Limerence (Famous Young Things #2)

by Scarlett Drake

See, it’s my birthday and my father didn’t make it again, so now I sort of want to get roughly fucked by someone who’ll let me call them daddy.”

In fact, there was only one other dancer in the world who, in the safety of my own soul, I would call better than me. And he had gone on hiatus.

There’s no one dancing right now who comes close to me, Ben, and you know it. That’s what I’d told Ben that day. And it had been true. That day, it had been true.

“You’ll kill each other,” she points out, correctly. “If Nico Savini comes here, you’ll fucking kill each other.

the second thing I hate about him: his overt homosexuality. It’s not that he’s gay, let me be clear, it’s just that he’s so fucking proud of it.

It’s just that I don’t do well with sharing, and that applies to most things—I don’t do threesomes for exactly this reason. I’m the main event, the headline act. And I’m certainly not going to share the fucking spotlight with Nicoló Savini.

I keep staring at him until he does because I want to look him in the eye and make him look away first.

Ben makes me introduce myself. A joke really, because there’s not a single person in this room who doesn’t know my name, weight, and inside leg measurement.

I pull up my DP playlist and set it to start on Trick of the Light, flick on my app, and start to run.

Because in all of the realities where I’m better and I’m healed and I’m allowed to have the life I want, it’s him who’s there next to me. It’s Felix Taylor-Brooke holding my fucking hand and looking into my fucking eyes and telling me how I’m his and he’s mine. He’s not getting cream-pied by twinks he meets in Ibiza. He’s mine.

I hate myself—for being infatuated with my biggest fucking rival since I was fifteen years old. For being so embarrassingly and stupidly in love with him all these years.

“Your parents starve themselves to put you here; your brothers and your sister go hungry so you can dance. Do you want this to be for nothing?”

“Babe, seriously? There’s therapy for this kind of thing.”

“Babe, look at me. I love myself. Some would argue too much, and with abandon, so my self-esteem is not something you need to worry about, trust me.”

“Yeah, hi, I’m looking to get my hole destroyed by a prominent member of the British government please?”

It’s hot as fuck knowing his government’s foreign secretary, someone he sees every single day, is fucking me into next week while he pulls my hair and I call him daddy.

“He’s straight as a flagpole.”

Gay as a maypole

So we don’t have a huge amount in common, but you’d be surprised at how little that sort of thing matters when he’s eating my ass like it’s ice cream on a hot summer day.

“Incest joke. Sorry, wrong audience.”

his nose is actually in proportion to his huge mouth.

I open my mouth to say something, to insult him in some way to knock him off his high horse, but my brain is still malfunctioning at the sight of him. I have absolutely nothing. It’s embarrassing. I’m ashamed of myself.

“This must be a walk in the part for you,” he says. I blink, then raise an eyebrow speculatively. He goes on, “Posing, having people tell you how good you look, being stared at.” “A walk in the park,” I say. “It’s a walk in the park not a walk in the part.” I have to fight against some weird urge to find that cute. He looks faintly embarrassed. Which, to my absolute horror, is also sort of cute.

I hate Felix, too, it just so happens that I’m in love with him at the same time. Which isn’t something I’d recommend to anyone who likes being sane.

I could have fallen for anyone; that’s the real fucking kicker here. There’s been a hundred guys more passionate, less shallow, more interesting, less fucking irritating than him who’ve given me looks over the years. Looks I understood well enough. So what the fuck was it about this one?

He’s beautiful, yes, talented, yes, but everything else about him, everything that should turn me off, is louder and more pervasive, and far harder to ignore.

I should hate him. And I’ve made a good fucking show of it over the years, but I don’t. I can’t. I’ve tried.

“Are you doing this just to piss me off?” She gives me a look. “I know this is hard for you to understand. I know you live every day with the burden and pressure of being the main character in everyone’s life, but, and I do mean this with love, but not everything is about you, Felix.”

He looks like something out of a biblical tale about original sin. Carnal and debauched.

I’m done lying to women I don’t want because I can’t have the man I do want.

“You’re doing incredibly well, Nico. I’m so proud of you. Your attempts to get to know this person who has been a fixture in your mind for so long, to push past this limerence you have when it relates to him and get to know him, honestly. It’s progress.”

It’s almost impossible to imagine it. Him being sad about anything. Mainly because I don’t think he cares about anything that much to be able to feel that sort of emotion.

I wonder what Nico would look like under me like this, how it would sound to hear him call me beautiful? Excuse me, what?

“Nico. I think you like him.” “Maybe I’ll just stab you with this fork anyway.”

I knew that even if I had been dancing that year, I’d still have lost to Felix. He was completely unbeatable that day.

Everyone in the auditorium stood and applauded loudly—everyone except his father—and Felix beamed. Then his eyes fell on his dad. And those eyes lost their light almost immediately.

Felix put the light on in people’s eyes, he didn’t snuff it out.

I hated ballet. Loathed it, in fact. My great secret. I do it because it’s the only thing I know how to do.

I danced and danced until I was the best in the world—bar one perfect, beautiful exception.

I keep dancing. I keep moving and spinning and jumping because if I stop, then maybe I’ll stop fucking existing altogether. There was a time when I’d wanted that too.

“I’m done here, studio’s all yours, princess.”

“Or I’ll fucking castrate you.” Honestly, the very idea of him anywhere near my dick makes my thoughts turn to hot white noise.

I will end you.” Oh, you already do, sweetheart. You already do.

“I couldn’t stay. Not to play second.” Not to him. Though, deep down, he’s the only one I’d play second to. Because he is the best.

“You making your way through the entire company? Who’s next?” He throws a look over his shoulder. “Well, it sure as fuck isn’t you, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Very tragic what happened. You must have been devastated.” Not at all, actually. Watching him be lowered into the ground was the best day of my life.

I might have been paying less attention had Ava been talking about anyone BUT Felix.

“Christian has known Felix since he was a child;

EWWW

“You know, you’re going to need to do far better at hiding it.”

“You think I don’t know?” He gives me a mean smile as he turns to face me fully. “I see it every time you fucking look at me, Savini.”

“You’re not as good at hiding it as you think you are. I see it clear as fucking day. I always have.”