Chapter Fourteen. Stars in His Eyes #2
We re-enter the hotel and slip into the staff elevator undetected. We take off our masks as Felix brings us to the top floor, where we take a flight of stairs and he uses the staff key card to unlock a door to the roof.
My jaw slackens in awe. The glow of car headlights and building lights contrast against the dark sky, scattering like a thousand fireflies.
The river below flows steadily while a cool breeze swirls.
Everything else feels perfectly still, as if the world is holding its breath, the sleepy city blending with the magic of the moment.
“Peaceful, isn’t it?” he asks. It’s easy to hear him up here. Just us, like he said.
He’s nestled between huge metal pipes, sitting cross-legged on the dirty concrete. I attempt to scale them but can’t get my leg over. He stands up to give me a hand.
“You are not lifting me over this,” I protest.
He chuckles as I try to hoist myself over several times.
Defeatedly, I wrap my arms around his neck.
This close to him, I catch a clearer whiff of his pungent cologne.
The scent washes over me as his arms curl around my torso and he effortlessly lifts me over.
He sits down, sweeps dirt away from the spot across from him, and gestures for me to join him.
I open the box of doughnuts as Felix lowers his hood and removes his hat. I do the same.
“Whaddya recommend for a doughnut virgin?” he asks, motioning toward the box.
Probably taking his question too seriously, I peruse the options. We have bougie flavors like cranberry and mascarpone, and lavender, but also the classics: glazed, jelly-filled, Boston cream.
“Let’s start simple.” I hand him a chocolate-glazed doughnut and take the raspberry-filled for myself.
He nods after his first bite. “Wow. Doughnuts are sick!” He makes a clunky attempt to use one-handed SimCom but uses the “illness” sign for “sick.”
“Told you so,” I say before showing him a sign that’s a better translation. He copies it, but his thumb is incorrectly tucked to his palm like the ASL letter “B.”
I repeat the sign, which resembles high-fiving the air above my shoulders. He does it incorrectly again.
I scoot closer and take his hand, gently prying his thumb away from his palm. Then, with my hand wrapped around his larger one, I slowly form it into the proper sign.
When I look up at him, he’s staring at me, his doe-eyes shining, lips slightly parted, and sharp cheekbones tinted a gorgeous crimson.
He closes his hand over mine, his gaze slipping to my mouth with an intensity that makes my heart race. He leans in so close that the warmth of his breath sends a shiver down my spine, strands of his hair brushing my cheek.
I freeze as the distance between us shrinks. My heart beats in my throat as Felix releases my hand and delicately swipes his thumb across my lower lip.
He pulls away with that horrible, awful goddamn smirk. “There was some jelly,” he says, showing me raspberry jam smeared on his finger. I scowl at him, my face burning.
He laughs heartily, then licks it off while staring right into my eyes. Warmth rolls through my body in a steady wave, and I cough, breaking eye contact. What the fuck was that?
He changes the subject as if nothing happened. “So I’m guessing, based on how you took over at the bakery, you’re basically a doughnut connoisseur?”
I take another bite to buy time and pull myself together. “I know my way around. Before my dad died, every year for my birthday, we’d go get doughnuts and drive to Gas Works Park to watch the sunrise.”
Felix frowns. “I’m sorry, Nat. I didn’t know he passed. You’ve never talked about him.”
Oh. It slipped out. Talking about my dad is almost impossible.
Even the happiest memories hold traces of sadness, simply because he’s gone.
Because we’ll never make another happy memory together.
Because even though it’s been two years, every morning on my birthday I expect Dad to take me to watch the sunrise.
I stare at the pastry in my hand and force the memory away.
“Try this next,” I blurt, handing him a lemon custard–filled doughnut as a diversionary tactic while I patch my walls that have temporarily cracked.
I know he sees through my act, but he doesn’t question it and instead focuses on the pastry.
“When done right, the lemon balances out the sweet custard.”
I ramble about flavor profiles and dough consistency as he takes a bite of every doughnut in the box. He occasionally says “oh, yup” or “sweet as” but clearly has no idea what I’m talking about. He’s content sitting here listening to me, though.
“This one’s the best,” he declares after trying a double-fudge Nutella monstrosity. I fail at hiding my disapproval. So much for my TED Talk on the cranberry and mascarpone.
After we devour half the box, Felix lifts me back over the pipe, then steps over it in one try.
He walks to the edge of the roof, leans against the railing, and spreads his arms out like Rose from that iconic scene in TITANIC. I chuckle as the wind messes up his hair, and it flies around in front of his face. He inelegantly bats at it and wrestles it into a ponytail.
For the longest time, we peacefully stare at the glittery Nashville skyline.
“Look.” He points to a white streak cutting through the night sky. When I look away from the shooting star and back to the pop star, his eyes are squeezed shut and his lips are pursed.
“Did you just make a wish?” I ask after his eyes flutter open. “Aren’t you living your dream, Pretty Boy? Fame, fortune, fangirls.”
This draws a laugh out of him. “Dreams and wishes are different.” I blink at him, and he shakes his head in amusement before returning to a serious, wistful expression. “My dream is to make a difference with my music, share my experiences, help people feel heard, y’know?”
He turns to face me and ensures I can see his lips before continuing. “That’s why I loved Renegade Wizard. The songs we wrote meant something to us. They came from our hearts. I never wanted to sing the mainstream songs DAYDREAM does or be the star of the show.”
He looks back to the skyline; his lower lip wobbles, and his eyes turn glassy.
“And now, I wish we could go back to the way things used to be—when I could express myself through my art and had some semblance of privacy.” His voice wavers, and a solitary tear escapes.
“It’s like I’m not even a person anymore.
I’m a product. Something to be marketed. ”
“Felix, does your family know you feel this way?”
He shakes his head solemnly. “I would sound so self-absorbed if I told them. I mean, Aves is in the middle of becoming deaf.” His voice breaks. “How could I whinge about being in a massively successful band?”
“What about your bandmates? Can’t you talk to them?”
He explains, “They’re doing the best they can in this situation.
I don’t wanna make things worse for them by bringing it up …
Especially since I’m the one who got us into this mess.
” Guilt drips from his voice, and my heart breaks just a little for him at the sound.
“Our contract is so predatory. Lachlan wanted to have it reviewed by a lawyer, but I convinced him it was okay. I was scared to mess anything up because this was our big chance at making our dreams come true, and I thought we could trust the label.”
Tears rush down his cheeks faster than he can swipe at them. He turns around and slides to the ground, his back pressed against the railing, and tucks his knees to his chest.
Unsure how to comfort him, I sit next to him and take his hand. He squeezes it tightly, and I squeeze back.
I hadn’t considered the fact that Felix might not like DAYDREAM’s image or thought about how much pressure being America’s Sweetheart must be. I assumed he was basking in the thrill, not being suffocated by the weight of it all.
It’s impossible to say how long we sit here in the cool night air, our hands tightly intertwined, before he lets go, wipes his face, and looks over at me.
“Sorry for being a buzzkill.”
“You aren’t,” I insist. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Thank you for listening.” His tone betrays how drained he is.
Moving of its own accord, my hand finds its way to his knee. He glances down and grabs it, then takes a slow breath, fully expanding his lungs, letting the heaviness of the moment evaporate with each exhale.
“What’s your dream?” he signs, not-so-slyly changing the topic, but I’m distracted by the stars dancing in his dark eyes, making them shine.
“To revamp the Deaf Center,” I reply. “I want it to be a place people want to go, especially kids and teens. New classrooms and updated tech and captioned-movie nights. My dad, sister, and I dreamed of bridging gaps between the Hearing and Deaf worlds; sharing our culture, easing language deprivation, stuff like that…” I stop before I get too animated.
Jo tells me I’m like an annoying coworker who’s always showing pictures of their cats even though nobody in the office cares.
I’ve spent so long dreaming about it, thinking through every minute detail, that it’s easy for me to get carried away when people ask. I don’t want to bore him.
But Felix doesn’t seem to mind. When I don’t continue, he knocks his shoulder into mine and says, “That sounds amazing, Nat. So how are you gonna do it?”
“If I’m going big picture … I’d like to set up centers countrywide, especially in underprivileged areas, so all deaf people have access to resources. But that’ll never happen,” I admit, deflating a bit. “We barely have money to fix our own center. Much less fund others.”
His face falls, as if he’s only now realizing not everyone has a multimillionaire father, but he quickly wipes the expression. “Ya got any more daydreams? Pardon the reference.”
I stare at him, confused. “What? That wasn’t enough?”
Felix feigns shock, pressing a hand to his heart.
“C’mon, Nat. I have no doubt you’ll accomplish that.
Look at you!” he chides playfully, and I look away to cover up my blush.
“You’ve gotta have some kinda pie-in-the-sky, probably-never-gonna-happen, huge dream that some might call delusional. Everyone does!”
I shrug. “Not me, I guess. I don’t have time to—as you so eloquently put it—be delusional.”
“You’re tellin’ me there’s nothing outlandish you find yourself thinking about in quiet moments?”
An odd heaviness settles in my chest, and I frown.
When you take everything day by day, always worried your credit card will be declined at the store or spending every spare second brainstorming new side hustles, you don’t exactly have the luxury of daydreaming—but maybe I’ll give it a try. Someday.
“Not right now,” I answer simply.
After a long beat, he breathes, “Well, then I hope your dreams come true, Nat.”
I glance at him. “I hope yours do, too, Felix.”
I look back toward the dark cityscape, relishing a moment of peace with the boy who has stars in his eyes and an unsung song in his heart.