Chapter Text
Stede was smiling when he woke up.
The sun was streaming through the skylight above his bed, which meant it must be afternoon, or nearly. He threw one hand over his eyes in protest and used the other to grope blindly for his phone. As suspected, it was nearly noon.
As he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, Stede realized that he was alone. For a moment, his half-awake brain told him ‘last night was just a beautiful dream’, like he was in some champagne-soaked fairy tale with a confusing erection-related moral. But the sheets were kicked away from the foot of the bed, which Stede would never do, and the pillows on the far side of the bed had obviously been flattened by a head recently.
Stede ran his hand over the divot on the pillow, smiled again, and slipped out of bed.
Through the big picture window in the kitchen, he saw Ed sprawled out on a deck chair, still completely naked, with his phone propped up on the table. He was facetiming somebody, Stede thought, and gesticulating emphatically. Yet again, Stede smiled- or maybe he hadn’t stopped smiling since he woke up, now that he thought about it. He popped a packet into his espresso machine and caught Ed’s eye through the window. Ed tipped his chin up and winked at him, but whoever he was facetiming must have said something to provoke him, because he dropped eye contact and aimed his middle finger at his phone.
Once Stede’s espresso was ready, he padded outside, leaving the big door open to let in the fresh air. A tinny, raspy voice was pouring out of poor Ed’s phone speakers, clearly midway through a rant “...you absolute fookin’ twat!”
“Iz, Iz-” Ed waved his hand in front of the phone, “we’ve got company.” He turned the phone around so the screen was facing Stede. The subject of Ed’s ire, it seemed, was a man in a conservative black suit with a grey goatee.
"Oh, you must be Iggy.” Stede summoned his best ass-kissing voice. “Ed has told me such wonderful things about you."
“Hmmph.” the man looked him up and down. “Nice cock.”
Oh, right. Stede probably could have put something on before stepping outside. Still, one ought to be polite when they receive a compliment, so he chirped “Thank you!” and hoped he wasn’t blushing as much as he thought he was.
Ed threw his head back and laughed, which redirected his manager’s attention. “Turn your phone around, Edward.” Ed did. “If I find out you've been bouncing on some dick instead of making the most of this opportunity…"
“Yes! See?” Stede walked around and leaned on the back of Ed’s lounge chair. “Honestly, Iggy, that’s exactly what I told him last night. What’s the point of coming all the way out to Los Angeles if you’re not going to network?”
Ed raised an arm above his head to swat ineffectively at Stede’s face. “Nah, you two don’t get to team up on me, that’s not how this is going to go.”
“Nobody’s teaming up on you, Ed, I don’t even know this man.” Stede peeled Ed’s hand off of his face and pressed a kiss to his palm, provoking a muttered string of expletives from Ed’s manager. “My name is Stede, not that you asked. Stede Bonnet.”
Iggy’s eyes narrowed. “Bonnet? As in Badminton, Bonnet and Barnes?”
Ugh. “The same.”
“You’re a publicist?”
Stede winced. “Former.”
He’d thought maybe that would placate Ed’s manager, at least, but instead the little man pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, you would ,” he said. “You would trip on your dick and land in the lap of the biggest PR firm in Hollywood, wouldn’t you?”
“Um, I’m not with the firm anymore, actually-” Stede said, but he didn’t have to provide an explanation, because Ed jumped in.
“Izzy, baby, I absolutely have to go. My phone is, uh, running out of minutes.”
“That’s not even a thing, you twaaaa-” Ed hung up and turned gravely to Stede.
For the very first time since meeting Ed, Stede felt anxious, as if he’d been caught in a lie. “Look. We were having such a nice time at the party, and to be fair, you never actually asked me about my career, did you? So I-”
“Stede. Love. I genuinely don’t give a shit.” He leaned forward intently. “But listen. I am so hungry. I am losing my mind. Do you not keep food in your house? Because I really looked.”
It took a second for Stede to wind his anxiety down. “Oh, um- I guess I’ve been pretty lax about grocery runs lately- I eat out a lot.”
Ed flailed, obviously frustrated. “See, I know I should make a dirty joke right now, but I can’t, because I’m fucking starving. I almost ate the froyo in your freezer, but mate, it expired four months ago!”
“Oh, you would have hated it anyway, it barely tasted of orange.” Stede shook his head ruefully at the memory of it. “Well, there’s such a cute breakfast place up the canyon a ways-”
“Sold!” Ed stood up and tugged Stede’s arm toward the door. “C’mon, the sooner we get dressed, the sooner we eat. And the sooner we eat, the sooner we come back here and I can finally see what you look like when you come.”
Stede stumbled after him, laughing. “Well, when you put it that way…”