Anya opened her mouth and filled the space with an anthem. She departed from the song she’d practiced and made words the audience had already heard twice completely her own.
Lyrics that had been tinged with loss and sadness when Ed sang, and that had been rough around the edges from Pasha’s lips, were hope-filled and uplifting when Anya sang. Her voice soared, jubilant and so pure, scaling heights Pasha was suremust reach all the way to heaven. Then it fell to a gentle lullaby that had the entire audience swaying.
Pasha and Ed stood together in the wings, fingers laced tightly together, as Anya showed the whole of Great Britain exactly what true love could sound like.
The spotlight had blazed down on them all, but Steve’s song was the final winner.
EPILOGUE
Springtime in Cornwall
Ed ran a palm over the oak beam he’d worked on the day before, pleased the wooden pegs holding it in place lay perfectly flush with its surface. He might have had the help of a local master craftsman to get started, but Dom’s dad had only watched yesterday, quietly supervising his work. Ed’s were the sole initials carved into this beam, and the pale green-blond of its new wood didn’t detract from how right it looked. It would age to match the rest in time, and time here was something he had plenty of now.
He climbed down from the scaffolding that edged each side of the long space that had made up his father’s art studio. He’d learned to paint here as a kid, taught by a gentle giant of a man, who had shown him how to wield a paintbrush with nothing but patience. Now it was divided into four distinct rooms, each with its own purpose.
Ed stood by a huge arched window in what would become his living area, bathed in late spring light that warmed him with thepromise of an early summer. The view from here was ordinary enough, he supposed. It was one he’d grown up with. Gardens, sculptures, and the sea in the far distance were everyday sights he’d absorbed in childhood. His mum with her weeding basket in hand only added to a picture he’d describe as normal. But seeing Steve’s son toddling beside her, carrying a tiny basket of his own, raised “everyday” and “ordinary” to something very special.
“Hey,” Mandy said from the doorway. “I’m sorry we got here so early this morning. I forget that the rest of the world doesn’t get up when Joe does. Did we wake you?”
“No.” Ed watched Mandy press her lips together, reminded of when they’d been kids. She’d repressed laughter the same way so many times back then. It warmed him as much as the pool of sunlight he stood in to see her wear that same expression again. “I’ve been up for ages. Why’d you ask?”
Her smile broke free when she said, “No reason. I’ll be stealing your mum in a minute.” She took a step inside. “You want anything while we’re in town?”
“Nope. I’ve got everything here that I need.”
“Yeah?” She came to stand beside him, voice softening as she inspected his face. “You know, for someone who was stressed out yesterday, you seem remarkably laid-back now.”
“Just admiring the view.”
Mandy slipped an arm around his waist and looked out just in time to see her boy stumble. “Oops!” She lurched forward as if she might catch him.
“He’s okay. Mum’s got him.” They watched her brush dirt from Joe’s knees and offer a no-nonsense cuddle. Ed pulled Mandy back to his side. “Mum’s as glad as I am that the planning committee signed off our plans to extend the big house.” Sunlight erased the signs of stress Mandy had worn for too long, leaving her as young and pretty again as she’d been before hisand Steve’s last overseas tour. “You must have been worried as well, Mandy. It was your money at stake.”
“Joe’s, not mine. And let’s be honest about it—there’s no way I could invest in your business if you hadn’t enteredBritPop!The royalties….” She shook her head. “Ed, just knowing that they’re coming has been life-changing. It’s given me a reason to stay as well as a job, and it’s given Joe more people here to love him.” A seagull cried out overhead, and Mandy looked out the window once more. “So, investing money I did nothing to earn wasn’t a tough decision. And if the planners had said no, you would have come up with another way to make the business happen.” She sounded convinced. “It’s what you do, Ed. And now we’re making something for his future. For all our futures.” She swallowed. “It’s so much better than looking backward. I don’t want to forget Steve, but I’d rather be here where he was happy than imagine where I lost him for good. I feel like I’m slowly getting better at that.”
“So, not a bad result for a loser?”
She tilted her head. “You ever think about what it would have been like?”
“Winning, you mean?” Ed shook his head before grudgingly nodding. “Sometimes, but only if I’m having a nightmare,” he joked, but there was truth in the words. “I met men like Gerry Hanson in the forces. Not many, but enough to know the type.” He met her eye. “First-class spiteful bastard. He would have—” He shook his head fast. “No. It’s a nice day. Let’s not talk about him.”
Mandy’s grip around his waist tightened. “And Pash?”
Ed was distracted by what mattered to him right now—his mother and his de facto nephew who approached the building Ed was slowly and surely converting into a home. “Pash?” He asked. “What about him?”
“Yeah, what about me?”
They both turned when Pasha spoke from the doorway.
“Do you ever think about what it would have been like to win?”
“All the time.” He put down the steaming mugs he’d carried over from the stable block, casting a quick wink in Ed’s direction. “I think about it every morning when I wake up next to this lump.” The sideways slide that positioned him neatly under Ed’s free arm was as smooth as one of theBritPop!host’s patented tap-dance moves. “He’s the worst consolation prize ever.”
Ed’s grin was habitual now instead of rare enough to make his face ache. With his arms around two of his all-time favorite people, in a place that in a few short months would be full of stressed-out execs prepared to pay him to knock them into workable teams, he’d never been more grateful to lose.
Pasha watchedMandy get ready to leave with Ed’s mum to go shopping for a few hours. There was something about watching Ed tickle Joe into submission while having his car seat harness buckled that really did it for him. All that strength hiding a center of pure softness. All that heart behind a stoic expression that Pasha had devoted the last few months to banishing for good.
Pasha pulled his T-shirt over his head the moment Mandy’s car left the courtyard. Ed was at the door a few seconds later.