Chapter 26 #6
Justin looked at Kyle, whose face had barely changed since the last time Justin had seen him.
Still angular and tanned, still boyish and charming when he smiled.
Now, though, it was twisted in anguish, and Kyle Kavanaugh, who Justin had never seen looking anything but utterly sure of himself, looked at a loss.
“I’m trying to keep him safe,” he said, and it almost sounded like he was pleading with Justin to understand. “I really am sorry for what I did to you, Winters, I mean it. But you know better than anyone what happens to boys who are different in this town.”
You happen to them, Justin almost said. You happen to them, and no one does a damn thing to stop it, and they spend their lives feeling alone and ashamed and so, so angry.
God, Justin was so angry it was eating him alive, and he didn’t want to feel like this anymore.
He didn’t want anyone, especially not a kid like Kieran, to ever feel like this.
He took a deep breath and tried to keep his voice steady as he spoke to Kyle.
“You won’t keep him safe by keeping him away from ballet. You’ll just make him feel ashamed. You’ll make him feel like he doesn’t belong in this town, and he’ll leave and never come back, just like I did. Is that what you want?”
“Of course not.”
“Then get over yourself and figure out how you’re going to make this place safe for him to be a boy who dances.”
Kyle grimaced. “I… I’m going to try.”
Justin wanted more than that. He wanted to demand that Kyle sign Kieran up for ballet classes right this second.
He wanted Kyle to promise to stop telling the kid nonsense about how boys weren’t meant to dance.
He wanted him to say that he’d convince a bunch of other dads to send their sons to Miss Mary’s so Kieran wouldn’t be the only one, the weirdo, the freak.
So that one day, a few years from now, ballet was just something boys in this town did, just like footy or fishing or spray-painting dicks on the back of the public toilets in the park.
But he knew this was all he was going to get today. And he’d take it.
Ivy squeezed his arm again, and the touch sent a wave of gratitude rushing through him.
The adrenaline that had grabbed at his heart and spiked his pulse was subsiding, and what remained was relief.
Relief, and the warm, steady reminder that Ivy was still there.
She was right there, standing by him and keeping him from doing something he’d regret, holding him even when he was afraid that the ugliness inside him was about to escape.
He never wanted her to let go. He never wanted to let go of her. He wanted her here, at his side, helping him to be better than he’d ever managed to be on his own.
He’d never let the ugliness out again. He would go look it in the face and make peace with it, just like he was doing with Kyle Kavanaugh right now. He would do whatever it took to be the man Ivy seemed so damn sure he was.
“You do that,” he said to Kyle. “Because apologies are nice, but actions are better. And apologizing to me doesn’t help your son.”
Kyle nodded. “Okay. I get it.”
“Good,” Justin said firmly. He put his hand on the small of Ivy’s back and gestured to the door. “Let’s go.” Looking relieved, she gave Kavanaugh a hasty wave, and Justin followed her, leaving Kyle Kavanaugh alone in his empty office.
Justin wasn’t sure Kyle really did get it. But he’d be back in Hillstone again soon, and if Kyle needed a refresher, he’d be all too happy to provide it.
The street was still deserted, and the air was still dry and hot. The scent of smoke still hung in the air, clinging to the buildings and the blackened remains of trees and grass. Hillstone was destroyed.
But Justin felt reborn, like a gumtree sprouting its first new green leaves weeks after a fire swept through.
Not because his hometown had burned, but because he had finally come back here and faced the memories that had kept him away for so long.
And he wasn’t afraid of them anymore. No, it wasn’t fear he was feeling right now.
It was regret, and determination. He’d already lost precious time with his family.
He’d lost this town first to shame, and then again to fire.
He would not lose it again. He would not let the memory of what had happened to him here keep him from loving this place and the people who lived here.
Ivy turned to face him and looked up into his face, her green eyes full of concern.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, a breathy laugh chopping the word in two. “No. It depends.”
Regret, determination, and love. Love that made his chest tight and his pulse pound the way nothing ever had. Not dancing at Lincoln Center, not confronting Kyle Kavanaugh, nothing. And he wasn’t going to go another second without telling her.
“On what?” Ivy’s brow furrowed.
“On you,” he swallowed, then commanded himself to say the words, the same way he willed his legs to move when it was time to step out on stage and into the bright lights. “On whether you love me. Because,” he lifted his hands to cradle her face, “because I love you. I love you, Ivy.”
She said nothing, and he kept talking, the words spilling out of him like he’d been rehearsing them in his head for days. Weeks. “I love how you make me brave. I love the way your brain works. I love how incorrigible you are—”
She opened her mouth to object, but he shook his head.
“No, Kurt, it’s a good thing. It’s the best thing about you.
You’re so fucking determined. You didn’t quit trying to help me, even when I practically begged you to.
You found a way. You didn’t quit on ballet or on journalism, you just found a way to keep doing them even when they pushed you out.
When you want something, you find a way, and Ivy, it’s incredible to watch.
It’s inspiring. It’s… it’s Ivy. I want to love you like that. Will you let me love you like that?”
Ivy’s eyes were shining with tears, but he could see a spark of mischief as she looked up at him. She still said nothing, and for a moment he wondered if he’d misread that twinkle.
“Kurt?” he asked, his voice sounding distinctly faint and not nearly as brave as he’d just claimed to be.
She pressed her lips together and said nothing.
“Ivy?”
Shit, shit, shit. He’d read this all wrong, and done it all wrong, and now it was too late to take the words back.
“I’m just mentally telling myself to shut up,” she whispered. “So you’ll keep talking. But actually, I want you to stop talking.”
“Okay…” he said, his stomach starting to free fall.
“And kiss me,” she smiled. And then, without waiting for him to move, she rose up on relevé and pressed her mouth to his.
The moment her lips touched his, Justin felt his pulse settle.
Her kiss and the solidness of her body against his, they anchored him to the scorched ground, soothing the parts of him that had been hurting for so long he’d almost stopped noticing.
She kissed him fiercely, as though her adrenaline had spiked and she hadn’t come down yet, or perhaps she was simply kissing him the way she did everything else.
The way she wrote, the way she worked, the way she stood between him and the things that scared him.
Determined, incorrigible, stubborn, he didn’t know what the right word was.
She was the one with the writer’s vocabulary.
What he knew was that he never wanted her to stop kissing him like this.
But he needed to hear her say the words.
If he was honest with himself, he’d been waiting weeks to hear her say them.
He broke the kiss and looked down into her round face, which was shining a little in the heat of the afternoon. “Is that a yes?” he ventured.
Ivy’s eyes sparkled as she smiled up at him, and god, he would never tire of the way that smile lit up her face, and all the dark places inside him.
“It’s a yes, Justin. Yes, I love you. And yes, I want you to love me like that.”
He pressed his forehead to hers, still wondering at how steady his heartbeat felt.
It should have been thundering, but for the first time in so long, he felt settled and still and sure.
He didn’t want to fidget or pace or run.
He just wanted to hold on to her, breathe her in, and love her with all the fierceness and determination she deserved.
Holding her here, in the ruins of his hometown, it was like holding his future while he made peace with the past. He knew Hillstone had a long road ahead, and he did, too.
But he’d started down that road with her—kicking and screaming, she’d be the first to say.
He was determined to keep going, though.
He’d hold her hand as he did, and he knew this road would take them wherever they wanted to go.