“I got a mamma. My daddy passed when I was ten. He played blues on the Quarter. Mamma, we don’t talk much. She got her a fancy husband after I left home at fifteen.”
“My mom’s fancy husband is also my father.” He snorted and took a fry for himself. “Fifteen? Why did you leave so young?”
Colt shrugged, lips twisting. “Lots of things. I mean, don’t no one want a queer boy. Don’t no one want a dumb queer boy. Don’t no one want a dumb queer boy that proves Mamma was fucking a blues man in N’awlins.”
“Hm. I’m sorry, baby.” He stroked a hand over Colt’s back. “But you look like you’re doing well for yourself despite her. Nobody wants a queer boy in my family either. My mother wants me to marry one of her friend’s debutante daughters.” He laughed. “My father says I’m ‘really pushing it’ dancing.”
“Pushing it. That sounds right.” Colt took a fry and nibbled on it. “I looked you up on my phone. I could watch you dance for my whole life and then go for seconds.”
“You… really?” He felt himself light up, a warmth that came up from his belly and put a blush on his cheeks. He smiled, pleased and touched. “You looked me up?”
“Well, sure. You’re something. I like the one with the bed best. It made me sad, but there was a happy ending, I think.”
“Bittersweet.” He nodded. “A lot of ballet is like that. To die for romance, star-crossed lovers, obstacles keeping lovers apart, broken hearts, lots of drama.” He loved the drama of the whole thing; you had to.
“Blues too. It’s story, and not normally a happy one.”
“Oh, we’re going to work so well together. Tell me how you learned to play. Did your dad teach you first?”
“He did. Mamma is a piano teacher, so I learned to read music from her, to score. I learned soul from my daddy. I learned the blues on the streets, I think.” Colt made him another perfect bite. “I had lots of help, and I wasn’t alone long. There’s a tribe of folks that have themselves and no one else.”
“A tribe. I like that.” He’d never had anything like that. Or, well…. Maybe he had? “I had some school friends I danced with and the companies that cast me—same idea, I guess. Artists, like minds sticking together.”
“That’s it. We get it. Needing to do what we do.” Colt leaned against him and fed him a french fry. “It’s a little bit different—the studio and the street. The street is all in the dark, but the studio? Oi, that’s anytime.”
He munched down the french fry and followed it with a big sip of his wine. “You have an agent now, though, right? How long did you play on the street?”
“I started playing the bars when I was seventeen, got a studio gig about three months later. Christmas music in July. Crazy.”
He laughed. “Christmas music. You’ve come a long way, then.” He kissed Colt, just a quick one.
“Oh cher, I felt about eighty foot tall, getting that paycheck.” Colt leaned into him, sipping his wine. “Ain’t nothing like that first check.”
He put an arm around Colt’s shoulders. “No shit. Nothing beats that first real paycheck for doing what you love to do. Mine was tiny, but I got to wave it in front of my father and tell him he was wrong.”
“When did you start dancing?”
“It’s kind of ironic, actually. I started when I was about four, and I went to the same studio as my three older sisters. I was so jealous of them, and my mom stuck me in class just to shut me up. They all quit, and I’m the one that stuck with it.”
“That’s cool. Three sisters, huh? Y’all close?”
“We keep in touch. Katie comes to my performances every so often; she’s still local. I’ve got an older brother too. He’s a super-lawyer. One of those white-collar people. I’m not sure I get what he does.”
“Ah. None of those in my woodpile.”
“You could take a match to most of mine—that would be okay.” He winked and sipped his wine. “I just stay in the city, and they stay over on the Gold Coast, and it’s all good.”
“It’s about making a place—places, I guess—that you’re cool.”
He smiled, leaning in for another kiss. “I’m cool right here. I know that.”
“Yeah.” Colt nibbled his bottom lip, playing with him.
“There’s more cheese if you’re hungry,” he teased, reaching out with his tongue and licking Colt’s upper lip.
“More french fries too. I like the wine in your mouth.”
“I was just going to say I like the salt on your lips.” God, how silly. Fun, and true, but silly. He pushed his fingers into Colt’s hair and kissed him, his curious tongue slipping past Colt’s lips.