Chapter 2
ELIAS
If you had asked me a couple of years ago, I never would have thought I’d like dancing. In the kitchen at night, sure; who doesn’t love a little hip shake/hairbrush microphone session at the end of an exhausting day?
But on a stage? Naked except for a jockstrap for a room full of women to see?
It pays the never ending cycle of bills circulating through my bank account.
After doing it for so long? It’s like second nature.
“You look hot,” Miya says through my phone speaker, propped on my locker as I change out of my work attire and back into regular clothes.
I crinkle my nose as I slip a lavender, body hugging sweater over my head. “Don’t say that. You’re my sister.”
Her snort of laughter makes the phone crackle. “Your very gay sister. Seriously, Ei, you need a professional shoot done.”
Warmth rushes over the tips of my ears, and I duck my face into the shadow of the locker even though she can’t see me.
There’s something about putting on my Voltage persona that makes all the embarrassing shit I have to do not so—well, embarrassing.
As soon as I’m off stage, the mortification sinks in.
“I’ll get right on that with the money I don’t have.” My muscles are already protesting the long walk I have ahead of me, and they groan under the weight of the duffle I throw over my shoulder.
“If I wasn’t already dishing out for the wedding photography, I’d totally book you a shoot.”
“What would I even do with it? Blow it up and hang it over my bed?”
“Advertise yourself, silly! Bring in some big tippers. Hell, hit up the LGBTQ+ forums; they’re always down for supporting their fellow queers.”
I squash the phone between my ear and shoulder, stepping out into the cool, autumn air. “I don’t think I fit that criteria, Mi.”
She hums, and it’s in that annoying twin telepathy way where she thinks she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“I’ve never even kissed a guy. Doesn’t that make it feel deceptive?”
“What matters is that you want to kiss a guy. Pretty sure it’s been on your bucket list since college.”
She isn’t wrong. It’s definitely something I’ve wanted to explore, but my life as of late hasn’t exactly lent itself to any sexual explorations.
“What about the boy from the diner?”
Matty.
Deep brown eyes and silky black hair; soft lines but distinctly masculine muscles. I couldn’t see them through his oversized t-shirt, but I felt them as I steadied him. My heart had kicked up a racket like a rabbit in a snare.
“He was cute,” I say, because spouting some nonsense about his gaze feeling like a summer night beneath a starry sky is a surefire way to make sure Miya never drops the subject. “Unlikely I’ll see him again.”
“You should have gotten his number!”
“I was drunk and in no condition to be flirting with pretty boys.”
“You think he’s pretty. And cute. I’m calling it now. Little Ei is gonna fall in looooove.”
My face heats, and I brush my thumb over the blush on my cheeks as if it were something I could just erase.
“Not everyone gets a love story like yours, Mi.”
A brazen tale of moving to LA and falling head over heels for a local roller derby star.
“You’ll never know if you don’t put yourself out there.”
Maybe if I were Voltage all the time, I could seek out something like what Miya found. As it is—existing as myself—Elias Lee is no one’s happily ever after.
The wind nips at my skin, the darkness illuminated by the street lamps overhead.
“Shouldn’t Roxy be coaxing you into bed by now?”
The click of her tongue says that she disapproves of the subject change, but she can’t refute me.
“I can play ignorant for a few more minutes.”
God, I love my sister. No matter how sickeningly sweet in love she is, she always takes the time out of her day to check in with me. Sometimes it’s after work like this, other’s it’s on my day off to video chat with Calum.
The day she moved away was probably the saddest of my life, but she’s never let me feel like she left me alone. As cliché as it sounds, Miya really is my best friend.
“Nah. Go love on your fiancé. I’ll be home soon.”
“Alright, little brother.” I roll my eyes because she is at best five minutes older. “Give Cal a hug for me.”
“Of course. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Night.”
The line goes silent, and despite my assurances, my feet come to a stop on the sidewalk. My chest feels heavy, weighted, and I take a couple deep gulps of air to keep it from suffocating me.
With the soft, warm breeze and fresh air in my lungs, it’s easy for my thoughts to float and wander, for the constant strain tying my shoulder-blades together to loosen.
It’s like I exist in a vast nothingness with my head tipped to the star-filled sky.
The quiet wisps of nature intermingle with the soft strum of guitar strings, ebbing and flowing with the wind, and my feet have a mind of their own carrying me toward it.
Slow and deliberate, the sound is a stark difference to what I find myself moving to on stage.
A bass pounds out the beat like a steady heart.
The music is a symphony of noises when I reach the source: a grassy field enclosed in a metal fence, an old school boom box-looking bluetooth speaker beside a wooden bench.
But I’m much more interested in the person throwing their body into the song like they’re an extension of it.
My fingers touch cool metal, a barrier for my impulsive need to reach out. To touch the beauty across from me. To become a part of it.
The person stops—a missed step, a breath to catch—and the glow of the streetlamp illuminates a pair of rich brown eyes that hook on mine like opposite ends of a magnet.
They falter, and the grin that spreads across my face is the most honest display of excitement I’ve felt since that night at the diner.
“Matty.” His name falls out of my mouth on an exhale that leaves me breathless.
His arms drop to his sides, and his movements stall, but then the sweetest smile graces his lips. He doesn’t bother to stop the music or turn it down, crossing the few feet to the fence between us with a furrowed brow.
“Elias, right?” His voice quivers as it comes out through hard pants.
God, he’s beautiful. In an ethereal, enchanting way. Flushed skin and pink, puffy lips from breathing in the cold air.
“Glad to see I made an impression.”
He lets out a quiet chuckle and tips his head back. “Forget someone who soaked my pants? Never.”
A fresh, red tint blooms across his cheeks, and it sends butterflies spiraling in my stomach.
I don’t see the shiny, blue, metallic hearing-aid he’d run off to rescue the other night, and a spike of anxiety shoots through my veins.
My ASL knowledge consists primarily of simple greeting signs and the alphabet, so I don’t know how to even begin asking him about it, but he’s understood me so far, so maybe …?
“Can you hear me?” I ask like the most fumbled football play in existence.
He raises his brow and freezes for all of two seconds before a bold bark of laughter breaks him out of it.
“Enough, yeah. Helps that you’re right in front of me.”
My skin prickles with an astute awareness, one that feels every sweep of Matty’s gaze.
“You’re good,” I say. “The dancing, I mean.”
His eyes drop down, but the soft smile is still on his lips. “Thanks. I don’t really get to practice as much as I’d like. I’m a little rusty.”
“If that’s rusty, your peak must be breathtaking.”
He snaps his head up, mouth parting in surprise. The conversation with my sister springs into my head, and—wow, yeah—I’d really like to kiss him.
It’s silly, and it’s been years since I’ve ever really paid any attention to the attraction scratching at the edge of my awareness. When I look at Matty, I can’t shut it off or turn it down. It’s loud and bright and a constant reminder that I’ve been alone for the better part of five years.
“You are such a flirt.” But he’s still smiling. Which means he kind of likes it, right?
I’m not usually flirty when I’m not on stage or without some liquor in my system, but I’d do just about anything to keep this man looking at me the way he is now.
“I’m a stripper,” I say before I can stop myself. Not because I’m desperate to see the moment he envisions me taking my clothes off.
Or because of the way the blush on his cheeks deepens and his throat bobs as his eyes drag across my body.
Unlike the sleazy feeling that usually comes after hours of being watched and stared at like a piece of meat, a buzzing thrill erupts beneath my skin.
“You certainly have the body for it,” he mutters, and it's my turn to feel the blush creeping along my cheeks. “Maybe we could dance together sometime.”
“What about right now?”
Matty’s brows shoot up, and his mouth turns up in a sly little half grin. “You don't have anything better to do than dance with a stranger in the park at one in the morning?”
Yes, but an extra ten minutes where I feel like I can breathe can’t hurt.
Scaling the fence and hopping across takes all of ten seconds, and Matty’s open mouthed exasperation is well worth the slight sting in my hands.
“Show me what you were working on.”
Matty’s eyes meet mine, and for a moment it seems as if he pulls into himself, but then he shakes his head and throws out a soft smile.
“Hold that thought.” He walks over to the speaker and picks up the phone lying beside it, flicking the screen a couple of times before something with a heavy bass rings out in the quiet of the night.
It plays for a couple of seconds, Matty’s head bobbing along, his fingers tapping out the beat on his thighs, and when he looks at me again his grin is out in full force.
I don’t know what I expect, but it isn’t for his body to spring into motion, twisting and bouncing to the song with complete abandon. It’s not as elegant or graceful as his earlier movements, but still just as mesmerizing.
He’s smiling as he dances around, and I only realize I’m staring and not joining in when his hands grab onto my forearms and drag me into motion.
In truth, my dancing abilities are limited to the sensuality I’ve learned working at the club, but Matty’s laughter and energy is contagious.
I’m pretty sure we’re both just being silly, but when Matty hops onto the bench and grabs me by the shoulders just as the song’s beat takes a dip, it doesn’t feel especially silly.
Instead it feels … heated. Heavy. Charged.
I could kiss him. Would he want that?
My brain whirs, stutters, and the words are out of my mouth, freezing Matty’s gentle movements in their tracks.
“Are you gay?”
His eyes widen. He blinks.
I’m feeling awfully ridiculous, but then he smiles so wide it makes his eyes squint.
“As a rainbow,” he says, pulling a hand back to bop me on the nose with his finger. “Are you?”
The words are on the tip of my tongue, light-hearted and honest, but a rush of trepidation rolls over me, and instead, I bite down on my lip and shake my head.
His smile falls the slightest bit but doesn’t completely fade, contemplation filling the furrow in his brow. He leans his face down, our foreheads not quite touching, but I can feel the brush of his hair—the little strands escaped from his ponytail—on my face.
“You have been flirting with me, right?”
My throat is dry, and I’m suddenly aware how my hands are awkwardly hanging in the air inches from Matty’s waist, not sure that touching him is the right move.
All I can do is nod, and his smile fills out again like it never faltered.
“Good. Keep doing it.”
A laugh leaves my throat before I can stop it, and finally my hands settle as gently as possible on Matty’s lithe frame.
“I actually—uh—I’ve never been with a guy before,” I say, dropping my eyes and mindlessly rubbing the fabric of Matty’s tank top between my fingers. “Not even a kiss. So I don’t … really know.”
Something about the way Matty’s eyes search mine cracks me open. Makes me want to lay out on the grass with him and pour my entire soul into his imploring gaze.
“Well.” He presses a hand to my chest. Not pushing me away, just … holding it there over my heartbeat. “You’re doing a bang up job of making this queer boy want to help you figure it out.”
Oh.
I really do want to kiss him. Just to see what it feels like.
What he feels like.
When was the last time I kissed somebody?
The thought brings me back to the immediate present. The one where I have a sitter likely pulling their hair out because my five year old son refuses to go to bed until I get home.
I drop my hands from Matty’s waist and slowly step back, making sure he’s got his balance on the bench before fully pulling away.
“I should get going.”
The more I stand here, the more I’m going to want things. Things I haven’t let myself have because I’m not in a place to enjoy them—to properly share them with someone else.
The want is already fixing itself a place in my chest like a splinter.
Matty’s lips purse, and his shoulders hunch, but he jerks his head in a brief nod. There might even be a hint of disappointment in his eyes, but I try not to linger on it.
“I liked dancing with you,” I say, hoping I can keep this from ending on a sour note.
Matty lowers himself to a seated position on the bench, clasping his hands together and resting his chin on his fingers.
“Me too.” His voice is soft, quiet beneath the music, but I’m so honed in on him I barely notice. “Goodnight, Elias.”
There’s that sweet, easy smile, and it makes my heart miss a beat.
“Night, Matty.”
I’m on my front porch before I realize that I still didn’t ask him for his number or give him any indication that I wanted to see him again.
Do I want to see him again?
The way my own smile feels like a permanent fixture tells me that’s a stupid question.
Of course, I want to see him again.