Chapter 18
COOPER
“Well, he’s not nearly as hot as you,” I said between mouthfuls of sorbet. Felix was curled up next to me on the geriatric couch, head resting on my shoulder, sucking on a spoon while he showed me an Instagram reel of his old company’s new principle dancer. His replacement.
Felix huffed. “Avery said the same.”
“See, I knew I liked them.”
“And his assemblé isn’t as clean as mine,” Felix added around his spoon.
“That’s that one, yeah?” I said, pointing at the screen as the video looped and Kieran Henderson, my new least favorite person on Felix’s behalf, leapt up on one foot and landed on two.
“Look at you, knowing your ballet moves,” Felix cooed, tilting his head back to look up at me.
I was glad I’d come here. I really hadn’t been sure he’d want to see me, but I was glad I’d taken the risk. Having him curled up like this against me, letting me in on what’d been bothering him, was worth the gut-twisting nervousness I’d felt about the possibility that he’d tell me to go away.
He leaned into it when I bent my head to kiss him, wriggling closer as he set his phone aside.
“I wish him all the luck in the world,” Felix said with a sigh.
“Really?”
“I wish someone would drop a chandelier on him,” Felix corrected, lips twisting wryly.
“Like in Phantom of the Opera?” I asked, trying and failing to hold back a laugh.
“You know there’s a ballet version of that?” Felix set his empty ice cream bowl on the coffee table.
“I’ve only seen the musical.” I didn’t add that I’d seen it on the TV in a hungover haze on a Sunday morning with a living room full of other, hungover queers and that my view of a lot of it had been blocked by one of them—and I couldn’t remember who, anymore—painting my toenails.
The memory seemed impossibly distant now, as though it’d happened to someone else.
But I remembered the chandelier part. And the sparkly blue toenails.
“Consider yourself lucky.” Felix wrinkled his nose. “We talked about putting it on for a season. For once, I was grateful that Piotr was an incurable snob.”
I snorted. “Not a fan?”
“Avery loves the musical,” Felix said. “So I’ve seen it enough to last me a solid handful of lifetimes. I like the chandelier part.”
“Who knew you were so bloodthirsty?” I asked, ducking my head to nuzzle the top of Felix’s. This was nice. I hadn’t felt so good about just being with someone for a really, really long time.
When I’d woken up this morning, for the first time since I moved back here, my first thought hadn’t been Benji.
It’d been Felix.
“Normally I’m as placid as a little lamb.”
“No you’re not.”
Felix laughed. “You’re not supposed to know me nearly well enough to know that.”
“You care a lot,” I said, setting my own empty ice cream bowl next to his on the coffee table. “If you think you’re hiding it, I have terrible news for you.”
Felix sighed, shifting against me. “I don’t really want a chandelier to fall on Kieran. Or, I mean, I do, because he’s a weasel, but it’s not what I really want. I really want to dance. I’m mad that he can and I can’t.”
“Get up,” I said, nudging Felix before my brain had entirely caught up with my mouth.
He twisted around to look at me.
“Get up,” I repeated, giving him another nudge. “Trust me.”
Felix grumbled as he pushed himself off me, but I was on a mission now. I got my phone out and opened up a playlist it was probably embarrassing to have saved, setting it on the coffee table and hitting play.
Spandau Ballet’s True started playing over the crappy little built-in speaker on my older-than-Benji phone. I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head since my first night with Felix.
“Seriously?” Felix asked, eyebrow raised as he looked between me and my phone. “Spandau Ballet?”
“We’re not judging the unconscious associations my brain makes,” I said nudging the coffee table a few feet away with one sock-clad foot, and held out my hand. “Dance with me.”
Felix raised a skeptical brow. He took my hand, though.
I drew him in gently until there was barely an inch between us, resting a hand on his hip.
He laughed, dropping his forehead against my shoulder and closing the rest of the distance between us, leaning against me.
“To be clear, I really can’t dance,” I said as I started to sway him to the rhythm of the song. Or what I hoped was the rhythm, anyway.
I hadn’t done this since I was an awkward teenager, and time hadn’t made any difference.
It felt good to have Felix leaning against me like this, though.
“Makes two of us,” Felix mumbled against my shirt.
“I know it’s not the same,” I said, tracing circles on his hip with my thumb.
“It’s not,” he agreed, sighing again, face still buried in my shoulder. “But it’s sweet. You’re sweet.”
I love you.
I swallowed the urge to say that aloud back down. Felix didn’t need any pressure from me. He was under enough.
All the same, the thought curled up under my heart. A warm weight, like a glass marble that’d been left in the sun for a while, just big enough to feel the pressure of it.
The first song faded into a second 80s prom night classic. We turned a slow circle, Felix’s head still resting against me, the shape of his body pressed to mine. Breathing together. Together, in a quiet, easy way that made all the sense in the world to me.
I was exactly where I was meant to be. I could almost believe everything that’d happened to me over the past year had been leading up to this. That the universe always knew where I was going, and this was where it’d led me.
Felix lifted his head as the song ended. For a handful of heartbeats, he just stared at me, the unbelievable blue of his eyes a thin ring around wide pupils.
His fingers threaded into the back of my hair, slow, careful movements. As though the moment might break if he handled it too roughly.
I felt the same way, and I didn’t want to risk it.
Fireworks burst against the back of my skull as he kissed me, the sparks trickling down my spine in a cascade of warm light.
It wasn’t that every kiss with Felix hadn’t been great, but this one was different, somehow.
We’d crossed a threshold somewhere, like in one of the books Benji loved about finding hidden doors in the woods and stumbling into magical lands.
I hummed as Felix gave me a shove toward the couch, letting him back me up until my legs hit the edge of the cushions and it was sit or fall. I dragged him with me, not wanting to let go of him for a second.
He landed in my lap with a hiss, fingers tightening hard around my arm.
I’d hurt him. I’d pulled him down without thinking, and I’d hurt him.
“Dammit,” he said, scrambling off me to flop on his back, pulling the knee of his injured leg up to his chest.
“I’m—”
Felix waved his hand, cutting me off. “I’m fine,” he gasped. “I’m fine.”
But he wasn’t fine, and I had no idea what to do about it.
“I’m okay,” Felix said before I could ask, gingerly unfolding himself. He wriggled his socked toes, sitting up slowly, panting for breath.
You’re not hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I remembered how he’d reacted last time I pointed that out before I actually said it aloud. I didn’t want to make things worse.
Felix sat back on the couch, sinking deep into the aging cushions, both hands covering his face.
I still didn’t know what to do. Instead of hovering, I got up and picked up our ice cream bowls and empty takeout containers, tidying up. That was useful, at least. That was something.
When I ran out of things to clear away, I turned back to the couch to find Felix watching me. The living room wasn’t so well-lit that I could be sure, but his eyes seemed a little red.
My heart hurt. I wished I could wave a magic wand and fix everything for him.
I shuffled over to the couch, hovering a beat before sitting down beside him.
“Well, that was one way to nuke the mood from orbit,” Felix said, scratching at the cushion between us with one finger. “As Avery would say.”
“I’m still here.” I shrugged.
Felix turned to look at me. The corner of his lips twitched. It was a little too small to call a smile, but it might’ve grown up to be one, one day.
“You’re not exactly rushing to pick up where we left off.”
Because I don’t want to hurt you, I didn’t admit. True or not, I doubted he’d appreciate it.
Instead, I leaned over, touching my fingers to his cheek to turn his head so I could kiss him.
Before our lips even touched, Felix grabbed a fistful of my shirt and dragged me over. He didn’t stop tugging until I was on top of him, his other hand curled around the back of my neck, wriggling under me.
I hummed into his mouth, letting him do whatever he wanted. He had a bossy streak I got the feeling he hadn’t gotten to express all that often, and I loved it when it came out. I was a big guy, and people didn’t order me around like Felix did, normally. He must’ve felt safe with me.
That was a good feeling. I wanted to be safe for him.
Felix tugged on me again, rolling his hips under me.
“Mood feels fine to me,” I murmured into his mouth, shifting my weight as he pulled me closer.
“You feel f—ah—” he gasped, pushing me off with both hands. “Dammit.”
I backed off, but stayed close this time. The last thing I wanted was for him to think I was upset.
He growled as he dug the heel of his palm into his thigh, rubbing it hard through the thin sweatpants he was wearing and muttering under his breath.
“Let me,” I offered.
Felix looked away from his leg and up at me, eyes hard.
“Let me,” I repeated, quieter. Pleading. “Let me help.”
Felix’s glare pinned me in place for another few heartbeats. Then his eyes softened, and he nodded, moving his hand out of the way.
I shuffled closer, carefully lifting his leg into my lap. His breath hitched at first, but when I pushed my palm against the spot he’d been rubbing, a moan escaped him and his head dropped back against the floral throw pillow tucked into the arm of the couch.
“You’re good at that,” he said, breathless.
I smiled at him, glancing away from my hands to look at his face. Now that I knew it a little better, I could see the pain there in the lines around his eyes and the set of his jaw.
“It’s helping?”
“So much.” Felix sighed.
“Good.”
Silence fell between us as I worked the knots out of Felix’s leg.
Even covered by his sweatpants, the line of the scar there was obvious and easy to trace.
He’d tried to stop me looking at it, but I’d seen the jagged edges, the twisted angles.
It wasn’t a neat surgical scar. No doubt the muscles under it were in bad shape.
Much as I didn’t like the idea of Felix in pain, the tension in his body easing under my hands felt good.
“You don’t have to keep doing that,” he spoke up eventually.
“I don’t mind,” I said. By now, it was more an excuse to touch him than anything. “As long as I’m not hurting you?”
Felix shook his head but drew his leg subtly away from me. I let him go.
“This isn’t what you were planning to do with your evening,” he said, not looking at me.
“It’s not not what I planned to do.”
My plan had been see Felix. That was all I’d wanted, after almost a week of worrying that he didn’t want to see me. I’d gotten that, and I’d loved every minute of it so far.
“We need you for tomorrow,” I added, ducking to catch his gaze. “Kids can’t do it without you.”
“They could,” Felix said.
“Well, they wouldn’t want to.”
Felix’s lips twitched like they had before—not a smile, but something moving in the direction of one.
“You think?”
“I know. I told Benji I was going to see you and he asked me to make sure you were coming tomorrow. And to tell you he’s been practicing really hard all week. Which is true.”
“And you’re just telling me now?” Felix asked, hand fluttering to his chest in mock scandal. “When that sweet little boy asked you to?”
“I know you know,” I said. “You told him to, and you know he’d do anything you told him to. Up to and including jumping off a cliff.”
Felix looked away from me again. Slower, this time, staring off into the middle distance between the couch and the coffee table, still pushed out of the way.
I got up and pulled it back to where it had been, not wanting to leave him to do it.
“You should get home to him,” Felix spoke up just as I was about to sit down again. “Minimize the stress before tomorrow.”
Oh.
“Oh,” I said aloud. “Umm. I guess? If that’s what you…”
Felix didn’t want me here anymore. I didn’t want to force him to say it directly. I could take a hint.
“Tell him… tell him whatever happens tomorrow, I know he’s done everything I asked of him. He’s a good kid, Coop,” Felix added, looking at me again.
“I’m lucky to have him.” I shrugged. It was true.
I’d never really thought about kids—I’d been happy with the idea of being the uncle who turned up now and again with a cool birthday present, who let him sneak his first sip of beer without telling his mom, who he could come to when he was fifteen and confused about whatever and needed someone he could trust.
I wouldn’t have traded him for anything now. He was a good kid, and it was an honor and a privilege to know him. To raise him. If I’d ever wanted anything else out of life, I couldn’t remember why now.
“Goes both ways,” Felix said. “Go tuck him in. Tell him he’s gonna kill it tomorrow. Be there when he gets up.”
I nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Felix’s smile made something in the pit of my stomach twist. I didn’t like it at all.
He was being clear, though. He didn’t want me here right now. So I’d just have to let him be.
“Night, Coop,” he said. “Sorry for not letting you out.”
“I know the way,” I said, heading for the top of the stairs with my heart sinking to somewhere around my knees. “Night, Felix.”