Turning to Stone (Heart of Stone: Book 2)

Chapter 22: Afterparty

Chapter 22: Afterparty

There was a brief interval before Ed took to the stage to close the show with his performance, and we scored a few minutes of privacy as everyone milled about.

"You okay?" he asked me, wariness lining his words.

I pressed my lips together and nodded. It was just a stupid song. I'd dug my own grave by refusing to listen to it over the past few months. Maybe I could have desensitised myself through overexposure, then this wouldn't be so hard.

Ed lowered his voice and leaned closer until his shoulder knocked against mine. "You okay about the kiss?"

"We agreed, didn't we?"

"Yeah, but I mean... I didn't think the third win would be for that song. And when I realised, I thought it would be even worse if I didn't kiss you. Like you might think I'd changed my mind because the song reminded me of what happened."

I wanted to argue, to put up a wall of defences, as if that would stop any more hurt from filtering through. With Ed about to perform in front of millions of people, though, I couldn't risk upsetting him. It wasn't fair.

"It's all good." I slid my hand across to briefly squeeze his thigh.

With a strained smile, he turned to face forwards again. We could both insist we'd moved on since the shit show of spring, but with a song immortalising the pain we'd each suffered, we would never be able to pretend it hadn't happened.

*

So maybe I could understand a little bit why this song had proved so popular. With minimal backing music, Ed's beautiful voice captured your attention, drew you in, consumed you, until you could do nothing but absorb the words spilling from his mouth.

Too bad that I fucking hated the words.

"I gave you my heart, then you left me in the dark... I guess we never were really friends."

At least I didn't have to worry about cameras. Not that it would have mattered. As I sat there, eyes focused on the guy who'd broken my heart as he sang about the girl who'd broken his, my emotions numbed. I'd built this up so much in my head that it couldn't have been any worse than my imagination.

And yet the words were clever. I'd thought that the first time round, too. For most people listening, the lyrics would be taken at face value. For me, I knew that when he sang about being left in the dark, he wasn't just referring to my secrecy: he was referring to the first time we'd had sex, when I tried to sneak out in the middle of the night.

"We danced under the stars, with nothing around us but cars, but now all that's left between us is scars."

Dancing under the stars was our night on the rooftop bar, with traffic blaring beneath our feet. And yes, there were many emotional scars, but physical ones, too. During a particularly rough session between the sheets, my nails had marked him with scratches down his back, and his dominant grip on my wrists, hips, and waist had left mild bruises. We'd laughed about it at the time, saying it was a good job he'd already done his shoot earlier that day because otherwise the photographer would have had a shock.

That was some of the best sex I'd ever had. Hearing it referenced in this song didn't change that, but the way it was referenced—suggesting that the only good thing from our relationship had been the sex—stung.

When Ed told everyone that he'd used artistic licence, I had to believe it. The alternative—that these lyrics represented how he'd really felt—was too much to bear.