Javier squeezed him tighter. “I’m assuming, at some point, they gave in.”
“The owner of the school, Alexandre Bazarov, was a famous Russian ballet dancer. Real masc presenting. He had a man-to-man chat with my father and told him that dance was a sport, one that ninety percent of the population was incapable of competing in. He also hit him with the statistics on how less than half of all male ballet dancers were gay. Shocker. You can imagine how irritated my father was when I still ended up queer even with the odds in his favor. But that came later.”
“How much later?”
“High school,” Bowie said, both hands working through Javier’s thick hair now. “I knew I was gay way before that, but my parents caught me making out with the football player I was supposed to be tutoring like something out of a bad eighties movie. My poor dad didn’t know what to do with himself. His son was gay and had turned the varsity quarterback. What would they say at church?”
“Did they kick you out?”
Bowie sighed. “No. They signed me up for church camp. I didn’t come out straight, but I definitely went back in the closet, as much as somebody like me could anyway.”
Javier frowned up at him. “What do you mean?”
Bowie raised his brows and flattened his lips into a hard line. “You telling me you didn’t peg me as gay within seconds of laying your eyes on me for the first time?”
Javier’s face scrunched. “I suspected, I guess. But it was the rainbow tattoo on your wrist that sort of sold it for me.”
Bowie looked at his wrist like he had forgotten the tattoo was even there. “Odette and I got matching tattoos when I moved in with them. We were both so drunk. I can’t believe they even let us sit for them. She said I should be proud of who I am. That she’d get one too. As an ally.”
“When did you stop talking to them? Your parents, I mean?”
“When I gave up my scholarship to Iowa State to take a position in the corps of a ballet company in the land of heathens. With Iowa State, they had a shot at a normal son. Maybe minor in dance but still get a degree in something respectable like accounting or agriculture or whatever my father could find that made him feel like he wasn’t a failure as a father.”
“You’re a beautiful dancer,” Javier said so sincerely Bowie had to swallow the lump in his throat.
“You’ve never even seen me dance.”
“I watched you dance the day I came home. You were just so caught up you didn’t notice I was there.”
Bowie sucked in a sharp breath. “You did?”
“Yeah. I was going to let you know I was there, but you were so…in it. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.”
“Thank you,” Bowie said. “Not that it matters. My career is over. My parents would be thrilled. Full of self-righteousness as they told me I was wasting an opportunity at a real career to be a mediocre dancer.”
Bowie tried to keep the hurt out of his voice, but their words had barbs and they had burrowed deep into his heart.
Javier sat up, knees on either side of Bowie’s thighs as he took his head in his hands. “You are not a mediocre dancer. You’re an amazing dancer who had a string of shitty things happen to him. You made it to soloist. That’s a big deal.”
Bowie could feel tears streaming down his cheeks but his brain snagged on Javier’s words. “How do you know soloist is a big deal? You said you don’t know anything about ballet?”
“I may have Googled. It’s one step below principal dancer.”
“There’s only three options. Corps, soloist, or principal. That puts me smack in the middle. Right where my parents said I’d be.”
Javier wiped the tears from his cheeks. “How many dancers would have killed to be a soloist? I’m guessing tens of thousands. No?”
Bowie shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m almost certain I’ve been fired from a major company after being demoted. Show’s over for me.”
“Not if you don’t want it to be,” Javier persisted.
Bowie let his gaze slide away. Looking at the conviction in Javier’s gaze was painful. “What are you gonna do? Kill everybody who says no to me?”
“I mean, I suppose that’s an option. Messy though,” Javier teased. “I could pay off some people, disappear others.”
Bowie sniffled, giving a soft laugh as he wiped at his face. “I’m not crying over my parents, just so you know.”
“Was it the incredible sex?” Javier asked. “I almost shed a tear myself.”
