said, without addressing his statement about her leaving. “I’m a paediatrician. I work in the Neonatal Unit.” She pointed to the door. “And, like I said, I’m going to be late for work.”
Mai stepped back, but his hand shot out and gripped her arm.
“I’m glad you made a good life for yourself. I’m sorry about your parents. I loved them both.” His voice cracked slightly. “You were broken, and I can understand why you walked away from the band. But I can’t understand why you walked away from him.”
Mai took two deep breaths and finally met his gaze. “I’m sorry. You’ve definitely got me mixed up with someone. I hope you find them.”
She tried to pull out of his grip, but his hand clutched her tighter.
“This is my card.” Donnie held it out.
Mai didn’t move. She wasn’t going to take his card.
He sighed and slipped it into the top pocket of her scrubs. “Phone me anytime. I’m glad to see you’re alive and well. I won’t tell Ford you’re here. If you want to see him, you need to reach out to him.”
Donnie let go of her arm.
Mai walked away without looking back, swiping her ID badge over the door lock and waiting for the automatic doors to swing open.
As it did, she heard Donnie call, “We were your family, Sie. We would have looked after you. We would have supported you.”
When the doors swung closed behind her, she slumped against the wall, breathing deeply.
She thought she outran her past, and suddenly, here it was, sprinting to catch up with her.
“Mai, are you okay?” Miriam, one of the neonatal nurses, called, making her jump.
Straightening, she ran a hand through her blond curls. “Yeah. One of those mornings. You know how it is.” Shrugging, she gave Miriam a shaky smile.
Miriam laughed. “Tell me about it. Why don’t you finish your coffee in the tea room? I’ll tell the juniors you’ll be ten minutes late for the ward round.”
Mai nodded gratefully. “Thanks. I won’t be long. I just need a few minutes.”
“Take as much time as you need. Our little guests are all stable this morning and can wait the extra ten minutes.” Miriam waved and disappeared back into the neonatal intensive care unit.
Maybe she shouldn’t have agreed to go to the concert. On one hand, she was glad she did—hearing their songs live had been incredible.
And Hel’s message that night, containing a photo of her and Frost grinning with an engagement ring held up, made it all worthwhile.
Even if Mai couldn’t have her happily ever after, at least Hel could with the gentle giant hockey player. She liked Frost; he was a good man and a good addition to their pub quiz team, as the facts he knew were so random.
It would have been fine if she hadn’t gone backstage; then Donnie would never have figured out who she was.
Their manager had always been shrewd. It was part of the reason he was so good at his job. He saw things that other people didn’t.
And now he’d seen through the disguise she had worn for sixteen years.
He saw beyond Dr Maisie Jones and saw Sie Harrington, the rock star who vanished.