I assumed the follower’s position before I answered. “Just thinking. . . about . . . stuff.” I knew I was blushing.
“Oh, do tell.” Kendall dropped his voice. He led me into the eight-count pattern, but for once I was the one to bungle it all to hell.
“Fine. You into . . . what Chuck said?” I whispered as we tried it again.
“Whips?” Kendall’s eyebrows shot up like twin rockets. “Uh. No. Very much no. You?”
“Nah. I like things . . . simple.”
“Simple’s good.” The heat in Kendall’s eyes went a long way to covering my embarrassment. “Very good, actually.”
“Kendall, elbows up! Try dragging Todd less,” Chuck said as he came by. “And, Todd, as you go into your coaster triple step, bring your right foot forward more.”
I coughed because I hadn’t been doing anything close to a coaster step, too distracted by Kendall and our conversation. We tried the move again as Chuck watched, and this time, I got it. Man, I wasn’t ever gonna get tired of Kendall turning me around.
“Lead switch,” Chuck announced a few minutes later. “And if you choose, you can switch with the couple closest to you. Make new friends!”
Only one I really wanted to be friends with was Kendall, but I dutifully looked to the couple to our left—two men in near identical khakis and dress shirts. They pretended not to see us, but the taller guy’s eyes slid toward Kendall with a sour expression. That was unexpected, but fine. More Kendall for me.
“You can keep leading, babe. You’re damn good at it,” I said loud enough for the judgmental assholes to hear.
“You’re an even better champion than Rococo.” Kendall laughed. “Down, boy. I’m an acquired taste. Lots of people think people like me give gays a bad name.”
“What?” I blinked. “By being too pretty and confident? That’s BS. Fuck the haters.”
“You’re a treasure.” Kendall’s eyes went all soft as he led me into the turn.
“Am not.” I waited until we were close together to whisper, “Lots of guys say the same nasty things about poz guys like me. Like we’re confirming stereotypes.”
“Fuck the haters,” Kendall said firmly.
Chuck showed us how to add some turns to the basic whip.
I couldn’t help laughing when we practiced the move because it just felt so good and right. Fuck Vic and his warnings. Fuck the judgy couple. Fuck whatever norms said that I should lead. Fuck the haters, man. This was simply too good to be missed.
“You know, you’re making me want to try following again.” Kendall smiled indulgently at me. “You make it seem like so much fun.”
“It is.”
“Okay, okay, let me try,” Kendall said when Chuck announced another lead swap. “Spin away.”
The whip was similar enough to some other moves I knew that I picked up the pattern quick enough to lead, turning Kendall easier. “That’s it. Trust the motion. Trust your feet,” I coached. Trust me. I still loved following, but that moment when Kendall trusted me enough to move fluidly in and out of the turn, that was pretty damn sweet. Made my chest swell with unfamiliar feelings.
We did a water and coffee break, and I got my guy a water. And yeah, I knew it was very temporary, but it still felt damn good, having a person to fetch for, to take care of.
After the break, we practiced more variations on the whip. I loved watching Kendall come alive as the leader. His movements were becoming surer, his posture even more confident.
“You two are such a pleasure to watch,” Chuck praised. “You work your slot so gracefully.”
Kendall waited until Chuck moved away, then snorted. “Yeah, well, I want to do very dirty things to your slot.”
“Hush.” I felt my ears burning, even as I thrilled to the words.
“So you want to grab food after? I was thinking maybe we could get takeout Indian, go back to my place?”
My nose wrinkled up. “No.”
“Oh well—” Kendall’s face fell.
“I meant no on curry. I don’t like it.” I felt like such a hick confessing that. “But you can get it for you. I’ll worry about myself later.”
“Don’t be silly. Do you like pizza? We could get half with whatever you like and half with spinach and artichoke and no cheese for me. I love that combo. And we can pick it up on the way back so that we know it’s hot.”
“Thanks.” My chest muscles tightened up, not up to the pulsing of a too-heavy heart. “Pizza’s great.”
We grabbed the food on the way back to Kendall’s and my pulse thrummed as I held the hot box on my lap, just knowing that we were probably going to kiss before much longer.
Kendall and I took the elevator to his ninth-floor condo. He let me in, then scooped up the dog, who started barking. “I better take him for a fast turn around the block. Help yourself to anything to drink in the fridge, and plates are in the upper-right cupboard.”
I was still taking in the view of the city at night through his huge windows, but I nodded and headed to the kitchen. The kitchen occupied all of the rear wall of the condo, and like the rest of the place, it was a mixture of space-age contemporary with glass and gleaming stainless steel, and classic with cherrywood cabinetry. The breakfast bar was open to the rest of the loft-like space, but Kendall seemed to favor eating at the little dining nook he’d created with a vintage table and chairs and a circular rug.
Instead of just tucking into the pizza like I was half tempted to, I set it on the center of his table, then got out two plates and forks for the salad that we’d gotten to go alongside. I had a feeling Kendall was trying to sneak more vegetables into me, which made me smile, him looking out for me like that. I made us both glasses of ice water. It wasn’t as pretty as how Kendall would do it, but it looked all nice and homey laid out like that, and Kendall’s smile when he came in confirmed that it had been the right call.
“Thanks.” He kissed my cheek before sitting down. His pizza looked all naked with just the vegetables on it, but I liked how we’d compromised so easy.
While I chewed, I stewed over how to ask him about the ex Vic had mentioned. I wanted to know more, but I wasn’t the best at lead-in questions.
“Everything okay? Pizza hot enough?” Kendall asked.
“It’s great.” I took a sip of water. “So . . . you ever dance with anyone else?”
Kendall groaned. “Who told you about Lewis? Vic?”
I nodded. “Sorry. I’ll stop being nosy.”
“No, it’s okay.” Kendall waved my apology away with a flick of his wrist. His short nails had been painted black last week, but now they matched his lips. “You’ll probably meet him at the benefit. He works for my mother. We’re supposedly still friends. It’s all very civil.”
“Civil sucks.” I picked a piece of tomato out of my salad, set it aside. “See, you break up, you’re supposed to get your anger on. Hate on them for a while. Healthier than this we-can-be-friends BS.”
“You still friends with the guy you mentioned the other night?”
“Jake? He was a friend who became a hookup who went back to being a sort-of friend. It’s complicated, but we weren’t ever boyfriends or anything like that.”
“Sort-of friends pretty much defines Lewis and me. We went to college together at Reed, ran around in the same crowd. He went to law school down at Willamette, but we stayed friendly. Then he started working for my mother and we got . . . tangled up. And now it’s all a bit of a mess.”
“Was he . . . did he . . . how’d he feel about . . .” I struggled to find the right words to ask what I wanted to know.
Kendall mercifully took pity on me. “It’s okay. You can say genderqueer, you know? And you’re curious about if that was an issue between the two of us?”
I nodded.
“It both was and wasn’t. I always knew that I didn’t exactly fit into a predetermined little box, but when I joined the campus LGBTQ group, I met others who identified as genderqueer, and it was like . . . a ligh
t went on. It gave a name to everything I’d been feeling for years, and hanging around those people, I got more comfortable expressing myself, especially my fem side. I think Lewis thought it was a phase at first, didn’t really understand that this is me.”
“Of course it is.” I really couldn’t see Kendall any other way. His genderqueerness was as much a part of him as his smile or his generous personality.
“You’re sweet.” He gave me one of those million-watt smiles. “But after a while, especially once we started publicly dating, Lewis kept asking me to tone it down.”
I shook my head. “Idiot. He should have been proud to be seen with a person like you. Didn’t deserve you.”
“Sadly, most people seem to think it’s the other way around.” Kendall sighed. “Including my mother. She tries, she really does, to accept my genderqueer identity, but I’m not sure she entirely understands it, and she certainly was . . . disappointed when Lewis and I broke up.”
“He wasn’t good enough for you.” I ripped off a piece of pizza crust with more force than necessary. “Is Lewis gonna have a . . . date at the benefit, you think?”
“Oh, most certainly.” Kendall sighed. “I saw him recently with some tanned and toned personal trainer type. But if you’re asking if there will be other queer couples dancing at the benefit, yeah, there should be plenty. We won’t stand out.”
“You always stand out,” I teased. “In a good way. You hoping to make him jealous with your dancing skills?”
“And my hot date.” Kendall winked at me. “He was a bit of a prick to me last time we spoke. I know it’s petty, and I’m going to have to keep dealing with him because of my mom, but yeah, I’d love to make him jealous.”
I wasn’t anything to be proud of like that. I guess I looked passable enough, but I wasn’t special. Not like Kendall and his fancy friends. I could, however, dance. “Maybe we should practice more.”
“You don’t have to be nervous. But yeah, we should.” He went for the remote to his stereo and I started clearing the table. The couch was still pushed back from other night, which gave us a nice-size rectangle of shiny hardwood to work with.
“You don’t have to do dishes!” Kendall tried to take them from me, but I wouldn’t let him.
“No sense in leaving them.” I made quick work of getting the plates in the washer and crushing the pizza box to fit in his trash.
“Mint?” Kendall offered me one from his tin.
“Is this your way of sayin’ we’re kissing later?” I took one, resolving to get my own box of non-flowery mints if this was a thing for him.
“Maybe.” He winked at me and started the music. He’d lowered the lights, which created a soft glow around the long, open room.
For a few songs, we worked the sugar push and the whip, and the variations on the whip with the turns, but when the playlist slid into a sultry, bluesy number, I gathered Kendall up closer.
“Let’s not practice for a song. Just slow dance with me.”
“I can do that.” He wrapped his arms around my neck. I suppose I was leading, but it felt more like we were equally sharing—no, surrendering, standing there swaying. He was wearing chunky boots with a lower heel than his pumps, which put his lips right against my neck. Not really a kiss, but distracting as fuck. His hair brushed my face, and I loved how he was always doing such different things with it. He’d straightened it some today and it hung loosely about his face in gentle sheets. I couldn’t resist touching the back of his head, where his hair brushed his collar. Soft.
I wasn’t really intending it, but the movement of my hand brought his lips millimeters from mine. And I couldn’t not kiss him. It was one of those perfect moments, the kind that usually happens to other people. Still swaying to Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, we kissed, lips sampling each other as our bodies sang like the trumpet in the song. One song bled into another and we still kissed.
It felt like I’d been waiting my whole life for that one kiss, that one moment with that one person who wrapped me with his magic. Kendall tasted like mint and lip gloss and joy—pure joy. I’d tasted passion before, and sex plenty, and a few times I’d caught an edge of seduction, but this was the first time I tasted happiness and joy. I wanted the moment to drag on forever.
But eventually, my body became a bit pushier. Seemed like my cock wasn’t amused that my lips were getting all the action, and my hips started rocking against Kendall’s, looking for purchase.
He groaned and tumbled us backwards onto his sofa, landing on top of me.
“This okay?” he asked, eyes searching my face in the low light.
“Yeah.” I buried both hands in the soft mass of his hair, pulling him down for another kiss. Kendall on top of me was hardly okay. More like necessary. I needed his warm weight pressing down on me, needed his kisses. Oxygen. Water. Kendall. And I might be willing to trade water for more Kendall.
On the stereo, the softer part of the playlist continued, and as Louis Armstrong crooned, I floated along, letting Kendall lead, surely as if we were dancing. He undid the first few buttons on my shirt so he could kiss my collarbones before returning to my neck and ears. Even my eyelids got blessed with little kisses.
We were rocking together, both hard as broom handles, but it wasn’t the kind of purposeful club grinding where everyone knows where things are going. From the feel of him, Kendall was seriously packing, and while my body had several ideas of what to do with that knowledge, my brain was content to let Kendall lead us into more dizzying kisses.
Finally, he broke away, lips swollen and face flushed. “Should I run you home?”
My cock throbbed and ached, but I nodded.
“Fuck.” Kendall sat up, head falling back against the sofa. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Sorry. Want me to—”
“No.” Kendall gave me a hand so I could sit up too. “This is torture, but what a way to go.”
“Yup.” I grinned at him.
“You better wipe the lip gloss off your face before I take you home.” Kendall laughed. “And please tell me I don’t have to wait until Thursday to see you again.”
“You don’t.” I leaned in for a quick kiss.
“What are you doing Sunday afternoon? We could go shopping?”
Now, I wasn’t one to think of shopping as some relaxing thing, but he’d mentioned it enough times I knew it was important to him. “Yeah, you can get me all dolled up for the benefit.”
“You’re going to be perfect.” He grinned at me, but I was anything but sure about that.
CHAPTER 7
Kendall
Hanging out with Todd was seriously going to kill me. I was pretty sure that no one had ever died of a hard-on, which just meant I’d be the first. I was used to being one-of-a-kind. Might as well be a medical mystery too. I’d been dangerously close to coming in my pants the other night when we’d made out for what felt like hours on my couch, and then we’d kissed a long time in the car too. We’d texted about nothing later that night—like kids who hated to fall asleep alone.
Sunday I had a wedding consultation over brunch, so I was a bit dressy when I went to pick Todd up, but I also wasn’t expecting his grandmother to open the door.
A short woman with a long gray braid and a shirt advertising a presidential candidate I’d never heard of, she blinked several times, whether because of the sunshine or my white sweater and pearl bracelet, I wasn’t sure.
“Kendall?” she asked, eyes still narrower than I liked.
“Yes.” I gave her a smile anyway. “Is Todd around?”
“Here.” Holding his shoes, Todd strode into the front hall in jeans and a T-shirt with a flannel over it. Guy made Portland basic look hot. Hell, even his bare feet turned me on.
“Hey, come in for a sec. Gran found something you’re going to get a kick out of.”
Gran didn’t look like she got a kick out of me, but I dutifully followed both of them into a pleasantly cluttered living room.
&n
bsp; “Do you want a coffee, Kendall?” Todd’s grandmother asked. “I just made a fresh pot.”
“I just had a vat at brunch. More and I’ll float away. Thanks.”
“Any friend of Todd’s is most welcome here. And he’s been so happy since starting the dance classes with you.”
“The classes are pretty fun.” I sent Todd a look that said that what happened after class was more interesting to me.
“And it got me to thinking of some of Todd’s dance pictures when he was bitty.” She opened the binder up to reveal a smiling cherub in a shiny costume and tap shoes. She handed me the binder. Todd hovered on the arm of the couch like he couldn’t decide whether to squeeze in next to me or run away from the kid pictures.
“So cute!” I leafed through the pictures, watching him grow through several bad haircuts. In the first ballroom pictures, the girl, Hailey, was taller than Todd, so I teased him about that. Then he hit the awkward early teen years, full of puppy fat and acne but the same earnest smile, until the last picture when he was maybe fourteen or fifteen and so sad—deep circles under his eyes and pale skin—that I wanted to reach through the book and give him a hug.
“Anyway, it’s just pictures.” Todd shut the book and handed it back to his grandmother.
“Thanks for sharing it with me,” I said to him, really wishing I could hug him right then, erase the hurt in his eyes. He was always so ready to do battle on my behalf, but I would have gladly taken up a sword against his past.
“We should probably get going, right?” Todd shoved his shoes on.
“Yeah, it was nice meeting you,” I said to the grandmother.
“Will you be back for dinner? Kendall, you’re welcome too. I’ve got a League of Women Voters meeting this afternoon, but I shouldn’t be out too late.”
“We uh . . .” Todd scratched the back of his neck. “We’ll probably eat at Kendall’s.”
“Ah. Don’t wait up?” She laughed in a way that eased my tension toward her but made Todd blush bright red.
“Nope.” I joined the laughter and hauled Todd out of there before his face literally caught fire.
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