Chapter Twenty #2
Dexter nodded and looked down at his phone. “Yeah, it all came to a head when I was in West Side Story. Henrik Larsson made my life a misery.”
“Oh . . .” Jonah knew Henrik; he’d met him at a couple of industry events, and Sherrie sometimes invited him out for drinks
with them. He always seemed tired, eyes sunken in his skin, likely exhausted from the phenomenal choreography he’d been performing
for the past few years in West Side. “I didn’t know you were in that.”
“I was Riff.”
“What?” Jonah frowned. “Isn’t that who Henrik plays now? I didn’t even know you were in it.”
Dexter looked from his phone to Jonah and raised his eyebrows. “I was in it when it first opened. Henrik took over the role
from me when I left. He was part of the ensemble before that. And the only reason I didn’t look to extend my contract was
because he made the atmosphere backstage so toxic I couldn’t stand to be there any longer.”
“What a bastard.”
Dexter smiled. “Exactly.”
“Was . . . was Riff a dream role of yours?” Jonah asked somewhat carefully, not wanting to add any salt to the wounds, but
also genuinely intrigued.
“No. The role was only meant to be short-term anyway, just a six-month contract because . . . well I thought I would get the
Achilles role.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Riff was great to play, but I have my heart set on another Sondheim character.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“George.”
Jonah raised his eyebrows and smiled brightly. “From Sunday in the Park with George?” Dexter nodded. “I could see you doing that. Maybe when you’re older, though?”
“Well, I’m hardly getting any younger. I’m thirty-three.”
“No. You’re not.”
“I think I know how old I am, Jonah.”
“Then you’re older than me.” It made no sense.
Dexter’s skin glowed with the youth of someone in their twenties, not someone in their thirties.
“I’m aging terribly,” Jonah groaned and went to wipe his hands over his face, but stopped, feeling the sting on his nose as soon as his fingers brushed his skin.
“You’re gorgeous.” Dexter took his hands into his. “Tell me. What’s your dream role?”
“Emcee.”
“From Cabaret? Haven’t you been in that show before?”
“Yeah. But I played Cliff. I didn’t even audition for Emcee, didn’t think I could pull it off. But now . . . now I think I
could.”
“It can be a pretty dark role.”
“It’s perfect,” Jonah said, as Dexter gave his hands an encouraging squeeze. “If you have the right director and production
team, you can make that character whatever you want it to be. Playful, sinister, sexual, a mix of all those. And the songs,
Emcee has the best songs ever, the opening number alone is one of the best pieces of—” The sound of his phone vibrating cut
them off. Jonah reluctantly peered at the device, half expecting to see Edward had somehow bypassed all his blocking, but
instead he saw his mum. “Sorry, I better take this.” He pried his hands out of Dexter’s grasp and went to get out of bed,
but stopped, aware of how naked he was, which made Dexter snort from the back of his throat.
“Dude, I literally had your dick in my mouth last night, don’t be shy now.”
Jonah scowled at him before grabbing his phone and darting into the bathroom while Dexter wolf whistled behind him.
“Mum, hey, you’re calling early.”
“Gilly from down the road popped down with my milk because the milkman left it at her door again and told me that her daughter Kelsey, you remember her, the one with ginger hair who you used to play hide-and-seek with on the beach when you were kids, you remember, well, she told me Kelsey said it was all over social media that someone was attacked in your show last night. And I said I didn’t know about it, and she looked it up on her phone, and there was a photograph of you with blood all over your face.
” His mum spoke with such speed he could barely keep up.
“And I had to stand there looking stupid because of course you haven’t told me anything.
and then she said oh no it’s your son, and then there were loads of other photos of you being escorted by security guards. ”
“Mum. It happened after the show,” Jonah said slowly. “It was late, and I didn’t want to worry you. Everything’s fine. It
isn’t as bad as the pictures look, and I was taken care of straight away.”
“You’re not hurt?”
“Well. I’ve got a bruise,” he said as he looked at his face in the mirror and grimaced. “But nothing serious, Mum. Please,
don’t worry.” He turned his head to the side to see a red mark on his neck left behind by Dexter’s mouth. “How are you?”
“I was fine until this morning. No parent should ever have to find out their child was assaulted secondhand like that.”
“I was going to call you this morning, I promise. But it’s still early and, like I said, I didn’t want to wake you up and
worry you last night. I was taken care of, there’s really nothing for you to be upset over.”
“Nicola’s son lives in London, and he calls every day to see how she is, and you never call me. You never come and see me.
I sometimes think I’m just going to rot here alone. You’ve abandoned me.”
The words hurt. He knew he’d been there, maybe not physically, but he’d done all he could from afar and returned when it mattered
most, but now wasn’t the time to argue. He recalled the conversation he had with Aunt Penny, her words, asking if his mum
sounded drunk when he spoke to her in the middle of the night. She didn’t sound tipsy now, thank God given the early hour
of the day, but something still played in the back of his mind. A small worry. The seed started to sprout. “Mum. Have you
been drinking?”
She laughed, the sound not happy but filled with something different, a sadness Jonah couldn’t describe. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Mum,” Jonah pleaded. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“You’ve let me down.”
“Do you really believe that?”
She paused. “No,” she said, followed by a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I heard what happened, and it scared me. I love you, I love you so much, and you’re so far away, Jonah. I can’t look after you.”
“I love you, too, Mum. You can come here to visit. You know that, right? Or I can come up again soon. Do you think that would
help?”
“Maybe getting away from here for a couple of days would do me good . . . but your dad, what if . . . what if something happens
and I’m not here?” He heard a glass shattering across the floor. “Shit. Sausage, I’ve got to go. Don’t let anyone else hit
you, okay? I love you.” She hung up before he could say goodbye. He stared at his phone, a dreadful feeling of unease caressing
his skin, pushing its way inside of him to wrap around the ache in his chest.
When Jonah went back into the bedroom, Dexter had left. He’d made the bed and folded the clothes he borrowed from Jonah and
placed them on top of the dresser neatly, as if he’d never been there. Jonah dressed himself in a pair of loose cotton trousers
and pulled on the first T-shirt he could find, then went downstairs to find Dexter pouring out two bowls of cereal.
“You really have a lot of gumption, you know,” Jonah said, opening the cutlery drawer to get out two spoons. “Rummaging through
my stuff to get food. Did your parents never teach you how to behave in other people’s homes?”
“Well, my mum ran off with a man from Spain when I was three and my dad decided the stock market was more important than spending
time with me, so I guess not.” Dexter handed a bowl of cereal to Jonah with a grin. “That question backfired, didn’t it, arsehole?”
Jonah snatched it from him, then slumped down at the table. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Eh, don’t worry.” Dexter sat opposite him and shoved in a giant mouthful of cereal. “I have my dad coming to watch the show
this Saturday night, actually. Can’t wait for him to tell me how disappointed he is in me afterward.”
“He doesn’t like you working in the theatre industry?”
Dexter waggled his spoon in the air. “‘It’s a bloody outrage!’” he said in a croaky voice Jonah could only assume was an impression of his father.
“‘You should work with numbers, not dance around on the stage like a pansy!’” Dexter laughed, then plonked the spoon back into the bowl.
“Imagine how he reacted when I told him I was, actually, also a pansy.”
Jonah shook his head with a disbelieving laugh. “Shit. Well. I’m sorry, that really sucks.”
“How were your parents when you told them?”
“That I wanted to go into the theatre or that I was gay?”
Dexter laughed. “Both?”
“They were fine, actually, about both things. Maybe not so much the theatre stuff, as I was a typical theatre kid and constantly
singing show tunes, which I think made them go a little insane. Unfortunately, the issues are only now cropping up.” He forced
himself to eat some cereal and grimaced as he chewed. “Not with me liking men, or being in the theatre, just other stuff.
My dad’s unwell and it’s taking a toll on my mum and . . . well, I’m not there and the feeling of guilt is getting pretty
overwhelming.”
Dexter stirred his spoon around his milk and cereal. “You think they want you to go home and drop the life you have here?”
“No,” Jonah said truthfully. “But it doesn’t stop the worry. And Cornwall’s hardly down the road. I can’t just pop in on them.”
“Then just do what you can,” Dexter said, the solution simple, one Jonah was already doing. But it wasn’t enough. “And let’s
get ice cream today so you can let all the shit that happened in the last twelve hours be forgotten for a while.”
“You want to get ice cream with me?”
“Yeah,” Dexter said with a smirk. “Or sorbet, if that’s more your thing.”
“Where do you want to go for ice cream?”
“The shop down the road sells it.”
“Oh. Fancy. You do spoil me.”
“And we can bring it back here and you can lick it off me.”
“Deal.” It was the quickest decision Jonah had ever made in his entire life.