Limerence (Famous Young Things #2)

Thirty Three

Thirty Three

Felix

N ico Savini is a fucking prick.

I’d decided, as I showered—after he fucked my brains out in studio four in perhaps my hottest sexual encounter to date as a sex-having human—that I needed to end this little liaison of ours.

Because something had to give or I was going to have a breakdown or an injury (I’d decided that either of these would be an ideal solution for everyone). This was the most important moment of my life, and instead of giving every waking moment to practice, I was mooning over a boy and daydreaming about what it might be like to be someone’s honest to God, outside, proper boyfriend.

And he wasn’t even offering me that, it wasn’t even on the table. He’s in the closet, for fuck’s sake. So why then am I imagining us on road trips in Italy and visiting his family in Naples and going to visit UNESCO world heritage sites? I’m delusional. It’s embarrassing and pathetic and it has to stop. I can’t afford to be giving any more spare energy to this nonsense.

Besides, I don’t even like the arsehole.

And while I’m certain he’s not the sole reason I’m dancing so shit right now, he is the only thing that’s different in my life, so it isn’t really much of a reach to put this on him. So, I’d decided I was going to ‘break up’ with him after my tofu curry. But then he told me about Sergio. Sergio fucking Cina who I wanted to exhume, piss on, and stomp into dust. Vile shitting prick.

So, I’d be gentler, give him more than I even wanted to give him about my reasons for ending The Situation?. Thank fuck I hadn’t said anything about the UNESCO thing during that word vomit monologue a minute ago, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t have mattered. He’d still be standing there with his puppy dog eyes and his soft words and his pinpoint-accurate theories, offering me everything I need.

Ergo, Nico Savini is a fucking prick. A sexy, sensitive, emotionally mature prick. With talent.

Christ, I really fucking hate him.

He’s waiting for me to answer him. Tell me what you want from me, Felix, and it’s yours.

I roll my eyes and turn my head. “Fucking hell, I really fucking hate you.”

“I know, but focus. Eyes on the prize.” He guides my head back to him and points to himself, the prize. “Tell me what you want from me.”

I want you to want me the way I can’t seem to stop myself wanting you. I want you to want something real with me. I want whatever a real relationship looks like with you. I want to go to the ruins of Pompeii and take sickening couple photos with you and post them on Instagram.

“I want you to shut up for a minute and let me think. Jesus fucking Christ.” I glower. Fidgety, I flatten my hair at the front of my head and try to logic this out. Something has to give. But if it isn’t Nico, then what is it? The injury I was fantasising about in the shower could still be a go-er. But that would put Nico with Niall for Iliad ? Handsome, Scottish, deep-voiced Niall, who made him laugh? No, fuck that. Maybe Nico could have an injury too? I cast a look down his body, at his knee and then his ankle. He gives me a furtive smile.

Tell me what you want from me, Felix, and it’s yours. But if you want more from me, you got it.

Was he saying what I thought he was? And if he was, how would that work? Have the entire company know about us? Have to explain what the hell I’ve been doing for the past month and a half to Ava and Charlie now, while I was this much of a mess? Have them hate me for lying to them on top of this? No, it wasn’t the right time. I didn’t think so, anyway. But maybe I didn’t have to end it, maybe I could do exactly what he said I could. Lean on him, talk to him—he was annoyingly easy to talk to—and now he knows my biggest fear. What else is there to worry about him finding out about me? If we could keep this secret a while longer, get me back on track, then we could work out everything else later.

“Alright,” I say, looking at him. “Help me.”

His smile spreads, slow and big over his handsome face, delight flooding into his dark eyes. “Say please.” He grins.

“Fuck you.”

He grins wider. “We’re still doing that, too, then?”

“Yes. But no more funny business in studio four. I need to focus; I need you to help me focus, and that includes you not wearing tights.” I turn and start walking in the direction of the tube. He follows, practically bouncing along next to me.

“Still getting distracted by my cock?”

I sigh. “It’s been one of the many difficulties, yes.”

“Okay, no tights. No fucking in studio four,” he says with a firm nod. “Anything else?”

“I’d also like you to be less… obliging when I say I’m coming over.”

“I mean you could just not… come over.”

I glare at him.

“Okay, fine, I’ll say no. Suggest you get some sleep instead.”

There’s a pause before he says. “No one else either then.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t want you fucking anyone else either. If you’re taking fucking me off the table, then it’s off the table.”

I stop walking. “I never said I was taking it off the table.”

“You said I was to say no when you wanted to come over, and if I’m not fucking you in studio four and I’m not fucking you at mine, then there’s no one else either. If I’m helping you, then you’re focussed. There’s no Christian or Rufus or Charlie or whoever else.”

“Charlie???!” I splutter.

He shrugs. “Whomever you fuck when you’re not fucking me.”

“I can assure you that it’s not, and never has been, Charlie .”

Relief bleeds into his eyes. “Okay, good. Well, then it’ll be easy not to start fucking him either then.”

It makes me stupidly happy that he seems to care this much about who else I sleep with. He’d asked me to stop seeing other people before, when this started, but I assumed that was him being conventional and, well, boring. But maybe it’s something else altogether.

Curious, I say, “I’m not sure at what point I agreed to celibacy, Savini. I asked for your help with my ballet, not becoming a fucking priest.”

His eyes turn dark. “Look, Felix. If you want my help, then there are some conditions.”

“Conditions? Where’d ‘ It’s always been a dream of mine to dance with you and I’m happy I get to do just that, Felix ’ go?”

He curses and looks at the sky, no doubt questioning ever setting fucking eyes on me.

“Nico. I’m messing with you.”

“What?”

I shrug. “I like messing with you. I’ll focus. I’m focussed. I promise not to fuck you, or anyone who isn’t you, in studio four or elsewhere when I should be resting.” I lift my right hand and fold my thumb over my pinkie. “Scouts honour.”

“Right, okay. Deal.”

We walk the rest of the way in an easy silence until we reach the tube station. “This is me,” I tell him.

“Yeah, I know. So, I can meet you in the morning for some practice, before rehearsal. Just tell me what time and I’ll be there.”

“You’re the boss, you tell me.”

His mouth twitches. “Okay, six.”

“AM!?”

He laughs and starts walking back the way we came. “You’re a fucking brat. I’ll send you a link to a homemade protein shake, I want you to bring two with you tomorrow morning.”

“I’m not really a big eater, or drinker, in the morning.”

“You’ll do what I say,” he says sexily. “Anyway, one’s for me. Get an early night, princess, I’m gonna work you so hard tomorrow.”

“Promises, promises.”

He winks, smiles, and then turns and walks back in the other direction without looking back.



I do get an early night. I have a scented bath, do some meditation (I haven’t done this in over a year but I’m willing to try anything at this point) and go to bed at 9:30pm with a chamomile tea. I’m basically my great-aunt Tabitha. When I wake up in the morning, I feel good. Hopeful, positive, and something close to eager about working with Nico. Of course, I’ve been working with Nico for months, but I hadn’t allowed myself to see him as anything other than what he’s always been. Someone I needed to beat.

He was thirteen when I first saw him dance—I’d been too intimidated to speak to him that first time, but I’d watched in awe as he’d outperformed every other boy on that stage. I told myself the next time we met I’d be as good as him, and that I’d say hello. I’d wanted to be his friend at first, but I’d soon learned there was no such thing as friends in ballet, certainly not between rivals. (Two years later I’d gotten the chance to talk to him, at some conference centre in Germany or Poland, and he’d been quiet and unfriendly.) The first year we’d been in the same category, he’d been magnificent. Perfect. Unbeatable. I’d never beaten him because Nicoló Savini was unbeatable.

Only one man had ever beaten Nico.

Sergio Cina.

It’s that which had distracted me from my meditation last night. I’d sat up and got my phone and looked up old videos of Cina and Nico instead. These were videos I’d seen before but they took on a new, sinister light now. There’s an old documentary and his words about Nico having to work harder, to work through the pain and the homesickness and the death of his fucking mother if he wanted to be the greatest made me want to reanimate the fucker up only so I could kill him again, slowly.

After making the two protein shakes as quietly as my blender will allow, I slip out into the dark February night and make the ten-minute cycle commute to the academy. I’m delighted to find I’m there before Nico, and I start stretching while I drink my shake. It’s not bad; the more I drink, the more I like it.

I’m almost finished when the door pulls open and he pokes his head through.

He looks surprised and a little impressed as he walks toward me.

“Think I need to call medical, I’m seeing things.”

“Or maybe you’re still asleep and this is you dreaming about me again.” I stand and walk to my small cool bag and pull out the second shake. He takes it with a nod of thanks. He’s not, thankfully, wearing tights. He has his loose jogger shorts on, which sartorially look terrible with his dance socks but are far less distracting overall.

“Okay,” I say. “Where do you want me?”

He raises an eyebrow and points to the centre of the room.

“Again,” he says after my first go of the first act solo. “It’s all presentation, no substance. Don’t just show me the line—actually feel it. It should feel like you’re pulling the energy out of yourself and into the room.” He moves his hands in demonstration.

“I am feeling it,” I tell him.

“No,” he says, walking toward me. “You’re pretending to feel it. There’s a difference.”

Before I can argue, his hands are on me, fingers pressing into my shoulders. With a firm grip, he pulls them back before settling his hands on my hips. He adjusts them before I feel his hand move to the base of my spine. “For some reason, you’re collapsing here,” he says, tapping gently. “The core needs to stay up or the whole thing falls apart.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“So, then, do it.”

In the mirror, I can see him gazing at my arse.

“Enjoying the view?” I ask.

He steps back, brushing a hand over the top of my arse. “Are you tight here?”

“Oh, you know I am, baby...”

“Felix,” he says, seriously. “Are you in any pain here?”

I shrug. “No more than usual. I do get stiff here though.”

“Lie down.”

I do as I’m told, and he directs me to do five minutes of piriformis stretches, pinning my leg to help me get deeper. It’s a suggestive position, and as I groan and breathe and he pushes and holds, the desire I always have to fight around him flickers to life. I fight it off and concentrate on my glutes instead.

Nico breaks eye contact and lowers my leg, getting to his feet.

“Okay, let’s try that again.”

This time I move better. This time I’m able to catapult myself into arabesque while Nico circles me like a hawk, gaze sharp and eyes picking apart every move. It doesn’t feel how it usually does, like he’s watching avidly to see where he’s better than I am. This time it feels like he’s studying me the way an art lover would look at a painting or a sculptor might smooth his hands over a piece of new marble. Assessing, appreciating, planning.

“There,” he says after a moment, softer now. “That’s it. Don’t lose that energy when you move into the promenade .” The shift feels easier this time, my body flowing far more freely, and for once, he doesn’t interrupt me.

It goes like this until he ruins it.

“Your back foot’s lazy,” he says.

I stop mid-motion and glare at him in the mirror. “Do you always have to ruin the fucking moment?”

He grins. “That’s what I’m here for, princess. Now start again, and don’t drop the back foot.”

Prick.