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Stede has no idea what he’s looking at, at first. Only that it’s huge, purple, and . . . tentacular? A big round pouch in the middle filled with blobby spheres, and eight long tendrils sticking out in different directions. If pressed, Stede might describe it as looking like a cephalopod that’s gorged itself on taro boba tea before crawling into his new freezer to die.
His new landlady, though, who’s been walking him through the apartment, seems to know exactly what it is. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Annie mutters, shaking her head as she pulls her phone out of her pocket and punches in a call.
“Oi, Eddie. You fuckin’ dumbass,” she says when the person on the other end picks up. “You left your Kraken-Pak here, and it’s taking up half the goddamn freezer. Didn’t I tell you to clean all your shit out? New tenant’s pissed!”
“Oh, no,” Stede protests, waving a hand in the air. “No no, I’m not at all—”
But Annie ignores him. “What do I want? What I want is for you to get your lazy arse back over here and pick up your shit! . . . Eh? . . . Then change your route and run over here, Dickfuck! Jeeeesus.”
She hangs up the phone and turns back to Stede, features composed once more. “He’ll be over shortly to collect it, he’s just a couple of miles away. So sorry again about the inconvenience.”
“Oh, no bother,” Stede says quickly. “So, it belonged to the person who lived here before me? This . . . ‘crack pack?’”
“Kraken-Pak,” Annie corrects him. “What, you’ve never heard of ’em?” She raises an eyebrow. “Clearly you’re not a runner.”
Stede shakes his head. “Definitely not.”
Annie, who is a runner—and a highly accomplished one at that, Stede’s already seen her bronze medal from Barcelona upstairs—sighs. “Guess you wouldn’t’ve, then. It’s just a fancy ice pack. The eight legs let you mold it around your body wherever you need the ice the most. ’Specially good for knees, which is why Eddie got one. Though they’re not exactly cheap, so you'd think he wouldn't just leave his lying around."
“Oh?” Stede asks politely. “And about how much does a—er—Kraken-Pak cost?”
“Eddie paid eight hundred, I think.”
“Eight hundred dollars?” Stede feels his mouth fall open. “Eight hundred American dollars?”
“Yeah, Kiwi dollars would’ve been a better deal, eh?” Annie chuckles. “But, no. He bought it here. And normally they’re over a thousand, but Eddie sweet-talked the Kraken people into some kind of discount because . . . well, he is who he is.”
“Oh?” Stede asks again, still being polite. “And who is he, exactly?”
Which is how he finds out.
--
Stede knew, vaguely, when he accepted the six-month guest-teaching post at the University of Colorado, that this bit of America was the mountainy bit. (Bit! As if the state of Colorado alone wasn’t the same size as all of Aotearoa.) But he hadn’t realized it was a training hotspot for elite athletes due to its elevation. Hadn’t realized, when he agreed to sublet a basement from one retired Olympian, that the town would be crawling with so many more.
With one, particular, moreish more.
Because Annie had been the most successful Kiwi runner ever until Edward Teach—Blackbeard—burst onto the scene in the late ’90s: a lanky teen with long hair and a scruffy beard and legs for days and feet that barely touched the ground. Just about Stede’s age and suddenly all over the media, all over the world winning races, look at him go.
And oh, Stede had looked. Never stopped, really. Cheered Blackbeard on with his Olympics-mad kids when they were little, and conveniently made sure the race was streaming every time the man ran in a marathon for years after—even though, as Mary rightly pointed out, Stede would rather cut off his own toe and eat it than run a mile himself.
And then, a few years ago, when Edward Teach came out publicly, jogging through the Auckland pride parade with a huge fuck-off rainbow flag billowing out behind him like a superhero’s cape—well, Stede hadn’t seen that one live, but the footage went viral and found him anyway. He’ll always remember that day, sitting at his computer, watching the clip over and over and over again. Thinking, god, he’s so brave. And then, what if I was brave. And then . . .
And now, here he is. In a whole other country—and somehow on an actual, real-life crash course with his decades-long celebrity-athlete crush.
Because it turns out that “Eddie” . . . “fuckin’ dumbass” . . . owner of the eight-hundred-dollar ice pack . . . the man who, until yesterday, lived in this furnished apartment, slept in Stede’s new bed, is—
Well, it's a good thing Annie just remembered that she has a coaching session and hustled back upstairs, because Stede’s possibly having a little trouble breathing now. Possibly gasping like he’s just run a marathon himself. Possibly wondering what in the actual fuck he’s going to say when this man shows up at his door in—oh, god, how fast can a world-class marathoner run two miles? Probably very, very fast.
Stede doesn’t have much time to prepare.
Ice! his brain screams. Blackbeard is coming over to collect his ice pack, so Stede will talk to him about ice.
Ice jokes. Ice stories. Stede’ll have a complete trove of fun-’n-wacky ice facts ready to go, tidbits he can slide effortlessly into their conversation like . . . well, like ice into a cocktail! Anecdotes polished up and sparkling so he won’t sound like that kid who’s just licked a flagpole in sub-zero weather, all tongue-tied and frozen up like he normally is.
Stede will not be like he normally is.
He'll be suave, smooth. The human equivalent of whiskey on the rocks.
Ooh. Should he pour Blackbeard a whiskey on the rocks?
No, of course he shouldn’t. The man is literally running here; he’ll want a glass of water. A Lucozade, if anything. No, not a Lucozade, Stede reminds himself, a Gatorade, because he’s in America now. Not that Stede has Lucozade or Gatorade (or whiskey, for that matter) or anything to pour into a glass at all, since he just moved in today.
Water it’ll have to be, then. Still, one can be suave over a glass of water, right?
“Ice, or no ice?” Stede’ll ask, slipping from there into his first anecdote. “Did you know that, on luxury cruises to Alaska, the bar staff will chip ice right off a glacier to serve to you in your cocktail?”
“Really?” his guest will say, beautiful brown eyes widening.
“Really,” Stede will say. “Ask me how I know.”
Though, shit, Stede doesn’t want to explain how he knows! Because then he’s going to have to talk about his Alaskan cruise honeymoon, his ex-wife, their long unhappy marriage, certain realizations, le divorce, and . . .
Yeah, Alaskan cruise anecdote is out.
Of course, given why Blackbeard is coming over, the icebreaker (heh) that’d make the most sense is novelty ice packs. But Stede’s a little afraid to go down that road. He might start off with an innocent question about the Kraken-Pak in the freezer—but then, without warning, he’d probably end up talking about padsicles, the postpartum ice packs he made Mary back in the day by drenching sanitary pads and sticking them in the freezer. Which then might cause his brain to segue onto Nutsicles™, the branded ice packs Mary bought him as a post-vasectomy gift, along with those custom boxer-briefs with the pocket in a very specific location . . .
Yeah, ice pack talk is out, too.
Stede racks his brain desperately now, tumbling ice-themed conversation-starters like rocks as he sifts for the smoothest one.
Brainfreeze: myth or reality?
Stabbing a man to death with an icicle: the perfect crime?
Frozen 1 vs. Frozen 2 vs. Olaf’s Frozen Adventure – rank and discuss?
A knock sounds at the door.
--
Never meet your heroes, they say.
Stede reminds himself of this aphorism as he crosses the room, as all thoughts of ice-themed small talk melt right out of his head. He reminds himself that the person standing out there is a human being in a middle-aged body, just like Stede—and, just like Stede, likely to be a disappointment. Sweaty. Smelly. Probably shorter in person than he looks on TV. And very likely an arsehole; fame does that to people, Stede knows. Well, not that he knows any properly famous people. But the professors in his field who get even just a little bit of academic notoriety tend to go mad with the power.
Stede yanks the door open before he can lose his nerve.
“Hey there,” he hears—and, fuck, forget everything Stede just told himself. Because, yeah, the man standing opposite him is sweaty, and his beard is grayer than Stede remembers, and maybe he really is a smidge shorter than he appeared on TV . . . but his voice is that same one from all the interviews, smoke and honey and ice that burns and all the smooth whiskey in the world.
Stede wants to hear it again, wants it like he’s been wanting more of this thin Colorado air in his lungs for hours. Wants words, syllables, he’s like the monster in that poem he used to read to his children (I am the Flotz, I gobble dots), only he wants to gobble up this man’s voice instead of random punctuation. He wants—
“You must be Stede,” the man says, in that voice again, and okay Stede really might expire now.
“You’ve heard of me?” he squeaks.
The man’s brow furrows. “Uh, yeah. Annie texted me your name. I’m Ed.”
He sticks out his hand, and, by some reflex, Stede manages to do the same. And then they’re touching, and, okay, Ed’s palm is sweaty. All of Ed’s skin is sweaty, and there’s quite a bit of it to look at with him dressed in nothing but a tight little pair of running shorts and a pink tank top. He has a surgery scar on one knee, and tattoos pour down his arms like inky waterfalls, damp and sheeny and absolutely ready to throw rainbows, Stede’s sure, if the sun would just get her angle right.
“Do you want to come in?” Stede hears himself say. “I can get you a glass of water, with some—”
But, suddenly—after all of that thinking, and planning, and spiraling—Stede realizes that he’s not actually sure he has any ice.
“With some . . . ?” Ed echoes, and Stede realizes dimly that he’s still holding Ed’s hand.
He yanks his own back. “I was going to offer you ice!” he blurts. “In your water! But now I can’t even remember if my new refrigerator has an ice maker!”
“It does,” Ed says, “but it’s kind of wonky. There’s a trick to it, though—you have to jiggle the dispenser to loosen things up.”
“Right,” Stede says, finally getting ahold of himself. “Of course, you’d know, because you used to live here.”
“Yeah, ’til Annie kicked me out.” Ed steps past Stede through the door, toes off his running shoes, and nudges them into the alcove like—well, like he’s very used to doing it. “Said she’d had an inquiry from someone who’d actually pay her for the space, and she was tired of putting up with my freeloading arse.”
“Freeloading?” Something isn’t adding up here. Why would someone who can afford to spend nearly a month’s rent on a fancy ice pack need to freeload off of anyone?
Ed snorts. “Yeah. Well, I was recovering from knee surgery and couldn’t do the fuckin’ stairs at my place, so Annie offered me this pad for a while. Ground-level entrance, you know? I think she really just wanted to keep an eye on me, though. She and Mary are kind of like big sisters to me. We go way back.”
“I can imagine,” Stede says. They’re in the kitchen now, Ed making a beeline for the fridge. Stede figures he’ll yank the freezer door open, grab his Kraken-Pak, and be on his way.
But, no. He stops and points to what Stede sees now is the lever for an ice dispenser.
“Okay, so, when it gets stuck, just jiggle it like this.” Ed demonstrates. “That’s it, that’s the trick.”
“Thank you,” Stede says. “Annie didn’t show me that.”
“Why am I not surprised.” Ed says it flatly, with a roll of his deep-brown eyes, but Stede thinks he can hear affection under the exasperation. He feels like he’s starting to understand Ed’s and Annie’s relationship just a little better.
Stede waits for Ed to retrieve his Kraken-Pak, but Ed just stands there like he’s waiting for something, too. Finally, in a teasing sort of voice, he says, “The water, mate?” and Stede jumps.
“Oh, sorry! Here, let me . . . ”
Stede starts opening and closing cabinets, because while he knows this apartment comes with dishware, he hasn’t had a chance to poke around yet and actually find it. He’s about to yank open his fourth door when he feels a hand on his back, fingers resting on either side of his spine like there’s a pause button there to be pressed.
“Just let me, yeah?” Ed says, and that honey-ice-whiskey voice in Stede’s ear sends a shiver down his spine as Ed pulls his fingers away. Ed maneuvers around him in the small kitchen and retrieves two glasses from the cupboard over the dishwasher. He fills them with ice at the dispenser, jiggling the handle as needed, then with water from the tap.
They stand in the kitchen, drinking. Stede sips slowly, afraid he’ll choke or dribble all over himself if he doesn’t pay careful attention. Ed, though, downs his glass of ice water almost in one go, throat bobbing, as Stede tries not to stare.
Ed sets his glass on the counter. “So. Uh. It’s your first time in the States? And you’re teaching at the university, right? Literature?”
Now Stede really does almost choke on his water. “How did you—”
“Annie might’ve told me all about you the other day.” Ed grins. “Showed me your bio on the Uni website. Sorry if that’s weird.”
“No! Not at all!” Stede cries. “Or—that is to say—I suppose it’s only fair, since I also know quite a lot about you already.”
Ed’s eyebrows lift. “Yeah? You a marathon fan?”
I’m a you fan, Stede thankfully stops himself from saying out loud. “Well, you’re rather famous,” he says instead.
“Maybe back home,” Ed says with a shrug. “But in Colorado? You can’t jog down the Boulder Creek Trail without running into half a dozen Olympic medalists. We’re a dime a dozen here. Your job, though . . . ” Ed gives Stede an appraising look. “Feels like you must’ve made some pretty good life choices to get to read books all day for work.”
“Oh, I don’t get to read all day,” Stede counters, and then, suddenly, he’s talking about his work, and Ed’s talking about how he never made it to uni but might’ve liked to study lit if he had. Then they’re exchanging novel recommendations, and Stede’s offering to lend Ed a few of his favorites once he gets unpacked, which means Ed will need to come back to retrieve them, and there’s a joke about how he knows where Stede lives, then another about how Stede doesn’t know where Ed lives in case Ed ghosts him and never gives the books back, only that his place is somewhere within a two-mile radius, so is he just supposed to wander the mountainside yodeling Ed’s name? And Ed’s laughing—like, really laughing—and then, somehow, typing his number into Stede’s phone, and his address, saying Stede should just come over for dinner once he’s settled in, how’s Tuesday, and what the fuck’s just happened?
Ed hands Stede’s phone back to him and Stede tries to play it cool as their fingers brush, tries not to crush the phone in a death grip. It’s warm from Ed’s hand—the exact opposite of a Nutsicle™! Stede’s brain tells him helpfully, as he slides it into his pocket—wrong pocket for a Nutsicle™ anyway—and Jesus Christ, Stede needs to shut down this entire line of thinking A.S.A.P.
“So, um,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound half as flustered as he feels, “any more tricks to this place I should know about before you go? Other stuff Annie forgot to show me?”
Ed’s eyes light up. “Oh, loads,” he says. “Like—” He points to the stove. “You ever cooked on one of these gas thingies before? They’re mental. An open fire surrounded by wooden cutting boards and paper towels? Anyway, there is a trick to it: you’ve got to turn the knob this way and hold it in place to get the burner to light, but then turn it the other way—like, really fast—to adjust the flames. I know, don’t ask me who invented this shit. Oh, and come here, look at this . . . ”
Stede follows Ed down the hallway and into the main part the house, where there’s a laundry room Stede will share with Annie and Mary. The washer and dryer A) are completely separate from each other, and B) load from the top, not the front. The oddest thing about the little laundry room, though, is that it has a toilet in it, too.
“Guess they converted it from a bathroom at some point, I dunno. I didn’t even think that toilet was still working until one Saturday morning when I came in here early to do my laundry and there was a man with a handlebar mustache sitting on it! Stark naked, taking a shit. Hadn’t even shut the door, and couldn’t have been less fussed about me walking in on him with my washing. So, uh . . . maybe ask Annie to warn you about when they’re having guests to stay, especially if they’ll be using that toilet. Especially if their name is Jack.”
“Watch out for naked guys with handlebar mustaches named Jack shitting in the laundry room.” Stede says. “Got it.”
Ed shows him how to operate the dials of the laundry machines, then leads Stede back into the apartment and to the bathroom. Insists on showing him how to turn the water on for the shower, because “it’s different from back home, mate,” though Stede definitely could have figured this one out on his own. If he didn’t know better, he’d think that Ed is looking for excuses not to leave, but . . . that can’t be, can it? Surely Ed—Edward Teach—Blackbeard—is just being polite. Or maybe this is his way of hinting that he’d like to rinse off? He did run all the way here, after all.
The bathroom mirror’s starting to fog up—they really should turn off the water, it’s an egregious waste of a limited resource in this high desert environment.
“Would you like a shower?” Stede offers. “You can wash off, and I could—lend you something clean to wear, and—”
Ed’s face contorts, and Stede immediately knows he’s made a mistake. Said the wrong thing and made it weird at last, just like he knew he would. Somehow managed to imply that Ed’s dirty and repulsive enough to need a shower, but also that Stede’s happy for Ed to get naked in his apartment—which, okay, might not be strictly untrue, but—
But, now, Ed’s smiling. “Yeah, sure,” he says. “And maybe, while I’m in here, you could order us some dinner? Call in for a pie from Beau Jo’s, yeah? Colorado-style pizza: it’s a thing. Giant crusts, and they give you honey to dip them in after you eat the rest of it. I know, the Italians would die a slow death, but it’s fun to try, especially if you’re new here. Plus, they’re right around the corner.”
And so, almost in a daze, Stede walks out of his bathroom, out of his basement apartment, and far enough out into the road to get a signal and order them pizza. Then he returns to dig through his still-packed wardrobe and find Ed some loose linen trousers and a t-shirt to wear. Then Ed sneaks up into Annie and Mary’s part of the house, steals them a couple of beers out of the fridge, and they sit together in the back garden (no, back yard, Stede’s in America now) and chat and laugh and eat and Ed’s long hair dries under the setting sun. They open up the honey packets that came with the pizza and start dipping their crusts, and Stede wishes Ed was dipping his fingers into the honey instead, wishes he could suck the golden liquid right off Ed’s gorgeous brown skin.
Suddenly Stede is woozy, and he doesn’t know whether it’s the altitude, or the beer, or just . . . Ed. He only knows that what he decides to do next stuns him like a whack to the skull, like someone plucked one of Annie’s minor running trophies off her shelf upstairs and slammed it into his occipital ridge.
“Ed,” he says, and he plants his feet on the earth to stand up, to force the shaky words out of his mouth. “There—there’s one more thing in the apartment that I’m hoping you can show me how to use.”
“Yeah, mate?” Ed says. “What’s that?”
He looks up from his pizza crust then, a soft query in his eyes, and Stede almost chickens out. Almost says “the Kraken-Pak”; almost laughs; almost asks Ed to wrap the weird tentacles around his knee and show him how on earth such a contraption can be worth eight hundred American dollars.
But from some underground place—somewhere deep within the frozen tundra of himself—Stede excavates his courage. “The bed,” he says. “I was wondering if there might be . . . a trick to the bed.”
Ed tosses his half-eaten pizza crust back into the box. He stands up too, and Stede’s heart isn’t doing distinct beats anymore—it’s just one long, screaming, indistinguishable buzz. I’ll be dead soon if it keeps up like this, he thinks dizzily, but that’s fine. It was a nice last day on earth, anyway.
Ed takes two steps toward Stede, grabs his face, and kisses him.
It turns out that there are, in fact, many tricks to the bed—and plenty of time, over the next six months, for Ed to show Stede all of them.