Turning to Stone (Heart of Stone: Book 2)

Chapter 32: Messages

*

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

Whenever I thought I'd become accustomed to Ed's fame, something happened that reminded me he occupied a different universe to the rest of the population.

He'd used Twitter DMs to contact me for the very first time, and I'd thought nothing of it. He didn't have my number, so social media was an obvious choice. Thousands of his followers apparently thought the same. Without Teddy Stone's number, they could only reach out via DMs.

There was a satisfying irony to that: he'd used the same method to contact me that all his horny fans used to contact him. Only he'd wanted a reply from me, and their messages stayed unanswered.

In fact, my conversation with him remained near the top of his inbox—the last message sent in February shortly before we'd exchanged numbers. Since then, he'd only contacted two other people: Hattie Steele and a singer who'd scored a couple of wins at the awards ceremony last month. I didn't open any of those messages and moved straight into the requests area of his inbox.

Even as I scrolled down, new messages continuously landed, ranging from polite and benign, to explicit and direct.

Hey

Love you

Wanna hook up?

Your songs are everything

Can I suck your dick?

Are you in London right now?

How are you?

Please follow me. You'll make my life x

I knew he was loved, but I'd mainly experienced that through the medium of screams and tears and applause. Never before had I seen so many words expressing adoration and, let's face it, obsession.

At first I flicked through the messages with little interest. It was eye-opening but not totally unexpected. Every now and then, though, something left field would land. A naked photo. A descriptive fantasy. A crude proposition.

Soon, the messages ceased being abstract and started to become annoying. He was a human being, for fuck's sake. With a girlfriend. Did these fans genuinely believe they stood a chance, or did they just want to provoke a response?

I'd once loved how so many people wanted him and yet he only wanted me. I'd felt special. Privileged. But we'd moved beyond that superficial layer. Now we had far more between us than just sex, which was apparently what a lot of these girls were after.

The thought of him sleeping with someone else turned my stomach. Not his past girlfriends—he'd known them before me, and my own jealous streak knew boundaries. But a random fan? Someone who saw a singer and not a person? Someone who wanted to use him to fulfil their own fantasies? For bragging rights?

After all, I knew that motive far too well. Our friendship had developed off the back of him hooking up with a random fan. Becca. And at the time, I hadn't turned my nose up at it. I'd encouraged her. I'd hoped he'd sleep with her. Because Becca had been one of these obsessive fans, and I'd objectified Teddy Stone just like all these girls were doing now. I hadn't seen him as a person who had a life beyond the mic. He'd just been a hot celebrity who'd make my friend happy.

Now I knew how he liked his coffee and which side of the bed he slept on. I knew about his struggles building friendships despite his easy-going personality. I knew how his passion for travel was often stifled by strict protocols in every country he visited. Most of all, I knew how nearly every aspect of his life was planned, controlled, and monitored.