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The music is too loud.
Jesus. That was his first thought walking into the party? God, he’s getting old.
“Ed!” he hears from somewhere in the crowd. It’s Lucius, jumping slightly and waving a hand to be seen. They meet each other by the drinks table. “I’m so glad you made it.”
“Yeah, sounded fun. Haven’t been out in a while,” Ed replies. It was true, he hadn’t been out since he broke up with Jack. Again. For good this time.
“Drink?” Lucius asks and gestures to the table next to them. There are four stacks of cups, all in different colors, each with a label in front. “Like it? I thought it would be a good way for people to mingle.” Lucius whispers the last word and wiggles his eyebrows and Ed knows he means a more vulgar word.
Ed looks more closely at the labels. The one in front of the pink cups reads “TAKEN!” The purple stack next to it says “DTF” and then a blue stack with “Single AF” and finally a green stack with “It’s complicated.”
Normally, Ed would take it’s complicated, but then realizes it’s not anymore. It makes his heart ache just a little. Not that he misses Jack, that two-timing piece of shit, but it still hurts. Ed’s not really sure he’s “DTF” quite yet but he’s definitely single as fuck. He grabs a blue cup.
“Finally!” Lucius sighs. “About time you got rid of Jack.”
“Shut up,” Ed mumbles, moving to the next table to find a drink. There’s plenty to choose from, but Ed just takes some beer from the keg.
“Well, now you can enjoy yourself tonight,” Lucius winks and gestures to all the partygoers around them. “Have fun.”
With that, Lucius goes back to Pete. Ed wanders for a minute. Talks to Roach and Frenchie, who both drink from pink cups. Which is new. Ed knows them, but not well enough to ask about it. He meanders off to Wee John, who’s sitting at a laptop playing DJ. Ed asks for a Prince song, any one of them will do, they’re all good.
Ed dances to a song he doesn’t know the lyrics to. He chit-chats with a few people. He thinks about getting one of the purple cups in a minute. A one-night stand is starting to sound good. What was it that Lucius always said? “The best way to get over someone was to get under someone new.” And there’s no lack of fish in this particular sea.
Ed turns to go back to the cups table when “The Beautiful Ones” begins to play from the speakers. He loves this song. He starts to sing the lyrics to himself, takes a step forward, and just then the crowd seems to part like the Red Sea. And there he is. Blond. Toned. Legs for days. Built like one of those weightlifters from the 1940s; broad shoulders, square chest, slutty little waist.
And holding a purple cup.
Ed’s legs are moving him before he even fully registers it. He has to get to this man before someone else does. The man is pouring himself a mixture of whiskey and Coke when Ed gets to him. Blondie seems to sense his presence and turns toward him, smiling. Jesus fuck. His stupid wrinkles around his stupid hazel eyes.
“Hi,” Ed manages to say, husky, low. He sees the man’s eyes go wide.
“Um,” the stranger stammers, “he-hello.”
His face is awful red for someone who chose a purple cup. Doesn’t matter, it’s cute as fuck.
“I’m Ed,” he slowly reaches out his hand.
“Stede,” the man answers, taking Ed’s hand and shaking it firmly. What an insane name. Ed loves it. He quickly throws his blue cup in the trash and grabs a purple one. Lest there be any mistake here.
“So, uh, how do you know Lucius?” Ed decides an icebreaker is a good way to start. He pours himself a healthy dose of whiskey with a splash of Coke.
“Oh, he works for me.” Ed almost spits out his drink. Ed’s heard more than a few stories from Lucius about his boss. Some good. Some bad. Some are just plain old weird. But he knows the man has an ex-wife and he’s pretty sure Lucius mentioned a kid or two. And that Stede had come out of the closet recently.
“No, shit. He’s mentioned you before,” Ed says. He doesn’t want to look like some kind of weird stalker who knows all that shit about a veritable stranger.
“All good, I hope?” Stede answers with a twinkle in his eye. Ed tilts his hand back and forth in a “so-so” motion. Stede laughs. Ed likes Stede’s laugh. “What about you? How do you know Lucius?”
“Pete works for me,” Ed says, “at the tattoo parlor.”
“Oh! That’s lovely!”
Fuck, he’s too cute. And maybe it doesn’t have to be a one-night stand. Maybe dinner first. Ed makes a show of drinking out of his very purple cup, makes sure Stede can see the color. Stede watches him, smiling, before taking a drink as well.
“So, uh,” Ed sidles closer, “first party like this?” He gestures with a nod toward the towers of different colored cups and their labels.
Stede’s eyes go wide again. “How did you know?”
“You seem a little nervous,” Ed smiles, warm and inviting. Stede laughs again and Ed could listen to that for a very long time. So dinner, then sex, then maybe breakfast the next morning. Ed wonders if Stede likes milk and sugar in his coffee. If he drinks coffee first thing in the morning or if he likes tea instead. There’s only one way to find out.
“I haven’t been out since,” Stede hesitates for a moment, takes a drink, “since my divorce.”
“Oh, shit, man, I’m sorry,” Ed knew Stede was divorced and he wasn’t sorry at all for it.
“No, no, don’t be. We’re both better off. Much happier.”
They chat and they laugh and Ed makes sure to put his hands on Stede whenever possible. On his bicep, his shoulders, the skin of his wrist. Stede refills their (still purple) cups. But he doesn’t touch back; keeps his long, thick fingers to himself.
Ed tells him about Jack. Tells him that maybe it’s time for something new. Gestures to his (incredibly) purple cup. Stede agrees. Tells him he deserves to be happy. Drinks out of his (infuriatingly) purple cup. But he doesn’t make a move.
It’s then that Ed notices Lucius nearby, whispering furtively with Oluwande. Jim is next to him, holding him close. No, holding him back. Olu keeps trying to walk away, toward him and Stede. But Jim and Lucius keep him there, shaking their heads.
“What the fuck?” Ed whispers to himself. He’s more than a little tipsy now, curled in close to Stede on the outskirts of the makeshift dancefloor.
“Sorry?” Stede asks, swaying slightly to the music, definitely a little tipsy, too.
“Uh, nothing. Just…” Ed shakes his head. Looks away from the others and back to Stede, who smiles at him. God dammit, he’s so cute.
Fuck it.
“So…” Ed starts off batting his eyelashes, “do you wanna do this? It’s alright if not but –”
“Do what?” for a moment Ed’s not sure if Stede is serious. But he’s looking at Ed with such sweetly innocent eyes.
“Um, well, I picked this cup for a reason, mate.” Stede looks down at Ed’s cup. Says nothing. “I, uh, assumed you did, too.”
Stede looks back up at him. Blinks.
“It matches my shirt,” he says, simply. He holds it up to said shirt. Sure enough, the shirt is purple, buttoned up to just below Stede’s collar. Ed had been too focused on the small amount of chest hair he could see poking out to notice the shirt color before.
Before Ed can reply he hears laughter. He turns to see Jim and Lucius belly laughing. Frenchie and Roach are also laughing but have the decency to turn away. Olu looks concerned. Archie is nearly rolling around on the floor in fits of giggles. When he turns back to Stede, he’s already gone.
“Stede!” Ed calls when he spots him bolting for the door. He tosses his cup and yells “Fuck you lot!” to the group that has now stopped laughing.
“Shit, we didn’t mean –” Lucius starts, but Ed is already walking away, flipping them all the bird.
Stede is outside, huddled in on himself. His back is to Ed, but he can hear sniffling. Fuck, he’s gonna kill those guys.
“Stede?” Ed calls quietly. Stede jumps anyway. He turns and for a moment Ed can see tears in his eys (he’s really gonna fucking kill those guys) before he turns away again. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” but his voice is small, sad. “I just…I don’t…why were they…?”
“Stede, did you read the labels next to the cups?”
“Well, yes. Didn’t really know what most of them meant, so I just took the one that matched my shirt.” He sniffles again. “It’s one of my favorite shirts, so…”
Ed dares to move a little closer, slowly. Stede looks back at him again, trails of tears down his pink cheeks.
“What did that one mean?” Stede asks, wiping the tears away with the back of his hand. Ed can feel his own face flush.
“Well, um,” Ed leans in closer to Stede as a group of people walk past. “Down to fuck.”
“Oh!” Stede’s voice is high-pitched, shocked. His eyes go big. His face was even redder. “I’m so stupid.” He looks away, shaking his head.
“No, no, it’s okay,” Ed rests a hand softly on his shoulder. He wants to make Stede feel better, never wants to see him sad ever again. “Sorry, I must have been coming on kinda strong. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything.”
This time it was Stede’s turn to protest, “No! You were very nice. I…um…I really enjoyed talking to you.” Stede clears his throat. “Is the offer still on the table?”
Ed smiles. So maybe dinner, sex, breakfast the next morning, lunch, a movie night, more sex.
“It abso-fucking-loutely is.” Ed leans in to kiss him, but just as their lips begin to touch the door opens and a gaggle of people comes rushing out, all talking at once.
“I’m so sorry, Stede,” Lucius was saying, pushing past Ed to hug Stede.
“We weren’t laughing at you,” Jim explains.
“Nah, more just the situation in general,” Frenchie adds.
“I wanted to tell you,” Oluwande pipes up. The others boo him, slapping his arms playfully.
“Shut up, Mr. Goody-two-shoes,” Jim laughs and hits him lightly again.
Stede is smiling, tears in his eyes again, but already Ed knows this time it’s different. Lucius has told him certain things: a loveless marriage, a horrible overbearing father, an old bully.
“Sorry, Captain,” Roach says, the others nod and agree, all giving their own apologies. Ed wonders for a moment what the “captain” thing is about. Didn’t Stede mention a boat? He might have, once again, been too distracted by the way Stede’s muscles flexed when he took a drink from his cup to hear.
“That’s alright, crew,” Stede smiles at them all. “It was quite silly, wasn’t it?”
The group laughs. Frenchie throws his arm around Stede’s shoulder and begins to herd him back inside. Stede grabs Ed’s hand as he passes him by.
“Would you like to dance?” Stede asks with a soft, unsure smile. Ed can feel several sets of very interested eyes on the two of them.
“Love nothing else,” Ed replies, just as soft, but definitely more sure. They all file through the door, laughing and talking and Ed feels something warm start to grow in his chest.
With his hands on Stede’s hips, and Stede’s eyes locked onto his, and some song that’s in French playing over the speakers, they dance. Rather, sway slightly to the rhythm. And they both lean in. And Ed can swear he feels fireworks the second their lips press together.
So maybe lots of dinners, and lots of sex, and lots of morning breakfasts, and lots of movies, and lots of dancing, and meeting his kids, and kisses all day, and a box with a ring in it, and a walk down the aisle.
And a whole lifetime of pink cups.