“Like inPhantom of the Opera?” I asked, trying and failing to hold back a laugh.
“You know there’s a ballet version of that?” Felix set his empty ice cream bowl on the coffee table.
“I’ve only seen the musical.” I didn’t add that I’d seen it on the TV in a hungover haze on a Sunday morning with a living room full of other, hungover queers and that my view of a lot of it had been blocked by one of them—and I couldn’t rememberwho, anymore—painting my toenails. The memory seemed impossibly distant now, as though it’d happened to someone else.
But I remembered the chandelier part. And the sparkly blue toenails.
“Consider yourself lucky.” Felix wrinkled his nose. “We talked about putting it on for a season. For once, I was grateful that Piotr was an incurable snob.”
I snorted. “Not a fan?”
“Avery loves the musical,” Felix said. “So I’ve seen it enough to last me a solid handful of lifetimes. I like the chandelier part.”
“Who knew you were so bloodthirsty?” I asked, ducking my head to nuzzle the top of Felix’s. This was nice. I hadn’t felt so good about justbeingwith someone for a really, really long time.
When I’d woken up this morning, for the first time since I moved back here, my first thought hadn’t been Benji.
It’d been Felix.
“Normally I’m as placid as a little lamb.”
“No you’re not.”
Felix laughed. “You’re not supposed to know menearlywell enough to know that.”
“You care a lot,” I said, setting my own empty ice cream bowl next to his on the coffee table. “If you think you’re hiding it, I have terrible news for you.”
Felix sighed, shifting against me. “I don’t really want a chandelier to fall on Kieran. Or, I mean, I do, because he’s a weasel, but it’s not what Ireallywant. I really want to dance. I’m mad that he can and I can’t.”
“Get up,” I said, nudging Felix before my brain had entirely caught up with my mouth.
He twisted around to look at me.
“Get up,” I repeated, giving him another nudge. “Trust me.”
Felix grumbled as he pushed himself off me, but I was on a mission now. I got my phone out and opened up a playlist it was probably embarrassing to have saved, setting it on the coffee table and hitting play.
Spandau Ballet’sTruestarted playing over the crappy little built-in speaker on my older-than-Benji phone. I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head since my first night with Felix.
“Seriously?” Felix asked, eyebrow raised as he looked between me and my phone. “Spandau Ballet?”
“We’re not judging the unconscious associations my brain makes,” I said nudging the coffee table a few feet away with one sock-clad foot, and held out my hand. “Dance with me.”
Felix raised a skeptical brow. He took my hand, though.
I drew him in gently until there was barely an inch between us, resting a hand on his hip.
He laughed, dropping his forehead against my shoulder and closing the rest of the distance between us, leaning against me.
“To be clear, I really can’t dance,” I said as I started to sway him to the rhythm of the song. Or what I hoped was the rhythm, anyway.
I hadn’t done this since I was an awkward teenager, and time hadn’t made any difference.
It felt good to have Felix leaning against me like this, though.
“Makes two of us,” Felix mumbled against my shirt.
“I know it’s not the same,” I said, tracing circles on his hip with my thumb.
