Limerence (Famous Young Things #2)

Eight

Eight

Nico

A s I exit the building, Felix is unchaining his bike from the stand. I watch him for a moment as his phone begins ringing. He slips it out of the black crossbody bag he’s wearing, takes a look at whoever it is, and decides immediately that he’s not going to answer. He silences the call and puts his phone back in the bag. When he’s arranged himself, he turns and points his bike in the opposite direction.

This is when he spots me, a complex look flitting over his face. He looks up the street, at the exit from this situation, presumably, and then back at me. Decision made, he rolls the bike towards me.

“Where you headed now then?” he asks, sounding as though he couldn’t care less.

I shrug. “Home, maybe to the gym, maybe catcall some women as I go. You know, general hetero stuff.”

He bites back a smile. “Do you catcall in Italian?”

“It’s sort of a universal language.”

He’s silent for a moment before he says, “What was all that about in there? ‘ Felix is one of the most naturally gifted dancers who’s ever stood on a stage …’” He says it in a pretty decent imitation of my accent too.

“The truth.” I shrug.

That complicated look is back on his face. “Well, I still fucking hate you.”

“Obviously.”

He glances around the street again, debating something.

“So, I’m having a party tonight at my place, for my birthday.” He shifts on his feet. “Everyone at the company is coming. Well, almost everyone—Fen wouldn’t be seen dead there. Be weird if I didn’t invite you.”

I toy with the idea of telling him Ava has already invited me, but I don’t see what benefit it serves. Plus, this Felix is… something to witness. Shy, a little embarrassed, can barely look at me. My chest feels warm in the face of it. He’s waiting for something, and I realise it’s for me to speak.

“Sorry, was that an invite?”

“Fuck you, you know it was.”

“‘ I still fucking hate you, fuck you, be weird if you weren’t there …’” This time I do his accent. “Is this how you invited all of your guests?”

“No, obviously.”

“Then I’d like a proper invite like everyone else.”

He grips his handlebars and climbs onto his bike. “Yeah, and I’d like Paul Mescal to sit on my face for an entire weekend but we can’t always get what we want in this life, Savini. I’m at 101 Albany Street, the old fire station. Don’t arrive before 8pm if you know what’s good for you.”

I watch him cycle off down the street before pulling out my phone to find out who Paul Mescal is.



I almost go out to buy something new because nothing I have in my wardrobe is fitting for a party at someone’s house. I’m not even sure what sort of dress code that falls under. But I hate shopping, and for the last while Porzia did a lot of my shopping with me or for me which, for a twenty-four-year-old man, is something close to embarrassing, I am aware. I don’t even have to imagine what Felix would think of that. Even less than what he’s going to think of the outfit—a Dead Poets tour T-shirt and a pair of jeans—lying on my bed. After an hour of debating, I call my sister.

“I’m going to a party at someone’s house. Is a band T-shirt and jeans acceptable?”

She hums. “Depends, is it a party at a drug dealer’s house?”

I groan.

“Whose house is it?”

“Someone from the company,” I say too quickly.

“Is it a dinner party or just a party?”

I hadn’t asked. He hadn’t said. Probably on purpose so I’d show up dressed incorrectly.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re hopeless, little brother.”

“I don’t go out much, Porzia, for this reason.”

“Well, no. You don’t go out much because you’re an angry little duckling who hates people and all you do is sleep, eat, and dance. Fashion has nothing to do with it.”

This is, in fact, the truth. I do hate people. I hate Felix, too, it just so happens that I’m in love with him at the same time. Which isn’t something I’d recommend to anyone who likes being sane.

“Tell me what to wear, Por, I’m already running late.” It was just after seven, and I had only a vague idea where his place was in proximity to mine. At least I had the wine. The wine Ava had warned me not to forget. I spent a stupidly long time in an upmarket wine seller earlier looking for something expensive enough to impress but not too expensive that he’d think I was trying to prove something.

“You have a suit, yes?” asks Porzia.

I stand, go to the closet, and pull out the black Armani suit bag. It hadn’t even occurred to me to wear a suit. “That’s not too formal?”

“Not if we dress it down.” It was a dark red/brown three-piece which Porzia tells me I should wear as a two. I have a black Ralph Lauren polo sweater she bought me for Christmas which she tells me to wear with brown shoes and belt. We switch to video call after I’ve dressed, and she approves of me immediately.

“You have a black overcoat, yes?” She is walking around her kitchen with Auro on her hip and spaghetti sauce on her cheek. “Wear it over the jacket but take both off when you arrive.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

“I cannot have the English think my brother does not dress well. We are Italian. Now, who is she?”

I falter. “What do you mean?”

“You would not care this much if there was not someone there you want to impress. Who is she? Some English ballerina?” She sounds unimpressed.

“I want to impress my new workmates, that’s all. It’s nothing like that.”

Thankfully we have switched back to voice call because she would, I’m certain, be able to read the lie on my face.

“No ballerina?”

“No ballerina,” I confirm. “If there was, I would tell you.”

“Hmm, ok. Well, I have to go because Alessio will be home soon, and I need to put Auro in the bath. Have fun tonight.”

“Okay. I’ll call you soon.”

“By pippi,” she says before hanging up.



I take a cab to Felix’s place, which according to the map is not too far from my own, though you would not know it by the amount of time it takes to push through the jumble of London traffic. I could have walked quicker. When the Uber pulls into a cobbled street closed off on one end, and I see a crowd of people outside a house about halfway down, I ask him to stop.

“This is Albany Street,” the driver says. The street is damp but charming, I decide. There is a row of normal-looking houses, ivy growing over most of the high brick wall which runs along opposite. Each facade is painted a clean white, doors a polished beetle black. The house I presume to be Felix’s—which he called ‘the old fire station’—is the odd one out at the end. A large, converted building served by a garage on one side, open now to shelter the people smoking. Inside, I can see one wall set up with mirrors and a barre. A weight stack sits next to a small sofa, currently occupied by two girls and a guy on the other side of the room. His black bike hangs on a hook on the wall.

Bottle of wine gripped firmly in my hand, I step inside the house. It’s a large, open space with another level on one side, accessible by a staircase near the door. Lights and balloons are strung up all over, and there looks to be around forty people here already, not counting those outside.

I spot Ava immediately, dressed in a bright orange evening dress, which accentuates her hair. I don’t see Felix. I make my way towards her.

“You came,” she says, scanning me top to toe, eyes widening with appreciation.

“He actually invited me himself.”

This makes her eyes widen even more. “Well, what do you know. Maybe he is growing up? Gin punch?” She indicates the large crystal bowl she’s guarding.

“Sounds violent.”

“Oh, it will be after about four glasses.” I nod, and she uses a silver ladle to fill a small glass with the rose-pink liquid. I’m still holding my coat and jacket, and she reaches out to take them as I take the glass from her.

“I’ll put this in the cloakroom. Be back in a second. Don’t give Charlie another glass of this. He’s already had two and he cannot, and I mean this fatally, hold his drink.” She nods over my shoulder where Charlie is leaning against a set of doors out into what appears to be a small garden.

“I’ll guard it with my life,” I promise, and she moves off behind me somewhere. I move around the counter to take Ava’s spot, which offers a better view of the entire room, as well as out into the garden. It’s here I catch sight of Felix. Sat cross-legged under a tree which has been strung with fairy lights. He’s wearing all white: a white knitted sweater, faintly transparent, rolled up at the sleeves, and white pressed slacks. A pair of white shoes, too, with obnoxious gold buckles. Around his neck he wears some ridiculous diamond and gold necklace, so close to the skin it’s like a collar. As he turns his head, I notice he has dusted a sort of glittery powder on his temples and eyelids. He looks like some kind of fae prince in an enchanted wood. It’s… mesmerising. It makes my palms dampen slightly and my tongue dry up. I lift the small glass of punch and swallow it back in one.

Just then, someone in my eyeline moves off and I can see that he’s talking to an extremely good-looking guy. Dark skin and impeccably dressed, his body turned into Felix almost protectively, arm slung over the back of the long seat they’re both sitting on. The look on his face is one I understand completely; utter infatuation.

When he reaches out to settle a hand on Felix’s thigh, I scoop another ladleful into my glass.

“I’ll take one of those, too, please.”

I turn to find Ava back beside me. She has dramatic lines of purple drawn across her eyelids and out toward her temples and I wonder if she and Felix did their make-up together. It’s stage-like but works on her pointed pretty features.

I pour some punch into a clean glass and hand it to her.

“How many are you on?” I ask, indicating the glass.

She gives me a look. “The same rules don’t apply to me.”

“Because you made it?”

“No, because I’m Irish. We’re just built differently.” She raises a glass and gently taps it against mine. “You’ll see.”

I let my eyes drift back outside. Felix is laughing now. Almost demurely, as the guy whispers something into his ear.

“I genuinely thought you might have killed each other today,” says Ava. She’s also watching Felix. I want to ask who the guy is. I didn’t think he was with anyone, not seriously at least.

“He was pretty well-behaved, actually.”

“Yeah, well, you must have been well-behaved too,” she says. “If he invited you here tonight considering he loathes you.”

“I’m always well-behaved, Ava.” I’m aware of the potentially flirtatious way someone might take a comment like that, but the punch is messing with my judgement a little.

“Yeah?” Ava sips her drink, eyes fixed on mine. “Wonder if Sofia Wynter would say the same?”

“Ouch.”

Ava shrugs. “It was big news. The ballet world was stunned when its golden couple called it quits.”

“Was it?” I’m not sure how we got onto this topic, but I want out of it. I want to turn my head and see if Felix has straddled the guy outside yet, but I worry it might look obvious.

“Though not as interested in your career break and sudden shock departure from Romasco.”

“The ballet world sure is interested in things that don’t concern them.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You’re Nico Savini. You ARE the ballet world, darling. Of course, they’re going to eat up everything they can get their grubby little mitts on about you.”

“I’m not that interesting.”

“Wow, a modest ballet dancer. I thought they were a myth.”

“No, you’ve just been living with Felix too long.”

She throws her head back and laughs; it’s low and a little husky, like her voice. A very stupid, very selfish idea takes root in my head.

“Plotting my death, you two?”

I turn to find Felix watching us both suspiciously.

“We’d meet in a dark room to do that, babes,” Ava says, turning to smile at him. “Not right here in your kitchen.”

He gives her a pointed look which conveys a message I’ve no hope of understanding. He turns to me, eyes dipping over me. I can’t read his expression.

He says, “You made it then.”

“Unfortunately for you.”

I see him cover the start of a smile. He looks at the wine on the counter before lifting it up to inspect the label. “This for me?”

I nod. “Happy birthday.”

“This is good stuff; did the woman in the shop pick it for you? You don’t strike me as a pink fizz sort of guy.”

“It was actually a guy.” I point at the bottle. “In the shop.”

Felix’s gaze lingers on mine a moment before he hums and saunters across the kitchen. At what looks to be a wine fridge, he stoops, opens it, and slots the bottle inside.

Then he comes and inserts himself between us to fill two glasses with the sweet gin punch. From here, I can see that his eyes, temples, and cheeks are indeed dusted with a fine gold powder. It brings out the gentle green-gold of his eyes. His scent is almost feminine, a deep floral musk that does something very particular to my dick.

“Bring the cake out in half an hour, will you?” Felix says quietly to Ava. “I think Rufus might be about to ask me to Monte Carlo for the weekend.”

“How drunk is he?” Ava quips.

“Oh, these are both for me,” he says and gives her a wink before striding back out into the garden.



After the cake has been wheeled out—white and gold to match his outfit—and we’ve sung Happy Birthday to a beaming and gorgeous Felix, a DJ appears seemingly from nowhere with a set of steel decks and a nightclub vibe settles over the polite gathering. The lights are dimmed, and a gold disco ball turns the room into what I imagine the VIP room of an expensive gay club in Los Angeles to look like. It isn’t entirely my scene. I should leave. But I’m sure the moment I do, whatever is holding Felix back from mounting this Rufus in full view of his entire birthday party, will disappear. It’s ridiculous, obviously, for all sorts of reasons. Least of all since Felix has no concern whatsoever about who sees him kiss and mount and drape himself over men. It’s half of what he posts on his social media. But he doesn’t look particularly into this Rufus guy. He’s looked almost distracted the entire night, as though his thoughts have been elsewhere. I’d watched him whenever possible, flitting around the guests like a bird from branch to branch, making sure everyone had a drink and a piece of cake—even me.

I haven’t seen him in about half an hour though, Rufus is also notably absent, and I try not to think too hard about why that might be. Charlie, drunk and loud, has been telling me why everyone at the company hates me and what exactly I need to do to make them not hate me. Get Felix to like me is it.

I shouldn’t have come.

I’d have made more of an impression on Felix had I refused his invitation. It would have pissed him off and made him angry and it’s a pity I’m only realising this now. I don’t drink much, very rarely and only on special occasions, so after three cups of Ava’s punch and a glass of heavy red wine, I am as close to drunk as I’ve been since Christmas. It’s as good a sign as any that I should leave.

I’m looking for Ava to ask where she put my coat when a door opens outward into me, and out stroll Rufus and Felix, both looking flushed. Felix stops, a flicker of something coming over his face as he looks at me. Rufus leans in to kiss him on the cheek, chuckling as he saunters back into the kitchen.

“Having fun, Savini?” Felix asks, running a hand through his hair. His lips are bright cherry red, and I feel a shock of white-hot envy burn its way through me. It’s one thing to imagine the man of your dreams fucking a handsome stranger at a party, and another altogether to see it.

“Not as much fun as you, clearly.” I flick my eyes in the direction Rufus went in.

“Yeah, well, it is my birthday.” He lifts his champagne glass to down the last of the pink sparkling liquid. I can’t help but track the bob of his Adam’s apple. “Having a dick in my mouth on my birthday is sort of a tradition.”

My own cock stirs, and I have to force my eyes away from said mouth. “I was looking for my coat.”

“You’re not leaving already?” he says, sounding almost disappointed. “You were just about to convince me you were normal.”

I meet his eye and something soft comes into his. Clearly the intoxication.

I say, “I think that might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

That isn’t true, because Nico is the best dancer in the world, has been running through my head since he said it about eight hours ago.

“Oh, then you should definitely stick around. Another one of these and I might even call you hot.” He’s holding a champagne bottle in his other hand, and he lifts it and tops up his glass with some difficulty.

“There you are.”

“That’s you she’s talking to,” Felix tells me.

When I turn, I find Ava smiling at me.

“Thought you’d gone.”

“He was thinking about it,” Felix informs her.

“Charlie was giving me an earful and you’d disappeared.”

“Had to go put Amelia into a taxi. That girl cannot handle her gin punch either.”

“Do you think maybe it’s the gin punch that’s the problem.”

She pretends to look hurt. “How very dare you?”

“It tasted lovely, though.”

A flirtatious look comes into her eyes and I turn to Felix, but he’s gone back into the main room. He has his arm slung around someone, dancing drunkenly. It’s not Rufus but an equally attractive guy who’s looking at Felix like he’s Christmas morning. The bottle hangs loose between his fingers as he pushes his body into him, crotch first.

I swallow and turn back to Ava.

“You hungry?” she asks, suddenly.

“Um.” I think about it. “I am actually.”

“There’s a great little dim sum place down the road. I don’t think he’d notice if we fucked off for a bit.”

It was too much like being asked out. The look in her eyes told me that too. And though she was attractive, I wasn’t attracted to her. But then, I didn’t want to hang around here and watch whatever, or whoever, Felix would do next.

I smile and nod. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

“I’ll grab our jackets.” She beams and heads for the stairs. “Meet you outside in five.”

I take one last look at him, eyes closed over in bliss and a radiant smile on his face as the new guy whispers something into his ear. What would it be like to be allowed to be that close to him? To feel the heat of his blood and skin that near to my own. The press of him against my body. Alive with lust.

I’d thought about it often enough, fantasised about it more times than I could count, but I’m pretty sure nothing could come close to the real thing. It pisses me off because I could have fallen for anyone; that’s the real fucking kicker here. There’s been a hundred guys more passionate, less shallow, more interesting, less fucking irritating than him who’ve given me looks over the years. Looks I understood well enough. So what the fuck was it about this one?

Even looking at him now, I don’t understand it. He’s beautiful, yes, talented, yes, but everything else about him, everything that should turn me off, is louder and more pervasive, and far harder to ignore. I should hate him. And I’ve made a good fucking show of it over the years, but I don’t. I can’t. I’ve tried. I want him more than anything and I don’t understand why. I don’t have a single clue what it is about him that has me in knots like this. I’m not sure I’ll ever get to the bottom of it.

I sigh, knowing already that my session with Hana on Monday is going to be another Felix-fest.

“Ready?” Ava says from behind me. I spin around, hoping she hasn’t caught me staring, and there’s nothing in her eyes to suggest she has. She just holds my coat out, a warm, overly friendly smile on her face.

I nod. “Yeah, let’s go.”