18. Felix

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Felix

Shira dances like she was born to do it. I've seen her dance before—on a stage, on my lap. An entirely different thing from how she's spinning across the floor like she's unbound.

Her feet flash in her sneakers, her arms extend above her head. She's tiny—or was tiny. Now she takes up space. I can't look away. Not as she does each step like a deliberate surprise. Not as she flashes us a grin as if to say, Told ya I was good at this .

Blake's still standing beside me. "Oh," he breathes, low and complimentary, like he's seeing her for the first time. An oh as if his heart, like mine, is suddenly filling his chest. I thought I was in love with her . What I couldn't let go of for all those months. What I brought with me on this trip like luggage.

I am still in love with her. But he is too.

Shira spins our way. "You just gonna stand there and gawk?"

"Nope." Blake offers his hand. "Go easy on me." He leads, a hand in hers, the other seated on the slimmest part of her waist. Of course he's good at this .

Something lights within me: this isn't jealousy. This is something more complicated, like the smoky notes of mezcal. Blake does something—a step that shows off he also has rhythm —and she taps his hip in delight. She's laughing. She's loved and that should be enough.

I'm about ready to head back to our table when they spin my way, closer, closer, until Shira grabs my hand. "C'mon."

"I don't know how to dance," I say.

"Everyone knows how to dance." She nods to Blake—is she looking for permission? Or just an acknowledgement?—then steadies her hand in mine.

We dance together, the three of us. Or I attempt to dance, even if my feet are sudden weights, my arms hanging awkwardly at my sides.

Awkward except for Shira holding my palm to hers. I've felt her all over. Fuck, I saw her naked last night. Neither of those beats the simple press of her lifeline to my own.

"I could've just watched you two," I say to her.

"Nah, I think you want to be out here with us."

I step and step wrong. Somehow my toes land on Blake's. "I'm not as good as him at this." A fact I can't seem to escape, even if I can't bring myself to resent him for it.

"And yet here you are"—Shira winks—"trying anyway."

My arm finds her waist, tucking her close to me. Her hair smells like rain, like a field right before a thunderstorm. I close my eyes, inhale. The music hasn't gotten any slower, but maybe time has. This , something inside me demands, this is how it's supposed to be.

She pulls back. Blinks up at me. Swallows. I want to kiss the delicate line of her throat, to feel the power in her slim strong body. Run away with me , I push down. She's already taken all the parts of me that matter.

"Did I step on your toes?" I ask.

That gets me a smile. "Slow dancing is cheating."

I dart a glance to Blake, who is mostly just swaying to the music as if he doesn't have a care in the world. "Uh."

"Not like that," she whispers. Then, louder, "Okay, we're gonna try this again." She stands so that she and I are facing the same direction. She does another step, something so complicated I get a little lost just watching her.

I shake my head.

She does the same pattern of steps but slower, counting off as she goes.

I try again.

And get one foot tangled over the other.

"Aren't you a professional athlete?" she asks.

"Not a very good one."

She tuts and slows her steps even more until finally I'm able to track them. One-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three. Maybe it's the mezcal hitting my system or maybe it's just Shira's encouragement in my ear, but something clicks.

I take her hand again, spin her to me, motion for Blake to join us. Dancing with three people should be strange—I'm always a second from stepping on either of their feet. But it isn't. Not when Shira shimmies and twists and forgives me when my hand knocks into hers. Her fingers twine with my own, a brief flash of sensation.

"Can I borrow her?" Blake doesn't wait for my response as he pulls Shira away. As he twirls her once, again, until she's a blur, a high peal of laughter. He dips her, low, low, her back a graceful arch, her hand held above her head with shivering intensity. She goes limp—or seemingly, a practiced surrender that must take complete control.

They're beautiful together, breathing each other's air, bodies attentive to each other's movements, held in the other's gaze. Kiss her . Please. Kiss her for me if I can't.

And my heart beats a little faster when they return to where I'm standing.

Shira interposes herself between us, motioning for Blake to slide closer at her back. Tomorrow, we'll have to get into whatever car Blake's brother is bringing us. Tomorrow, I'll have to face the team and either accept a demotion or quit.

Now, though, now my only responsibility is the confidence of Shira's hand in mine and Blake's fluorescent smile.

Shira's aww a minute later pulls me back to earth. I follow her gaze to the edge of the dance floor where a little girl no older than three has toddled over and is now twirling with childish abandon, vigorously enough that the small pink flower on her headband is coming loose.

"Hey," Shira says, "I'm cutting out." She plucks her hand from mine, leaving my arm hovering, the narrow space between Blake and me unoccupied. On the other side of the dance floor, the girl spins again. Shira approaches her and does a matching twirl and earns the girl's high giggle.

And I'm so focused on looking at them that I'm almost surprised when I turn back to Blake. He hasn't budged, though he's moving vaguely to the music.

"Hey." My hand is still hovering. I could just rest it by my side. Could claim thirst and retreat back to our table for a glass of water. Could keep my hands to myself—literally—until we get to Florida and have to go back to our real lives.

Blake is studying me, a sweep of a gaze that he averts at just the last second. If I don't do this now, we might not get another chance. If we don't do this now, Blake might spend the rest of his life averting his gaze, and the thought alone makes me step toward him.

He doesn't bolt. His eyes go fractionally wider.

"If anyone asks," I say, "we can just say I was teaching you to dance." And then I take his hand in mine. His palm is dry, callused, his pulse racing.

He blinks, once, twice, looking at the join of our hands—the grasp of my fingers on the back of his palm—then he laughs. "You're teaching me to dance?"

"Yeah, so c'mere."

Blake folds closer to me. He doesn't seem to know what to do with his other arm, so I slide it around my shoulders. "I haven't, uh, done this part before," he says.

This part . It's unclear if he means dancing or just touching like this. Still, I draw him to me. Closer, I can count the threads of his eyelashes and the tiny sun-created freckles on his cheeks. "How am I doing so far?" I ask.

He has faint lines by his eyes, the same ones I have, the product of a lifetime outdoors. They crease in amusement. "Good. I haven't danced like this since I was a kid."

"Yeah?"

"My parents put me in dance classes when I was six because they thought it'd make me a better athlete. Pretty much everything has always been about that—they wanted to set me up for success." He doesn't add the obvious: that it worked . Instead he swallows audibly like he's gearing up to say whatever's next. "But I guess I liked the classes too much, 'cause they stopped when I was nine."

It takes me a second to register what's simmering below what Blake is saying. That his parents didn't want him in dance classes because they made him seem queer , the same as cooking or a hundred other things that brought him joy. "Jesus."

"Yeah." His thumb drifts over the base of my palm unthinkingly before he pauses and looks up at me like he just admitted something he didn't mean to.

"Before my parents passed, my sister came out to them." A conversation that took all of ten minutes and was mostly spent on joyously tearful hugs. "Queer siblings must come in sets. 'Cause I mostly date women but…not always." There, as simple as I can manage.

"Oh." Blake's jaw works. He swallows like his tongue is suddenly too big for his mouth. He cranes his neck to where Shira and the girl are now practicing standing on tiptoes together. "I'm in love with Shira," he adds, like a defense.

"I know." I tighten my fingers around his. "Anyone can see that."

He doesn't drop my hand. Doesn't step away. We're dancing, slow, because it's the only kind of dancing I know how to do. I've spent this entire trip so caught up in thinking about what I'll have to give up if I don't play that I never really considered what I might gain. Freedom to be who I am, to be with the people I want. Freedom Blake's been denied all his life.

"What time is your brother coming tomorrow?" I ask.

Blake takes a step back, but I move with him. It could just be dancing, if not for the resignation shuttering his face. "He's supposed to be here in the morning. Whether he is or not is anyone's guess."

I sweep my thumb over Blake's knuckles. He flicks his gaze around the room—the other diners are in the process of clearing out; the waitstaff have gone back to scrolling through their phones. Still, we're among people. Witnesses. I tell myself that him pushing me away, however subtly, however politely, won't hurt.

He presses the pads of his fingers against my palm. Invisible to everyone but us. To them, we're still two guys stumbling our way through a dance. We are, but not in the way they might think.

"So we have until tomorrow?" I say.

"We have until tomorrow to do what, exactly?" But it comes out breathless, like Blake's been waiting his whole life for someone to ask. A millisecond later, he frowns. Pauses from nominally dancing to plant his feet firmly on the parquet floor.

Fuck. Did I press too hard? Want too much? His hand slips from mine. He withdraws his buzzing phone from his pocket, then answers it. It's the mechanic , he mouths a second later. Car's done.

Nearby, Shira and the girl are practicing their spins, Shira pushing herself skyward on the balls of her feet. She stretches a graceful arm up up up toward the ceiling and turns slowly, like a toy ballerina in a music box, patiently waiting for the little girl to keep up.

A woman comes over—the girl's mother, presumably—and collects her daughter, who waves her thank-yous to Shira as they go.

"Keep dancing!" Shira calls.

When she catches me looking at her, she grins. Ducks her head like she's both embarrassed and pleased to be caught.

"You're a good teacher," I say. "You should think about giving lessons."

Something in Shira's face softens, a brightness to her eyes as if she's never had someone see her for who she is—not for what she hasn't done but for what she could do.

We only have a day until we have to go back to how things were, with me on the outside of their relationship looking in.

We have until tomorrow to do what, exactly ?

For once I have a good answer, one I won't push away. That I want to be theirs—both of theirs—if only for the night.