Now, one-by-one, like his chances, the stage lights slowly winked out.
2
ED
Ed picked up the headset from where Pasha had let it fall. “Bastards.” One word was about all he could get out without spitting.
“Bastard’s too good a word for them,” Pasha added. From where Ed stood behind him, it sounded like he was gritting his teeth. “They’re cheats, plain and simple.” Pasha’s frustration was clear. He struggled to finish his next sentence. “I hope someone… I hope someone….”
“Cancels the show?”
“I’d do more than cancel the show.” Pasha still faced the glass between them and the stage. If Ed tilted his head a little, he could see Pasha’s reflection. Apart from his eyes, which were black and glittering, the glass left him weirdly washed out. Shock did that to a person, stealing normal expression. Pasha’s face was a good example, immobile and looking so wrong, when every single time Ed had seen him before, he’d looked animated.
It seemed like Pasha had to work hard to unclench his jaw before he finally ground out some more words. “I hope someone steals their future.” His voice cracked on the last word before he stopped for a moment. His next outburst was heartfelt. “Yeah.Steals the one thing that they dreamed of every night of their life, and then puts it out of their reach.”
Now Ed wished Pasha’s face wasn’t visible at all. He was angry, but Pasha seemed devastated. Ed’s fists had clenched unconsciously while Pasha had been speaking. He unfurled one now, then quickly curled it again when the tension inside wouldn’t uncoil. “We should go.”
There was no point delaying what was going to happen. They had more filming to get through, and then the performance at the weekend, even if the outcome was rigged.
This was how he’d been trained: you kept moving forward even when things made zero sense. You kept marching until someone higher ranking gave a different order.
“You go. I can’t face seeing anyone right now.” Pasha finally turned, sinking to the floor of the booth and sitting with his legs sprawled. A hole gaped in one knee of his stupidly tight black stretch jeans, and he quickly covered it with one hand like he didn’t want Ed to notice. That moment of vulnerability had Ed sinking down beside him.
“Listen.” Ed ordered his thoughts, only speaking again when Pasha looked in his direction. Their eyes were almost level. Funny, when he’d spent the weeks since the start of the competition thinking Pasha was smaller than him. Maybe it was the way he was rarely still and constantly draped himself over people, getting all up in their business like that was completely normal. “I heard what that technician asked you. It sounds like the production team has been busy leaking your private life already.”
“No. They don’t?—”
Ed pushed on as if Pasha hadn’t spoken. “But before it all kicks off, get this straight in your head.” He winced at his choice of words. “It doesn’t matter if you’re banging the whole boyband.” All that mattered right now was that Pasha heard this from someone. “Who you do in bed is none of their business.”
“I’m not banging anyone,” Pasha quickly interjected.
Ed hadn’t anticipated having this conversation with a virtual stranger who, until ten minutes ago, had been his competition. “It shouldn’t matter, is all I’m saying. This is a singing contest. They can’t discriminate based on where you choose to dip your wick.”
Pasha simply leaned forward. The longer strands of his hair lay flat today instead of standing upright in spikes. They shielded his face in a shaggy jet-black curtain. After a few long, quiet minutes, Ed pushed some to one side so he could see Pasha’s eyes again. “Hi.” He followed that with a quietly voiced “It’s okay to be gay.”
Maybe he’d smiled without knowing, because Pasha’s return smile was slow but devastatingly sweet as it spread.
“Hi yourself, soldier.” He blinked quickly a few times before rubbing his eyes. “And I agree—not that what I think matters. But management will fix the voting if that’s what they’ve decided. Gay or straight, it’s not gonna make a difference. I’m going home on Saturday. We both are.” Pasha picked at the frayed hole at his knee. “Maybe they picked the winner already.”
“Maybe they have. My money’s on the boy band.” Ed grimaced when Pasha’s smile slipped. “Hey, it could be a lot worse.”
“How?”
How?Ed swallowed around a lump in his throat that had appeared from nowhere. He was going to have to go home empty-handed again. “At least they didn’t insinuate that you were a coward.” His fist curled tightly again as he remembered that “didn’t want him back” slur. That was beyond insulting to hear from someone whose biggest risk from nine to five was cutting themselves on paper.
Pasha shifted next to him, turning so he faced Ed at a right angle. His skeptical eyebrow arch terminated in a tiny loop of silver Ed hadn’t noticed before. It glinted in the low light, as did his eyes, which from this close shone with iridescence. His slow blink returned them to their normal color. “That’s worse than being labeled queer?”
“It is to me.” The production assistant’s words had really rankled. “Two tours of Afghanistan, butI’mthe one who has no backbone?”
“Two tours?”
Ed nodded.
“Huh.”
A small chip was visible in one of the teeth Pasha dug into his bottom lip. “What’s it like over there?”
What was it like?