Page 56 of The Dramatic Life of Jonah Penrose
“Super cute.” Jonah reached up and ran his fingers through the blond strands. “You mad at me?”
“No.”
“Can I kiss you?”
Dexter thought for a moment. “Yes.”
Jonah closed the gap between them and felt Dexter’s lips against his. They fit together perfectly, two halves of a unique shape. He wanted to know more about him, about the secrets he seemed to guard, about the people in his life and the stories connected to them.
“So... the whole dating someone you work with thing. Is that because of what happened before? Do you still want us to just be casual? A secret?” Jonah asked, the question caught up between their breaths.
Dexter pulled away, and Jonah felt the heat of his body fade. “Jonah,” he groaned. “I don’t know, okay?”
“Oh,” Jonah mumbled. “I’m sorry. I’m not even sure why I asked that.” He cleared his throat, then forced a smile. “You coming to karaoke after the show tonight?”
“Yeah,” Dexter said awkwardly, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. “I love karaoke.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Silence hung in the air as they looked at each other. They’d experienced the silence before, but it usually came from built-up tension and ended in them taking each other’s clothes off in a heated frenzy. This silence, however, gave Jonah physical pain.
“I... um, I should go get ready for the show.”
“Yeah,” Dexter said with a nod.
“Break a leg and all that,” Jonah said, backing up to the door in quitepossibly the most uncomfortable and horrendous way someone had ever tried to leave a room.
“The fuck are you doing?” Sherrie asked, seeing Jonah step out of the room like a burglar on a kids’ cartoon show.
“I literally have no idea,” he said and walked past her, swearing at himself under his breath and praying that the world would implode so he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life replaying the exchange over and over again in his head.
Twenty-Three
“The blood of the innocent seeps into the soil and I can hear Demeter weep as the grain drips rubies.”
—“I Pray the Gods Forgive Me,”The Wooden Horse, Act One
Dexter stood on the stage in the bar. He wound the microphone wire around his palm, cocky smile plastered on his face as the first few notes of the song he chose drifted through the crowd from the speakers. Jonah laughed to himself and shook his head as Dexter pointed at him, singling him out from the others, then felt a flush spread over his cheeks as he realized what song Dexter had on. “Afternoon Delight” by Starland Vocal Band. Jonah watched as Dexter swayed his hips, the bright yellow T-shirt he wore practically glowing beneath the glitter ball above his head. Jonah already gave him shit for the top before they even left the theatre: one of his Piniquo specials complete with an embroidered cat right in the middle of it, something Jonah would have happily set fire to before Dexter told him how much the hideous thing cost. But, seeing him up there, the most stunning smile on his face as he put just as much energy into singing a song about sex in the afternoon as he gave throughout an entire 150-minute performance at the theatre, made something inside of Jonah tingle, a feeling he hadn’t felt in... he didn’t want to think how long.
The feeling, something he recognized, couldn’t be the one he associated with Dexter. He could look at him and feel all levels of lust, his attraction to him couldn’t be denied, but this feeling... the feeling of floating, of feeling warm even in the midst of the deepest, darkest winter, it couldn’t be real. He didn’t want it to be real. Yet, there the feelingdwelled. It flourished as he watched him, the goofiness of his performance earning him cheers while Sherrie danced with Bastien happily before him. Was a month all it took? Four simple weeks of finding a strange and unnerving balance between professional criticism and the most mind-blowing orgasms Jonah ever experienced? A month of letting Dexter’s name fall from his lips, of feeling his palm pressed against his under the sheets and eking out parts of him he kept undercover, things that made him feel so much more than bloody casual he could scream?
It wasn’t love. He wasn’tin lovewith Dexter Ellis. Not yet, anyway. But he liked him, he really liked him. He was in like with him, which he knew was a treacherous hill to be on because those two L words could so easily be interchanged. Like. Love. Like. Love...
The feeling didn’t come in like the tide, steady and reliable. No, his fondness for the man gallivanting about onstage crashed into him like the sea on a stormy night, the same storms that used to scare him as a child when the thunder rolled on the waves outside of his house. It winded him. It reached down his throat and pulled the air out of his lungs then left him with nothing but the overwhelming feeling of wanting, no, needing Dexter, like he’d never breathe again if he wasn’t near him. Which, when Jonah really thought about it, was mildly terrifying.
As Dexter finished his song, the crowd in the bar clapped loudly, like fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Dexter made his way from the stage, his eyes on Jonah as he moved through the bodies before him. He danced as he moved, smiling and laughing as people spoke with him. Jonah stood back and watched, the smile on his face mirroring Dexter’s, and he allowed himself to forget about their awkward exchange in the dressing room earlier. Dexter moved closer and closer until he suddenly stopped, his path blocked by a man taller than himself, and his smile turned from jovial to something far more intent, the same smile he gave Jonah before telling him exactly what he wanted to do with his mouth before going onstage.
The man who stole Dexter’s attention rested his hand on Dexter’s hip, a small gesture, friendly on the surface, but Jonah could see how firmly his fingers were pressed against Dexter’s hip bone, and he wanted to snap each and every one of them in half. The man said something, and Dexterthrew his head back with laughter, sweat glistening across his forehead. Then he leaned closer to the man, Dexter’s lips so painfully close to his ear, and Jonah wondered what the hell could be so funny to warrant Dexter following it up with a seductive whisper.
“Babe!” Bastien hollered over the crowd, his cheeks red, limbs loose from alcohol. “It’s our turn.” He grabbed Jonah’s hand and pulled him toward the stage, away from Dexter and the man with groping hands and into the spotlight he hoped wouldn’t wash out his complexion. Omari already stood there with a microphone, his cheekbones glistening with glitter beneath the sparkling lights, ready to show everyone just how professional karaoke could be. A microphone found its way to Jonah’s hand, and Bastien nudged him in the ribs with his elbow, gesturing toward the TV screen displaying the song title and opening lyrics. But Jonah couldn’t tear his eyes away from the man whose hand had now made its way to Dexter’s forearm.
The crowd cheered as the first notes of the song played. Sherrie’s bright-pink hair bobbed beneath the glittering lights as she waved her arms rhythmically, doing her best impersonation of Stevie Nicks. Romana danced beside her, slender warms wrapping around Sherrie’s waist as she pressed kisses to the other woman’s neck. Bastien started singing and nudged Jonah again, who this time looked away from Dexter and focused on the screen, where the lyrics to “We Built This City” flashed before him. He opened his mouth and assumed noise escaped him, words, hopefully, and not some strangled screech akin to a dying animal. By the sounds of the people in the bar who sang triumphantly along with them, he guessed he wasn’t embarrassing Bastien and Omari by wailing and decided that, hey, Dexter could flirt all he wanted, they werecasualafter all. Not only that, but he didn’t want to be anything other than casual with someone who attempted to trip him on national television, kicked him in the dick, and accosted his lips for no reason other than jealousy.
Only. Those things didn’t matter anymore. Dexter opening up about the relationship with his dad mattered, him standing close to be protective at the stage door mattered, and the way he mumbled in his sleepmattered. The man Jonah knew as the real Dexter Ellis mattered, with his embroidered clothes and obsession with cleaning; he became more real each day, and the green monster Dexter started out as faded as if he were a bad character note scribbled out by a director.
As Jonah continued to sing, Bastien dancing and belting by his side, he searched Dexter out in the crowd again and found him, the man he spoke to leaning in, eyes closed, moving toward Dexter’s lips. The room flashed in shades of green and red, Jonah becoming the jealous creature left behind by Dexter, and he shouldn’t have cared, he really shouldn’t have given it a second thought; Dexter owed him nothing. But it didn’t stop the bitter taste from seeping through Jonah’s gums, the words he sang suddenly angry and less joyful than they should have been. Omari glared at him, karaoke something he took as seriously as his role onstage, but Jonah didn’t care because who gave a fuck about karaoke when Dexter was about to make out with some random guy right in front of him?
But then Dexter stopped the man. He moved his head back and placed a hand on the guy’s chest, halting him. The stranger frowned and narrowed his eyes, a look of bemusement on his face that Jonah totally understood; the guy was bloody gorgeous and Dexter had just turned him down. They spoke, the words forever lost in the sea of voices and karaoke background music, his own vocals drowning out whatever they said to each other, and the man shook his head, stepping back as Dexter pointed up to the stage, to Jonah, and the man looked, too, and he saw Jonah looking back at them and something like realization dawned on his face.
