“Mmm. Funny, I was just having that same thought.” He dragged his teeth along the side of my neck, and I shivered. “Buuut we should probably go.”
“I have a condom.”
“Of course you do.” I pulled away from him, laughing. “I’m gonna be late for brunch with Caleb!”
Luis smirked as he fixed his pants. “It’s cool. You just ate.”
“Nasty.”
“Sucio,” he corrected. “And you like me that way.”
I couldn’t help it. I kissed him again. He said he couldn’t get enough of me, but I had zero desire to try getting enough of him. I was content to bask in his arm, and his kisses, for as long as I could get away with it.
North Shore, ch 18
Chapter Eighteen
Charles
Luis had no reason to travel with me to where I was brunching with Caleb at High Street on Hudson, but he did anyway. And because I was aglow from the audition, fantastic thoughts of a future where dance was a staple in my life, and the reality of Luis being part of that life… I didn’t roll my eyes or joke about him escorting me to the West Village. Not even when he left the subway and walked me to the restaurant, our fingers locked together.
“You could just come with me,” I said. “I’d love for you to meet Caleb.”
“Hmmm.” Luis leaned against the side of the building, arms loose around me as he gazed into my eyes. He was so affectionate it was a little mind blowing, especially since I was used to being kept at a distance in public. “Maybe I want you to meet my mother.”
My jaw dropped.
Luis laughed. “Your face right now… Holy shit. It’s fine if you don’t want to—”
“No, I didn’t—” I shook my head. “That’s not it. I just… I’m just surprised.”
“Why? I told you my mother has been an ally way before I even told her I wasn’t straight.”
“Not that… Just.” I waved vaguely to myself. “I’m kind of a loser, boo. In case you haven’t noticed.”
He rolled his eyes. “I noticed you say stupid shit sometimes, but that whole loser thing is make believe. She would love you.”
“Why? I don’t even have a job.”
“Okay, but it’s not like you’re hitting me up for cash. You’re living off your savings until you get your shit together.” Luis flicked the tip of my nose. “And now you have actual plans to start giving dance lessons and working for the troupe. Speaking of, please don’t forget to ask your boy for biz advice.”
“I won’t,” I promised. “And you’re positive you want to do that with me?”
“I want to do everything with you.”
The words dried out my mouth and caused my stomach to flip. There was a part of me, the cautious part still lurking in the shadows after years of being with Landon, that thought this was moving too fast. Not just his declarations and affection and desire for me to meet his family, but my own feelings as well. When I looked at him like this, so content and happy to be in his arms, it was hard to deny this was escalating into something much deeper than us casually dating.
“What are you doing to me, Luis?” I asked in a whisper. “Tell me.”
“You tell me,” he countered, brushing his lips to my own.
“I don’t fucking know.”
I inhaled and exhaled slowly, then wrapped my arms loosely around his neck. There were scores of people on the sidewalk next to us, and neither of us paid them any mind. It was just me and Luis, the bright sunlight, the warm breeze, and the beauty of New York City in the spring around us.
“I think I like you too much,” I said. “It’s scaring me.”
A brilliant smile broke out on his face. “Well, it’s making me thrilled.”
Because you’re normal, I wanted to say. You know how to experience life without a constant low grade thread of anxiety and fear about the next bad thing cropping up. But, I didn’t say that. Instead, I leaned in for a sweet kiss and kept the pessimism and worries to myself. For just a little while, I could pretend to be a normal guy who was capable of dating and PDA and falling in love.
“Charles?”
I broke the kiss to look over Luis’ shoulder, and saw Caleb standing by the entrance to the restaurant. His head was cocked, and he was in typical Caleb day-wear with perfectly fit jeans, loafers, a cozy sweater, and a suede blazer with a color blocked pocket—the exact contrast to me and Luis in our dance and workout gear.
“Caleb!” I cringed at the sound of my own chipper voice. Luis burst out laughing, and I shoved him slightly before he let me go. “Hey,” I said in a far more normal tone. “Sorry, I didn’t notice you.”
“So it would appear,” Caleb said, smiling a little. He took a cautious step forward, as if he was intruding. “Are you Luis?”
“The one and only.” Luis reached out a hand and squeezed Caleb’s when he did so in return. “Nice to meet you, man. Charles talks you up nonstop.”
Caleb’s face brightened. “Oh, that’s lovely to hear. I’m not very cool, so I wondered if I was a secret boring friend.”
“Wow, that’s such a Caleb thing to say.” I rolled my eyes all over the place. “Caleb is super cool with his trendy jacket.”
He smoothed his hands over it. “Oli made me buy it because I tried to get more corduroy.”
“Hey, cords are legit,” Luis said. “I used to wear them all the time before I started living in workout clothes.”
“Now his big ass won’t fit into anything,” I confided.
Luis smacked my butt. “You should talk.”
Caleb looked between us, a tiny smile on his face and curiosity blatant in his expression. “Luis, why don’t you join us?”
I looked at Luis, suddenly hopeful, only to find him shaking his head. “I need to go home and sleep,” he said, sounding regretful. “I work late tonight at the club, and I can’t function without a long nap beforehand. Maybe next time?”
The mention of Male Revue niggled my brain, but I tried to sweep it away before Caleb noticed. My feelings about Luis stripping were mostly nonexistent until it cut into my time with him, and then I hated it. Someone else was getting to enjoy his beautiful body, and that didn’t sit right with me. Because apparently, my territorial mess was already in full effect.
“Next time for sure,” Caleb said to Luis. “Maybe for dinner. Or I can come to Staten Island.”
“Oh man, you’re willing to commute to the island?” Luis whistled softly. “You must be an amazing friend.”
“He is,” I said.
Caleb’s face reddened, but he seemed happy. We said our goodbyes, him excusing himself to get our table while Luis kissed me once more before walking away. By the time we were seated in the most secluded spot they could offer—because Caleb had the power to request such things even at trendy brunch spots—my good mood had not dimmed. I was unselfconscious in my tank top and leggings with my miles of scarf wrapped around my neck, peering at the menu as my stomach growled. I didn’t notice that Caleb hadn’t glanced at his own until a waiter came by with water.
“I think I’m getting the meatpacker,” I said with a leer. “Is it really extra if I get fried potatoes and sausage on the side? I just danced forever, and I’m fucking starving.”
“We can get a toast board too,” Caleb suggested. “I’m pretty hungry myself.”
“Ohhh… Oli helped you work up an appetite?” Judging by the return of ruddiness to his fair skin, I was right. “You two are ridiculously attractive together. Your Instagram is adorable.”
“I thought you hadn’t gone back on social media?”
“Meh. I wasn’t planning to, but Luis started uploading videos of us practicing, and I wanted to see.” I withheld the part where me being on social media again had led to me being bombarded by a fresh wave of subs from former friends who had taken Landon’s side in the breakup he’d performed for them so publicly. I’d had to unfollow multiple people who seemed to enjoy being snide. I knew Caleb would defend me, but part of me would always wo
nder if those snide comments were correct. I forced a smile and sipped my water. “He has so many followers. I mean, nothing like Ashton or Mere, but I was amazed because they’re people who went from being fans of his boxing to fans of just him as a person. Brands have even been reaching out to him to start pimping their products on his page—workout gear and supplements and shit. He says no, but I think he should sell out like a motherfucker. Money is God unless you already have it.”
The waiter returned to take our orders—Caleb of course ordering a spread because his mission was now to Feed Charles—and I chattered the entire time. I was aware that I was on a wicked adrenaline high, and that he was leaning against his closed palm and watching me with an amused smile, but I couldn’t stop myself. After so many weeks of keeping everything close to my chest, I had so much to say.
I spelled out our amazing plan to save money—him at Male-Revue and me hopefully giving lessons to reach Staten Island kids in my apartment or their homes or last resort bartending again—to rent a gym space for a few months while we worked on building clients. We were both savvy enough to know we would need to stack our schedules with potential clients to even get this thing up and running, so not having to worry about rent for a few months would be perfect.
“This honestly sounds great, Charles. You’ve reached out to Clive, right?”
“Yes, but it seemed early for us to start talking about our contract before we even have a solid business plan and money saved. There’s no point in getting hyped about this until we have the cash, which is why we haven’t even begun brainstorming about a name.”
Caleb pressed his lips together and toyed with his fork. He was likely refraining from offering to fund the whole project, and I was grateful for it. “I think it will be wonderful.”
I beamed again. “Thank you. God, I was so worried you’d awkwardly tell me I’m a giant moron.”
“Dearest, I jumped into business with Aiden and Oli before I really knew them. Sometimes you have to take chances. I just wish your chances didn’t depend on you working yourself half to death to save so much money.”
“It is what it is,” I said. “And I’m just like you in that I don’t like accepting money from people. No investors, no Go Fund Mes, no anything from people who might throw it in my face later. We’re doing this on our own or not at all.”
Caleb nodded slowly. “There was a lot of ‘we’ in your talk about the gym. Just how serious are you about Luis?”
The question startled me out of my full and sleepy lull, and I straightened. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t be alarmed, Charles. I’m just curious. When you first came back, you were so lost and detached. You seemed defeated, honestly. And now?” Caleb reached out to poke my neck, where Luis had left me a super immature and somehow ridiculously sexy bitemark slash hickey the other day. “Dare I say that you seem smitten?”
Heat rushed to my face and a touch of defensiveness swarmed everywhere else. Smitten? I almost demanded. I’d just gotten out of a multi-year relationship with someone who’d treated me like an object to be ignored or used when convenient. I wasn’t falling in love with anyone else so soon. I wasn’t that stupid. And I wasn’t that desperate to always be in a relationship.
I mashed my lips together, stared at him, but couldn’t make myself speak. Every response sounded demeaning when contrasted with the way I lit up like a fucking street lamp whenever Luis rang my doorbell or appeared outside the house. Dismissing our connection—everything we had in common, our long late-night talks over late-night meals, the dancing, the way his touch set my body on fire—felt disrespectful.
The spitfire faded to a lighter with a low flame. I sagged against my seat with a sigh. “I have feelings for him,” I muttered. “I can’t even deny it. Is that totally pathetic?”
“Why would that be pathetic?” Caleb asked, sounding incredulous. “I think it’s great. He seems equally infatuated with you if I judge by the way he looks at you and touches you.”
This time when my face warmed, a smile accompanied the heat. “I know this is so fucking cliché, but I’ve never had anyone treat me the way he does. He’s so patient and sweet and… God, he is fucking hot. The way he touches me is intense. Every single time, I feel like I’m going to come so hard every braincell will explode.”
Caleb cast a furtive look around at the words, sighing.
I laughed. “It’s not just the sex, though. It’s everything. We have a lot in common. And his passion for dancing is basically equal to mine, which pretty much makes him a unicorn. Since leaving Julliard, I’ve rarely met people as emotionally invested in dancing, and it’s like… this one last component that makes us click.”
“It sounds perfect,” Caleb admitted. “The fact that you haven’t used the word but just yet is incredible, Mr. Pessimism.”
“Ha, well, my pessimism is still present and accounted for. I’ve already accepted that if something goes wrong between us it will probably be my fault.”
Caleb’s smile wilted. He looked at me sideways. “Excuse me?”
“Caleb, you know how I am.”
“Umm… charming? Funny? Intelligent? Talented…”
I made a face. “You saw how I was with Lan—”
Caleb held up a hand to stop me before I could go on. “That was a different issue entirely. He was cheating on you and gas lighting you for years. He drove you to… to extremes.”
“I know, but maybe he wouldn’t have been able to drive me to extremes if I wasn’t already so close to the edge? I’ve been that way since I was a kid. I can look back and see all of these signs that my tendency to go dark or be explosively angry have been there since I was a teenager.” I shrugged helplessly and toyed with the coffee mug. “I accept that. I also accept that Landon could identify how on edge I always was, which is why he knew… how to get to me. Also, he knew what to do to control me for so long.”
“Because he’s predatory?” The quiet fury in Caleb’s voice caused me to look up at him again. “If I ever saw him again I don’t know what I’d do.”
“Oh, he’ll be around eventually,” I said darkly. “I just don’t know when. He vaguely told me he’d be by to get the rest of his belongings sometime soon. When I tried to pin down a time, he refused. Just another way to keep me off balance and constantly worried about when he’ll barge back into my life.”
“Did it work?”
“No, and it’s because I’ve been so at ease lately. This sounds like total bullshit, but… for the first time…” I hesitated, frowning at my own train of thought. My inner cynic wanted to smack me, but there was truth to where I was going with this statement. “I love my friends, and I’ve enjoyed… parts of my life for the past fifteen years or so, but this is the first time since I was in school that I’ve realized that happiness can be a thing. And the really fucked up thing is that I’d never noticed before now. Like, I thought it was normal to always be on edge or worried or upset or disappointed. This is the first time in a while I’ve been consistently… content.”
Caleb, the sap that he was, looked close to crying. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
“So, I don’t want tofuck it up,” I finished.
Caleb’s sighed. “You’re not in danger of fucking anything up, Charles. For goodness sake, you’re not someone who has difficulty keeping friends! It’s not like everyone you’ve ever had a connection with has inevitably wound up backing away from you because of you ‘fucking up’.”
“No, but maybe that’s because I dial back my bullshit around everyone,” I countered. “My temper? It’s bad. I shut people out. I ignore them and blame them and stonewall. I evade my friends and bury my head in the sand. And I know for a fact I can’t get away with that shit with Luis. He wouldn’t put up with it.”
“Are you implying that Landon put up with you?”
It should have been an easy no, but the comments I still saw on social media came back to me. They should have been nothing. A joke. And yet enough people
subtly making the same jokes and cold comments, with my ex-boyfriend, about my erratic behavior was enough to make me marinate in doubt every time I glimpsed them.
What if they were right, and I had been a large part of the issue?
The restaurant seemed to quiet at the exact moment I stopped speaking. I cringed, because I was already on surround sound without public places falling into sudden hushes.
”Charles, Landon was a blatantly bad person. The way that relationship ended was his fault, not because of your anxiety or depression. It was him cheating on and abusing you.”
“I know, but…” I curled my hands into fists. “That anxiousness? It’s already starting to seep into me because I don’t want to lose Luis or what we have.”
“I get that, Charles. I do.” Caleb seemed to sense I was getting worked up, because he held up a cautioning hand. “I’m just trying to tell you that those feelings, and the way you deal with them, aren’t things someone is putting up with. It’s not a reason for someone to walk away from you. The longer you’re away from people who manipulate you and treat you badly, the more confidence you’ll have in yourself.”
When put that way, I knew he was probably right. A large chunk of my fears were connected to my relationship with Landon, and the disaster area of my confidence. Maybe they would fade over time. But, unfortunately, being logical about why those fears existed didn’t force them to disappear.
North Shore, chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Luis
“You should come tonight.” I zipped my gym bag and glanced over to where Charles was doing crunches on the floor of my studio. “You can give me a sign every time I fuck up and slip in some of our Man-dated Attraction choreography.”
Charles paused mid-crunch to throw me a serious stank face. “You better not tease your slobbering fans with our shit!”
I slung my bag over my shoulder with a laugh. “My slobbering fans? Babe, it’s been over a month since Ashton came through, and my supervisor has gone right back to treating me like some person who wandered in accidentally.”
North Shore Page 19