“Oh yeah?” Chico opened his eyes wide. “I find it hard to believe
you
don’t have anyone to stare at the stars with you.”
He ought to keep pins in his mouth to keep from saying things like that in Rafael’s presence. But Rafael only gave him a long, toe-curling, intense study, before curving his mouth up in pleasure. “So you say, but I noticed a few more gray hairs the other day, and yet again no one was in bed with me when I woke up.”
Chico released a relieved breath at the lightly flirtatious reply. He hadn’t meant to sound like he was inviting himself to stargaze with Rafael and would probably have frozen if Rafael had offered. All the same, he frowned because Rafael was entirely too good at reading him already.
He put his nose in the air. “Don’t even start. You know you’re sexy,” he scoffed, making Rafael’s smile grow. Now that he’d said it, Chico kept going with his hand in the air to forestall any more of Rafael’s denials. “First, there is your face, and your jawline and your eyes and the way you smile. Then you’ve got that athlete dancer thing going on. Like, your thighs and arms and stomach, are just… there aren’t words. And we won’t talk about your ass out of respect for your parents in the next room. But let’s not pretend it isn’t there.”
Rafael was outright laughing now. Silently, but in a way that made his whole body shake.
Chico wrinkled his nose at him. “You probably get all kinds of attention, even in a small town like this.” His throat wasn’t tight at all. He wasn’t drooping down with terrible posture while he thought about that baker. “Any gray hair you get is only going to make everyone even more hot for teacher. I was thinking that before you came in.”
“Crushes on teachers are not my thing.” Rafael’s laughter tapered off, although his eyes were still bright. “Were you really thinking about me before I got here? Because that is information I am very interested in.”
“Uh,” Chico said, stupidly, and cast about for a less embarrassing topic of conversation. “What happened to the person who used to do all the costumes for you?”
Rafael wrinkled his nose at the clumsy subject change, but it didn’t really seem to bother him. Maybe it was the knowledge that Chico was blushing and squirming. “Her arthritis got really bad a few years ago. You’ll see her at the performance, though, front row. We’ve never been able to find anyone to replace her, but the volunteers and my mother try. The problem is we do a lot of recitals, especially for the younger kids. You know”—Rafael leaned back into the sofa again—“the classes aren’t technically for children alone. You could always take a tap class if ballroom doesn’t appeal to you.”
“You still think I could take a class?” Chico ignored his embarrassment to ask.
“I think the rush of endorphins from the exercise would do you some good.” Rafael gave him a slow nod. “And the socializing, the friendly touches. It improves moods. They’ve done studies.”
Friendly touches.
Chico rubbed a hand down over his hip. That touch had felt a lot more than friendly to his touch-starved body. His mouth went dry again. “I wouldn’t have a partner. And I don’t know that I’d be much good at it anyway. It sounds like something it would be more fun to do with someone. A friend. Or a date.” He met Rafael’s gaze, then lowered his eyes. “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”
“Yeah?” Rafael took his time answering. He looked down too, for another few moments, but then he lifted his chin. “Well, at least I had you in my class for a little while.”
Chico frowned but didn’t get to ask what he meant.
Mrs. Winters appeared in the doorway. “Class? What class is that, Raf, darling? The one you should be teaching right this moment? That class?”
Chico jerked his shoulders straight and sat upright.
Rafael rolled his eyes but obediently got to his feet. “Yes, Mama,” he told his mother playfully, not sounding remotely intimidated by all the motherly sarcasm. He kissed the top of her head as he went by, then murmured, “Be nice to him,” with enough intent to have Chico frozen all over again.
Rafael finally looked back at Chico and gave him a smile that was not as gentle as it could have been. “I’ll see you later, Chico. Feel free to keep thinking about me while I’m gone.”
He said that with his mom glancing between them, and then he disappeared out the door, leaving Chico alone.
With Rafael’s mother.
With Rafael’s imperious and sharp-eyed mother.
“Chico, yes?” She pronounced his name like it was Spanish, and Chico couldn’t think to correct her. Her gaze swept over everything and missed nothing. “You don’t want to dance?”
“I don’t think I should right now.” He mumbled like the he had the first and only time he’d ever attempted to go to confession.
Her expression indicated Chico had cut her to the quick and that she would make him pay for it. However, what she said was “But you will,” with a certainty that had him wriggling internally.
He blinked at her, and she squinted in return, as if she was trying to see inside of him. “You will,” she repeated and then crossed the room with sure, precise steps.
“You embroider?” she pressed, elegant and commanding as she came forward. Mrs. Winters prodded the pencil on top of the notebook and tapped the sketch he’d done. “What eyes you have to see this,” she remarked, meaning something else entirely from what her son had said when he’d compared Chico to Bambi.
Nonetheless, Chico went still, and she patted the top of his head with one slender hand. “It’s beautiful, darling, carry on,” she announced in the voice of a grand dame, and she left him to it, sailing back out from whence she came.
Outside, in the other room, Mr. Winters continued to play the piano. But he did pause for a moment to shoot a sympathetic look in Chico’s direction, as if he understood Chico’s apprehension.
The entire family was full of mind readers. Chico dropped his gaze to the tutu and kept it there for the rest of the afternoon.
FIXING SEAMS,
tutting over what had once been some gorgeous beadwork, and blushing when Rafael glanced at him occupied his time for two more afternoons. The rest of the volunteer seamstresses came and went, mostly, he was guessing, fixing their own kids’ costumes first before they would start on the rest. He was surprisingly chill with that. He was the single gay loser with no life to get back to, so he could set up outside the practice hall and rip out crappy stitches to his heart’s content without worrying about getting home in time for dinner.
When he did go home, his back ached and his fingers stung with pinpricks like he’d been sewing stinging nettles, but he noticed with clear, wide-awake attention that he still hadn’t gotten around to curtains. He could sew them as well as buy them, if he found fabric he liked.
The thought was an idle one. Brandywine had no fabric store, only a cramped place that sold yarn. Which was just as well, since a cursory look through his remaining boxes showed his sewing machine and thread were likely boxed up at his parents’.
But Davi had assured him that the apartment would heat up during the days in the summer and be cold in the winter, so he ought to get some curtains. With that in mind, he made a special trip to Brandywine’s hardware store to buy the cheapest curtain rods he could find. Davi already gave him a lot for free; Chico could leave his place with some nice window treatments.
The purchase was oddly uplifting. Chico didn’t have his sewing equipment, or even fabric, but he’d taken a step. Davi was going to be so pleased. Though Davi was going to want to be the one to hang them. He’d probably bring out an automatic drill or something.
Inspired by his success, Chico hesitated and, instead of immediately driving back out of town, walked down to one of the restaurants he hadn’t been to yet. He had no desire to take any pictures of his food or let anyone know where he was going. All he really wanted, he realized, was a sandwich. Maybe some fries.
He never finished an order of fries. He didn’t know why, because he loved them. It was one of the nice things about being in a relationship, having someone to share his french fries. He missed that, although it was no reason to go without food. Ice cream and frozen dinners every night was kind of ridiculous. Especially when he could have been treating himself to something he actually had an appetite for.
Eating in public was another matter. He had a feeling his energy was going to leave him about halfway through dinner, so he didn’t risk it. He stared at the menu and ordered a club sandwich with fries, to go, and wandered around the restaurant’s lobby while he waited.
The restaurant was the kind of place that served basic, standard fare and had a waiting area with gumball machines next to a potted plant and a board full of business cards and fliers for local events. Chico tucked a paper copy of the menu into a pocket, to put on his fridge like a proper single person, as he meandered—casually—toward the board.
Mostly it was what he expected: teens looking for summer jobs as pet sitters or babysitters or amateur gardeners, something for AA meetings the next town over, a card for a church rummage sale. The poster for the area’s Pride celebration surprised him, since Davi hadn’t mentioned that.
In town, the senior center needed visitors, which was one of those things that made Chico’s eyes sting. His family was so big it was hard to imagine someone without any family who cared. Even Davi still had Chico’s parents to look out for him while his own were being stubborn assholes.
He moved on to study a poster for Movies Among the Trees, a summer film series in the clearing at the north end of town where people apparently picnicked on the ground outside and watched family movies. The movies were free. Sitting in the dark surrounded by people he didn’t have to actually talk to might be something he could do.
He was wondering how to get a copy of the films and times, when movement at the restaurant entrance caught his attention. He took in the sight of Rafael and the baker together, then quickly turned to face the board with some survival instinct he hadn’t known he possessed.
His pulse was so loud in his ears other people should have been able to hear it.
Perhaps they could. Or perhaps the small town restaurant had a tiny lobby.
“Chico, isn’t it?” an unfamiliar voice asked, and Chico flinched. He twisted the straps of his canvas bag around his fingers, which only made the curtain rods stick out even more awkwardly, then slowly inclined his head toward the other two. “You’re volunteering at the studio too, aren’t you?” The baker smiled at him and didn’t seem to notice Chico frozen to the spot. “Sewing or something?”
“Right. Sewing,” Chico agreed and swung his gaze over to Rafael, only to note Rafael had on a shirt with actual sleeves and buttons. Even covered up he looked good, too good. Chico wanted to see him in a suit. He wanted to put the suit on him with his own hands.
Chico shifted his attention to something less dangerous to his equilibrium, like the potted plant.
Those were date clothes, his mind informed him helpfully. He vaguely remembered dates—nerves and dressing to impress, putting on something nice. That, naturally, was what Rafael had done, for his date. His date with that baker. Because the baker had asked him out, and he’d had no reason to say no. He’d had no reason at all to say anything but yes.
“Are those curtain rods?” Rafael asked. The question was unexpected enough to make Chico glance to him again. “Are you decorating?” Rafael wasn’t smiling, which was somehow unfair. He should be treating this as the joke it was, not regarding Chico seriously.
But he saw the tension in Chico’s posture, Chico was sure of that. His baker might not, but Rafael did. He was smart, not just good-looking. That’s why people asked him out. Not Chico, not fragile, afraid-of-bad-choices, afraid-of-being-crushed-by-someone-else-again Chico. But other people.
Chico nodded without forming an answer to the question.
The two of them were standing close. Close enough that, possibly, as they walked home or back to their cars or to the baker’s door, their hands might touch. The kind of touch that was electric and comforting at the same time, making mouths go dry and hearts race.
When things were good, according to his parents, touch could stay like that.
Chico wouldn’t know.
“I’m Jase,” the baker introduced himself. He was starting to frown, as if just now twigging to Chico’s frozen expression and trembling hands.
Chico forced himself to smile. “You bake or something, don’t you?” he heard himself saying, spiky with heat and embarrassment and annoyance at being looked down upon for sewing.
If Rafael was smiling about that, as Chico assumed he was, he shouldn’t be. Even if his dating pool in Brandywine was limited, he could do better than a condescending guy like this.
The waitress appeared with Chico’s bag of food. Chico accepted it and added it to his awkward bundle in one hand. He regretted ever deciding to eat out. He regretted it even more when the waitress paused to ask Rafael if she should get him a table for two.
Chico was supposed to be harmlessly indulging in a crush after months of feeling numb. He had no right to get territorial or jealous, to think, in a distant yet urgent way, that he ought to make a scene. He hadn’t even made a scene when John had announced it was over. It hadn’t occurred to him. He hadn’t argued or fought or even hit him with a pillow. Chico had always thought he’d go ballistic if a boyfriend cheated on him. But he’d frozen. He’d had exactly one thought at the time—there was no point in fighting for someone who didn’t want you.
“Table for two?” he said suddenly, brightly. He was hot inside where he should have been empty and cold. “First date?”
He turned on autopilot, without waiting for the answer, and pulled a slip of paper with a phone number on it from one of the fliers. He waved it around to signal his equally busy social life before he stuck it in his pocket.
“You’re volunteering somewhere else?”
All Chico could see in Rafael’s smile was polite interest. His posture was straight, but it always was. His gaze was always warm. Meanwhile, he probably knew Chico was about five minutes from crawling into bed and never getting out again because he’d seen Rafael on a date.