Chapter Text
Ed slid into the queue before the coffee trailer. Ten interviews and promo clips already this morning and it wasn’t even 10 o’clock yet. Jet lag made it worse. “Can I go to bed now?” he muttered.
Izzy, face in his phone as he tweaked the Blackbeard tour schedule, didn’t even bother to answer. His manager never wasted so much as a breath if he could help it; waiting time in a queue meant a chance to get work done.
Ed shifted from foot to foot, sizing up the five people ahead of him in the queue. He’d checked out the list of other celebrities on this charity climb, and hadn’t recognised a single one. Izzy wouldn’t let him join an event that didn’t feature A-listers like himself, but Ed was out of the loop when it came to comedy and acting, focused only on musicians. Both Fang, Blackbeard’s drummer, and Frenchie, their bassist, had volunteered. Archie and Zheng had recently appeared on an acclaimed TV show.
The two guys directly in front of him he’d been introduced to already, Roach the medic and John the therapist. Ahead of them were two people he didn’t know, a guy with impressive sideburns and side-eye, and a bloke wearing a jacket with only one sleeve. Funny, that had been Ed’s look during Blackbeard’s greatest hits tour a few years ago.
Then came the bloke currently placing his order.
“My name’s Stede, I’ll be your customer here today. I’d like a— No, wait.” He stopped, shook himself, scrubbed a hand down his face. Ed couldn’t see much over the heads of the others, but he caught a glimpse of blond curls and a t-shirt showing off broad shoulders and rather impressive biceps. “Can I do that again? I’ll come in from the top.”
“We are not filming yet?” The face of the barista—Swede, Ed recalled—was the picture of disorientation. He tapped the earpiece of his headphones. “Jackie says I must move the customers along.”
Sideburns pushed past to the head of the queue. “We’ll have three lattes, please, and three cheese scones. And syrups on the side, vanilla, maple syrup, and— What’s yours, Stede, hurry up!”
“Oh, now, really, Lucius, why all the rush— Black cherry! Thank you!” He slapped his credit card on the reader, and Lucius shuffled him along to the pick up area.
Ed dug his own phone out of his pocket and scrolled through the celebrity list, scanning photo after photo. There, posed with one foot up on a stool, with calves to match those biceps. Stede Bonnet, comedian. Apparently he sang, too, as part of his sketch show. Fascinating.
Ed had three hours before the next round of meetings and interviews, this time with the reps from the charity, Olu, Jim, Auntie, and their main mountain guide, Buttons. He’d promised to hang out with his bandmates, but feigned tiredness, claimed he was too old to fight jetlag, and disappeared into his hotel room.
By the time Izzy banged on his door, he’d read Stede’s Wikipedia page. All about his family business, arranged marriage and, as of five years ago, his divorce, his coming out, his sale of the family business, and the slow start of his comedy career. He’d caught up on the highlights of Stede’s work, laughing his head off at the shorter clips, and bookmarked a slew of longer videos.
He left about 20 tabs open, waiting for his return, and the expectation gave him more of a jolt than all the caffeine he’d downed. He begged off dinner with his bandmates, too, and ate alone in his room, and managed to stay awake through the first half of Stede’s comedy special. He fell asleep to the lilt of Stede singing a sea shanty.