Chapter Three #2
He snorts. “Homeroom doesn’t count. That was survival mode. I had to keep my dignity somehow while failing algebra and dodging jocks.”
I tilt my head. “You didn’t fail algebra.”
“No,” he admits with a laugh. “But I definitely got distracted.”
I raise an eyebrow. “By what?”
He meets my gaze, eyes warm and direct. “Let’s just say I had excellent taste in distractions.”
I blink, caught off guard for half a heartbeat. Then I recover with a slow, crooked smile. “You always were smooth, Dalton.”
“I try,” he says, reaching for his coffee. “Sometimes it works.”
We fall into a rhythm I hadn’t realized I missed until now. The kind of easy back and forth you don’t fake. He asks about the coffee shop, and I tell him I’ve been coming here for years, that I even helped the owner pick out the window seating. He nods like that makes perfect sense.
“You always had good taste,” he says, fingers trailing the rim of his cup. “Your locker looked like a spread from Better Homes and Gardens.”
I bark a laugh. “Excuse you. It was Tasteful Maximalist. And I’ll have you know my color-coded sticker system was very advanced.”
He grins. “You were the only person I knew who could make a glitter pen look intimidating.”
“Oh, baby. I still can.”
We both laugh, and for a second, it’s just us again. That version of us that existed in a quieter, braver corner of history. I sip my coffee, and the silence between us hums. Not awkward, not heavy, just…full.
“So,” I say casually, “what’s it like living in a gingerbread house?”
He groans, but he’s smiling. “Whimsical. Slightly haunted. I swear the doorknobs smell like vanilla.”
“They probably are vanilla,” I deadpan. “Liam got a deal on themed hardware one year and went feral on Etsy.”
“That explains the peppermint-patterned toilet seat.”
“Dear god, they kept that thing?” I shudder. “I tried to ‘accidentally’ break it last Christmas.”
He laughs again, eyes crinkling at the corners. That same expression from all those years ago, when I made him laugh so hard during theater warmups, he almost fell off the stage.
“You still into theater?” he asks, his voice dipping just a little.
I smile, my heart tugging somewhere sideways. “Sort of. Not in the Shakespearean monologue way, but yeah. Performance still calls me.”
He raises an eyebrow, curious. “What are you doing now?”
I toy with the rim of my coffee cup for a second. “I run a bar now. Took it over after my uncle Rudy passed. Remember him?”
Miles blinks, then his eyes go soft. “Uncle Rudy? God, yeah. He used to sneak us that one Miller High Life on Friday nights if we promised not to act like idiots.”
“And we always did,” I say, laughing. “Act like idiots, I mean. Flirting like no one could tell.”
“Everyone could tell,” Miles says, groaning into his coffee. “We were about as subtle as a fire drill in a church.”
“Yeah, well, it felt private at the time in our little secret booth in the corner.”
Miles looks up at me, the edge of his smile turning wistful. “It wasn’t just the beer. It was you. I never forgot about that booth.”
I feel it like a pinprick in my ribs. Sharp. Real.
He clears his throat gently. “So what did you do with the place after Rudy passed?”
I hesitate. Here we go. The part of who I am now that I have spent more nights wondering about how he would react than I will ever admit.
It’s now or never, I guess…though part of me had secretly been banking on the ‘never’ part of that equation.
“It’s changed a bit,” I say carefully. “Still has the bones of the old dive bar, but I renovated. Leaned in hard to the performance angle.”
Miles hums, interested. “Yeah? How so?”
I gesture vaguely with my cup, buying time.
“Opened it up. Revamped the main space. Added a couple of lounge areas. Better lighting. Better sound. Made it feel less like a place you go to forget your problems and more like a place you go to survive them, escape them if we’re lucky.
” I shrug. “And I fixed up the apartment upstairs. That’s where I live now. ”
His eyebrows lift. “You live above the bar?”
“Yep. Very glamorous. I wake up to the faint smell of last night’s spilled cocktails. And I leaned fully into the gayness of it all. We are officially Sleighbell Springs’s first and only gay bar.”
He laughs. “That tracks. Rudy would’ve loved that.”
Something warm and bittersweet settles in my chest at the sound of my uncle’s name between us. “Yeah. I think so too.”
Miles takes a sip of his coffee, watching me over the rim. Not staring. Just noticing. He’s always been good at that. Too good. “So,” he says slowly, “you renovated, added lounges, live upstairs, and you’re still not telling me the whole story.”
I blink. “I’m absolutely telling you the story.”
“Uh huh.” He sets his cup down. “You’re telling me the brochure version. There’s more.”
Damn him. I open my mouth to deflect, to make a joke, change the subject, point out the snow or the croissants.
But the words stall somewhere between my brain and my tongue.
Because he’s right. And because this is always the moment where I decide whether I’m going to shrink or stand tall.
The gay bar part doesn’t bother me. God, that’s the easiest sentence in the world.
I’ve been out since my sophomore year. I came out with jazz hands and rainbow Converse…
and literally no one in town was surprised. Miles knew that. Everyone knew that.
What makes my stomach flip is the other part. The part where I stopped being just Mason Beckett, a small-town queer kid with theater energy, and became something bigger. Louder. Shinier. A version of myself that takes up space in heels and lashes and doesn’t apologize for it.
Back in high school, we were two boys holding hands in the dark, careful and brave in equal measure.
Miles was out, but quietly, like he kept his queerness folded neatly in his pocket.
I was out like a marching band. And I don’t know, haven’t known for twenty-five years, whether this version of me would feel like growth to him or distance.
I inhale slowly, then straighten in the booth.
You didn’t build this life by flinching, I remind myself.
You didn’t survive this town, this industry, this world, by pretending to be smaller.
So, I lift my chin and meet his gaze. “It’s not just a gay bar,” I say. “It’s a drag club.”
Miles’s eyebrows lift just a fraction. Not shock. Just recalibration.
“We do full shows,” I continue, the words coming easier now that I’ve started. “Drag, cabaret, themed nights. Tourists, locals, the whole thing. It’s kind of the heart of the winter season now.”
He nods slowly, still watching me. “And?”
“And,” I add, letting a little more steel settle into my spine, “I’m the headliner.”
That does it. His eyebrows shoot up this time, his mouth parting in a quiet oh.
I rush the next part, not because I’m ashamed, but because the moment feels fragile. “Onstage, I go by May North. Big hair, bigger lashes, sparkle for days. Think glamor with a side of relentless ball-busting fabulousness.”
There’s a beat of silence.
Then Miles smiles. Not politely. Not cautiously. He smiles like something just clicked into place, like he’s looking at a puzzle piece he didn’t realize was missing. “Of course you are,” he says, awe threading through his voice. “Jesus, Mason. That’s…that’s perfect.”
I blink. “You’re not—”
“Surprised?” he finishes. “A little. I won’t lie.” He chuckles softly. “But not in a bad way. More like, wow. You took what you always were and turned the volume all the way up.”
Something in my chest loosens, a tightness finally giving way. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says without hesitation. “You always belonged on a stage. Drag just feels like you stopped asking permission.”
I laugh, the sound shaky but real. “That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
He tilts his head, studying me with that familiar softness. “So…May North.”
“That’s me,” I say, then add more gently, “Most people just call me May now. Even out of drag. Mason’s still fine, but May fits better these days.”
He rolls the name around once, thoughtful. “May,” he says. Then he smiles again, warm and certain. “It suits you.”
The way he says it, like it’s obvious, like it was always inevitable, makes my throat tighten just a little. Like he’s not just seeing me, but really seeing me. Not the memory of the boy I used to be. Not the idea of what he expected to find.
Me. Now.
I try not to make it a big deal. I smile and sip my latte like my heart’s not performing Swan Lake behind my ribs.
Right on cue, his phone buzzes against the table. Miles glances down, grimaces, and sighs. “That’s my cue. I’ve got a hot date with a busted toilet and a very judgmental cat who lives in the linen closet.”
I laugh, the tension breaking. “Sounds glamorous. Don’t let it steal your heart.”
“No promises,” he says, standing slowly but lingering. His hand rests on the back of the chair for a second too long, like he’s not quite ready to leave. He looks at me again, soft and searching, then offers a half-smile. “Can I see you again?”
“You just did,” I tease, but the words are warm, not evasive.
He grins, that same crooked grin I remember from all those years ago, the one that made me want to throw caution, and maybe my entire future, to the wind. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.” I tilt my head, letting the moment hang between us like mistletoe waiting to happen. “And yeah. I’d like that.”
Miles nods, satisfied. “Good. Then I’ll be seeing you, May.”
And damn if that doesn’t do something to me. He turns and heads for the door, his flannel-clad back disappearing into the morning bustle of The Brew House. The bell above the door gives a cheerful jingle as he steps into the cold.
And okay, I admit it; I watch him go. The man fills out a pair of jeans like it’s his job.
Broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips, strong legs, and yeah, that ass.
It’s just as good as I remember, maybe even better now, age and confidence worked into the way he moves.
It’s all very cowboy in a holiday rom-com, and I hate how fast my brain fills in the rest of the fantasy.
Old habits die hard, and apparently, my teenage crush on Miles Dalton is still very much alive and doing backflips in my ribcage.
I look away before I embarrass myself with a sigh and stare into the dregs of my latte instead, the foam now just a swirl of cinnamon and memories.
It’s strange, this thing between us. Like no time has passed at all, and yet everything’s different.
We’re older, wiser, maybe, definitely more complicated, but the pull hasn’t gone anywhere.
If anything, it’s stronger now, sharpened by distance and grown sweeter with age.
He looks good. He feels good. And talking to him again, it’s like slipping into an old favorite song, the lyrics already half-remembered, just waiting for your mouth to catch up.
I lean back in the booth, tapping my fingers lightly on the table.
Part of me wants to tell myself to cool it, to take it slow.
This isn’t some high school sequel where we pick up right where we left off.
Life doesn’t work like that. But the rest of me, the reckless, quietly hopeful part that never quite let him go, wonders if maybe, just maybe, this is what new beginnings are supposed to feel like.
Hopeful. Familiar. A little terrifying. I don’t know what comes next.
But for the first time in a long time, I want to find out.