“I’m scary?”
“W-well… not after I got to know you!”
The others chuckled, Finn especially, though it was Rose who said, “The only thing scary about Teddy is his terrible taste in snacks.” She indicated the can of spray cheese by his chair that he lifted now to cover the surface of a cracker. “We have real cheese.”
“My dear,” Teddy said loftily, “if I’m going to indulge, then I am going to indulge thoroughly.” And he popped the cracker into his mouth with a satisfied crunch.
“Bet that’s not the first time you’ve heard that,” Carlos muttered near Finn’s shoulder, who laughed and pushed him away hard enough that his chair nearly toppled the other direction.
Teddy didn’t deny a thing.
His phone buzzed amid the others’ tittering, and like many of the messages he’d received lately, this was from Dan, mentioning he was looking for engineering projects in the area as an excuse to visit, partially because Rick was planning a beach getaway sooner rather than later to help beat his writer’s block.
“Speaking of indulgences,” Teddy said, “you’re all in trouble once my friends stay for longer than a weekend. Rick might even be coming back with you on the same flight,” he told Carlos, “and Dan isn’t far behind.”
“Dan’s the safe one, right?” Carlos asked.
“Safe is not the word I’d use, but you’ll get along. It’s more your liver you should worry about and the epic ways they’ll make you blush.”
Carlos promptly blushed right then, no doubt imagining those scenarios.
He was doomed.
“Neither of them has much filter. Or tact. Or—”
“Teddy,” Finn stopped him, “quit it, they’re great. Your mother is too.”
The fact that Finn believed that further solidified how doomed Teddy had been first.
“I know I’m looking forward to meeting Dan,” Blaise said. “His tips on gluten free cupcakes were lifesavers. I think I’ll have some ready for taste-testing soon. Any volunte—?”
Everyone raised their hands, and Rose batted at Meagan’s beside her as if to beat out the competition.
They were a good group, friendly and open, without any judgment or expectations. Maybe that’s what Teddy had been missing for so many years, even while dancing—more people in his life besides his mother, sister, and best friends who didn’t judge the way his father had.
“Rick’s writing a new play, right?” Finn turned to Teddy, the firelight flickering beautifully across his face.
“He’s been having trouble, so I mentioned an idea of mine we’re thinking of doing. Together.”
“You write?”
“No.” Teddy shot that idea down quickly. He could visualize storytelling masterfully, it’s what made him such a great choreographer, but that was manipulating others’ words or telling a story in motion. “I may have whispered an idea in his ear a time or two, but he’s the brilliant playwright, not me. It would be a collaboration with him at the forefront. We were thinking we might test it out on an audience here instead of in the city.”
“Community theater?” Meagan asked, which made Teddy cringe, but he couldn’t deny it.
“That does seem to be where we’re headed. If it makes it big in the city afterward, I promise, it won’t prompt me to move back.” He looked at Finn pointedly, and as he sipped from his beer and dropped his free hand between them, he felt Finn’s fingers clasp tightly with his.
“Well? Don’t hold us in suspense,” Finn said. “What’s it about?”
Now Teddy had to glance away, feeling everyone’s eyes on him. “Rick’s specialty is romance. He likes action and drama, but at his core, he strives to recreate something of his own love story again and again. Says it reinvigorates his love for his husband.”
“How sweet,” Meagan said, snuggling closer to Ronnie beside her. Rose and Blaise drew closer, too, while Carlos wore an adoring, eager expression that maybe one day he’d have his own someone to cuddle.
“Knowing that, I suggested something unique, an idea to give the mobility-challenged the chance to shine, where the main character can no longer dance the way he used to and secludes himself to cope with the loss, only to be seduced and drawn out of hiding by a handsome stranger.”
The group went quiet, just the crackling of the fire making Teddy fear he’d gone too far, but when he looked at Finn, though his expression was awash in surprise, he seemed honestly touched.
“Are you serious?”
“Write what you know, they say. If you don’t mind being the inspiration?”
“Of course not.” Finn gripped Teddy’s hand all the tighter, lighting up in a blinding smile. “That sounds amazing. I can’t wait to read it. And see it!”
Teddy had hoped Finn would appreciate the idea, but it was still so new, something he and Rick had only just discussed. He hadn’t been sure how to bring it up.
“How does it end?” Rose asked with her bewitching smile that reminded Teddy so often of Erina—which was probably what made him like her so much.
“Still figuring that out,” Teddy said with a look back at Finn, “but so far, so good.”
In that moment, the shadows behind Finn’s eyes that crept up from time to time seemed far, far away.
“Okay, but like, are we talking hard-core hazing with Rick and Dan or….”
“Carlos, you’ll be fine. Now, come on.” Finn motioned to the guitar in Carlos’s lap, which he’d been strumming off and on throughout the evening. “Play us something.”
Erina would love the musical side of him, though she probably already knew, given how much they’d been talking on the phone.
Teddy still had Finn’s hand. They had to release their grip whenever he switched from drinking to covering another cracker in spray cheese—he needed two hands for that—but they always found each other again.
“I need requests, man,” Carlos protested.
“Not ‘Kumbaya,’” Teddy said.
“Or ‘Wonderwall,’” Ronnie added with a grimace.
Carlos looked particularly offended by that one, but after a moment, he smiled and started to play.
The age gap between Teddy and Finn didn’t feel as apparent when Carlos strummed his way into a lovely rendition of “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses.
Sometimes he still worried he’d screw things up with Finn, but he knew Finn had similar fears, and that made it easier to believe they could overcome whatever hurdles lay in their future.
Epilogue
TEDDY could see the sadness on Frankie’s face that today would be her last scheduled physical therapy session, something he never would have expected she’d pout over all those months ago when they met.
“You’ll still need to come back for checkups,” Finn said. “Or if anything’s ever bothering you. Seriously, any time, you can always—”
“You remember you are literally riding with us to the studio?” Teddy broke in. It wasn’t as if they wouldn’t still see each other several times a week.
“I know.” She scowled at Teddy. “But that’s with the whole class.”
Meaning she was losing her one-on-one time with them, not that she minded being able to move almost as fluidly as she used to before the accident.
Frankie was Teddy’s star pupil in the mixed dance class he’d started in conjunction with the health center and the local—and admittedly tiny—ballet studio. The class catered to anyone from preteen to adult but was specific to those with mobility issues. Finn’s original idea, though seeing Don Quixote had inspired Teddy too, as well as learning about Erina’s ballerina friend with a prosthetic leg.
Mona was coming into town next week as a favor to guest teach before their midseason performance. Frankie was beside herself with excitement—not that she looked it now.
“If you get cast in my play during next week’s auditions, you won’t believe how sick of me you’ll get,” Teddy said, “but don’t expect any special treatment.”
“I won’
t need special treatment.”
“Then stop being a baby.”
“Teddy!” Finn scolded.
“Otherwise,” Teddy continued leadingly, “how can we possibly let you have any of the cake we brought to celebrate you being rid of this place?”
“Cake?” Frankie’s mouth had opened in protest until she caught up to what he’d said. Now she looked around the room in suspicion, pout successfully smoothed. “Really?”
“And it says: Congrats on starting off on the right foot.”
“It does not.”
“I never joke about a good pun. It’s in the break room fridge right now, but you’re not getting any until you show me you can perform the routine without a single wobble. Deal?”
Teddy’s dance class consisted of six students, all from Finn’s calisthenics class, including Frankie with her prosthetic leg, a teenager with meromelia in both feet, Finn’s needy seventy-five-year-old patient recovering from back surgery, a young man in his twenties with spina bifida on two hand-crutches, a middle-aged gentleman with MS in a wheelchair, and a young vet who’d sustained a brain injury and had chronic trouble with her balance.
They were an odd mix, which forced Teddy to think outside the box not only for what was possible for each of them, but how they could dance together. He’d focused more on modern dance than ballet, a medley of vignettes for their upcoming performance combining suggestions from everyone in the class.
Frankie was the center point of the final section: an adaptation from Teddy’s favorite scene in The Nutcracker, per her request.
The battle of the Mouse King.
Frankie was meant to go into a spin at the end using her prosthetic, which was difficult to come out of without falling, so she needed to purposely let herself fall—right into the arms of the Mouse King himself, played by the boy with meromelia. The feint was a ruse to catch the Mouse King off guard for the killing blow, which Frankie had said:
“Isn’t very heroic.”
“Heroes don’t have to be pushovers; they just have to remember three things: mercy, kindness, and forgiveness. Now quit wasting my time and try again.”
Teddy ordered Frankie around the same way today, him being the stand-in for the Mouse King.
Frankie squared herself for the opening moves, a natural dancer, artificial leg or not. Teddy understood why she loved it so much, because when she lost herself in the motion, she got that look that reminded him of why he loved teaching—when his students were manageable and respected his methods.
Seamlessly flowing between twists and turns, Frankie let her real leg do most of the anchoring, while spring-boarding off her prosthetic when it made sense. The Mouse King in this part mirrored her like a reflection, backward but in sync until she finally pushed off into a rapid twirl on the tips of her prosthetic toes, and as the spin ended, she needed to trust-fall for Teddy to catch her.
In previous rehearsals, she’d always hesitated and stumbled away on her good leg. Now she did the move with confidence, and Teddy dipped her low after catching her, before she pulled up and pushed away from him to spin away on both feet in a dramatic flourish.
“Good. Do that in class tonight and you can have all the cake you want. Otherwise, the leftovers belong to me and Finn.”
Frankie pouted again, but he could tell she knew when he was ribbing her in good faith. It was the only reason he pushed her so hard; because he knew she could handle it.
So far, the rest of the class could too.
“Better hurry before anyone finds that cake,” Finn said, leading them out of the workout room. Frankie all but sprinted ahead of him.
“Are we sharing with the whole class or digging in right now?” Teddy asked, leaning in the doorway once they reached the break room and Finn carefully revealed the cake under Frankie’s scrutiny.
It really did say: Congrats on starting off on the right foot.
“Guess I better do the heroic thing,” she said after getting a look at the magenta buttercream, “but I get the biggest piece, right?”
“For saving the world from the Mouse King?” Finn said. “Absolutely.”
They gathered their things—and the cake—and prepared to head to the studio.
“Bye, Betsy! Bye, Meagan!” Finn waved as they passed into the waiting room.
Betsy barely looked up from her computer, but Meagan came out from behind the counter.
“Have fun tonight. Oh, and Finn? Ronnie said to remind you about replacing your windshield wipers?”
“Oh shoot, that’s right. I was supposed to do that tonight. It’ll take five minutes—”
“We’ll have time,” Teddy interrupted.
They didn’t only have Frankie’s final appointment to celebrate, after all, but the anniversary of their first date (after the initial failed one and Finn’s drunken beach fiasco).
Four months and counting.
Finn was also part of Teddy’s class, mostly as his body-double for moves he could no longer demonstrate, and for his skills as a medical professional should anyone have trouble. Up to now, while a few times one or more students had ended up on the floor, no one had suffered any lasting damage, only laughter.
Teddy didn’t need physical therapy that often himself anymore either, only once a week when added to his twice-a-week dance class. Teaching didn’t pay much, but that had never been what he was looking for when debating options for his retirement.
Money he had; now he wanted purpose, direction, fulfillment, and he’d found it in ways he honestly loved, maybe more than he’d ever loved the high-profile stress of ballet in the city.
“You are amazing with them, Teddy. With all of them,” Finn said after class, on their way to Firestorm Garage. “You amaze me. Every day.”
“You must be easily impressed,” Teddy droned.
Finn smacked him in the shoulder.
“Thank you,” Teddy said seriously. “Not only for the compliment, but for the suggestion in the first place. I got so used to expecting perfect, I forgot that sometimes the best things don’t have to be. I mean, you certainly aren’t.”
“Asshole.” Finn laughed.
“Never denied it.”
“No, you didn’t.” As he shifted into Park, still chuckling, Finn looked at Teddy across the car with the same seriousness while never losing his smile. “A year ago, I was the opposite, always settling, always afraid to push for more than I thought I deserved, afraid of losing what I had.
“Sometimes it’s okay to strive for perfect, to believe you’re worth perfect. We just have different ideas of what perfect means.” He reached over and took Teddy’s hand, squeezing it gently.
“I’m not perfect, Finn.”
“You’re perfect for me by being enough for you.”
Teddy’s breath caught at the sentiment. His father had never followed that philosophy, but Finn took him as he was.
“There you go again with that undue wisdom,” Teddy said.
“Well, one of us has to have some.” Finn grinned cheekily, pulling away to escape the car rather than steal a kiss like Teddy expected. “Come on. We have a million things to do yet, and I’m looking forward to getting you home.”
Home. They defaulted to Teddy’s house most nights if one of them was staying over, which was happening more and more frequently lately. Nora could go anywhere, but Smudge was more confined to his space, so it made sense to end up at Teddy’s.
And since it had been the location of their first date, it was fitting tonight.
Heading into the garage was Teddy’s daily reminder that he was in the smallest town imaginable, since everywhere they went, he saw someone that he, Finn, or both knew.
Ronnie at the auto shop, who helped Finn replace his wipers for the rainy season and invited them over for dinner sometime soon on behalf of him and Meagan.
Blaise at the bakery when they stopped to pick up cupcakes for dessert—even though they’d gotten Frankie’s cake from there earlier.
“I didn’t think o
f it then,” Finn defended.
“We had cake.”
“A snack and dessert are two separate things.”
Finn was bad for Teddy’s self-control, not that he hadn’t known that from day one. He’d been good lately, though, getting into a solid routine that left him maybe five pounds heavier than his choreographer days, but he could live with that.
Naturally, Rose arrived at the bakery before they could leave.
“Happy coincidence running into you two.”
“You forget your husband’s motto,” Teddy said. “There are no coincidences. Though I think I’ll be taking my small miracles to go.” He held up the cupcake box but didn’t hide that he also meant Finn.
“And how are you two celebrating tonight?”
“The usual.”
“Dinner,” Finn supplied, “bad action movie—”
“Debauchery,” Teddy said.
“Sounds inspiring.” Rose chuckled, turning with a wink to Blaise, whose pale complexion darkened behind the counter. “Happy anniversary.”
They almost made it home without another incident but stopped for a bottle of wine at the grocery store and ran into Carlos and Erina shopping for their own date night.
Erina was on break between spring and winter ballet seasons—and hadn’t stayed with Teddy a single night.
“Meet at the bakery for breakfast?” she suggested.
“Coffee. Maybe,” Teddy said. “I’m about to be Small Miracled out.”
Home should have been the one place they could be safe.
“Hey, Teddy!” Rick called from the beach as Teddy opened the sliding glass doors to let in the evening air.
Rick and Dan were walking the beach, having rented Mrs. Thompkins’s house next door for autumn. Dan had a few jobs in town, though he still traveled back to the city often, and Rick had set up shop earlier to finish the play.
Interpretive Hearts started casting next week.
Teddy thought the title a little cheesy, but he bowed to Rick’s experience.
“Hey, Teddy!” Dan called in kind, twice as jubilant.
“Hi, guys!” Finn came up behind Teddy to wave back.
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