The wail of the car horn streaked passed Ollie in the sweltering Yorkshire heat, and he folded his thumb back into his fist to replace it with an extended middle finger. Hitching a ride always seemed so easy in the flicks, but apparently even movie-star looks weren't enough to charm a lift through the back roads of the English countryside. 

Ollie was dancing a few meters beyond the half line as Fairclough went charging by, and though Ollie couldn't be sure if he'd imagined it or not, he thought he saw Fairclough smirk at him in the brief second they were parallel to one another. The cheek of it poisoned the competitive streak in him, blackening it into a surge of pure dislike that sent Ollie thundering down the pitch after him with more intention to knock the smugness right off Fairclough's stupid litso than any desire to win the ball.

Ollie gave his Gibson a hearty whack of irritation to signal the song's finish, and the room stuffed itself with the din of applause, though Ollie couldn't even bring himself to enjoy that, because Fairclough wasn't clapping with the rest of them, and it bothered him to no end that someone didn't seem to appreciate his talents. 

He shoved his way through the crowd of onlookers, which parted to accommodate him without much protest, while Kevin Duffy pushed his way towards Julian, whose state clearly deserved a bit more attention. Ollie couldn't help but notice that Charles was hanging back slightly, watching the scene with something akin to distaste radiating from beneath his heavy eyelids. 

Water droplets hung frozen in the sticky air, the roar of the city hushing to an unnoticed whisper as Ollie forgot where he was, or that he was lonely, frustrated and listless and all the rest of the stupid shit that usually clogged his mind. Instead, he was filled with the tenderness of Julian's hand curled around his cheek, and the familiarity between them, as though they had kissed hundreds of times over the course of a hundred lifetimes, even despite the careful, tentative way Julian had positioned himself so that only their mouths touched. 

Leaving Ollie to chew over that, Julian settled back into his dark throne of floral upholstery. He let his eyelids flutter nearly closed, though he could still see Ollie jerkily leafing through a worn copy of The Dharma Bums, a frown marring his pretty features. Mean as Ollie could be, especially when he got to decrying Charles, the way he looked with his yellow hair crowned in sunlight and filigreed with dust motes made Julian want nothing more than to stop the world and kiss Ollie at least one hundred fifty different ways. 

Twilight had begun to skim across the horizon with its evening blush, and the swooping arches of Electric Avenue pricked the low light with their buzzing globules of gold as Ollie passed. Each bulb soared by Ollie like a comet, motes of trembling starlight that brought Ollie back to the night he'd stood on Duffy's rooftop with Julian, and Julian had confessed that he was in love with him. A wet prickle bit the inside corners of his eyes, and he blinked furiously to dry the sweat from his eyelashes – he was sure it was sweat – as he turned off the high street...