“How come you’re so wide-awake already?” Ed rubbed sleep from his eyes before slumping against the pillows they’d shared.
“Seagulls woke me.” Sunshine spilled over the span of Pasha’s shoulders, and when Pasha faced him, shadows deepened the vee leading from his hips to his cock. He looked a whole lot stronger than any of Ed’s first impressions. He was lean, all right, and he didn’t have the solid, muscled weight that years of PT had put on Ed, but Pasha’s long, tight torso was divided by a trail of coal black hair that really did it for him.
“Take a picture, why don’t you?” Pasha said, echoing the words that had started all this madness. He grinned at the same time as covering his cock and balls with both hands. “Didn’t your mum teach you it’s rude to stare?” His jump of shock when there was a knock at the door and his wild grab for the sheets werecomical, leading to a quick and dirty game of tug-of-war before Ed finally let him have a tiny corner.
“Boys?” His mum’s voice filtered through the crack of the door. “I’m making breakfast if you’re up.” She didn’t open the door any farther. “Bacon and eggs.” She hesitated and then asked, “Or I can make something else if bacon’s off the menu.”
“Sounds great, Mum.” Ed tugged at the sheet again just to see the neat curve of Pasha’s biceps bunch as he held firm. “Bacon’s fine. We’ll be down directly.”
“Your Cornish is showing,” Pasha said as he pulled on the spare pair of boxers Ed passed him. “‘Directly’ sounds funny when you say it.” He brushed at the hem of his jeans where soil had left brown smudges. “Dreckly,” he imitated. “The taxi driver at the station said it the same way.”
“It’s no funnier than some of the shit you say. You’ve picked up the worst of every accent you’ve copied.”
“Now, now. No need to be touchy.” The mattress dipped again when Pasha straddled Ed’s hips. “I like it. I always like the way you sound when you speak. Soft. How the hell did you ever end up in the forces?” He settled over Ed’s lap. “There’s nothing hard about you.”
Ed canted his hips and snatched a quick kiss when Pasha toppled forward. “You’redrecklyover something that’ll be hard any minute if you don’t shift your arse.”
The smell of bacon travelled upstairs all the way from the kitchen. Ed’s stomach rumbled, but he made the most of Pasha’s proximity and grabbed two handfuls of his rear. “Remind me to show you how hard after we’ve eaten.”
They dressed quickly, but Pasha stopped him at the top of the stairs. He looked good in the smallest T-shirt Ed had been able to lay his hands on, buried deep in a box he hadn’t opened since packing. Its washed-out sandy tones did little to camouflage how attractive Pasha was, even with pillow-creased cheeks.
Pasha said, “This is the second time your mum’s asked me about food. Why does she think I’m fussy? What have you told her about me?”
“Nothing.” Caught up in stealing another opportunity to kiss, Ed pulled him close. “I expect she was thinking about religious food rules, that’s all.”
Pasha’s confusion was clear. “Religion? That’s why she was asking about having bacon?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’m only guessing.” He let go when Pasha crossed his arms.
“Wait. She thinks I’m Muslim?” Pasha took a step back. “Youthought I was Muslim?” His head was only inches from one of the lowest roof beams—he’d brain himself on it if he turned around without ducking. Ed reached out and snagged the front of his shirt.
“No. Well, yes. I did at first, when I heard you were Afghani.”
It had been an assumption he hadn’t even thought through. Afghan nationals would kneel in the street to pray at noon when checkpoints delayed them. And from the elevated vantage point of the shotgun seat in armored vehicles, Ed had watched farmers get to their knees in chest-high fields of poppies more times than he could mention.
He followed Pasha down the stairs to the hallway outside the kitchen. “Maybe I mentioned it to her in passing after we all moved into theBritPop!house. But then I saw you necking a beer and eating sausage rolls after the first live show, so I guessed maybe you weren’t.”
“Isthatwhy you were so weird around me?”
Ed didn’t know how to answer.
Pasha filled his silence. “You were weird, Ed. Have you got a thing about Islam? You probably know more about it than I do. Isthatwhy you were always watching me? Jesus, Ed. It didn’t matter where I went, there you were like my shadow.” He raisedhis eyebrows, as Ed had seen him do so often back at the shared house when listening to boy band bullshit. “I knew you didn’t like me.I knew it. I just didn’t know why for sure.”
“I liked you.”
“Liar.” Pasha’s eyebrow raise was softened by an expression Ed might describe as fond—if he didn’t feel like such a wanker. “You looked at me like I was a firework you’d lit that hadn’t gone off yet. You expected an explosion, didn’t you? You kept your distance right up until you had no other option but to get closer to me.”
That was so near the truth, Ed couldn’t keep from nodding.
Pasha continued, poking him in the chest as he spoke. “Besides. You’re completely crap at being covert. I didn’t see you staring at anyone else the same way. You know, it’s a good thing you already wanked me off, or I might think you’re racist.” His punch was a light tap to Ed’s left bicep. “You know that the world’s full of peaceful Muslims who all mind their own business, but you jumped straight to red alert the first minute we met. Before we’d even spoken. Why? Because the show describes me as half-Afghani every chance they get? It says London on my birth certificate, Ed, and British on my passport. What did you think I was going to do? Bomb the rehearsal building if you didn’t keep me under surveillance?”
This time Ed was lost for words for a different reason than embarrassment, remembering a firefight followed by a flash and boom that still filled his worst nightmares.
Pasha didn’t wait for an answer. He pushed the kitchen door ajar. “Just for that, you great big bigot, I’m eating your share of the bacon.”
Ed grabbed Pasha by the belt loops until he turned to face him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…. It wasn’t intentional.”
“Still gonna eat your bacon.” Pasha’s smile was smaller than it had been, but Ed’s relief at seeing it at all commanded hisfull attention. Pasha backed through the door. “I’m not Muslim, but….”