My phone rings at ten in the morning, when I’m at work. I jam the needle I’m using into a pincushion, drop it, curse, pick it up, jam it in harder, finally answer it.

“Ten thousand quid,” Liam says.

I’m stunned into silence.

“Mostly for the wall, as I understand it,” he goes on, sounding almost giddy. “He did plenty of whinging in the witness booth, but there was quite a lot of confusion and I had a black eye as well, and besides the judge thought that a hundred thousand quid was absolutely outrageous...”

He keeps talking, unable to stop, and I lean back in my chair.

Ten thousand pounds.

It’s not nothing. It’s a whole fuckton of money, sure, but it’s not the same size fuckton as a hundred thousand would be. Ten thousand pounds is an amount I can wrap my head around, an amount that will actually seem to dwindle over time as Liam pays it off.

Someday, it’ll be gone. A hundred thousand seems impossible to finish paying.

“You were right,” Liam says suddenly, and I laugh.

“Say it again.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

“You were right. I should have just told them, particularly because Gavin saved my arse. Happy?”

“It could use some practice.”

“You’re impossible,” he teases.

“You’d hate it if I weren’t.”

There’s an announcement on his end of the line, and Liam goes quiet, listening.

“That’s me,” he finally says. “See you in a few hours.”

I nearly say it again, I love you, but I stop myself. It feels silly, but I don’t want the first time to be over the phone.

“Hurry home,” I tell him instead.

* * *

“You’re nervous,” I say.

“I’m not.”

Liam cracks his knuckles again, for what feels like the hundredth time in five minutes. We’re in the Troubadour’s tiny backstage area, which isn’t much more than a hall with a few chairs scattered around.

The venue itself isn’t a whole lot bigger, but it’s stuffed to the gills, the crowd spilling out onto Santa Monica Boulevard. Sometime earlier today word got out that Dirtshine was playing new songs as a ‘secret’ show, and ever since it’s been pandemonium.

Less reported is the fact that they’ll be playing with their original drummer, but I think Liam’s glad about that. He’d rather pretend that this is a perfectly natural progression after a long hiatus, not a stroke of earth-shatteringly good luck.

“Then stop cracking your knuckles.”

He makes a face at me.

“I don’t want to,” he says. “I just like cracking them sometimes, all right?”

I can’t help but laugh, and then he laughs as well, shaking his head and stuffing his hands in his back pockets so he stops fidgeting. We drove straight here from the airport, so he’s coming off an eleven-hour flight to play his first show with his band in two years. Of course he has nerves.

“Maybe I’m a touch nervous,” he says.

“What the fuck for, mate?” Gavin shouts, coming up behind him. He grabs Liam by both shoulders and shakes him, practically tackling him in a rowdy half-hug that nearly takes out a chair.

“Fuck off, you’ll break my hand before we even started and then you’ll be really bolloxed.”

Gavin points at me, grinning.

“Frankie looks like she could play the drums. It’s not like it’s hard, you can get some sticks and whack them on the round thing. Don’t even have to count above four.”

“That’s why I’m back here, is it? Because any arsehole in off the street can drum for you lot?”

“Hey!” I protest.

“Jesus, Liam, ruining this already, are you?” Gavin asks, laughing.

He’s clearly in a great mood, laughing and shouting, and I’ve got a feeling that it has to do with Liam being back and being sober.

“It’s all right, she’s quite forgiving,” Liam says, winking at me.

“Not with that attitude I won’t be,” I tease back.

“You ready, though?” Gavin asks. “I’ve got to go find Darcy and Trent, last I saw them Trent was pacing back and forth in the back alley and Darcy was nowhere to be found.”

Liam just laughs.

“That means she’s hiding in the bathroom, trying to tell herself that no one’s come to the show, so she won’t have to actually play in front of anyone,” he says. “I was hoping that’d stopped by now.”

“Of course not, you’re all three a couple of loony basket cases before a show,” Gavin says.

“And you’re mad as a hatter, fucking split your face grinning like that,” Liam fires back. “Don’t tell me I kept my nose clean all this time only for you to be doing lines without me.”

The longer they talk, the thicker their accents are getting, and I think I might be getting a bit lost. It happens if they’re on the phone with each other, too. A few more minutes and I’ll need subtitles.

“That’s not even funny,” Gavin says, still grinning. “Fucking thing to joke about, sobriety.”

Liam grins as well.

“As if you’d ever be that far gone,” he says. “This from the man who thought it was hilarious when I suggested he bring a pillow on stage after he nodded out up there once.”

He looks over at me, like he’s trying to include me in the conversation, even though I’m still catching up.

“That did happen,” Liam goes on. “I may be a fucking degenerate, but I wasn’t the only degenerate.”

“What did happen?”

“This bloke shot up before a show and nodded out in the middle of a song,” Liam says, half-grinning.

“He’s smiling because he always likes not being the biggest cock-up,” Gavin tells me.

“Only because I usually am. Lovely to have a change once in a while.”

A guy wearing black pokes his head around a corner, and Gavin and Liam both straighten up and look at him. I nearly laugh out loud, because in a few respects they’re so similar sometimes: the same body language, the same look on their face like someone caught them fucking around.

And in that moment, I’m suddenly even happier for Liam: I knew he missed Gavin, but he didn’t talk about it that much. I never realized how badly he missed his best friend.

“Five minutes?” the guy says, holding up five fingers.

“Cheers,” says Gavin.

The guy disappears, but before either man can say anything, I hear the sound of heels running down the hall, and then Marisol appears in a blouse and pencil skirt.

“Hi!” she says, breathlessly, coming up to Gavin and giving him a kiss. “Made it.”

He settles one hand on her shoulder, fingers in her dark hair.

“How was work?”

She laughs and shrugs, still a little breathless.

“You know how it is,” she says. “I’m always there half an hour later than I’m hoping to be, and traffic is always fifteen minutes worse.”

“You could always learn to get organized and manage your time,” Gavin teases her, and she rolls her eyes, smiling.

“Right, that’s her problem,” Liam says. “Marisol, just get organized, why don’t you?”

“Screw you both, I’m getting changed,” she teases, and points at a door. “That one?”

Gavin points to the next door over.

“That one.”

Marisol disappears. Gavin and Liam look at each other.

“I’ll go get Trent?” Liam says.

“I’ll go pull Darcy from the ladies’ room,” Gavin says, then steps in, one hand clapped on Liam’s shoulder. “You ready for this, brother?”

Liam just laughs.

“I was born ready,” he says.

* * *

The next few minutes are pandemonium, even at a show this small. Or maybe especially because the show is this small. It’s not like I’ve ever been backstage at a rock concert before.

Liam gives me a quick kiss, then hurries off somewhere. A minute later, Marisol comes out of the room — I think it was a broom closet? — Wearing ripped skinny jeans and a worn t-shirt, her hair up in a knot.

“Oh God, that’s so much better,” she says to me. “I swear, I feel like I’m stuffed into a sausage casing by the end of every day.”

“I’d offer advice, but I know for an actual fact that pencil skirts were designed as an instrument of torture,” I laugh. “You can look it up.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” she says. “Did anyone say where we’re supposed to be, or did they run off in every direction like usual?”

“The second thing.”

Marisol shrugs. She doesn’t seem like she’s particularly bothered by any of this, and I’m sort of glad that at least there’s someone else around here who knows what they’re doing, because I sure don’t.

“Let’s just wander until we’re told to stop,” she says. “That’s my usual move. Turns out no one is actually in charge back here, and the band is always too nervous or whatever to care what I’m doing. Or, what we’re doing, I guess. Usually it’s just me looking sort of lost.”

I point in the direction of the stage.

“Want to try that one?” I ask.

“Seems promising,” she says, heading toward the hall. “How’s The Spinster’s Panorama going?”