I couldn’t say I felt differently. I got the feeling Felix’s ex had kind of all-round sucked in ways mine hadn’t—I didn’t even really blame Aaron for not wanting the responsibility of a kid he didn’t know all of a sudden—but there wassomethingabout Felix. I’d been drawn to him since we met. I’d barely even registered the coffee spill over the way his eyes had practically glowed in the sunlight.
Mom always said she’d known the minute she saw Dad across a crowded bar at a New Year’s Eve party that he’d been the one for her. So much so that she’d upended her entire life to move to Otter Bay just two weeks after they met. Even when they were fighting, she never evenhintedat regretting that.
That was a ridiculous line of thought, but…
“Were you working on the choreography for the competition just now?” I asked, deciding to worry about the here and now instead of whatever else was going on.
Felix sighed, resting his head against the wall and looking up at the ceiling. I did the same, noticing for the first time the faint outlines of glow-in-the-dark stars stuck all over it. Huh. As far as I knew, no one was ever in the studio after dark. But then it hadn’t always been a dance studio.
“I was,” he said. “How’d it look?”
“Beautiful,” I admitted. “You looked incredible.”
Felix rolled his head to the side, eyebrow raised. “I couldn’t land a single footfall on my right side properly.”
I shrugged. “Didn’t notice. I’m not, y’know, an Olympic judge or anything.”
“I don’t think they have ballet events at the Olympics,” Felix said, the corner of his lips twitching. I loved those little half-smiles of his, the way they made his eyes glint like he wanted to laugh.
He didn’t laugh all that much, but I liked it when he did.
“Well, maybe they should,” I said, taking up my own coffee. “Ballet is a real sport. I mean, if gymnastics is, ballet’s… I dunno. Probably harder.”
“I don’t hear that from men a lot,” Felix said.
“Figures. I didn’t realize until I really started paying attention. Or… this is embarrassing…”
Felix’s eyes lit up. “Tell me,” he said. “I promise not to laugh.”
“It’s fine if you do.” I liked it when he laughed, and I didn’t mind him doing it at my expense. Especially since what I was about to tell himwasridiculous.
“I tried out some of the moves Benji was learning,” I confessed. “Half I couldn’t do at all, the other half I nearly killed myself trying. You know how they say some people have two left feet? I’ve got four. I guess until I tried it I was fooled by howeasyyou guys all make it look. It’s not easy.”
Felix nodded slowly. “It’s not,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee and then wrinkling his nose. “This is yours.”
“Nope,” I said, holding mine up to show him where Iggy had scrawled CP. He’d writtenFelixout in full, but I took it as a kind of honor that he was familiar enough with me now that my cup didn’t get a full name.
“But this is a latte?”
“An almond milk latte,” I said. “Mine has milk from a real animal in it.”
For a second, I worried I’d gotten this wrong. Felix had called almond milk lattes a decadence he maybe hadn’t been…allowedby his ex? From my perspective that was both wrong and insane. I’d wanted him to have what he really wanted for once.
Had I fucked this up?
“You remembered,” Felix said, voice barely above a whisper. “You were listening.”
The tips of my ears were on fire again, but I nodded. “Of course.”
“Of course,” Felix repeated, gaze roving over my face as his mouth curved into a smile I got the feeling wasn’t entirely intentional. “Of course.”
He kept his eyes on me as he sipped his latte again. My heart pounded in my ears, but for once in longer than I wanted to think about, it wasn’t from fear. I wasn’t scared atallright now.
“Milk from a real animal, huh?” Felix asked after he’d swallowed his sip of coffee, licking the inside of his mouth. He reallydidthink of the almond milk as an indulgence.
The pies were going to blow his mind.
“Well, Iggy offered goat’s milk for a while there.”
