Kieran clapped his hands together like an excited seal, causing Milo to laugh. He wasn’t a skilled cook, but his lasagna was something everyone complimented him on. There was no special sauce; it was all about patience. He’d be cooking it tonight, knowing it would be at least tomorrow before he could eat some. Few people had that kind of willpower once the garlic, tomato, and meat smells spread throughout their flat.
Once everything was put away, he took a shower. He needed an evening at home given that tomorrow was going to be a full-on day. If Kieran wanted to go out, Milo would have to say no. Surely he’d understand, especially as the sixo’clock thing was still happening. Kieran had been furious to learn Lexie wasn’t going to arrive until close to the start time, but Liam had reminded him who the protest was about, which had shut him up. Besides, it was a protest rally. People were going to be milling about all day. Emotions would run high. Patrick had warned Milo to be careful in case things took a turn. They knew there was at least one anti-protest happening at the same time. Hopefully Kieran wouldn’t do anything stupid and antagonise anyone.
In the shower, Milo’s mind wandered to SilverFoxSubDL and whether he’d be online tonight. Did it matter? Milo wasn’t going anywhere. He needed to catch up on sleep, not fuck some anonymous guy in a dark room. Even though they’d only exchanged a few messages on a hookup app, Milo felt a pull to the mystery man. He’d thought about him every day this week, and he didn’t even know what he looked like. How was that possible?
Once he was out of the shower, he noticed Kieran had gone back to his room, probably to argue with someone on social media. The other two were still at work, so Milo gotdressed in his joggers and T-shirt and set about making his lasagna sauce for the weekend. He popped some music on, closed the kitchen door so he wouldn’t disturb anyone, and got down to business. As he chopped up the onions and garlic, he kept glancing at his phone and shaking his head. He needed to focus on cooking.
Once he’d sautéed the veg, he browned the mince and added some red wine before the passata. It was all coming together when the door opened. It was Liam. He had a mandated five days in the office, but they had a four o’clock finish on a Friday, which Liam always took advantage of. Even with the money, Milo wasn’t sure if he could do that five-days-in-the-office slog every week. How he’d done it before the pandemic was a mystery, but he’d been younger then.
“That smells gorgeous. Is it for tonight?”
“You know I like to let it sit. It’s for tomorrow when we get home.”
“I’m getting my back blown out tomorrow night. Can’t I have some now?”
“Thanks for that imagery.”
Liam gave zero fucks, and Milo had learnt far too much about the different varieties of foreskin from his flatmate’s Sunday morning anecdotes.
“I won’t be assembling until tomorrow, so I’ll save you some for Sunday,” said Milo.
“You’re such a food tease. Who else is home?”
“Just Kieran.”
“Did he rant at you about Chivington?”
“As soon as I walked in the door.”
Liam snorted. “It’s all he’s been going on about this week, and then it leads into us needing an elected head of state.”
“He didn’t get that far with me.”
“Ooh, did you tell him to piss off for once?”
“No, he was banging on about how Patrick staying neutral made him a coward.”
“Ouch. Just ignore him. He’s been proper on one this week. You’ve been working late, so you missed it all. The guy needs to get fucked or something.”
Milo immediately thought of his DL sub guy and wondered what he was doing tonight. Before he could overthink it, he grabbed his phone, opened the app, and sent a message.
TwinkTop8:Are you around tonight?
CHAPTER 4
EDWARD
Edward wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he hadn’t been able to get the gorgeous bleach-blond twink out of his head all week. He’d thought about messaging him a million times, but then he’d been the one to reach out with a simple, “Are you around tonight?”
Edward hadn’t been planning to go out at all. It had been a bitch of a week, with speculation running rife about the PM’s departure. The press were hinting at things, but nobody had broken ranks yet, so they couldn’t claim a source had given them a scoop. It was what Edward admired about Olivia the most– the respect she commanded from the cabinet. Nobody briefed the press in secret after a meeting; even Hargreaves had toed the line before he’d resigned. It was no doubt frustrating for journalists, who all had their sources within government, but it meant important policy updates didn’t leak unless they did it deliberately. That had been a tactic employed by politicians for decades. Have something “accidentally” leak to the press to test the public reaction. If it were muted, they’d press on and confirm the story, or if not, announce something different and tell the electorate not to believe everything they read in the papers. It had been thesame dance as long as politics and the press had existed together.
The online forums were a different beast. They were buzzing with speculation and even suggesting the PM was terminally ill, which is why they weren’t announcing anything. The crap people made up was unbelievable. The credible press might not be reporting on the speculation with any fuss, but the gossip rags were different. They were the same ones who had often speculated about Edward’s sexuality, given he was forty and unmarried. People claimed to be open and inclusive, yet still believed if a man wasn’t tied to a woman at forty, then he was gay. They weren’t wrong regarding him, but he didn’t like the presumptive nature of it all.
That being said, if the gossip press knew what he was doing tonight, they’d think all their Christmases had come at once. Derek had let him in the back entrance again, and now he was in one of the rooms of the labyrinth, waiting to see if TopTwink8 was going to show up. There was no lighting in this room, so Edward couldn’t see a thing. Technically, anyone could walk in, but he’d agreed on a secret knock, so all he could do now was wait. He’d arrived at the club an hour early because the anticipation was too much, and once he’d arrived, he’d gone into the room almost immediately because he didn’t want to risk being seen. Now he was sitting in the dark with no sense of time. Edward was sure his hands were shaking. He wasn’t sure why, because it wasn’t the first time he’d been fucked in a back room.
After becoming a politician, Edward had had to be very careful when coming here, and he’d just had to take what he could get. Sometimes he didn’t know who was fucking him, but he needed it to help him deal with the stress of his job. Edward wasn’t someone who did anything half-arsed. He was dedicated to his constituents and party, and while some of his colleagues phoned it in or focussed on Westminster,Edward spent as much time as he could with the people who’d voted for him. Since he’d become deputy prime minister, he’d faced constituents who wanted to talk about the colossal problems rather than local issues, but Edward made sure he always made time for the latter. It was something Olivia did as well, despite the monumental job she had of running the country. Edward would take the same approach when he became PM.
He was so deep in thought that when someone knocked on the door, he almost hit the ceiling from being so startled.
