Stuff (The Bristol Collection) Read Online Free PDF

could I possibly mind a bum like that? It’s perfect.”
    “It is?” Perry’s cheeks heated. How could anyone have the audacity to be that forward? “Don’t be ridiculous. Men don’t have attractive derrieres.”
    “Ooh, talking French to me now? You’re such a romantic. And you’re wrong. Nothing against women’s bums—quite literally in my case—but there’s something just right about a lean, muscular pair of buttocks.” The gleam in Mas’s eyes was so devilish, Perry almost threw his hands back to cover the buttocks in question. But that would be admitting Mas had him rattled, and he really wanted to keep his cool.
    Cool. Perry glanced at Mas’s artfully tousled curls and effortless way of making even that polyester uniform look like he’d just wandered off a catwalk. As if Perry had ever been anything approaching cool. That probably wasn’t even the word they used anymore. The really cool ones. They’d say something so achingly hip Perry wouldn’t have a hope of understanding them.
    So instead of responding to Mas’s teasing, Perry turned and carried on up the stairs. It would be simpler on the roof. Mas would be distracted, and Perry could get back to whatever it was he’d been doing. The carp. That was it.
    He’d get back to the carp. That would calm him down.
    “So this is your flat up here, is it?” Mas asked as the staircase took them past the second-floor windows.
    “Mostly storage on the first and second floors. My living quarters are in the attic, but I’ve got a workshop on the first floor.” Perry was glad he’d kept his curtains drawn. Wouldn’t do to have Mas peering in and commenting on his total lack of interior design skills. That and the clutter.
    “Workshop? What sort of stuff do you make? No, wait a minute, let me guess… Something to do with leather, maybe. I can totally see you stitching, I dunno, gloves or something.”
    “I do sometimes work with leather.”
    “No way! It’s not kinky shit, is it? I know this couple who are into all that. Bet Jos would love a handmade collar all of his own.”
    Gracious! “I don’t make that sort of thing.”
    “What do you make, then?”
    “Do you always ask this many questions?”
    “Meh, usually. Unless you can find a way to shut me up. I can think of one really good one, but like you said, you’re not into boys in that way.”
    Perry prayed for deliverance, even though he hadn’t been to chapel for years, and he’d never believed in the monotheistic deity in the first place. “Does every conversation you have have to lead to a sexual innuendo?”
    “Now who’s the one demanding answers?” Mas didn’t sound annoyed, as his voice had that lilting tone to it again. But for some reason, annoyance was ratcheting up inside Perry.
    “Forget it,” he said.
    “Nah, it’s all right. You’ve probably got a point. And that isn’t a knob joke, honest. Not that you haven’t got a point. Or at least, I assume you’re not a trans-man. I can generally tell. Not that they aren’t hot in their own way. I mean, the whole gender-bending thing is a turn-on.”
    “I thought this was going to be a nonsexual conversation?”
    “But you asked me if everything had to lead to a sexual innuendo. What’s that demanding if not proof of the pudding?”
    “You could try to disprove me. I’m sure you can’t always have twisted every conversation towards sex.” They’d reached the top of the stairs. Perry stepped over the stone parapet and leaned against the side of the dormer window.
    Mas looked like he was about to answer, then he turned and gasped. “You were so fucking right about the view! Wow, I had no idea you could see Nelson Street from here!”
    Perry hadn’t been entirely sure about the street art project down there to begin with, but over the years, he’d grown to love the giant paintings. There was a plethora of murals in the near distance too, in the maze of back streets and alleys his building looked out onto—no