Limerence (Famous Young Things): Chapter 34

He’s got this, I know he has. He’s not dancing close to his best yet, but he’s improving. Sharper and more focussed than he’s been in weeks, and he carries that into rehearsal with him. When Ben comes in just before eleven to talk to Fen, he stays a while to watch, gaze trained on Felix like a sniper. He looks more distrustful than impressed, but it’s an improvement on how he’s been looking at him recently.

We have another session with Lillian the intimacy coordinator in the afternoon where, we work on the key pas de deux from the final act which is supposed to be Patroclus’s spirit dancing with a vengeful Achilles. It’s an emotional dance, though in the section where Felix has been required to soften, show his grief, he’s always held back. He doesn’t this time. As he pulls me into him and presses his mouth to my hair, I feel the tremble in his body, and when he drops to his knees and throws his head back to scream at the unfair gods, his eyes are wild and shimmering with heartache. He looks broken, so stunningly beautiful and completely heartbroken that I forget my own cue.

Only when his features smooth out into the easy, excitable things I recognise, do I snap out of it.

“You alright there, mate of my soul?” he asks with a soft mouth.

I blink. “Yeah, sorry. I was just… that was… incredible.”

He gets to his feet. “Yeah, that’s what all the boys say when I’m on my knees.” Panicked, he looks at Lillian. “Sorry, inappropriate, boundaries.”

She gives him a chastising look. “It’s not me you have to apologise to.”

Felix looks at me. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry, I broke character.”

“Because I was so incredible,” he says with a wink. “It’s fine, happens to the best of them. Let’s go again from the second battu.”

The rest of the week continues to go well. Everyone is relieved by Felix’s change of mood and form. Fen’s mood is better, and in turn, Julien’s, and the veil of dread and tension that’s been hovering over everything, lifts. The fact that we’re not sleeping together (that we haven’t slept together for ten days—not that I’m counting) isn’t much of a forfeiture given our early morning and late night practices have me all but asleep by the time my head hits the pillow. I wouldn’t have the energy for it were he to say he was coming over. He’d maybe be able to get me hard, climb on and show us both a good time, but he hasn’t even suggested it. He’s been disciplined and committed, and it’s as sexy a version of him as every other one.

On Tuesday of the following week, he comes up to me in the cafeteria. He seems to be far less bothered by who sees us together these days, which feels like progress. I’m sitting as usual with Niall and Jesse. Niall isn’t Felix’s biggest fan. In fact, of the entire company, he’s probably the least enamoured with Felix overall, though this might be as he’s more senior and similar in style. And if not for the fact that Felix is, well, leagues better and younger, Niall’s career may well have taken a different trajectory.

“Can I talk to you for a minute,” he says, interrupting Niall’s story about an article he read that morning about AI.

“Sure.” I set down my fork and stand from the booth to follow him outside into the corridor.

“I can’t make practice tonight,” he tells me. “I’ve been summoned to dinner with my dad.” He looks out the window and sighs, loudly.

“Commiserations.”

“Tell me about it.” When he looks back at me, he forces on a bright smile. “See you tomorrow though? For a pounding, not practice. I’ve been such a good boy this week, I think I deserve it.”

“You have.” I smile. “Alright then, come over whenever.”

“Okay, well I’ll let you get back to the lads.” He lowers his voice on the word ‘lads’ to a very masculine rumble, which makes me laugh.



That night, after I eat, I pull my phone out to make a call I should have made two years ago. Something had changed this week, and it was time. I know it’s related to Felix, and to telling him about Cina and not having him react like I was broken or damaged or something to pity. I’d also discussed it with Hana, and we’d talked through the possible outcomes, good and bad, and how to handle them if and when they arose.

I was ready.

She deserved this.

A part of me had wondered if maybe she’d blocked my number, but it rings straight through. It’s about lunchtime there, and I don’t expect her to answer; I expect to have to leave a message and for her to call me back (or not) later. It’s exactly what happens.

“Hey, it’s Sofia, leave a message and I’ll call you back.”

“Hey. It’s me. Um, so, I’d really like to talk.” I’d expected to have to leave a voicemail, but somehow, I’m still unprepared for how to do it, stuttering and uncertain as ever. “I don’t deserve to have you hear me out, I know that, but I’d really appreciate it if you would. Please. I… I miss you, Sof.”

I hang up and toss the phone across the couch with a sigh. I’m not sure if she’ll call back. Two years was a long time; had I done it straight after, then I’d have said yes, she would, but with the time that’s passed and how long it’s taken me to reach out, I really don’t think she will. But then my cell starts ringing, Sofia’s name lighting up the screen. It stuns me into immobility so that I leave it ringing for too long for someone who just called her a moment ago. I snatch it up.

“Hey, hi,” I start with.

Her voice is almost formal as she says, “Hello, Nico.”

“Thanks for calling me back.”

She sighs. “You knew I would.”

“I didn’t actually. I hoped you would, but I didn’t know… I’m glad that you did, though.” She says nothing, but I can hear her soft breathing down the phone. “Fuck, Sof. I’m so sorry.”

There’s a beat, then, “For what?”

She wasn’t asking because she didn’t know; she was asking because she wanted to be sure I did.

“All of it. For hurting you. I never wanted that. I know how that sounds but I really didn’t. Honesty is what you asked me for and what I promised I’d give you, and I didn’t.” I’ve never given anyone that. I’d convinced myself I was protecting her, but she deserved the truth.

After a very long silence, she curses, and I can tell she’s crying. “Fuck you, Nicoló. Fuck you for doing this now. Seriously?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry, for God’s sake.”

So I say nothing. Finally, sounding stronger, she speaks. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah I am. Better than I was.” I let out a loud exhale.

“I thought maybe you were calling because something had happened,” she says. “When I saw your name… I don’t know, I figured I’d only hear from you if you broke something or your dad died.”

“Well, no breaks, and Antonio is alive and well and as disappointed in me as ever.”

“Good. If he turned around and told you he loved you, I’d think the fucking world was ending, and I’ve still got some things I’d like to do. I mean, fucking Raphael Scott is off the list now that he likes men. But I guess you have a shot.” It’s said light-heartedly and not cruelly, and it makes me laugh. She’d always had a crush on him. “One day I’ll be attracted to a guy who doesn’t prefer men.”

“No one special in your life right now then?”

“In this place? Not a chance.”

“You should come to London.”

“London? Where the rain never stops and Felix Taylor-Brooke is king, no thanks, I’d rather die.”

I laugh. “He’s actually not so bad.”

“Right. And the rain is actually really lovely once you get used to it.”

“Something like that…” I relax back into the sofa. “Fuck, I’ve missed you.”

“Yeah, I’ve missed you too. But I’m also still very pissed at you.”

“I know, I know. And I deserve it. I’m just so sorry, for everything.”

She’s silent a moment before she asks, “Why didn’t you just tell me? I was your best friend, Nico—granted, your best friend who was in love with you—but I was still your best friend. I’d have been there for you.”

“Really? You wouldn’t have immediately told me you were moving out and looked at me like I was a complete stranger?”

A pause. “You’ve always been far too perceptive for your own good. I hate it.”

“But I still should have told you, yeah. I just… can you understand why I didn’t? I didn’t want to lose you, lose what we had. You were the most important relationship in my life.”

I wait for her to say, ‘you lost it anyway,’ or something similar, but instead, she says, “You could never lose me, Nicoló. You never will. Unless you want to, which is what I thought you’d decided to do. I assumed having to deal with my feelings about it were just too much for you to work through.”

“When did we get so grown-up?”

“When we started therapy. It really fucking works, right?”

“How do you know I’m doing that?”

“Porzia and I talk every other week.”

Right, of course they do. “So she stole my best friend, again. She really hasn’t changed since we were six.”

Sofia laughs.

“So, how is London?” she asks tentatively. “What are they like?”

I desperately want to tell her about Felix, but it feels like a lot for right now. I decide to skirt it.

“It’s less rigid than Romasco, the hours are a little more flexible, Benedict is a lot more easy-going than Stephan.”

“Are they doing a queer ballet? I heard something from Tim who heard it from one of his friends in the corps.”

“And their dancers have looser lips, too, I guess. Yeah, they are. Felix and I are leading.”

“Wow,” she says. “How poetic.”

I tense. “What do you mean?”

“Nico,” she says. “It’s fine, you can say it.”

My brain is scrambling a little because there’s no way she’s implying what I think she is. She can’t be.

“Say what?”

Sofia sighs, patiently. “I’ve had a lot of time to think the last two years, Nicoló. Mainly about myself and how I completely missed all the signs that my best friend, roommate, and dance partner was into men. You hid it so well, so completely. I searched through stacks and stacks of memories, and I found almost nothing. Almost. But then there was him, Felix—your fucking constant and unchanging fixation. I thought it was professional, you admired him, you grew up with him in a way, and so I always just assumed it was just the whole rivalry thing everyone else is so obsessed with. It could easily have been true, and maybe it is to some degree, but then when you came back and went to London… It all clicked.”

The noise in my head goes very quiet all of a sudden. There’s a slow spread of warmth pulsing out from a very specific point in my chest, across my whole body.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Sofia asks. “You went to London for him?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Because you wanted to dance with him?”

“Yes. But also because I’m in love with him.”



Sofia had reacted with a high-pitched shriek of disbelief. Then she’d had to go because she was on lunch and San Francisco ran their ship as tightly as Romasco did. She’d call me on Sunday night. Video call because she wanted to see my face when I told her for a second time that I was in love with ‘fucking Felix Taylor-Brooke,’ and that I likely had been since I was 15. After the initial shock, her voice had softened and warmed, and she told me I was in trouble. She didn’t know we’d been sleeping together since the beginning of December, but I’d already decided to tell her. Maybe she could help me make some sense out of what we were to each other in Felix’s world of revolving-door lovers, especially since he still told me daily that he hated me.

It’s raining when I step outside to go for my run later that night, a cool, thin mist of rain that’s pleasant on my skin as I begin to sweat. It was lovely once you got used to it.

I’ve got three alternate routes I take, each slightly longer than the other, and tonight I choose the longest. It takes me south towards Holborn and back through Covent Garden toward the academy, and then on towards St. James’ Park, along the Mall, and past Buckingham Palace, turning east towards Big Ben before I go north again.

At Westminster Station, I stop in at a supermarket for a bottle of water and stand outside to drain it before setting off again. As I crouch to retie my laces, I glance up. Felix is standing at the entrance to the tube station holding a large tote bag as he gazes almost adoringly at Christian. Christian who has his hand on his arm as he leans in and whispers something in his ear. Felix grins, all boyish charm and simpering smile, before Christian turns and gets into a sleek black car and drives off.

He lied about meeting his father. He lied so he could meet his politician instead. I’m so stunned, so filled with rage and petty jealousy that I don’t trust myself to go toward him. I don’t trust myself not to lose it with him right here in this very busy street. Before I can do anything, Felix disappears down into the underground tunnel and out of sight.

I turn and run back the way I’d come.