I shrugged. “Felt like the only choice to me. Aaron—my ex—he, uh. When Benji came to live with me—us—he put up with it for a while, but… when I told him I’d have to move back to Otter Bay to get Mom and Dad’s help with Benji, ‘cause I couldn’t do it alone, he told me he wasn’t moving to a crappy little town where nothing ever happens. That he didn’t sign up for a kid, and it was him or Benji. He hadn’t even finished saying it when I saidBenji. He’s six years old. What was I meant to do?”
“What about Benji’s dad?”
I shrugged. “Deadbeat. Always was. Took off the minute Laura got pregnant and we never heard from him again.”
Felix wrinkled his nose. “Something else we’ve got in common. Mine left when I was four. Never saw him again.”
Asshole.
I didn’t say it aloud—I wasn’t sure how Felix felt about his dad, but I was instantly, completely sure howIfelt about him. The same way I did about Benji’s. Like the world would be a better place if they’d waded into the sea and never come back.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t about to be one more person who’d abandoned him, either,” I said instead. “He deserves better than that.”
Felix shook his head, but he was smiling. He looked up at the sky—it was a clear night with a nearly full moon—and let out a long breath. “You can’t even hear how amazing that sounds, can you?”
“Apparently not.” I smiled back at him, tiny but honest.
Felix looked at me for another heartbeat, then looked around at the street again. “Stupid question, butarethose crickets?”
“Cicadas,” I said, gesturing at the trees lining the street. They were singing their little hearts out tonight. “We don’t get them every year, but when we do, they’re always early. Something about the bay protecting the area or something, so it gets warmer sooner? I dunno, someone explained this to me when I was a kid, but…”
“You were a kid,” Felix finished for me. “Definitely not crickets?”
“Definitely not crickets,” I said, smiling wryly.
“Damn. Avery was right.”
I laughed. “You really are a city kid, huh?”
“Actually, I’m from Iowa,” Felix said. “Tiny little town no one’s ever heard of. But I got a ballet scholarship and moved to New York when I was twelve and never looked back. I barelyremember my hometown other than that it was small and everyone always knew everything I was up to and I wanted out more than anything. That wasnothingcompared to the world of ballet, though. You can’t sneeze without someone running off to tell someone else about it. I got a ladder in a pair of tights once during a rehearsal and found out about it through the gossip getting back to me before I actually noticed.”
“Wow.”
“Your dad’s gonna love it,” Felix teased, looking up at the sky again. He probably hadn’t seen so many stars in a while.
A shiver ran through him as I was thinking that, and I stopped to shrug my shirt off.
“Here.” I offered it to him.
Felix raised an eyebrow.
“It’s mostly clean,” I defended, suddenly self-conscious. “Better than freezing.”
“We’ve got less than fifty yards left to walk.” Felix nodded toward the end of the street, where he’d rented the apartment above the currently vacant store there. Not that he’d told me—I knew because no one could keep a secret around here.
Small town living would makegreattraining for big-time ballet, apparently. At least Benji would have a head start on it. If he decided ballet was what he really wanted.
“Take it anyway.” I took a step toward him, holding the shirt almost to his chest.
Felix looked up at me, eyes glinting in the moonlight as they darted over my face.
“Okay,” he said, turning away.
For a second I couldn’t figure out why, but then he raised his arms, and I got the idea.
Earlier today I’d picked him up without thinking about it, stretched his leg out without registering anything but whether or not I was making myself useful.
Helping him into my shirt was different. He wasn’t as broad as me, but under my hands his shoulders felt strong, hard, the muscles shifting easily as I ran my palms over them to tug the shirt on. The warmth of his body seeped through the fabric as I smoothed it in place, lingering a beat or two longer than I had to. This close, he smelled of fresh, masculine aftershave, just strong enough to pick up now that I was inches away.
