Like Heaven on Earth

by Jaime Samms

  “He’s still a human being, and now he’s the one hurting. But he won’t tell me what’s wrong.” And that was Cobalt all over. Full of spit and venom when it came to people trying to care for him but completely open and defenseless when someone else was in pain. “I wish he would just tell me what the hell is going on.”

  “Karma,” Preston snapped. “That’s what’s wrong with the dipshit. Karma is fucking him up the ass sideways, and frankly—”

  “Please don’t.”

  Preston ground his teeth. “Then stop talking about him, because I don’t think I can be nice, and honestly I don’t really want to try.” His screwdriver slipped, skidding across the glass knob and the fleshy web between his thumb and forefinger. “Dammit!” Blood smudged across the faceted handle.

  Preston hadn’t had a lot of use for Calvin when he’d seen how he treated Cobalt, it was true. But any sympathy he might have garnered for him had withered when he’d witnessed how the principal dancer spoke to the other artists he worked with. He was vicious to everyone, short-tempered, and if he’d ever had a kind bone in his body, he’d obviously had it surgically removed.

  About the third time Preston had witnessed Cal make a ballerina cry, this one because her top was too pink, he’d lost the ability to care about anything to do with the man.

  “What’s wrong?” Cobalt’s concerned voice softened.

  “Nothing.” Preston wiped the blood on his jeans and tried again to loosen the screw.

  “I think I know what’s wrong with him,” Cobalt said, so softly Preston had to turn the volume on his phone up.

  He ignored the drop of blood that landed on the screen and sighed. “We’re still talking about him?”

  “You know some people go years and years before the virus really does anything.”

  “One more reason to not feel bad if it’s finally catching up with him.”

  “Don’t wish that on anyone, Preston. Please.”

  Preston swallowed bile and nodded, though obviously Cobalt wouldn’t see it. “I’m sorry. I don’t. Not really.” He sank back into the couch, bracing the handle on his thigh, and finally managed to loosen the screw. He let out a little huff of victory. At the sound, Chance lifted his head, but only enough to plop it back down on Preston’s thigh. Preston laid a hand over his shaggy skull and scratched idly.

  He hadn’t lied. Exactly. He didn’t wish the hell of HIV or AIDS on anyone. But he did resent Cal for the fact he’d carried that scourge home and it had swept through Cobalt’s body, a savage storm that barely made a wave in Cal’s life. It had taken doctors over a year to buttress Coby’s immune system with meds that didn’t make him so tired or sick or so disheartened he didn’t want to get out of bed.

  When he had finally found a balance that let him work again, the ballet had left him behind, and he’d spent years working hard to get his strength back, to regain his stamina, and every illness that a healthy adult would shrug off laid him out and set him back months. It was hellishly unfair.

  “It is catching up with him,” Cobalt said, bringing Preston’s attention back around. “And the meds are messing with his head. I remember what that was like. I couldn’t look at a hangnail without wanting to cry, and a wrinkle in the bedsheets sent me into a rage that—well. It was scary.”

  Preston ran fingers over the scar left by expensive Chinese pottery. Part of it was smeared with drying blood. “I remember,” he whispered.

  “Hard to forget I tried to kill you with flowers.”

  “I think it was the ten-pound vase that would have done the trick. The flowers were just a bonus.” Gently he scrubbed at the blood.

  Cobalt chuckled, but it was short and too sharp. “Point is I was wildly out of control. But I had you, Preston. And Azure, even though I was a total bitch to him. And enough sense—or maybe hope—to want to keep trying to fight feelings I knew weren’t really mine. I don’t know if Cal has that kind of support. I don’t even know if he realizes this isn’t all him. That the meds are partly to blame.”

  “You fought your fight, baby. He wasn’t there to help you.”

  “He couldn’t have done anything. Hell, you were right there too, and you couldn’t do anything. And you wanted a whole lot more to help me than he ever did. It wasn’t your fight—or his—it was mine.”

  “And this one is his. You can’t mire yourself down again, or tie yourself to him. You went there to dance, not babysit.”

  “I know.”

  “But it still hurts you to watch.”

  “It’s like he doesn’t want to try.”

  “You can’t make him want to.”

  “He gets worse every day. His balance is off, and his timing. And he takes it out on everyone around him.”

  “Including you.”

  Cobalt snorted. “Especially me. Like it’s my fault.”

  And the grand irony of that statement made Preston want to hit something very hard. “What are they doing about it? Letting him get away with being a jerk?”

  “Giving him time off.”

  “Because that will solve anything.”

  “It will give him time to even out. Get used to the meds and the fact he needs them now. For him, I think that’s the worst part.”

  Preston could not find a single molecule of compassion for Calvin in his entire body. He hated that anything he said next would betray that fact to his extraordinarily forgiving lover. So he kept his mouth firmly shut and busied his hands twisting and yanking at the loosening doorknob.

  Cobalt’s voice was soft when he spoke again. “It’s just… he did this to us, and I think he doesn’t see that no matter what you do, some things can’t be fixed.”

  The knob gave at last, and Preston gazed at the two pieces in his hand. The shaft had broken off in the glass handle. “Well, shit.”

  “I don’t like to see him this unhappy,” Cobalt went on. “I know you think he doesn’t deserve it, but I do still want him to be okay in the end.”

  “That’s what makes you the man I love so much.” Preston gently set the broken shaft on the table and wrapped the more delicate knob up in a tight fist. Just the knowledge of Cobalt’s open heart compelled him to honesty. “I only hope my not feeling the same isn’t the thing that makes it impossible for you to be with me. Because baby, I have to be honest. I don’t see my feelings about him changing anytime soon.”

  “I know that. And I understand it. What those boys did to Chance makes me angry enough to want to hurt someone every time I see him cower or watch his tail go between his legs. He didn’t deserve that any more than I deserved what Cal did to me.” His voice broke a bit, and Preston regretted the hundreds of kilometers, the expense of travel, and the border between them.

  Why do you have to be in a completely different country right now, baby? This sucks.

  And it did, because to Preston’s knowledge, this was the first time Cobalt had ever acknowledged that Calvin had done something to him. He shouldn’t be alone when the full force of that realization hit him.

  “When’s your next break?”

  “I—there isn’t one. If I’m going to do this, and it looks like I am, because honestly, I don’t think Cal can, then there’s no more time for breaks before the New York run starts.”

  “Then I’ll come there.” He stroked Chance’s head and hoped like hell Azure was up for looking after the fragile dog.

  “No.”

  “Baby—”

  “I have to do this on my own.”

  “No. That’s the thing. You really don’t.”

  “I do know that I have you and Az when I need you. But there are things you can’t help with. Things you can’t do for me. Things you shouldn’t have to put up with just because—”

  “I don’t put up with anything, babe. I love you. That’s all there is.”

  A distinct sniff sounded, then a hitched breath. “I know.”

  “So I’m coming there.”

  “Please.” Cobalt cleared his throat, and Preston could
just picture him straightening his spine, throwing his shoulders back and lifting his chin. “Please trust me on this. I will tell you when I need you. I promise. But for now you have to trust me.”

  When he needed Preston. Not if. When.

  “I hate this.” But dammit, he did trust. He had to or nothing else worked.

  “I love you for doing it anyway.”

  What the hell was he supposed to say to that? “I love you too.” It seemed so inadequate.

  They sat on opposite ends of the phone line for a minute or so, silence stretching between them.

  “Hey,” Cobalt said softly. “Did you fix the bedroom door?”

  Preston stared at the glass in his palm. “It—um.”

  “Oh, just get a new one.” Cobalt sounded resigned and annoyed at the same time.

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “It’s just a knob. It doesn’t matter.”

  It mattered because for whatever reason, Cobalt cared that the glass knob got fixed. Preston took a deep breath. “It’s okay, babe. You dance. Let me worry about your house.”

  More silence.

  “What?”

  “My house.” He sounded so sad.

  “Yes.”

  “You go home to your apartment every night?”

  “Kyanite is there.”

  “I thought you said she gets along with Chance.”

  “They get along famously.”

  “Good.” A pause through which Preston held his breath. “Do you think she’d like our house? Kyanite, I mean.”

  “Our house?”

  “Well.” Cobalt cleared his throat. “Think about it. I have to go. Break’s almost over, and I need to fill my water bottle. And warm back up.”

  “Cob—”

  “I gotta go. Sorry. Just—sorry.” And he hung up.

  “Seriously?”

  Chance thumped his tail and lifted his chin to study him, ears perked and head tipped to one side.

  “What is he thinking, Chay-baby, huh? Is he just lonely?” The dog whined softly as Preston scratched behind his ears. “Does he mean it?” He caught sight of the scabbed-over scratch on his hand and frowned. “Well. Whatever he’s thinking, it doesn’t change what I have to do next: clean up and fix that door.”

  Chance thumped his tail.

  In the end, by the time Preston had drilled the broken shaft out of the doorknob, it was too damaged to repair. Instead, he found a bolt to fasten inside the broken knob, an old, marked-up cutting board he wouldn’t trust to be food grade anymore, and with an afternoon of work, some paint, and some patience, he had the door repaired with a “new” old knob, and the original knob mounted on the back with one of Cobalt’s strappy lingerie pieces hung on it.

  Some things maybe couldn’t be fixed, but that didn’t mean they no longer had a use. Preston had to trust that whatever came of Cobalt’s relationship with Cal, it at least proved useful to Cobalt in creating his new life.

  Chapter 23

  COBALT WATCHED the ballerinas rehearsing a complicated bit of the show. They looked lovely, executing tricky steps with ease of talent and much practice. He knew he still looked raw next to them, but he would get better. His performance would smooth out with repetition. The more he danced the unique steps, the more naturally it would come.

  “You ready to go again?” Cal dumped himself into the seat next to Cobalt, shaking the entire rickety row. “Holly won’t wait forever.”

  “Holly?” Cobalt raised an eyebrow at Cal.

  Cal snarled back and stared at the stage.

  The choreographer, Holland Grange, was young and enthusiastic. He had a refreshingly naïve view of professional ballet that was backed mostly by a shit-ton of raw talent balanced with equal amounts of charm. The company had taken a huge chance on his inexperience, but so far as Cobalt could tell, the risk was paying off in a fresh new take on the very traditional discipline they worked in. The dancers loved him, even though most failed utterly to understand his openness and some shamelessly took advantage of it. Cobalt hadn’t heard anyone else call him Holly, and it worried him that Cal might be one of those unscrupulous ones.

  Holland did run a tight schedule, though, and while his pace was reasonable given what they had to accomplish in a short time, he insisted on punctuality. According to Cal, in the early days, more than one chorus member had been replaced for not adhering to the schedule, and it was one thing no one tested him on anymore.

  “Buck up,” Cal muttered. “We’ve got five minutes left, ready or not.”

  Once more, Cobalt bit his tongue on the questions he wanted to ask his ex and tried a more circuitous track to answers. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  Cal let out a long, heavy breath. “If you haven’t picked it up by now—”

  “I have. But I’m the understudy. I’m not the one who has to dance six shows a week. If you can’t keep up with rehearsal schedules, how are you going to make it through months of performance?” He’d been leaning on the back of the seat, and now he rolled his head to peer at Cal.

  Cal’s skin looked waxy, and there were beads of sweat along his upper lip and brow. He too was leaning back, but he had his eyes closed.

  “Want me to call this, Cal?”

  A grimace crossed Cal’s face, and he grunted.

  “Cal.” Cobalt reached for his hand and felt the heat coming off him before he made skin contact.

  “Don’t.” Cal jerked his arm out of reach. “Go dance. Leave me alone.”

  “You need to rest.”

  “I am resting.”

  “I mean real rest. You can’t afford to get ill.”

  “Don’t lecture me.”

  “I’ve been where you are,” Cobalt said gently. “I know—”

  “Stop!” Cal surged up from his seat and spun on him. “Leave. Me. Alone!” He stomped up onstage and ordered the music stopped and restarted from the beginning of the dance they were currently working on. The girls sighed but took up their starting positions, and Cobalt sank back to watch.

  Cal was magnificent. His dance was beautiful to behold, even now, when he wasn’t at the top of his ability. Other dancers would happily kill for his extension and the power and grace he displayed, even with his subtly shaking limbs. While Cobalt still admired his artistry, he could see now, objectively, what had once so viciously attracted him was simply prettily arranged bone and muscle. The attractiveness wasn’t gone, just the pull it once had on Cobalt’s heart.

  He could see, too, the hesitation when Cal left the floor, the uncertainty in each jump that he could land safely again. He shouldn’t be up there. Shouldn’t be pushing himself if he wasn’t completely confident he could manage the difficult moves the dance required. Or at least he should mark the more dangerously acrobatic moves until he had his equilibrium back.

  Footsteps sounded down the aisle between the audience sections, echoing on the hollow plywood ramp, and Cobalt took his eyes from Cal to find Holland hurrying from the back of the auditorium. “What the hell is he doing? I told him to take it easy today.”

  Cobalt rose to meet their director, but Holland swept him aside.

  “You push him to overdo it, Winslow? I swear to God, if you—”

  “I told him to take it easy.” He followed in Holland’s wake as he strode the last few meters to the edge of the stage, where he turned and made a slicing motion across his throat, face lifted to peer through the lights toward the booth.

  The music cut out. The ballerinas shuffled to a stop. Calvin jolted out of a spin and crashed knee first to the stage. He toppled, all rag-doll limbs and flopping bangs slapping over a cheekbone to hide his face.

  “Cal!” Cobalt hoisted himself onto the stage and flew the few steps it took to reach Cal’s side. He dropped to his own knees and laid a gentle hand on Calvin’s shoulder. “Cal?”

  Cal moaned softly. His eyelids fluttered and his lips moved. His color edged toward gray, and he trembled all over. “Holly.” He let out a grunt and squeezed his eyes
shut. “Fuck.”

  “It’s okay,” Cobalt whispered, glancing up as Holland knelt next to him. “We’re going to call a medic.”

  Someone evidently already had, because a no-nonsense middle-aged woman crouched on Cal’s other side, demanding an account of what had happened.

  Holland told her, ending with “I’m so sorry, Cal. That was stupid of me. Babe, I—” He clamped his lips shut and glanced at Cobalt. “I—”

  Cobalt managed a faintly smile-like expression and a minute shake of his head. Before he could say anything, though, he felt Cal’s burning gaze on him, and he looked over.

  “Coby.”

  “Hey. It’s going to be okay,” he said again. “You’re going to be fine. Just lie still and let her look you over, then you, sweetheart, are going home to rest.”

  Calvin’s glare sharpened, acid fire in their green depths.

  “Is that supposed to scare me, darling?” Cobalt snapped. “Because it doesn’t. You don’t.” He squared his shoulders and gazed right back at Calvin, his own resolve firm. “Not anymore.”

  Calvin’s Adam’s apple worked. His gaze flicked to Holland and back to Cobalt.

  Cobalt snorted but went on as if he hadn’t noticed the panic Cal couldn’t quite hide with that furtive look. “I’ll go gather our things while she looks you over. I suspect she’ll tell you to stay off that knee for a week. Let the bruising heal. Should give the fever enough time to go down, as well.” He turned to Holland. “And next time he gets sick, be a man, Mr. Grange. Keep him at home. Make him rest. A cold can kill him. Do you get that?”

  Holland swallowed hard and nodded vigorously.

  “Good. Don’t let him push you around. Don’t let him be a bully.” He glared back at Cal. “He loves to be in charge, but he isn’t very good at it.”

  “Fuck off,” Cal muttered at him.

  “Gladly, darling.” Cobalt got up and Holland followed.

  Holland scratched at the hair behind one ear and worried at his lower lip. “I suppose I can call someone—”

  “You have to run your show.” Cobalt jerked his head back at the stage. “There’s a chorus boy—Larry, I think?”