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Lee was shaking. He wiped his sweaty palms on his legs and stood up straight. There was a tremor to his lip he couldn’t control, beating heart clawing out of his ears and throat.
He looked behind his shoulder and saw several others shaking out their hands, stretching their bodies and pushing their palms high above. Lee looked down at himself and watched as he tapped the floor with his bare feet. He watched the bones ripple under his skin.
He crouched down and hugged his legs to his chest, easing the thrumming that would burst out of his body if it wouldn’t settle.
There was a loud cacophony of applause through the curtains in front of him. He bit his lip and looked up, running his fingers through his tightly cropped hair to give his anxiousness a last threat before he’d actually break down.
“Next!”
Lee pushed himself up to his feet and pushed away the black curtain in front of him. He strutted long and tried to be confident as he got blinded by the harsh spotlight shining from the equipment room perched high above across the stage. He didn’t look at those who were seated front row and showed his back to them, waiting for the music to start.
“Hold. Hold onto me. ‘Cause I’m a little unsteady. Little unsteady.”
Lee’s body moved the moment the beat came. He leaned down and carried grace with his movements. The contemporary movement he had been practicing ever since came alive with flexing muscles.
He jumped before landing in a clean, elongating split. The music rose higher and his body responded immediately to its change. Lee gathered himself, still in character, and leaned back until his head met the floor. His arms supported him and his legs stretched high up towards the ceiling.
The music stopped and he fell with poise and a gasp to his lips. He stood up with a small bow and flushed at the applause he heard. The judges looked back down to their sheets and the host ushered Lee down the stage.
His feet immediately rounded him backstage to gather his things. He wore his shoes and tied them neatly. There was a moment where he watched the next candidate walk through the black curtain on the other side. With a rub to his nose, Lee shouldered his bag and headed out back to the theatre seats.
Most of the others were seated, quiet and entranced by the other performances unfolding. A lot were hiding their faces either by hands or leaning down to their knees, crying.
“D’you think you’re getting in?”
Lee looked at the young woman next to him. She had her hair tied high into a bun. Her neck was long and postured and dropped into well muscled shoulders.
“I trained 24 years of my life for this moment.”
“Your technique was so incredible. Who did you learn from?”
Lee chuckled then leaned himself heavily on the cushioned seat. A sigh left his lips, “My uncle died last week. Colon cancer and he told me not to give this up.”
The woman held his arm and gave it a squeeze, “I’m sure he watched. I wish you get in if not me.”
“There will be five chosen for the scholarship. I’ll be glad to be studying with you.”
The flow of beats surrounded the theatre. Both of them watched as someone else showed their odds at getting the famed scholarship from a world renowned dance instructor.
“And another round of applause from everyone for having participated in this event,” the host gestured clapping. The theatre roared loudly with all the participants.
“After a few hours, we’ll have the results. The judges will rewatch some parts of every routine as we have individually taken a video of it. You can stay here or be back at 3:30.”
The participants were noisy as they filed out the big doors. Lee watched as most of the theatre filled out into the open. The contrast between dark and sudden light made him dizzy.
The woman bid her goodbyes as well and headed out. He wanted to roam around town too, easing the shivers inside his chest. But when he looked back at the stage, in his mind’s eyes, he saw how perfect he swayed with the music. He recalled everything in his routine and sighed in relief when he realized he didn’t even improvise with any mistake he made because he danced it all on point.
With a small pinch to his thigh, he decided to stand up and head towards the door. An uncertainty washed over him as he crossed out into the sidewalk.
The others were still by the doors and a group of girls were on the offside of the road. One was hysterically crying while clutching her phone to her chest.
“What’s happened?” a boy asked him. Lee shrugged his shoulders and started backing up through an open space out of the commotion.
The woman comforting her was the same as who Lee had met a while ago. She gave him a small sad smile. “Apparently, they’re giving out texts as whether you’re in or not. So,” she pulled out her phone and clasped it on her stomach tightly, waiting for the message.
The others sighed and announced they were going home instead. But the majority stood their ground while waiting.
It was nearing 6 pm and Lee was exhausted with the humidity and exertion he made for these past months. He’d been constantly practicing and rehearsing his movement physically and mentally.
His phone vibrated.
Lee held his breath. He looked around him and saw others sitting by the gutter, others being held close due to fainting.
Being cut the opportunity to fulfill a dream is highly frustrating. The concept of disappointment was already ingrained inside Lee. He’d experienced almost being thrown out of stage from what he had delivered. He faced frustration and hungry nights.
All for a dream.
“Have you made it?”
Lee looked up and saw his friend flick her hair over her shoulder. She seemed unswayed by her own message.
With trembling fingers, he opened the message with an abrupt tap.
A long winding breath came out from his pale lips. He blinked several times before he could fully understand what it was telling.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Lee felt incredibly nauseous. He stood up hurriedly. When the woman tried to make him sit back down, he swayed until he realized he was hurriedly walking away from her, away from the theatre.
Suddenly, he wanted to run.
The loud horns of the cars by the streets blowing made him jump back to himself. He looked around and clenched his fists tightly.
It’d take an hour’s walk to get back home. Lee was already near his front steps.
A buzz made Lee look down at his feet. They were laced now with shoes but it could not hide what Lee was seeing. Callouses and scars from the burns it got from scraping the floor. Protruding veins from getting wet constantly with sweat. His feet that suffered most of his blows. Sprained and bruised beyond belief.
He sat back and tried to ground himself. The world was slowly spinning around him. He wobbled on his fours and braced himself on the wooden fence of his neighbor.
He started retching into the flower bush he watered every morning. It came out only with water and a few strings of biscuits.
The try outs for the scholarship made him anxious the rest of the week before its date was announced. Lee hasn’t eaten anything solid by then.
He wrapped his arms around him to stop his shivering. It was violent and crawled up to his neck, chattering his teeth. His muscles trembled and the ones on his thighs twitched.
A gape started opening in his stomach, clawing into a hole of sudden despair. Lee whimpered before closing his eyes to stop it blurring.
“How dare you dirty the flowers I pick?”
Lee jolted with the sudden noise. The ground under him seemed to shake making him sit back on his bottom. Disoriented, he tried to make out who noticed him.
“You're very rude. I’ve been watering these plants for as long as I remember!”
Lee watched as the man crossed his arms over a tattered Henley, lithe muscles underneath. Gulping, Lee tried to voice out his protest.
The man raised a finger, “What would my customers think of the flowers smelling--”
He stopped, confused with Lee’s sudden laughing. “Are you laughing at me?”
Lee seemed to get back the feeling in his legs. He pushed up and stretched himself, wiping the neck of his shirt to his mouth. “You told me it was your flowers?”
“I never knew Americans to be deaf. I told you I watered them!” the man seemed to lean back, crossing his arms on his chest again.
“I got you the first time, but I’ve been the one watering these ever since,” Lee gestured to his family’s house; a house the only shelters empty names.
The flush that appeared pink on the man’s face made Lee chuckle a bit more. He held out a hand, “I’m Lee. I haven’t...seen you anywhere?”
“I am a hardworking man. I mostly sleep in my bakery across town. I am a very good baker!”
Lee noticed how the other only watched his hand. “You’re supposed to say your name and shake my hand.” The man was hilarious.
“Oh. Elias? Okay.”
They shook hands and suddenly, Elias wiped his hand on his trousers, “You haven’t washed your hands yet.”
“So I haven’t,” Lee’s shoulders were shaking. He pushed his palms onto his eyes to relieve the throbbing in his head. But the rumbles in his chest eased the pain even for a bit.
“Do you want to wash your hands in my house? I have a beautiful home.”
“I’d--”
Lee watched as Elias started to immediately fidget with what he was going to say. He looked down and kicked at something on the pavement.
With a few breaths, Lee gathered himself and leaned into Elias’ space, “Alright.”
The smile that lit the other’s face made Lee genuinely happy, just for a moment.
He was not expecting that he’d be catered with lots of carefully designed cupcakes and slices of cakes. Not to mention the trouble Elias had gotten into to plug in the chocolate fountain.
Lee sat with his chin on his palm on the kitchen table. The icing was sticky between his fingers but the moment he took a bite, he moaned.
“Why haven’t I heard of your store before? You do it good,” Lee sucked his fingers and caught the stray icing that smeared his digits.
He immediately noticed how Elias watched him with wide eyes from where he was crouched in. He still hasn’t gotten the plug into the socket.
Lee raised an eyebrow then leaned his elbows on the table, “Something on my face?”
Elias shook his head quick before diving back between the wooden counters and pushed his arm through it. The buzz of the fountain made Elias cry out. He fell back on the floor and looked at it.
A slight jolt to Lee’s stomach brought up a burn to his throat. He swallowed it away and closed his eyes, easing the nausea away. He shook his head.
“It was nice of you to bring me here, Elias. I have to go though,” he hugged his bag to his chest and backed out of the room.
Lee saw how Elias turn his head towards him, panting from his exertion. He saw the hurt.
The scene didn’t leave Lee even after he pushed the front doors to his home.
“I told you you are not fit to join such classes,”
Lee tried to hold the sweet burn in his throat. He looked to his right and almost cowered under his aunt’s sharp gaze.
“Is there something wrong with pursuing a dream?”
“Your only dream is to inherit your old man’s business, is it not easy?”
Lee wanted to take a step forward. He wanted to release the angry energy balled up on the left side of his chest. There was a second in between his breaths that he decided that peace was much more important.
He took a step back. His ears caught the sounds from their neighborhood. He belonged to this life, and not of what he always wanted to have.
He wanted to be independent, far from his family name and status.
“I’ll become your slave then,” he said.
Leslie opened her mouth, but her retort died when Lee walked away.
---
Lee made sure that the moment his brother moved out, he sorted out his room to cater to his needs. Half of it was the normal bedroom one would have with a single bed, a walk-in closet and cabinets.
The other half was a long expanse of polished wooden floorings and wall length mirrors. A small sound system was tucked into a corner which Lee flocked towards to after flinging his things on his bed.
He popped in the jack to his phone pressed play.
‘Hold on to me. ‘Cause I’m a little unsteady.’
Lee tried to stand up and move but his body sagged down onto the floor.
He lay sideways, watching his reflection in the mirror.
‘You’re a failure,’ his voice whispered. Lee buried his wet face on his arm.
‘You had one shot.’
He stretched onto the floor and ran his fingers on his head. He tried grabbing at the hair but it slipped through his fingers.
He sat up abruptly even if the pain that fell from his stomach made him dizzy The music was playing on silent as he pressed the volume rocker down.
He tapped next and turned the volume up again. The next song was always his pick-me-up. He staggered and placed himself in the middle of the floor, back to the mirror.
‘Hey boy, let’s not talk too much. Grab on my waist and put that body on me.’
He moved his hips and brought it down with an eight figure. His legs turned him around to shimmy his hips backwards. The rush of feeling pounding in his head made him put more accent to his body.
The step he turned into gave him a chance to move his arms.
The movement was too close to his practice routine.
He fell.
Lee faced the ceiling, panting, sweat dripping from his forehead. He arched his back towards it before slumping back against the floor. He rubbed his eyes before turning again and laying on his stomach.
His face crumpled bit by bit before his breath was stolen by his sobs. He hugged his shaking body and cried out. When most people ask him why he hasn’t enrolled in dance school, there was always something in his chest that fell out of him.
Most of his family died already and before they were buried, they always had this notion of prepping their young to inherit their legacy.
And now his aunt was left to look over it. And it meant that Lee was the young they were training for it.
Lee curled into a ball and closed his eyes hoping that when he woke up he had the strength to live on.
---
Elias twiddled his thumbs before wiping his cheeks. He had sat on the same spot near the socket where Lee had left him.
He kept looking back at the door thinking the man would at least come back and continue being there by his presence. But space was empty and the silence was deafening him.
He stood up. The chocolate fountain box was on the floor making Elias huff and lean down for it. The fountain was boxed and eased back neatly in the cabinet overhead.
The table was cleared and the cupcakes were brought back into the fridge. The table was empty save for a small slice of chocolate cake.
Elias remembered the first time he moved into the house his father had kept a secret. Most of his research was given praise in America opposite of what had happened in Denmark.
Sucking his fingers, he finished and let the plate clatter into the sink.
The watch on his wrist fell loosely forward and he checked the time.
He had been proud of what he has done so far with his new life. With his hard earned business running smoothly, he was slowly getting recognition from small town food magazines and praises from online blogs.
The cafe wasn’t a success the first time he and Gab thought about. Gab had shook his head and shot down what he was planning.
“Let me bake,” Elias declared, snot running down the slit on his lips. Gab wondered if anyone would find that endearing. His brother was a freak in most people’s eyes. What more in another country?
An hour passed and Gab looked up from his laptop filled with reports and teaching materials when Elias came back from the kitchen and placed a cupcake tray in front of him.
Elias removed his mittens and sat down on a high stool eager for his brother to get a taste.
Gab shot him another look, “When you like something too much Elias, you tend to get hurt. Remember the bull?”
Elias curled in on himself and looked away, “The bull had been very old. How dare you say little of my passions?”
Gab smacked the table making Elias almost fall off his seat. “You are nothing but bad luck! And if you make this happen, it will go down the ground and you will be bankrupt before you know it!”
Elias started sobbing, “How dare you call me incompetent! Get out of my house! Out!”
Elias stood by the door, crying, red faced and veiny. His shoulders constantly hacked because of the severity of his sobs. His knees couldn’t lock and he watched as Gab drove his car away.
In that moment, Elias promised himself to work hard. And that night, he logged in a quaint social media site and posted about how he took orders for pastries.
--
Lee sat on a clerical chair, staring blankly at the large pile of papers in front of him.
On his first day, he was introduced around as the son of the owner of the company. He didn’t want that. The employees looked at him like he had a large halo on top of his head. He didn’t feel one bit special with what he was given with.
Most of them might think that he’s good for the rest of his life but had they thought about where real happiness lay? Lee scratched at his growing beard and held the end of the table to scoot closer to the paperwork.
He was given menial tasks for the meantime to understand how the company worked and how papers came in and out.
Lee blinked rapidly at the harsh glow of the PC’s monitor. He slouched and sighed. It was too silent.
When music flooded his ears, he smiled to himself and tangled his finger around the earphone’s wires. The work became easier and as he took a quick glance at papers piling up next to him, he felt confident that it was going to be finished in no time.
Lee didn’t notice the time anymore. He realized he had been reaching to nothing when he checked. With suppressed celebratory squirming, Lee leaned back on his chair and stretched.
“Christ!” Lee jumped when a hand held his shoulder. He staggered and turned, leaning his bottom against the desk.
His aunt stood in front of him.
He tore the earbuds from his ears and saw how his aunt held out her hand.
“Leslie, you know I can’t.”
“Didn’t you tell me you were going to do what I say?”
He handed over his accessories and sat back down on his chair. He saw an employee coming with a wad of papers again.
Leslie ran a manicured hand on Lee’s broad shoulder, “At this rate, you’ll finally be doing what your father always wanted you to do.”
‘My father wanted me to dance,’ he bit back, wincing at the harsh tone his mind had came up with.
“It’s only five pm. I think I’ll best be letting you off by 9,” she said. Lee watched her go through the reflection of the LCD. She had a weight to her, stern and disciplined.
But Lee saw the sadness in her. Her crutch was the company as it was the last memory of both her brother and her husband.
--
Elias finished the last batch of danish bread to last until their midnight shift. He headed towards the sink and washed his hands thoroughly.
Stepping back, he pulled out the coal oven’s hatch and carried up a drum to add some more to the blaze. It sparked before fizzing in the air. He closed it back up and washed his hands again. Reaching for a rag, he wiped his face and hands.
“Elias, can you hold the counter for a moment? I need to use the bathroom?”
Elias looked over his shoulder and nodded. He frowned at his assistant who seemed to be incredibly fidgety and sighed.
“Okay. Leave?”
The assistant chuckled and patted both of Elias’s shoulders. “The proper response should be, ‘Yes, you may leave.’ It sounds like you’re firing me.”
Elias ducked his head and twiddled his thumbs. “I’ll take note of it.”
“Off I go!”
Elias waved at the retreating man and headed out the door where the cafe was. He manned the counter and greeted the customer first in line with broken English.
--
Lee walked out of the glass doors exhausted and defeated. For all that he has done, there was a lot of malice towards how he was taught the trade.
He closed his eyes and imagined how free being a performer was. No restraints. A man pushed him aside by the shoulder.
“You were blocking the way,” he simply said, walking away.
Lee rubbed at his shaved head and groaned. The industry thrived on fake alliances and bonds formed through money.
He didn’t want to be part of it. But he wouldn’t survive without a job and a steady allowance at this rate. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked.
The smell of fresh bread was brought in by the cold wind and perked his suffering soul. He tiptoed over the heads of the strangers in the street and spotted a brightly lit window at the end of the block. Lee stepped carefully passed the several people that barreled towards him and entered the cafe with a stumble.
In an instant, Lee wanted to get out and forget about ever coming to the cafe in the first place. Behind the counter was Elias, tongue stuck out, concentrating over the digital cashier stand. Lee stepped back and the customer left the counter.
Elias’ eyes were gold in the light. There was a twitch to his lip and it cued Lee to get away. He stepped back out and into the dark cold street.
Lee felt the nausea back in his stomach. It was hard to remove the association he made with the feeling of how he lost and how he met this innocent baker. Elias left a bitter taste to his mouth.
It wasn’t his fault entirely. The flaw was being at the wrong time and place. Lee held both his arms and mimicked a hug to his body.
“Wait!”
Lee turned and his knees buckled. A hand held at his shirt and made him stagger back onto his feet--bless the button that tore away.
“Why did you leave? My cafe and bakery is the best in town! Surely you were only shocked by how big I was.” Elias stood in front of him and was awkwardly keeping a large box of pastries under his armpit.
Lee gulped, frozen in time. He watched as time brought to him a slow descent of Elias’ lashes and the slow twitch to his moustache. He felt suffocated by the feeling. The drum of his heart started from the depths of his chest down to the hard bone he was pressing onto his shoes.
“What are you doing, Elias?”
“Weren’t you scared of how big I am? I’m incredibly nice and not rude. Not rude.” Elias nodded, more to himself, and with a slow step towards Lee, he handed him the deformed box.
“What’s this?”
“You’re dumb for a very handsome person.”
Lee opened his mouth but thought against it when he saw the squished cupcakes inside the box. They were pretty even if the icing was practically pressed hard against the clear plastic covering. “I’m not dumb.”
It was unlike Lee to be speechless. He looked back up to see how tears started gathering in Elias’ eyes.
“Why are you crying?”
Elias wiped the back of his hands to his face and sniffled, “You’re rude. I thought you were nice. How dare you be so ungrateful.”
Lee opened the box and took a bite of the cupcake and let the icing stick to his cheeks, “They taste great, luv. Don’t give one doubt in your head they aren’t. I was rude.”
Elias watched the cake get into the man’s mouth. He sighed, “You’re weird.”
Lee felt a small smile creep up his face. “Good weird?”
The cupcake’s remains smeared Lee’s fingertips. Elias moved to pull something out from his pocket and started wiping Lee’s fingers with a wad of unused tissue.
“Why did you run after me?”
“I wanted to be friends,” Elias whispered, a small tear falling down his cheek. Lee didn’t see where it fell onto the pavement.
The masses of people started coming in more as the hour ticked towards midnight. People bumped and avoided them at the same time.
“May I invite you back to my café?”
Lee noticed the nausea in his gut slowly fading away. He stared at Elias again and felt the thoughts of his failure slowly getting replaced by how frantic Elias stumbled towards him with all the hope in his eyes.
“Yes.”
--
After a few hours, the night found Elias and Lee sitting out on a bench in the town’s garden. Between them were several soft bread and cheeses accompanied with a large tumbler of hot chocolate.
“Why did you leave?”
“We talked about that already,” Lee chewed on the warm danish with a cherry filling, “I told you we always have that feeling we want to avoid. I remembered how I failed dance academy when I met you. It wasn’t your fault.”
Lee saw how violently Elias shook his head, “No. My house.” He seemed to look for the words. Lee found it warming that Elias took his time to translate what he had in his head just to make their conversation continue.
“I mean, why did you leave my house?”
“I felt suffocated. Did you have any experiences in your life when you felt you’ve been wrecked?”
“Wrecked?”
Lee chuckled, sucking the jelly from his fingers. Elias tracked it before pushing his bag onto his lap. He felt the blush from his cheeks roll down to the skin of his chest.
“What I meant was, have you failed in any way that you thought you’re never gonna live it down for the rest of your life?”
“I accidentally poisoned my brother with my baking.”
Lee almost choked on the hot chocolate. “What?”
“I mistake,” Elias stopped before correcting himself, “mistook the salt for fish poison.”
“Why was there poison in the kitchen?”
“It was one of my brother’s pranks that turned out bad. We had to bring my other brother to the hospital for a few days.”
“You felt like the world left you then, have you?”
Elias nodded. “Is that how you feel?”
Lee tipped his head to the side. “You don’t get to choose what you want to have in a situation. Can you forgive me for being rude to you?”
“Yes. Just don’t interrupt me anymore.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Elias. May I ask where you’ve come from?”
The night poured stars over the two. When the conversation halted, they shared silence with their warm drinks and filled the spaces of their lost lives with bread for the soul.
--
As Lee stared at the cursor on the computer screen, he couldn’t help but smile at what awaited him in the afternoon. He continued his work and prepared coffee for the higher ups in their department.
Before lunch could happen, Lee was whisked away by his aunt towards an executive meeting at her office’s chambers. They slid into a presentation in a heated discussion about which company they needed to cut off if they needed to have better revenue and income. Lee sat down on the far edge and watched how his aunt pacified the starting debate and placated them by telling that they would cut off the nearby company who still has a lot of debt to pay for before being able to get more from them.
There was a long shiver that erupted in his spine when his aunt looked at him. “Now Lee, what do you think? Would it be beneficial to us if we cut off another company?”
All the division heads turned and looked straight at him. With his baggy shirt and fit pants, Lee felt undressed for the meeting. He stood up and mustered all the courage he knew he had in him—lost though under his aunt’s scrutiny.
“I think it’s not beneficial to cut another company.”
His aunt proceeded to shoot him down by pointing out that they still have one company to cut because of their disloyal activities involving another third party insurance company.
Lee sat back down and closed his eyes. He listened to the sounds in the room and started counting, calming himself and before long, he was in his mind with soft grace pulling him into a dance. It calmed him down for a few minutes before his aunt held him on the collar and proceeded to maneuver him out of the office.
They stopped mid corridor towards the elevator. His aunt stood straight and her chin was pointed up.
“You couldn’t be meaner than this. You’re unfair. You’re only my aunt. You’re not my mother. I’m never your son and I’ll never live up to your expectations because I was born differently than what you wanted. You can’t create me from scratch and expect me to be innately good.”
“No. You are not my son. But you have a legacy to fulfill.”
“The only legacy my father wants me to do is to dance.”
“And where have it gotten you?”
“I can always try a second time for a second academy on a different genre. Watch me.”
“How many times have you tried?”
Lee’s words were stuck in his throat. He’d been trying out since he was sixteen. He looked high up into the ceiling and shook his head. “Maybe not a dance school anymore I guess. I can join competitions and create a something online to help those who wants to pursue their dreams to become like me.”
“Stop this nonsense, Lee. You are a Fallon. Stop this idiocy and continue working under your own company and after a few years you’ll thank me that I put up with you.”
“No. You’re wrong. You can’t always buy your way into people’s minds. You can’t poison us with your words.”
She looked back over her shoulder. “Don’t come back here crying and telling that I was right because I’ll not be welcoming you anymore than I have before.”
“Then I’ll tell you again, watch me.”
--
“Elias?”
It was the start of the darkening of the sky until it turned into a gloomy twilight. Lee rapped on the door he came to remember as the days had passed by. Elias had been more of a constant to his working life after he’d been cut off from the dance community due to his recent failure.
It was a Thursday night and the café was only open up until five. Elias opened the door while rubbing his eyes, “Who’s it?”
“It’s ‘who is it?’”
“Who is it?” There was a large grin to Elias’s mouth as he took his fill of Lee. He was stunning under the different colors of the sunset.
“Lee Fallon. Dancer. Amateur Baker. Maybe the friend who lives over the next block where you claimed to have been watering the flowers in front of it.”
The laugh that came from Elias’ chest filled Lee with a warmth he felt while dancing. “Why are you here? Did you want to see me? I’m always being knocked on the door and women of all kinds keep asking if I was available for a cup of coffee.”
“But if a man came and asked if we could have a cup of hot chocolate instead?”
“But I have to go back to the café tonight. Will this man be okay with having chocolate in the café kitchen?”
“I think this man would definitely love it. Would he be able to ask if he could watch Elias do baking? And even help maybe?”
Elias ducked his head and scratched at his moustache. “Why yes, if that man is Lee and he’ll not laugh at how I bake.”
“Never.”
---
“When did you learn to bake?”
Elias grunted as he slammed the large piece of dough onto the metal table in the middle of the room. The kitchen consisted of a long set of ovens of different types with a masonry oven as the biggest at the far end.
He tore the dough in half and proceeded to knead it to mix all the ingredients into it. “I learned when I was a kid. We had an oven but no one wanted to use it even my father. So I tried doing a lot of stuff to it until an old lady took pity on me and taught me how to do it properly.
“She was very nice and taught me recipes that I did on Christmas for my family. They ignored it but when my youngest brother got curious, everyone wanted me to bake pie for every occasion that came.”
Lee put his heavy bag down on the floor next to his stool and walked towards Elias. He pulled a long string of dough from what Elias had pushed aside. “Can you teach me?”
Elias’s eyes were filled with unshed tears. “You trust me enough to learn from me?”
“Only from the best I guess. Your skill should be advertised more. You have a gift for baking, Elias. Not to mention being all sweaty and…”
“Excuse me.”
Lee was left to toy with the dough for several minutes as he waited for wherever Elias went to.
“Who in the love of Christ are you?”
Lee jumped. “What? Me? I’m Lee.”
A small round man with thinning gray hair wobbled over to where he was. “Why are you allowed back here?”
“Elias invited me here. We’re friends.”
“Before he gets the opportunity to scare you or be weird towards you, he’s unstable. You shouldn’t be friends with him anymore.”
“What? This is uncalled for. I should be the one to judge that.”
“I’m his brother and I’ve lived with him for as long as we were still kids. Now, if you cherish your friendship with him, leave!”
“No! Why are you even saying this? He’s not unstable!”
“What’s happening? Gabriel?”
“Lee was just about to leave. He’s been a great help.”
The hurt that ran through Elias’ eyes made Lee shake his head immediately.
“No one is leaving,” Lee declared as he took his bag from the stool. Elias physically flinched when he saw how Lee was ready to leave.
He felt a warm hold to his wrist. “We’re going out. And you’re an asshole. Good night.”
Lee dragged Elias away and far from the café. The streets were still alive and it wasn’t hard to navigate around the dead streets.
“Where are we going?” Elias’ sobbing voice made Lee slow down for a moment. He turned towards him and held him close.
“Don’t be sad, luv. Was that your oldest brother?”
Elias folded onto Lee’s shoulder and buried his face onto his sweet smelling neck. After a few moments, he was wracked with sobs.
“Elias, he doesn’t have a say in your life anymore. Remember how you told me that you built the café yourself?”
Elias recalled how he saw Lee sitting on one of the comfy seats, drinking a tall macchiato while reading something from his large hardbound book. As Elias left the counter for the barista section, Lee’s eyes were now looking at him. The smile on Lee’s face made the mixing of coffee an easier task for him even if he had big clumsy hands.
“I remember. I built it. I’m strong. I made a name.”
“He shouldn’t influence you anymore, luv. Live with what you have and ignore the others.”
“But he’s my brother.”
Lee held Elias’ face In his hands. “And he’s an ass.”
“Why are you carrying a big bag? Are you leaving?”
“I wanted to ask if I could live in your house for a couple of weeks before my best friend comes back to town. She’s been away.”
Lee saw how Elias started nodding the moment he said that he was moving in. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes, you can live with me. I’m incredibly capable of making breakfast and lunch and dinner and—“
Elias lost his words as Lee tossed his head back, laughing. “You’re incredible.”
A loud melody of music played somewhere in the middle of the street where most of the night goers were starting to head out and go home. The music was old and had a certain rhythm to it.
“Do you know how to dance?”
Elias shook his head. “I’ve never tried. Only when I’m drunk.”
“Hold my waist. Then my hand. Just like that, yes.”
Elias stuck out his tongue, concentrating. They were poised in the middle of the street with their bodies swaying to the rhythm. The music enveloped them into a small space existing only between them.
Lee’s eyes crinkled with mirth when he felt Elias step onto his foot.
“You know, I could get used to this.”
Lee felt more of Elias’ laugh than seeing it. He pressed his face against his chest. There was a short breath between them before Elias stepped on his toes again.
“Will you stay longer to let me learn more?”
Lee nodded, rushed. He looked up and watched how Elias’ face was looking far away, maybe for a certain future he wanted for them.
“I’d stay for as long as you’ll have me.”
Lee patted Elias’ chest when he felt the jump in his heart.
“Thank you.”
Lee closed his eyes and memorized the contours of Elias’ face and the tears that fell from his eyes. He held the image in his minda and breathed in more.
They danced through the night, walking side by side, searching for streams of music and swaying softly as they share coffee between them. They breathe in each other and they hold each other close, looking for comfort and searching for acceptance.
And in the morning, they lay side by side on Elias’ bed where they slept dreamless as what they shared had been something they always wanted to fill in their hearts.