Ed saw that Pasha was staring resolutely forward, nodding very slightly.
“But we know some contestants find it hard to be apart from each other.” The crowd laughed and wolf whistled. “That’s why we’re going to make it as fair as we can.”
There was that word “fair” again, seeding the idea that they had an unfair advantage. Ed found he was nodding as well.
“Anya!” The host hugged her, bending to emphasize their height difference. “You’ll be going home to your parents for the last week. Where are they?” he asked, hand pressed over his earpiece before pointing into the audience. “There they are. Off you go, Anya. Have fun, and practice, practice, practice!”
Anya nodded before raising both her hands and waving. Her spotlight only blinked out when she was wrapped in her parent’s embrace.
“Pasha! We know you’ve mentioned how much you want to take the prize home. So, have a great time in bonny Scotland. We’ve set up charity appearances for you up there all week. There’s a whole lot of old folk and sick kids looking forward to seeing you. I know you won’t let them down by disappearing.”
Ed was blinded for a moment when the spotlight on him brightened. By the time his sight adjusted, Pasha was nowhere in sight.
“Ed.” The host came and stood close, then wrapped an arm around him. “Come on, big feller,” he said as if they weren’t almost the same height and build, encouraging Ed to turn to the screen behind them. “We sent you home last week, and didn’tyou have quite the romantic adventure.” A swell of laughter followed. “So this time we thought we’d help you resist the lure of young love. Think you can manage a whole week with no contact at all?”
Movement at the side of the stage caught his eye. In his peripheral vision, Ed saw the flare of a match. Gerry Hanson stood in the wings lighting one of his stinking cigars. Even shielded from the audience’s view and shadowed by the curtains, his small, tight smirk suggested this was a battle he’d won already.
The sound of a helicopter drew Ed’s attention front and center. A Chinook filled the huge screen as it flew low over land he recognized firsthand after two tours in-country. Next, a shot panned around the inside of the kind of tented accommodation he thought he’d left far behind him. He inhaled sharply when he recognized possessions. The names of the men he’d bunked with popped out of Ed’s mouth before they appeared on the screen, larger than life, and such a sight for sore eyes. Ed’s vision blurred before he blinked fast a few times when the camera pointed at a familiar tanned face in a sea of others, all wearing the same stern expression.
These were the men he’d served with.
These were the men he’d left behind for a whole year.
Seeing them out of the blue like this messed with Ed’s sense of balance. He actually took a step back when the host of the show said, “We guessed you might find a week apart hard to manage….”
In his peripheral vision, the end of Gerry’s cigar glowed as brightly as tracers following gunfire.
“So,” the host continued, “maybe visiting these guys will stop you going AWOL.”
18
PASHA
An impromptu after-show party broke out as soon as the cameras stopped rolling, but it wasn’t easy to evade the production assistant acting as Pasha’s shadow. She’d been assigned, she stated bluntly, to keep him out of trouble, and she glued herself to his side no matter how hard he tried to shake her.
Frustration pulled at Pasha as well, tugging at his ribs each time he replayed Ed looking so unhappy. The man had just won a place in the final. It had been his mission from the outset. He should have been delighted. But Pasha was struggling just as hard to smile at all the congratulations that came his way.
Gerry Hanson had passed on a final warning. Pasha was sick to his stomach that he hadn’t seen it coming. Had he made the same threat to Ed that had shaken Pasha so much that champagne now slopped from the glass that he held?
Right when he was desperate to ask Ed face-to-face, the man wasn’t anywhere in sight.
The production assistant stuck to his side like glue. Her constant attention suggested Ed was still here somewhere. Pasha mentally dug deep and kept looking for him, waiting forthe moment when he could evade her observation. The corridor outside the dressing rooms thronged, bustling with people intent on celebrating. Pasha took a swig from his glass, his face creasing at its flavor.
The tepid white wine had lost its sparkle and was as flat as Pasha’s mood until a dressing room door left ajar opened a few inches wider. When Ed looked right at him through the gap and beckoned, time stood still for a moment.
Ed opened the door even wider, and Pasha finally slipped away unnoticed.
“Get in here,” Ed said, the locking of the door a mutedclickhe tested by wiggling the handle. Satisfied, he then leaned against a counter littered with discarded cans of hairspray and cover-up makeup. “Figured the boy band dressing room was the last place they’d look for us.” The light bulbs surrounding the mirror turned the tips of his hair gold instead of sandy, diffusing the brightness as he grabbed Pasha by the shirt and hauled him in. “We might be going our separate ways, but I’m done with you not talking to me?—”
Pasha muffled Ed’s words with a kiss he hadn’t meant to give him. He pressed his mouth to lips he’d watched thin in frustration only a few days before. Now they were soft and giving. This wasn’t the time to ask whether Gerry had spoken with him. It wasn’t the time to explain about his home life either, and why it had fueled his desire to win for so long. When Ed tilted his neck to the perfect angle everything else could wait.
He pulled at Ed, twisting until the counter was at his back and Ed was between his spread legs. When Ed curled both hands over his arse and tugged him firmly upward, Pasha stood on tiptoe, gripping Ed’s neck and shoulders for balance. One shove and he was up on the counter, cans and bottles toppling as they kept on kissing as if they hadn’t argued at all.
The touch of Ed’s fingers to the side of his neck was a surprise, gentle where Pasha half expected the same desperation that had clawed at his insides. Each movement Ed made—sketching, stroking, tracing—was almost too much. Forgiving, when he’d expected anger. Soft, when the last time they’d been alone together, Ed’s expression had been hard.
Ed’s voice was pitched low. “Listen, families bring out the best and the very worst. You were upset. I was too, or confused at least. But trust me about two things: there’s nothing you can tell me that’s going to make me think less of you, and there’s nothing we can’t sort out at the end of next week.” He met Pasha’s gaze and held it. “Nothing, Pash. That is, if you want to.”
Pasha’s nod was involuntary but heartfelt. It looked as if Ed’s smile—slow to start but quickly spreading—was a similar gut reaction.