Chapter 38: Bonding

Sun rays streamed through the cracks in the floor-to-ceiling blinds. I rolled onto my other side away from the light, snuggling into the warmth of Ed's body. With a sleepy sigh, his fingers slipped into my hair and tangled into the loose strands.

As we cuddled, I replayed last night's events while absentmindedly tracing the dips and ridges of his abs. Had I really blurted out that I loved him? And he hadn't even tried to pretend that he'd not heard me do it.

"I can almost hear the cogs in your head turning." Ed's groggy voice vibrated against my brow and his hand dipped from my hair to my back, drawing me closer.

"Just thinking about last night."

"Mm? Which part?"

My fingers paused their appreciative exploration as I battled with my nerves.

"A lot happened," I said. "Just reflecting on it all."

"I had fun." He kissed the top of my head. "I was actually having some thoughts myself..."

A knot twisted in my stomach, but I tried to stay casual. "Oh yeah?"

"I met your friends last night. As your boyfriend. I'm seeing Aaron and Lacey next week before they fly home for Christmas. You should be here too. As my girlfriend."

He seemed anxious asking. This was unfamiliar territory to him, so maybe it was a big step in his eyes. Or maybe he was thinking about the bad blood between Aaron and me. Spending several hours with him didn't exactly fill me with excitement. Still, this was important to Ed, so I could suck it up for a night. Just like he'd done with my friends.

As for Lacey, I'd not seen her since the night we'd bumped into each other in the corridor downstairs. If she'd forgiven Ed for contemplating a tell-all story, hopefully she'd forgiven me, too.

"Sounds good," I said.

With no warning, Ed pushed me onto my back and rolled on top. His lips found my neck to trace a damp path up to my ear.

"Thank you," he murmured.

I smiled and scraped my nails down his spine, flexing my hips when he shuddered against me.

"Don't thank me yet. You set the bar very high last night."

His mouth curved against my jaw. "And you love a challenge."

*

Aaron arrived first, so early in fact that I hadn't had chance to mentally prepare myself for the inevitable clash.

"It's rude to arrive too far ahead of the invite," I said, stepping aside to let him into the suite regardless. "Ed's still in the shower. You'll have to entertain yourself until he gets out."

Aaron's boyish cheeks dimpled as he grinned at me. "Come on, Soph. He's your boyfriend now. You need to make more of an effort with his best friend."

He strolled past me, shrugging off his jacket and hooking it over one of the hallway pegs. From the casual way he then kicked off his shoes and slotted them into the rack, it was obvious he'd spent a lot of time in this suite.

Would Lacey be the same? Probably. I bet she'd spent even more time than Aaron here.

As I flicked on the kettle, I tried to ignore his hovering presence behind me. Even with half a room between us, his woodsy aftershave choked me, the scent reviving a vivid memory of the kiss we'd shared. Guilt churned in my gut despite everything now being out in the open.

"Want a drink?" I asked.

"I'd love one," he replied. "See? Not too difficult, is it?"

"What's not too difficult?" Ed strolled around the corner with a towel secured low on his hips. My eyes instinctively raked over the glorious muscles on display.

"I was just telling your girlfriend that she needs to make more of an effort with me," Aaron said, reaching over to clasp hands with him.

"I'll make an exception for you, buddy, considering you kissed her when I told you not to go there."

I turned back to the kettle to hide my smug smile, but Aaron laughed good-naturedly.

"Dude. I tried to resist her. She was all over me, whispering in my ear about how much she used to love me."

Dick. Should have known he'd throw that back in my face at the first opportunity. Gritting my teeth together, I concentrated on pouring water into the mugs.

"Huh," Ed said lightly. "And yet she told me the kiss wasn't that great. What a way to ruin the fantasy, right?"

"Wow. Real classy, Soph. Thanks for that."

"Don't take it personally, Aaron," I replied, turning back to him and handing over the steaming mug. "I don't think anyone could be as good as him."

I tipped my chin towards Ed, who held up his hands in a not-my-fault-I'm-so-perfect surrender.

"Besides," I said, "you only kissed me as payback for Ed fucking your little sister, so that's not particularly classy, either."

Darkness flashed through Aaron's eyes, and for a moment I thought I'd hit a nerve—which had obviously been my intention. But then the tension in his jaw dissolved, and his eyes swept purposefully over my body.

"Fair enough. Your ass still felt good in my hands, though."

Ed folded his arms, chiselled shoulders set in a hard line above his sinewy biceps.

"Are we done here?" he asked dryly. "If I leave to get changed, will you both still be alive when I return?"

"I don't have a problem with her, dude. She's overcompensating because of her guilty conscience."

A tired sigh spilled past Ed's lips as he shook his head. "And you? Do you have a guilty conscience?"

Aaron's lips parted as his eyes swung between Ed and me, almost like he wasn't sure who to gear his answer towards.

"We've already spoken about this," he said to Ed, lowering his voice. "I said I was sorry."

"So act like it and stop harassing her." Ed unfolded his arms. His eyes slid across to me. "Same goes for you."

Warmth flooded my cheeks as I bowed my head. As soon as he'd left the kitchen and was out of earshot, I took a menacing step towards Aaron. He held up a palm in warning, but his eyes sparkled with amusement.

"Careful," he said, his voice deliberately quiet this time. "I've learnt my lesson; this time I'll have to turn you down."

I narrowed my eyes, and only Ed's warning stopped me from biting back.

"I care about him, Aaron. If you fuck this up for me, I swear to God—"

"Relax." His chuckle was nothing short of condescending. "He was pissed at first, but it's amazing how an accidental declaration of love can smooth things over."

My breath stalled. "He told you about that?"

"I'm his best friend. Of course he told me."

Cold realisation immediately cooled the angry blood rushing through my veins. Ed had claimed my confession didn't count until I said it to his face, but apparently he still found it significant enough to share with his friend.

"Excuse me," I said.

Abandoning Aaron in the kitchen, I carried my mug into the living room and set it down on the coffee table. Nerves tiptoed down my spine and swirled through my stomach when I reached the ajar bathroom door.

Ed stood in front of the sink, now wearing jeans but still shirtless as he styled his hair in the mirror. When I shut the door after myself, his eyes flicked across to me and narrowed in suspicion.

"Can't even stay in the same room as him?" he asked.

I sidled up behind him, wrapping my arms around his rock-solid stomach and nuzzling my face into the smooth skin of his back.

"Maybe it's that I can't stay away from you when you look like this."

Vibrations reverberated against my cheek as he chuckled. "You don't need to appease my insecurities. I'm over it. Promise."

"Right... Ever since you overheard me in Gabby's kitchen?"

His hands stilled in his hair, but when he tried to turn to face me, I clung onto his torso tighter so he couldn't move. After a few seconds of struggling, he fixed his fingers around my wrists, pulled my arms apart to release my grip, and then spun around.

"No..." he said, firm. But then his lips scrunched together, and one eyebrow rose in a playful acknowledgement. "But I'll admit it helped."

I averted my gaze, searching for something to focus on other than his handsome face. Why the fuck had I blurted that out to Mac? Ignoring the strength of my feelings had been much easier up to that point. Now that they'd forced their way out of my shackled heart, they danced free through my bloodstream and consumed every cell of my body.

"Hey." His hands left my wrists to skim up my arms, eventually sliding into my hair to tilt my face up to look at him. "You don't need to be afraid. I promise I'm not going anywhere."

As his blue eyes burned into mine, the knot in my stomach loosened. Lines creased his forehead as he frowned down at me.

"What did he do?" he asked.

"Who? Aaron?"

"Mike. What did he do that's got you so afraid to express how you feel?"

I parted my lips to reply but nothing came out, my mouth so dry that forming words became impossible.

"Because it doesn't have to be a big deal, Soph. I meant it when I said you can wait as long as you need—"

"Have you ever said it before?" I asked.

A lump rolled down his throat as he swallowed. "Yeah, I've said it. But I..."

As he trailed off, he glanced towards the ensuite door. I read between the lines and rested my head against his chest, taking a deep breath in.

"I've said it to Lacey," he said, this time quieter, "but not while I was dating her. And not in a romantic way, either. I loved her. Part of me will always love her. As a friend. I'm not in love with her, and I never was."

"Have you ever been in love?" I asked.

His hands tightened on either side of my head, easing me away from his chest until our eyes touched.

"Yes," he said, raising a deliberate eyebrow at me.

My heart jolted, but despite his very obvious signals, I couldn't help worrying that those were feelings he'd experienced months ago, feelings that he still needed to build up to again. After how long it had taken us to get here, the fear of rejection—no matter how gentle or kind or temporary—petrified me.

Besides, I had a habit of misreading the guys I dated. Even after three years with Mike, I'd convinced myself he loved me enough to propose. He hadn't. That had worked out for the best eventually, but hindsight didn't block out the memories of how much that wrong assumption had hurt.

"What are you thinking, Soph?"

I shook my head to dispel the thoughts. "Nothing. Sorry. I should go check on—"

His mouth met mine, cutting me off, and all worries dissolved as our lips moved together with instinctive synchronicity. When he broke away, he whispered his final words against my ear, like they were private for nobody else but me.

"When you're ready, I promise I'll say it back."

*

Lacey arrived an hour later. She breezed through the suite door, a stunning vision of white-blonde hair, deep purple lips, and smoky eye makeup.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry." She shrugged off her leather jacket and tossed it onto a peg with the same level of familiarity as her brother. "Got caught up at a promo shoot."

"Couldn't make you look good enough?" Aaron flung an arm around her shoulder and ruffled her hair.

With a scowl, she shoved him away and smoothed out the blonde strands again. They rippled over her shoulders like a sea of silk, practically glowing under the suite's bright lighting.

"No, it was just on the other side of town, asshole." Her smoky eyes then landed on me, and an easy smile played at her lips. "Hey, Soph. Nice to see you again."

She enveloped me in a tight embrace that seemed sincere enough, but then again she was a professional actress, so I couldn't be sure if she meant it. Our last encounter hadn't been as warm.

"You, too, Lacey." My palms flattened against her soft cashmere sweater for a beat before we broke apart. "Ed's just round in the kitchen."

"Great." She whirled around to face her brother again, and I leaned away to dodge her swooshing hair. "Aaron, go tell Ed I'll take a vodka soda."

Aaron dropped down onto one of the sofas and propped an ankle on his knee. "I'm not your lackey. Tell him yourself."

She rolled her eyes with an exaggerated tip of her head as she turned back to me. "Men can't take hints. Let's see if your boyfriend is any better."

With her arm looped through mine, I let her lead me to the kitchen like this was her suite and I was a guest. Everything about her screamed confidence and ease. I rolled with it, but internally I couldn't decide whether I was envious or intimidated.

Ed looked up from popping the tops off two beer bottles when we rounded the corner. Something undeniably tender bloomed in his eyes as he spotted Lacey.

"Hey, Lace. Didn't hear you come in."

"That's me: discreet."

Her joke broke some of the awkward tension. If there was one thing Lacey Holland wasn't, it was discreet. She did everything with flair and dramatics.

Dropping the bottle opener, Ed held out one arm to welcome her into a hug. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his cheek, then rubbed her thumb over the purple smudge it left on his skin.

"I'll catch up with you later," she said, brushing past him to get to the fridge. "Soph and I need a drink first."

"Oh, uh, there's no vodka here." Ed tossed her an apologetic smile. "Got the soda, though."

"Great." She plastered on a smile and stared at him.

He stared back, cautious eyes flickering between the two of us. When she folded her arms and tapped her foot against the polished tile flooring, he hesitantly reached for the two beer bottles.

"Right. Okay." He cleared his throat and slowly reversed out of the kitchen. "Catch up with you later, then."

Once he'd disappeared, Lacey chuckled. "He's scared of leaving you alone with me."

I played dumb. "You do still owe me those embarrassing stories."

"Oh, for sure. I have plenty."

"Great. We've got the whole evening ahead of us."

Smiling, Lacey curled a hand around the counter edge. Her eyes met mine, still self-assured, yet softer now we were alone.

"I'm so sorry for how I spoke to you before. It was a rough night. I had a fucking awful fight with Ed, and I took it out on you."

"Honestly, you don't need to apologise. I totally get why you were upset. I'm sorry for my part in it."

She waved off the apology. "You were just looking out for him. I can't hate you for that."

I leaned a shoulder against the kitchen partition to try to appear as relaxed as she did, but something about her terrified me. Not because she was unfriendly—far from it—but because she seemed so put together, so successful and pretty and confident. She was unapologetically herself, taking everything in her stride, and the world loved her for it.

Compared to her, I felt like a bland middle ground between a squeaky-clean pop star and his wild ex-lover, governed by rules to ensure I didn't fuck up in a world where Teddy Stone and Lacey Holland were royalty.

"Is this a bit awkward?" Lacey faked a grimace but pushed herself up onto the counter to show she had no intention of bailing on this conversation.

I breathed out a small laugh. "I don't know. Maybe. It's on me. I'm a bit intimidated, to be honest."

"By me?" Her slim eyebrows shot up.

Shrugging, I fiddled with my ring. "Not in a bad way. But I look at you, and I feel like that's what I need to be."

She tipped her head back to snort, and the unladylike reaction humanised her for just a second.

"Trust me, you should not aspire to be me. You've got the crème de la crème with Ed. Like, I love him to bits, don't get me wrong, but there was zero romantic compatibility between us. Hell, sometimes we're not even compatible non-romantically. I wanna tear his head off when he gets all moody."

I held up my hands. "I wasn't prying. I swear."

"No, I know, but better to get it out in the open, right? I don't want you feeling like I'm some kind of threat or like I'm pining after him or something. I'm not. Our relationship could barely even constitute a relationship. It was basically three months of phone sex with a few dates in between."

It married up with everything Ed had told me about their past together. What happened after their relationship—the casual but frequent sex between friends—seemed more meaningful than the relationship itself. That didn't bother me particularly. I had full faith in my own chemistry with Ed, but I liked her honesty.

"I appreciate you getting it out in the open," I said. "He clearly thinks a lot of you so I'm glad it won't be weird between us."

A soft chuckle floated through her purple lips. "He actually talks about you all the time. He's a man obsessed. It'd be pathetic if it wasn't cute."

She swung her calves back and forth, suddenly distracted as she picked up the three-legged citrus squeezer and turned it around in her hands.

"What's this?" Confusion crinkled her face. "It's like something from War of the Worlds."

"It's a citrus squeezer."

"A citrus squeezer? Has he started making his own orange juice or something?"

I laughed. "Uh, not exactly. He likes adding drops of lemon into his water."

"Oh my God." Another dramatic eyeroll. "He is so fucking bougie it's unreal."

Now that I thought about it, the design of the implement was pretty extra, and that was without knowing he used it for something that could easily be done with his hands.

"You're right. I just accepted it. He's got a way of making you believe he's normal when he's really not."

Lacey glanced up at me with a coy smirk. "It's the blue eyes. I swear, they're hypnotic. You lose sense of what's real when you gaze into them."

"Too right. They're enough to bring anyone to their knees."

A second too late, I registered the suggestive connotation behind that statement. Lacey just winked knowingly, and a weird sense of solidarity passed between us. Weird in that we shouldn't be bonding over our sexual history with the same guy, but at the same time it was refreshing to speak openly when so much of my life was now constrained by NDAs.

"The ultimate goal is to get him on his knees. I spent three years of my life fucking him, and not once did he agree to kneel for me. Stubborn asshole."

Affection blended with resentment, like she respected him standing his ground but still found it mildly annoying. Despite our bonding session, I didn't dare admit that he'd got on his knees for me the very first time we'd slept together. And that he'd done it again since.

"Oh, wait! I do have a tip for you." She glanced towards the living room then leaned closer to me, her hands curled around the worktop edge to stop her falling off. "Phone sex has to be live only. No photos or pre-recorded videos. Don't even take them to delete them. Nothing is safe on the cloud. That's my tip."

She leaned back and slid off the counter, smoothing down her top. Not exactly the kind of life-changing tip I'd hoped for, but I'd take it.

It'd probably come in handy.

***

Thank you for reading :) xx

***

Trigger warning for next chapter: pregnancy/baby loss

Sorry for the later upload. I was celebrating a milestone birthday, then travelling for work. 

So Ed bonded with Mike, then Soph bonded with Lacey. Could you ever be friends with your partner's ex?