“That’s bullshit, Ed. You didn’t see his face earlier. You didn’t hear whattheysaid about him.Tohim.”
Ed guessed she meant the loudmouths in the boy band. “He knows what he’s doing.” Pasha knew more than Ed, who far from leading Pasha astray had simply stumbled blindly along with his plan. “He’s?—”
“Shut up!” Emotion, wildly raw and making her voice crack, had Ed taking a step backward. She reached out and grabbed the front of hisBritPop!hoodie, which wadded in her fist. “You don’t know anything about him.” She looked over her shoulder and then tugged. “Crap. I just saw someone with a camera. Move it before they see us.”
The coffee shop a few streets away was busy, but maybe her anger was as palpable to the people who got out of her way as it felt to Ed. A small table near the window cleared when she stalked toward it.
Ed stood in line for coffee, adding a chocolate muffin to his order. She took it with a raised eyebrow, outwardly calmer now that he’d spent five minutes queuing. “Trying to sweeten me up?” She broke off a chunk and dissected chips of chocolate. Her jerky movements suggested her anger lingered. “I still want to know what you’re doing.”
This was hard to explain. He didn’t even know if he should. For all of Pasha’s talk about standing firm against the management team who saw #TrueBrit as a threat, he hadn’tsaid a word about what to say to real friends. And she was, Ed decided, a real friend to Pasha. The weak sunlight through the window revealed faint tracks in her makeup. Tears of anger like hers were hard to fake. “Pash is okay.”
He hoped he was.
He hoped Pasha had avoided a run-in with Gerry as well.
Anya leaned forward so fast her coffee cup almost toppled. “How long have you been calling him Pash?” she fired out. “How long have you been talking to him at all? No time, that’s how long, so don’t tell me you know how he’s feeling.” She lifted her cup, and her hands shook. “We spent every evening practicing together for weeks. Every evening until you started this bullshit. Did you know that?”
Ed shook his head. He’d eaten dinner with the contestants, maybe shot some pool or watched TV, but more often than not, before he’d joined forces with Pasha, he’d gone to his own room. The house was nothing like living on base, the company here composed of enemies rather than men he’d trust with his life. His bedroom had seemed safer. “No, I didn’t know you were close.”
“He helped me so much.” There was that strong emotion again in the clatter of her cup against the table. “He coached me and made me work hard. And he still makes me laugh when he isn’t hanging around you.” Her gaze was accusing before it softened. “He’s not just funny. Pasha understands how the show works. He’s been researching it for years. You know he chose this show because there aren’t any judges, don’t you?”
Ed shook his head. He’d entered for different reasons.
“It’s down to the public who stays in or goes home each week. That’s why he entered. He thought it would be all about the best performance. So did I. Now I wonder what’s wrong with the whole country. It’s messed up.” Her head dropped. “Pash gets it, you know?” Her expression was defiant when her head roseagain. “No, actually you can’t know. Pash gets that it’s harder for people like us.” She huffed out a breath when Ed had nothing to say, then she spoke like he was stupid. “The only black guy in the competition went out in the first week. The only Asian went in the second. Pasha’s the one person left who knows what it’s like being mixed race in a house where white people who can’t sing always seem to get through.” The shake of her head was small, but it shook a tear free. “And it’s not just racist. The two oldest contestants have been voted out. I’m the youngest, so does that mean I’ll be out next?”
“It’s not the public.” Ed passed her a napkin. “It’s the way management….” How did he describe how manipulative management were without revealing he and Pasha were almost as bad? Worse, if a kid like this became collateral damage.
Anya wiped her eyes, and then stuffed her mouth with a huge hunk of muffin.
He sipped coffee that tasted as bitter as winning the last vote now felt.
Anya kept her head down, seemingly focused on chasing the last few crumbs around her plate. “I felt like giving up after the first week,” she admitted. “Management took the song I was going to sing and gave it to someone else. Then the production team said I’d have to give them something worth recording if I wanted my song back.”
“They wanted a confrontation?”
She nodded. “Fireworks. It’s what they want every week. This isn’t fun, like I thought it would be, or fair.” She looked up, and sunlight caught the tiniest of tears still on her lashes. “But having Pasha around made it okay to keep trying.”
“You….” Jesus, why hadn’t he noticed anything she’d mentioned? Or the way she felt about Pasha? He should have seen this coming. “You like him.”
“Of course I do, you dickhead. He’s awesome.”
“No, I mean youlikehim.”
She froze for a moment before slowly nodding, her jaw clenched and jutting forward. Then she shook her head. “It was a crush. Pasha’s not interested in me. He told me that right away, said I was too young and romance during the competition would be distracting.” Her small smile was shaky. “Then you two become each other’s shadows, so not only is he ageist, he’s a liar.”
A knock on the coffee-shop window made her jump.
Pasha stood on the other side of the glass, visible from the waist up, both hands splayed on its surface, his “Hi” of greeting inaudible. He flashed a quick glance at Ed before returning his gaze to Anya. Maybe he saw the same faint tracks of tears on her cheeks from his side of the window. Ed saw a flicker of concern that morphed into determination before Pasha walked off.
They both turned to the door, expecting Pasha to join them, but it stayed closed.
“Where did he?—?”
Anya’s laugh was unexpected, and when Ed turned again, he saw what had provoked it.
Pasha’s face rose slowly from the level of the windowsill as if he was in an elevator. Then he mimed walking down a staircase until he was out of view one more time.
Anya sounded much more cheerful. “Your boyfriend is an idiot.”