Midnight Rain

Chapter II

As best friends for almost a decade, Taylor figured she would do pretty much anything for Ed Sheeran. With his big Mathematics tour going on concurrent to hers, she knew it would be hard to swing a meet-up, but he had begged her to come be a guest at one of his shows. So here she was, back in Minneapolis just two months after her own shows here, right before she departed to Mexico City for the next leg of the Eras Tour.

They were going to sing the Joker and the Queen together, but then Ed proposed that they sing a song never before sun in concert: Run. It happened to be his favorite of all of her music, so she just chuckled and said she would go along with whatever he wanted.

"Yo Taylor, you're zoning out on me!" Ed joked from across the room. "What's got you so caught up anyway, mate? We gotta run through this one more time!"

He paired it with a hideous wink that had Taylor giggling immediately, rolling her eyes at his constant antics. 

"Careful there buddy, I'll wear the taller heels I brought!" She joked along while prepping to start the song again. 

Ed glanced her way after nodding in contentment at their final brush up. "Do you still want to grab a bite after the show? I already know I'm going to be fixing for some chips and a burger." 

"Sure, do you have a spot picked out yet?" Taylor nodded while stretching dramatically with the neck of the guitar held as high in the air as she could. "I'll just have to let security know and probably meet you there so I don't get seen."

"Already taken care of, mate! Reservation and everything." She shot him a skeptical look.

"You really planned ahead early this time?"

"It's not that shocking"

"Ed. Last time we drove around for an hour and a half because they didn't have a private enough table for us and it was 2am by the time we got drinks, not to mention food." Taylor stated dryly. He had the sense to look meek for a moment.

"C'mon Tay, you know the food was worth it!" 

"I could've been drinking wine in my hotel room or on a jet back to LA already!" Taylor laughed loudly at his stubbornness. "I'm just glad we won't have a repeat-- Cherry was so confused at why you slept until 2 in the afternoon!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Ed groaned, "I've learned from my mistakes, shake it off already."

Taylor glared. Ed put on a straight face and stared right back until they both broke down laughing. 

"I HATE it when you throw my lyrics back in my face."

He fixed on his most angelic expression for a moment, then laughed and hopped off his chair. 

Right, it's almost showtime. Taylor always lost track of time when she was in the same room as her British friend, it didn't happen all too often anymore due to his growing family and a whole ocean between them. "Hey Ed?"

"Yeah?" He mumbled distractedly as he bent down to re-tie a shoelace.

"Thank you for convincing me I needed to be here." Taylor picked at her thumb lightly. It had been a tough couple months constantly being flown to different cities, only to rush back to New York to record new ideas during the weekdays between shows. Not to mention the mess with Joe and then Matty. At times she felt the overexposure strongly, similar to right before her fall from grace after 1989's success. Everyone wanted to get a glimpse of Taylor Swift, and she had to work hard for the pockets of privacy she could still preserve. She didn't begrudge them their interest, it was just hard to stay above it all at times.