“Let them in first,” Esther said, shouldering through with a tray of sausage rolls and meat pies. “Phones down until you’ve eaten. That’s a rule.”
“Since when?” Meredith asked, already breaking it. “Oh my God. Look at this.”
Everyone looked as Meredith held up her phone.
On Meredith’s screen, a video played of the song Skye and I sang at the hall.
“It already has five hundred thousand views,” Meredith said, turning the phone back to her, her voice hushed in awe. “Skye and Noah reunite. Is there a reunion tour around the corner?”
“Absolutely not.” Skye laughed, but the stubborn lift of her chin set off warning bells in my gut.
Rosie, in a bright red sweater and a purple corduroy skirt, looked up from her phone. “You’re trending,” she said, sounding both delighted and deeply apologetic. “And before you ask, I did not post it. I don’t have a death wish. The mums’ WhatsApp group did. And then TikTok ate it.”
“What’s TikTok?” Gregory asked.
“A lifestyle,” Rosie said. “And a trap.”
Rosie scrolled the comments. People were beingnice. I had not seen that on the internet in a long time. Things like …the harmonies?!andwho is sheandI didn’t know I needed this, but I didandcome to my wedding and sing this, please, please, please.A blog had already posted a clip calling it “a quiet sledgehammer.”
“Look at this one,” Rosie said, breathless. “‘The song feels like when you get home and your love has a cup of tea waiting for you already.’”
“That’s … nice,” Skye said, accepting the glass of wine Esther gave her and gulping half of it. Her hand shook.
Esther clapped her hands. “Phones down,” she said. She didn’t shout, but everyone heard her anyway. “First, we clap for Wallace. He wasmagnificent,wasn’t he?”
Wallace prowled across the bar, still sporting a snazzytartan bow tie. He accepted a small avalanche of applause with a slow blink and a rude yawn. Meredith, who had sewn his little waistcoat out of an old velvet skirt, wiped her eyes with a napkin.
“Second,” Esther continued, “we clap for Skye. Noah’s used to performing, but it was Skye who brought that song home.”
Skye’s cheeks flushed a bright red, and I clapped the loudest of all. She had been magnificent, and singing with her felt like coming home.
My phone kept buzzing in my pocket, and I noticed several texts from my agent. Ignoring them, because I just wanted to live in the moment, I switched the phone off and accepted a wee dram of whisky from Daniel, who winked at me.
“I know this might be unwanted advice from a newlywed,” Daniel began and I grinned. He was in his late seventies and had married Esther in a whirlwind courtship just months prior. “But it’s rare for love to come around twice. I’d think long and hard about what you’re walking away from when you leave.” He said it as if me leaving was an already understood fact. And he wasn’t wrong. The plan had never been to stay.
I’d just needed a moment of respite.
A calm from the storm.
But my band needed me.
I had responsibilities.
A record contract.
Actually, that might be in the bin with the news about the record company. Which meant, for the first time in years, I might actuallynotbe beholdento anyone.
But myself.
That was a new and interesting thought. Turning it over in my head, I watched as everyone gushed over Skye, and how she fumbled with accepting praise.
“Look at this comment.” Rosie held up her phone. “She sings like she’s telling a story to friends in her kitchen.”
Skye’s eyes softened. “I like that.”
I did too. I liked everything about Skye. The girl she’d been and the woman she’d grown into.
Esther banged a spoon on the edge of a pint glass. “Toast!” she yelled. “Quiet, you lot.”
