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Ashley was all apologies. ‘Sorry, sorry, I know I’m late. Hey, can you put down two comp tickets on the door for Perry Crunt?’

‘Perry Crunt?’ he repeated, horrified.

‘Yeah.’

He opened his phone, noting it down. ‘You know you missed soundcheck? Everyone’s livid,’ he said, tapping away.

‘What?!’ Molly demanded.

But Ashley waved a bye at her without eye contact and took off running, vanishing backstage.

Molly turned to leave, to go back to the bus. But then she stopped. She walked into the currently empty main hall and wandered up to the sound desk, right behind the guy with the iPad.

‘Do you mind?’ Molly asked. ‘I’m Molly, and I’m supposed to…’

He nodded. He’d been briefed.

Sometime later, the crowd filtered in and packed out the giant concrete hall. Then the stage lights came on, bright and purple and hot, and Ashley walked out with the rest of the band.

She didn’t look like the girl who had just been struggling with a sticky library keyboard. She looked different up there, and it wasn’t just the hair and makeup. She slung the heavy guitar over her shoulder, nodded once to Toby behind the drums, and hit the first chord of the opening track. The bass drum was so loud Molly could feel the vibration travelling up through the floorboards and into the soles of her trainers.

Ashley started to sing.

Molly watched her from the dark safety of the sound desk. She was fixed on Ashley. Transfixed, actually. Totally hypnotised. It was the same thing that had happened five years ago in that crap pub, but worse now because she had spent the afternoon touching Ashley’s wrist over a plate of fish and watching her pound the pavement in search of a printer on Molly’s behalf.

And then Ashley looked back at her. She seemed shocked to see Molly next to the desk, but her shock quickly turned into a small smile.

Molly watched Ashley’s hands moving over the neck of the guitar, the quick, certain way her fingers pressed the strings. She knew exactly how those fingers felt against skin. She knew the exact weight of them.

Then came the shimmering synth intro of ‘Half Light’. Molly knew it well. It was the best song off the second album, the only song that sounded even slightly like the songs Ashley used to play.

But that wasn’t why she knew it so intimately.

Ashley stepped up to the microphone, swaying with the upbeat rhythm as her voice soared over the melody:

Glass tower view, room air humming low

Signed another contract just to watch it go

They tell me that I’m winning, tell me I’m a star

Standing in the quiet, wondering where you are

Got a packed-up bag and a midnight flight

Trading everything I have for the stage light

The crowd jumped and sang back every single word in a deafening, joyful swell, two thousand people dancing to a heartbreak song. Molly had listened to that track on repeat, trying to pretend she wasn’t obsessing over every line. She’d never been sure whether Ashley had written it about her or about someone else who came after her. Whether there had been numerous girlfriends who’d fallen behind as Ashley’s star continued to rise.

Take me all the way, take me to the moon

Everything is moving just a little too soon

I got the gold ring, I got the fast track

So why am I begging for a ghost to come back?

I conquered the world just to lose your hand