Contents

1. En Pointe

UGH,” HE GRUMBLED a tiny bit as he tried to stretch his foot into an impossible arch that made my own foot hurt just watching him.

“You know, you shouldn’t be that hard on it. It’s just gotten around to healing, babe,” I remarked as I came up behind him. My arms snaked around his incredibly toned body. I turned my face into that special place behind his right ear that never failed to send my heart beating to a tempo that he alone mastered. I nuzzled in, letting his shoulder-length brown locks billow about my face as I breathed him in.

“You don’t get it, though.”

His eyes searched out mine from our reflection in the dance mirror. He flexed his foot a bit before pressing down upon it again, reworking it more than before.

“Babe …” I winced.

“It’s still not right. It’s supposed to be my strong foot, too. That Twelve Drummers Drumming thing can’t be my last professional performance. If I was going out, I wanted to go out on top. A juicy role, ya know?”

I nibbled the tiniest bit about the edge of his right ear, bringing a small giggle bubbling up from within.

“I love you, Daniel Lynn Jericho. You know that, don’t you?”

He ran a lithe hand up the side of my freshly shaved squarish jaw. He was such a beautiful boy, well, er young man. He was a man, of that there was no doubt. Years of ballet training and professional dancing had honed his body into masculine perfection, but his face carried the fine angled lines of classic male beauty without becoming wholly androgynous.

“I love you too, Angus … er, uh … ”

He spun himself quickly around in my arms, his brown dreamy eyes wide with whatever was goading him now. He was such the drama queen when he wanted to be.

“What the fuck is your middle name? I should know that by now, shouldn’t I?”

He pulled his hand up between us, counting off whatever he thought to recite now.

“First week, favorites – favorite food, favorite color, favorite position in bed, ya know? Things like that. Week two? Family stuff, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles and aunts. Stuff that you gotta know, but won’t have to recall it all that much, though I do like your brother Chad. He’s sweet.”

I smirked but let him continue – he still had two more weeks to go.

“Week three? Extracurricular activities – sporty or artsy stuff you’re into. And here we are at week four – which is supposed to be role-playing in the bedroom – fantasy fuck shit. Totes with the seduction stuff.”

I gave a solid belly laugh at that one.

“Oh, that’s what was up with the pole dancer thing you did last night with the bedpost? I get it now.”

He rolled his eyes then leaned in for a nice, semi-sloppy kiss. I allowed us a moment to enjoy that. He whined a tiny bit when I broke it off.

“We have a long drive ahead of us if we’re gonna make the show. Shower time, D-man.”

“Uh uh.”

“Uh uh? What do you mean, uh uh? You know how hard it was to get tickets to the ballet tonight? On New Years Eve, no less?”

“No, not about that – you never told me your middle name. That should’ve been back with the family shit in week two of our rollercoaster romance.”

“Oh,” my turn to roll my green eyes, “that …”

“Uh, yeah, that.”

“I don’t say it much. I mean, I love the name and what it means, just so many people seriously fuck with it that I’ve pretty much given up saying it at all.”

He watched me for a moment before his eyes bugged out in that charming way he does to not-so-silently beg me to spill it.

“It’s Aodh.” I pronounced it as clearly as I could. He arched a brow at it as if what he’d heard was wrong.

“Eee?”

“Well yeah, but not spelled that way. It’s a Scottish thing. A-O-D-H. Aodh. It means fire, or some such thing. That’s me, Angus Aodh Carr, your flaming Scottish warrior. All kilted up, and ready to do battle.”

“Yes, my flaming warrior of a man, and I’ll spend all my days checking for your battle readiness, too. And I think your middle name is wickedly sexy my huge hunk o’ man flesh. It’ll become my new favorite thing to say when you’re nailing me to the bed. I bet you’d look wicked hot in a kilt, too. That William Wallace’s got nothing up on you.”

“Yeah? Well, for the record, we Carrs aren’t too fond of Wallace at any rate. We’re descended from William I, the Lion. Wallace couldn’t have been much more than a knight.”

He chuckled at my little Carr family history as his arms slipped up around my neck. He pulled my face to meet his and our lips and tongues found one another again.

A few seconds in, and I pulled back just enough to remind him he was stalling, and I’d begun to sort out why.

“We’re going to be late, loverboy.”

“It’s only three-thirty, for fuck sake. How in bloody hell is that going to make us late?”

“Travel time. We aren’t just outside of San Francisco, babe,” I spoke gently with my lips barely touching his. I felt him tremble at that feather-soft, barest of whispers, kiss. “Then there’s dinner, the show, and the after-show because I know you’ll want to hang out with your mates.”

“Augh,” he moaned.

I pulled back and offered him my hand, which he took.

“And no funny business, either. Shower and change. I’m already set to go and you’re still in your warm-up dance clothes. You’re not having to perform tonight, sweetheart.”

“Don’t remind me! I know how woefully out of shape I am. It’s going to be a nightmare seeing everyone in the company.”

I heard his pain in that.

I thought buying him the tickets to see his former company perform their version of The Nutcracker would take his mind off of things that were swirling about us. Our best friends, Marco and Elliot, had temporarily split up over some family drama that came out after their Christmas party. The worst part was, they might not get back together by the end of the holidays and we’d all planned on spending them as a foursome. I knew their separation was eating away at Danny’s attempts to bring me some much needed holiday cheer. His not performing was only layering frustration upon his dwindling self-confidence of being a professional dancer.

To make matters worse, his cousin, Stephen, was tragically killed last week. We attended the funeral in Colma just three days ago. So family strife was definitely in the mix. I became desperate to get him away from all of this. I somewhat foolishly thought spending a weekend in the City, going to see his former company perform a show he used to dance, would be a good thing. Only with that groan I heard in his voice, I suddenly didn’t feel quite so sure.

“Hey, hey … hey,” I tugged upon his hand and stopped him from trudging up the stairs to our bathroom. “C’mere, you.”

I brought him in close, wrapping my massive arms around him, letting him nuzzle a bit into my chest. I lifted his face to meet mine with a finger to his chin, softly rubbing his nose against mine. His big brown eyes, like rich chocolate pools were framed by thick long lashes, eyes that looked longingly into mine – a slight desperation colored them, silently begging for me to be his hero and whisk him away from all of this.

“If you really don’t want to go, we can do something else. They’re just tickets, ya know.”

“Oh, yeah, like that’s gonna happen. You spent a helluva lot on them, babe. I’m not letting that go to waste. My fucked up weird ass feeling about seeing my former company can go fuck itself. I made a conscious decision to walk away from it all. I’m not letting you waste your hard-earned cash because of my fag boy angst over seeing how great they’re all doing and how stupid I’ve been.”

“Well, it’s hardly hard-earned, babe. Grants, financial assistance and some money from me Mum and Da are what fills my coffers these days. And me Mum bought you the tickets. They were gonna go until they sorted that I wanted alone time with my guy.”

“I would’ve loved to’ve taken them with us. I love your parents.”

“Cool, they adore the shit out of you, too. But I told them next year. This year, it’s just gonna be you and me. But seriously, if you aren’t up to seeing your mates at the ballet, we don’t have to. We can skip it. Tell Mum that you or I got sick from dinner or some such thing, if they ask, which I am not sure they will. Well, other than, did you enjoy the show – ya know, that sort of thing.”

“Well, there’s no way I am letting your mother’s hard-earned cash go to waste.”

I started to protest but he wasn’t having it.

“No, I mean it, we’re going and that’s final. Just, uh,” he moaned a little again, “help me pick something out that doesn’t quite scream what a loser dancer I am.”

Amazingly, twenty-five minutes later we were fully-dressed, in the car and en route to San Francisco. He even behaved while he stripped to get into the shower. I looked ahead at the traffic app on my phone. If we were lucky, we’d find parking and be able to make our dinner reservations on time.

If we were lucky.

But here’s the thing: parking and luck in San Francisco didn’t always go hand-in-hand – especially during the holidays.

We listened to the Nutcracker score on the way because Danny informed me that he wanted to get back into that headspace. He remained quiet for a lot of it, choosing only to talk about this move or that one he did during a given part of the score, the names of which I couldn’t begin to pronounce or understand. If it wasn’t a plié, pirouette or arabesque, I felt rather lost. But I let him go on whenever he did start to talk about it. I could feel the nervous anxiety he built over it. I felt enormously stupid not to’ve considered what his going back to see all of them after the show would mean. But I’d seen him dance. He performed a solo piece at Marco and Elliot’s Christmas party to a song that Elliot sung to Marco in front of all the guests. My guy’s performance made Elliot’s soaring vocals so memorable. His grace and poise, not to mention those explosions of sheer masculine strength, were undeniable. Jesus, did I fall hard for him all over again.

And he’s mine. No one will take that from me.

That possessive fire burned like an inferno deep inside, stoked and kept alive because he said he loved me, too. He became my master; he commanded my heart like no other. We’d only been together for four weeks, and while that seemed so short, it remained the most intense four weeks I’d ever lived. Not my studies at Stanford, my football career, or hell, even my own family paled in comparison to what I felt for the D-man. He was, no is, as my brother would say, amazeballs in a vat full o’ awesome sauce.

I suddenly felt the need to adjust my pants a tiny bit as my bone struggled to find some additional required space. He didn’t seem to notice – too caught up in the show and seeing his friends again, I suppose.

“Oh! This one, this one! Jesus, did this one nearly do me in. I played the Rat King in my final Nutcracker performance, mostly, because I was one of their strongest dancers, even if I was only seventeen at the time. I’d risen quite quickly in the ranks. My height helped that along. It didn’t make me many friends in the company, I can tell you. A lot of them assumed I’d slept with the artistic director to get where I ended up, especially among the male dancers. A dancer’s life is highly competitive. The older members of the troupe, those who achieved star status through hard work, are always feeling the nipping at their heels from the up and comers who desperately want their day in the sun. It’s not an easy life. But the dance is everything.”

My hand sought out his as San Francisco came into view. Fog swirled about the city in that way that was uniquely San Francisco – like a froth being gently poured over it, meandering among the tall skyscrapers and houses that hugged the hilly terrain.

We were about twenty minutes out, heading north on Highway 101. I brought our hands to my lips and kissed the back of his, placing it gently against my cheek, before returning it to my lap. I spied him flush from my attentiveness. I could sense his fragile state and I wanted him to know I was here for him. I think he got that.

Luckily for us, traffic hadn’t been terribly bad getting into the City. It was always a crap shoot in choosing the right path to get in, whether 101 or 280 – the only real highway choices – it became a gamble on which would provide the best avenue on any given day. There are no quick ways in. Because of this, the final few miles often felt the most taxing on your patience and resolve. But San Francisco was worth it. Like an extremely high priced call girl, she exuded culture and the promise of a good time. Considering the history of the City, that metaphor seemed rather apt.

“It’s been over a year since I’ve been back here. I wonder how many of the dancers I know in the company are still there.”

“That’s not a very long time, babe. Can turnover happen that quickly?”

“Oh, yes. Contract time is the hardest part – to know if you have a job for the next year or not, if your career is still on track. So much can take it off the rails. And that’s before we get to health reasons – sprains, breaks, bunions, so many things can take you out of the game when all you want to do is climb higher. We’re all striving for those precious few positions in the company that allow you to establish yourself, to show the world what you can really do. You ever see that show Breaking Pointe?”

“I don’t think so. What was it about?”

“One of those reality shows but it focused on a Utah ballet company and the artists who called her home. I became riveted to that show. I understood it. The drama, the changing of alliances during the season, the intrigue, the drive to be your absolute best at all times. That means both on and off the stage. You were constantly being watched. While everyone likes to think that you are judged solely on your talent, that’s not always the case. I’ve seen promising careers stumble badly because of something that happened outside of the rehearsal hall. It’s a very blood-thirsty sport.”

“Wow, huh. I had no idea it was like that. Though I hear how much you loved the drive of it all. Why? Do you miss it?”

He frowned the tiniest bit; in that I could tell he did. I just didn’t know if he’d admit that to himself. He remained quiet for a few, mulling how best to answer my question.

“Parts of it, yes. The rehearsing, the dancing, the performing, yeah. Other parts, like the in-fighting during contract season, can be sort of brutal to bear. That part I don’t miss. It’s a necessary evil, because it keeps you on your A-game, but yeah, it’s harsh.”

“Wow, I thought football players had it rough. I can’t imagine being watched all that much.”

“Being queer isn’t always a good thing. A lot of the straight men in the company actually can be quite conflicted about it. Mostly, it is because there is a general perception out there that if you do ballet and you’re a man, you must be queer. They resent that, hate that they have to prove that they are not. I mean, they know queers are in theater. They get that. But if you’re striving for being the Principle Dancer in the company, which is what you’re in it for, image is everything. There is a need to project masculinity in very broad terms. We all have one goal: to be the very best we can be as dancers, but with a solid press to be the principal dancer of a well-respected company.”

To hear him go on about the internal politics of the professional dancing world was somewhat of an eye opener. I marveled that he did it at so young an age, too.

“To be honest, they didn’t know how to handle me. The other dancers, I mean. I became an oddity to them. They knew I was gay, or so I said, but when Paolo and I broke up and I started sleeping around with some of the female dancers, it sort of got around very quickly and my bisexuality became a big topic of conversation. No one seemed to get me, really. I mean, I had friends in the company. It was just a tenuous feeling. Fleeting, at times. Like dancing on quicksand, really.”

I decided it was best not to press it.

Thankfully, the parking gods smiled upon us, no doubt perhaps because they’d listened in on our conversation and took pity on the poor gay lovers. In any event, dinner was marvelous. For the short while we were there, Danny seemed to set aside his anxiety of going back to the War Memorial theater and viewing a show he’d danced just last year. We talked about our best friends, Marco and Els. We talked about how much he wanted the four of us to grow old together.

“Yeah, I think they’ll see fit to get back together. Their love is strong for one another.”

“I think Elliot’s being a bit unfair to Marco.” He sighed, heavy with the concern that ran deep for our beloved friends, “Jesus, I love them both so much it hurts me to see them suffer for anything, ya know?”

“Well, if it’s any consolation,” I took his hand on the dinner table, “Marco sent me a text that he and Elliot had decided that it was time for Marco to come back home. I suppose the events surrounding their on-going drama made them see they’ll get through it better if they’re together. So, have heart, love. We’ll be a close foursome just like you want us to be. They love the crap out of you, too, ya know.”

He smiled softly and nodded just once. His eyes glistening in the candle light of the dinner table. His love for our closest friends so abundant in that gaze. His voice thick with how much all of this hurt him.

“Yeah, well, they’ve grown to love the shit out of you, too. We’re in it, and we’re in it deep. I want what they want – kids, the house with the picket fence, the whole damned thing. Vacations together, the holidays and special events as our families collide and become one big sloppy emotional mess. I want that so damned much.”

“And it’ll happen. They want it, too.”

I turned my wrist slightly and saw we had but ten or fifteen minutes to show time. Thankfully, the theater was a short walk from where we were now or we’d never make it.

“We best get going.”

I let go of his hand and signaled our waiter that we were ready to depart.

Outside at the corner Danny held my hand and nestled into me as the fog and brisk cold air from the Bay swirled around us. For a moment while we waited for the signal to cross, Danny leaned his head on my shoulder. I glanced down at him.

Jesus, he’s so fucking beautiful. My brilliant dancing angel. My angel of Mercy.

He glanced up to spy me watching him. He smirked and leaned up the tiniest bit to gift me with a kiss on my cheek. I felt enormously thankful that in San Francisco we could generally get away with this small public display of affection, in no small part because of the billowing curtains of fog obscured us and the other part because the City was alive with another night of holiday merriment. Our little moment, tucked in with so many others around us, slipped by unnoticed. The crowds thickened the closer we got to the theater.

I watched him as he meandered through the crowd, pulling me along with him. For some strange reason I became fixated on the small hair clip that held back his hair from his face. He left it down but pulled back. The large waves and curls to his dark brown hair catching in the light here and there, held me more than spellbound. I really saw no one else there but him.

From our fourth row center seats the show came alive. San Francisco Ballet had their own interpretation of the classic show in that it was set in San Francisco during the turn of the twentieth century. Drosselmeyer, the toy manufacturer, performed some amazing feats of magic on the stage. I remembered seeing it as a young boy and loving San Francisco’s take on it. It presented itself plainly and unabashedly very Bay Area.

“It’s also the first company to perform it in the United States. We have a long history with the show. It’s a hallmark staple of what we do.” He snorted the tiniest bit as he’d explained it to me prior to the performance starting. “I say we, but I mean them.”

I noted that slight point to his words. He missed this part of his life terribly. I could see it in his eyes, the way his face would suddenly contort into a disapproving visage whenever he thought someone had dropped the ball during the performance. He fidgeted during the Rat King’s dance. Wiggling in his seat to the point I thought he was going to leap on the stage and show whoever was under that headpiece just how it should be done. His hand, alternating between clenching mine tightly and not, never left mine during the entire performance.

During intermission he happened to strike up a conversation with an elderly couple sitting next to us who’d been coming to see it since they were children back when the company first started to perform it in the mid-1940s.

“You mean, you were the Rat King last year? Oh, my boy, you were magnificent! The dancer this year was rather mediocre if you ask me,” she proclaimed, much to my guy’s delight. Though he tried to conceal it, I could see him beam a bit at her effusive adoration of his performance last season. She asked him why he stopped dancing, no doubt thinking it was due to injury or some such thing.

“Personal issues, family stuff, that sort of thing. I want to get back to it, but,” he sighed heavily, “well, we’ll see.”

She patted his hand, “Well, San Francisco would be all the better if you came back. You were just magnificent, just splendid. Oh, I wish I had last year’s program with me. I’d have you sign it.”

Her going on about my guy did a world of good for him, and I saw it. I saw that I had to do everything I could to get him back into the game. He needed it, and if he did, then so did I. When we went back to see his friends after the show, I was going to make it a point to memorize names and how things worked back there, observe what I could to sort out how to get him back into the thick of things.

I wasn’t so proud not to contemplate asking Marco and his family’s influence with the troupe to prod that along, either. I knew the Sforzas were huge benefactors to the arts community in San Francisco – the ballet being just one of them. I know Marco’d do it, too. He had the money and the influence to pull it off. And if he didn’t, I knew he’d get his father to do it for us.

The plan was set in motion. My guy would dance again. It’s what he did and I wanted to give that back to him.

The rest of the show was marvelous. I felt myself waffling from being in the here and now, with the soft caress of my guy’s thumb across my hand, to being that eight year old boy with his parents to see a brilliantly solid holiday show.

With all said and done, he claimed he wanted to go and check into our hotel room. He suddenly felt insecure about seeing the other dancers or the people in the production crew. This wasn’t my guy. Danny never ran away from anything in his life. He was the guy who charged into the fire, not shrink from it.

“Babe, are you sure?” I asked him as we started to make our way along the side of the building to where the stage door stood.

“Danny?” A demure alto voice caught our attention.

That stopped us in our tracks and a lithe girl wrapped in a large overcoat came trotting over to us and embraced Danny in a fierce hug.

“Oh, my gosh! I wasn’t sure it was you! You have to come in! They’ll love to see you again. Wally was shit as the King but you knew that. He’s just not feeling it. Might have a lot to do with his break up with Cassandra when she contracted this season with Vancouver Ballet. Well, come on! And bring your … um, who is he again?”

“Felicia, this is Angus. My boyfriend.”

She eyed me from head to toe and back again, her gaze liking what she took in.

“Well, he’s a tall drink of water, ain’t he?” She nudged him with the back of her hand as she clicked off her e-cig.

“Still haven’t given it up, eh?” Danny asked her.

She shrugged, “One day. Just not today.”

She chuckled and took his hand in hers, slipping her arm in the crook of my elbow and tugged us along, clearly not letting him say no for anything.

I liked her already. She knew how to handle my guy. Half a minute later we were tucked safely in the green room after she’d gotten us past the security guard at the stage door entrance.

Minutes after arriving, several of the dancers from his old company received word we were here and swiftly embraced and started to chat up Danny; some came so swift they were half-clothed and in various states of makeup removal as well. He kept spot checking with me to see if I minded the multi-layered conversations that flew around him from all sides. Clearly, he was missed as much as he missed all of them. I didn’t mind holding back and letting him have center stage. It’s where he belonged.

“So who’s the body-guard, Dan?” one of the female corps dancers inquired of me, bringing the conversations to a halt with all their eyes trained on me – it felt a bit overwhelming. Danny didn’t help by keeping that wicked grin plastered on his handsome mug.

“That’s his,” Felicia tossed back at them all.

“Well, you did well for yourself. I love the gingers, fiery hot lovers if you ask me!”

Danny blushed softly bringing a round of heartfelt laughter from them. This only lasted a couple of more minutes because they all had to slip back to their dressing rooms to get changed out. They begged us to join them at the restaurant across the street for drinks to ring in the New Year. Danny eyed me with such a look, wordlessly begging me if we could. I shrugged and nodded I felt more than fine with it.

Felicia pleaded with us to wait it out and she’d be back to collect us and make our way to the restaurant for a nightcap with the company. We readily agreed.

Moments after her departure, a man of refined stature made his entrance. He carried himself like a man who had been quite the established dancer in a previous professional life. Danny’s demeanor changed completely the moment he entered the room. He became all business now. This had to be the Artistic Director or at the very least someone placed very high in the company roster for Dan to make the sudden switch. Whoever he might be, his poise commanded respect. It felt quite clear he dominated any room he entered.

“Daniel, my boy. My goodness it’s good to see you. Are you still dancing?”

“Freyr. It’s great to see you, too. Just some solo performances, little things to keep conditioned.”

They gently embraced, the customary kiss to each cheek that was so set with these artistic types. Well, that was my impression of them, at any rate.

“When are you coming back? I miss your fire. Please think about it. I understand your reasons for leaving.” His gaze moved to me, “I am glad you’ve seen fit to move on.”

“Oh, yes. Let me introduce you to my boyfriend, Angus Carr. Angus, Freyr Olesen, the Artistic Director of the company.”

We shook hands.

“A pleasure, sir.”

“The pleasure is mine.” My mother didn’t rear me to be anything but socially correct in situations like this.

“Well, do what you can to get him to come back to us, will you? Wallace was adequate, but he’s no firebrand like you are, my boy.”

“I can’t deny, I do miss it.”

He smiled warmly, glancing between us.

“Well, see? Then it’s settled.”

A few moments later and he, too, departed. Felicia scooped us up shortly thereafter followed by nearly half the company of dancers.

“It’s the closing cast party. We’ve sort of booked the restaurant to help us ring in the New Year. I’m so glad you’re joining us.”

The cocktails flowed as strongly as the conversations. Danny’s friends within the company all seemed to be happy we came along. It warmed me to my very core to see him in the thick of what made him positively glow with the energy that poured off of them. He drank it in like mother’s milk. It was life to him, far more than I think he wanted to admit.

As the hour to ring in the New Year drew near I pulled him to me.

“I love you, Daniel Lynn Jericho, and I am so going to figure out how to get you back here. It’s where you belong. Even I can see that now. You’re meant to have the life of a star dancer or whatever they call them. This is your world. I want to give that back to you.”

His eyes glistened. He raised himself slightly so his face stood mere inches from mine.

“Angus Aodh Carr, I am so going to marry the fuck outta you.” He pecked me lightly on the tip of my nose for good measure. “But you’re wrong about all of this, you know.”

“Oh, really?”

“Um hmm.”

“How so?”

“Because this was my life. But you see, as much as I miss it, as much as I long to return to it – and it warms me to my very soul that you see that and want it for me – I just want you to know that you are my life now. Yes, I’d love to continue my career in theater. I’d love to go back and dance with all of them, but not if it means I have to trade you for that. If that were the case, then they’d lose every time. I’m not giving you up for nothing, babe.”

“FIVE …” the people of the restaurant began to count down the final moments of the year as we looked to the next.

My hands came up to cradle his face, his eyes moved up looking above me and a brilliant smile, like the light of ten thousand suns breaking from behind an ominous cloud cover, shone across his face.

“FOUR …”

“What?” I asked him. His eyes sparkled in the light of the restaurant.

“THREE …”

He nudged his chin up, goading me to see what captured his attention.

“TWO …”

I looked up and spied the sprig of mistletoe hanging right above us. I hadn’t noticed it at all when I pulled him to me.

“ONE !”

“I love you D-man, and you will dance again. I swear it.”

And sweet Jesus on the mountain, did we ever kiss.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!”