Stuff (The Bristol Collection) Read Online Free PDF Page B

shortage of graffiti in Stokes Croft, after all. “I love the view. It changes every week. Every day, sometimes. You see these amazing paintings someone must have spent hours over, and then the next day someone else has obliterated it with something completely different.”
    “Yeah, but that’s what’s so great about ephemeral artworks, innit? You’ve gotta make the most of them while they’re there. Kind of a metaphor for life, I reckon.”
    And just when Perry had Mas pegged as the male equivalent of a flirtatious bimbo, he came out with a word like ephemeral and an insight like that. Perry stared into Mas’s eyes, his mind busy adjusting to the new information. “Do you have an art education?”
    Mas snorted. “Hardly. Not unless you count GCSE level. It was my best subject, though. Especially as I went to extra life drawing classes at the local college. My teacher got me in. All the rest of the students were middle-aged women, but we all appreciated the model. Brad, his name was. Had dreads and a load of hippie necklaces on, but he was hung like a fucking mule. Good thing the teacher insisted we wore these enormous painting smocks. I reckon he was just as excited about Brad’s crown jewels, the pervy old queen.”
    Perry shook his head.
    “Oops.” Mas grinned. “Yeah, I see what you mean about all conversations leading to sex. I didn’t know it had become that bad a habit.”
    “I’m sure it’s fine in certain contexts. Just, maybe not when meeting a new acquaintance for the first time.”
    “Acquaintance? And there was me thinking we were friends now.”
    Perry flushed, but he was determined to make his point. “Especially when that acquaintance is a straight man.”
    “Hmmm… And I’m the bastard offspring of Jay-Z and Rihanna. Give it a rest, boy-o. You’re not fooling me.”
    “I’m not trying to fool you! For Pete’s sake.” Perry turned his back to Mas and began climbing up the side of the dormer window. There was a good foothold at the bottom, almost as if it had been designed for that. It wasn’t until he heard a harshly indrawn breath from behind him that he realised what he must look like to Mas, his rear sticking out.
    Did Mas genuinely find him attractive, or could he not help himself from flirting with any man? Cherise always paid Perry compliments, but then again, that was all part of her job, wasn’t it? Perhaps he could ask her next time he visited. Or then again, perhaps that would make him look desperately needy. No, he didn’t want to give off that impression.
    “Careful as you come over,” Perry cautioned. “Don’t want any of the tiles knocking out of place.” Perry made it to the top of the dormer window and then over the peak of the roof to the central valley. The flat topped section between the pitched roof at the front and the one at the back was only a few feet wide, but he’d made it into a little oasis of calm. The valley ran down the whole row of the terrace, but the section above each separate building was divided by a wrought iron grill shaped like a sunburst. Mas had been right. Like the wrought iron staircase, it was another example of the way people used to pay attention to detail, lavishing time and attention even to the bits of a building that hardly anyone would ever see. Unless people were more into roof-clambering back in those days. Somehow Perry doubted it.
    “Wow, what is all this shit?” Mas was climbing over the top of the roof.
    Perry was about to retort that it wasn’t shit, when he caught the look on Mas’s face. Genuine wonderment, if he wasn’t mistaken. Okay, that kind of reaction he could handle. “Just some projects I didn’t have room for anywhere else in the building.”
    “You’re not fooling me. You’ve got plants and everything. How the hell do you get water up here for them? Must be a bloody nightmare, keeping them alive. But they’re not just alive, are they? They’re flourishing. And really…green.”
    “I like