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Liam had a space behind his stage that could generously be called a recording studio …

if I was being very generous. The room was wood-paneled and had a drum kit set up in one corner, a piano squashed in next to the door and a selection of guitars on the wall.

It also had miles of cables, microphones and a tiny, tiny recording desk.

‘This is amazing,’ Brooke said, turning in a tight circle in the crowded room.

It smelled like wood and sweat and guitar strings and had no natural light.

I thought it was pretty amazing, too.

‘My church has a recording room like this. It’s a little bigger, though.’

‘Really? What do they record?’

‘Christian rock, mostly. The pastor’s in a band. It’s not good , but that doesn’t stop him collecting donations to make CDs.’

Brooke snorted and walked over to the piano. She pulled up the stool and ran a series of chords, her fingers dancing over the keys.

‘I didn’t know you played piano,’ I said, unable to tear my eyes away from her hands.

‘One of my many extracurricular activities,’ she said. ‘What can you sing?’

‘Very little.’

‘Oh, come on , Jessie,’ she huffed. ‘You can sing. I’ve heard you. We’ve been singing all the way down here.’

‘I can’t sing in public .’

‘Of course you can.’

‘You have far more confidence in me than I have in myself,’ I said, aware that Brooke saw me in a way no one ever had before.

She played another series of chords. ‘“Piano Man”?’

‘Too cliché.’

‘True.’

‘“Jolene”?’ I suggested.

Since she was playing the piano, I went to the wall and picked a Fender acoustic guitar and took a seat on one of the low stools to check its tuning.

I didn’t know how to play much, but picking up an instrument in the church youth band had been a good excuse to get out of the house and away from my mom’s awful choice of boyfriends over the years.

‘And that’s not cliché?’

‘We could do it as a call and response. A duet.’ I took out my phone and pulled up the sheet music, then handed it to Brooke so she could scroll through it.

‘Huh.’ Brooke picked out the tune on the piano. ‘That could work. A two-part harmony.’

‘Yes. Exactly,’ I said, relieved she got where I was going.

We ran ‘Jolene’ – Brooke taking the alto line with me filling in the soprano over the top – and it worked.

I couldn’t qualify exactly how, it just worked.

Brooke had a richness to her voice that I’d never be able to copy, something sexy and a little husky that worked for this song.

She was the narrator, and I, to my utter surprise, was playing Jolene.

‘This sounds ah- mazing .’ Brooke did a little dance on her seat, and I laughed.

‘Next?’

‘What about …’ Brooke said, and played an introduction I recognized.

‘“Candle in the Wind”?’

‘Yeah. I think we could do some fun harmonies with it again.’

‘Like a modern spin?’

‘No … no. I hate those breathy, nasally little-girl singers. Belt it, like Ms Russo is always telling us to.’

‘Sing from your stomach! From your guts!’ I laughed.

‘I don’t think anyone has ever wanted to hear anyone sing anything from their guts,’ Brooke drawled, and I leaned back, still laughing.

Brooke played most of the first verse without stopping, and my mouth dropped open as her fingers flew over the keys.

‘You, like, know that,’ I said.

She shrugged, and kept playing. ‘I always loved this melody.’

I wanted to ask her to elaborate. It was such a sad song, about a woman who had been one thing to the world and something completely different behind closed doors.

The more I thought about it, the more I saw how Brooke could relate – the Norma Jeane she wanted to be versus the Marilyn Monroe people viewed her as.

The Marilyn her parents forced her to be.

I’d been one of those people, seeing just the Marilyn. There was no point in denying I’d had a crush on Brooke since forever, but I liked all those superficial things about her: her smile, her laugh, her gorgeous hair, her classic-yet-modern clothes that underlined how beautiful she was.

But I’d been too shy to really get to know her, and that was on me.

Brooke had to know she was popular – she was always getting asked out, and I’d often heard people gossiping about her.

Brooke and Kendall and Madison. I’d never wanted what they had.

God knew, I would never have coped under that amount of scrutiny.

Yet it had never occurred to me that Brooke wasn’t coping, either.

I pulled up the lyrics on my phone.

‘Let’s try it,’ I said.

After an hour of rehearsing and trying out new songs, Liam stuck his head around the door.

‘Everything okay?’

Brooke smiled at him, and I felt another stab of jealousy. ‘Yeah. Really good.’

‘Don’t play “Graceland”,’ he said, and Brooke’s fingers stilled on the keys, where she’d been working out the melody.

‘Why not?’ she asked with a huff.

‘One of the regulars always plays that. Damien won’t mind, but doubles of the same song aren’t a good idea.’

Brooke sulked.

‘Sorry,’ he said with a laugh. ‘You want drinks or anything? Water?’

‘I’d love a water, actually.’ I forced myself to stand up and step out of my comfort zone. ‘I can come get them.’

‘I can come too,’ Brooke said quickly, and I shot her a smile, hopefully communicating that I was okay. I could do this.

‘It’s all right,’ I said, and followed Liam back down to the bar.

He had dark hair and eyes and didn’t smile quite as easily as Damien. But he was cool, and he didn’t seem to have ulterior motives. He went behind the bar and took two bottles of water from a fridge.

‘Oh, no charge,’ he said when I pulled out a couple of bills from my pocket.

‘Are you sure? Thanks,’ I said, stuffing the money into the tip jar instead.

‘You guys sound good, by the way,’ he said as I twisted the top on one of the bottles.

‘Yeah?’ I asked, surprised.

‘Yeah.’ He gave me a small smile. ‘Don’t know if a couple out-of-towners will win at an open mic night, but I’d have you play here, if you ever wanted to.’

I felt something swoosh in my stomach – one of those I can’t believe this is happening to me moments. But in a good way. Which I was really not used to.

‘I’m not sure how long we’ll be in the city,’ I said with real regret.

‘You’re just passing through?’

‘Yeah. It depends on how long we get caught here for, though.’

Liam smiled. ‘I arrived here six years ago. Was supposed to stay for a week.’

‘I don’t think we can stay here for six years,’ I said, allowing myself a moment to let the daydream turn from something wispy and distant to an almost-real possibility. ‘Even though I’d like that.’

‘Well, let me know if you want to sing one night. Like I said, you’re welcome any time.’

The corridor back to the rehearsal room was dark, and I suddenly realized I’d left Brooke alone and that really wasn’t okay. It stank of beer back here, sour and sweet at the same time, but the sound of her playing the piano drifted to me after a few seconds. I walked quicker, anyway.

She looked up with real relief when I closed the door behind myself.

‘I almost came after you,’ she joked.

‘Sorry. Liam said we could play here one night, if we want,’ I said, handing over her water.

‘Really? Wow.’

‘Yeah. He doesn’t seem like a creep, either, which is a bonus.’

‘God knows we’ve had enough creeps on this trip,’ she said.

‘Tell me about it.’

It took far more messing around on the piano for us to figure out what the third song in our set should be, and then work out the harmonies. By the time we were done, my stomach was growling – we’d missed lunch and it was almost dinnertime.

‘Once more,’ Brooke said, and I flopped back on the floor, groaning.

‘I can’t. I need to rest my voice.’

‘Hum it, then.’

Liam knocked on the open door and I sat up.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he said. ‘I need this room in about twenty minutes.’

I shook my head. ‘No problem. We’re just leaving.’

‘Once we run this one more time,’ Brooke said sweetly.

Liam laughed. ‘I could hear you arguing all the way down the hall.’ He leaned in the doorway and folded his arms. ‘Do you sing together often?’

‘We’re in a choir together, but we don’t usually duet,’ Brooke said.

‘This is all her idea,’ I said darkly, and Liam laughed again.

‘If you want something to eat, you should try Music City Burgers across the street. Tell them Liam sent you. Best fried pickles in Nashville.’

‘We should do that.’ I gave Brooke my best pleading eyes, and she stood up with a sigh.

‘Okay.’ She nodded. ‘Thanks again for letting us use the space.’

‘Good luck tonight.’

We went to Music City Burgers and Liam was right: their fried pickles were excellent. The food didn’t calm the knot in my stomach, though.

‘You look like you might actually murder someone this time,’ Brooke said lightly, dragging one of her French fries through a puddle of ketchup.

The accusation, and the rich red of the ketchup, forced me back to a place I really didn’t want to revisit right now.

‘Jessie?’ Brooke asked, clearly worried by my sudden shift in mood.

I shook my head. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yeah.’ I reached out and stole one of her fries. ‘I’m good.’

‘Are you ready for later?’

‘No,’ I said, forcing myself to give her a smile instead of lingering on the intense flashback that was still threatening to smash through my defenses.

‘It’s only three songs, Jessie. You can do three songs.’

We’d found an acoustic duet version of ‘Thunder Road’ on YouTube, and I thought it was almost better than the album version – and we’d listened to the album plenty over the past couple of weeks.

‘Do you think they’ll put a bucket next to the stage for me, in case I need to puke?’ I said lightly.

Brooke laughed and kicked me gently under the table. ‘You won’t puke.’

I pushed my plate away, not wanting to look at the food anymore now that I was feeling sick from thinking about being on stage.

Brooke caught my eyes and smirked, like she knew what was going through my head. She probably did. She knew me better than anyone.