Archive of Our Own

The car slows down to a halt outside of the grand main building of the hotel, the gravel creaking under the tires as they settle and the engine is turned off, pinging softly in the summer heat. Ian can hear music from somewhere on the grounds as he steps out of the car, looking up at the looming yellow brick facade of the hotel.

”CJ,” his father calls for his attention over the hood of the car, as Lucy and Jacob step out after them, ”pop the boot, will you?”

Nodding, Ian pushes his door closed again and steps around to the back of the car, fingers searching for the little lever to release the lock.

”Dr Gallagher!”

They all look over at the hotel in time to see a rotund man bound down the main steps, a uniformed bellhop in tow. He chuckles heartily and holds out his arms to clasp Ian’s father warmly as he steps up to shake his hand.

”I finally got you to make the trip, Clayton,” he says, ”welcome to paradise, my old friend.”

”Bob,” Clayton greets him with the genial smile he usually reserves for his favorite patents, ”how’s the old ticker doing?”

”Without this man,” Bob announces, grabbing Clayton by the shoulder and pointing the doctor out to his own family, ”I’d be standing here dead.”

”Bob Kenney, this is my wife,” Clayton says and holds out a hand to bring her forward, ”Lucy.”

Lucy steps up to shake the hotel director’s hand, Ian listens to their small talk as he gets the finicky boot open and folds out the support. He nods at the bellhop who has hurried over to unload their luggage, and the young man smiles back at him when Ian starts helping him haul out the bags. It’s a brilliant flash of white teeth that softens his whole face.

”Mrs Gallagher, what a pleasure it is to finally meet you and your beautiful family.”

”Please, call me Lucy.”

”And these are our sons, Jacob, our youngest, and CJ is–, CJ!”

Ian sets down the bag and leans around the car to look at his family, his father waving at him to join them.

”Young man, leave the bags to Billy,” Bob says and beckons him over, ”it’s his job, after all. And your job for the next three weeks is to do nothing at all but relax and have fun.”

”Thanks,” Billy says, quietly, some hint of amusement in his otherwise carefully inexpressive face when Ian gives him his bag with an awkward grin and slinks away.

”CJ,” his father says as he’s approaching, ”come meet Mr Kenney, our gracious host.”

”Bob, my friends call me Bob!” Mr Kenney booms and shakes Ian’s hand enthusiastically. ”Grown up to be a handsome young lad, hasn’t he? I hear you’re already ripe to set your own path in life?”

”Yes, sir,” Ian says, really hoping he’s agreeing with what he thinks he is.

”Harvard, pre-law,” Clayton fills in, not giving Ian much of a chance to elaborate if he had wanted to, ”but the practice needs a little help this fall with one of our girls getting married, so we decided to defer a semester.”

”A wise decision,” Mr Kenney approves, grabbing Ian by the shoulder. ”My youthful summer days working the desk at my own father’s humble guest house taught me more about life than any classroom could have.”

Ian ignores the urge to shrug off his hand, standing a little straighter instead. ”Yes, sir.”

”Bet Nurse Nancy can teach him a thing or too, that Harvard won’t,” Jacob pipes up and grins at Ian, clearly expecting him to do what his friends usually do and join in. Ian ignores him.

”What?” Jacob asks and looks around, his face falling with the realization that his observation isn’t landing as well with his family as it would have with his fifteen-year-old peers.

”Don’t talk of things you know nothing about,” Lucy chastises him, quietly, holding him back to fall behind the others when Mr Kenney abruptly turns Ian to walk him up a path winding around the main building of the hotel, Clayton on his other side.

”I meant she could teach him about nurse things!” Jacob tries behind them, before Lucy quiets him with a reproachful look.

”The main building here is over fifty years old,” Mr Kenney starts an impromptu tour, sweeping his free hand in the direction of the hotel, the stone facade towering their path, ”the resort was established in 1922 and has been in my wife’s family for two generations before me, a lotta love has gone into every stick and stone of this place, I tell you.”

His hand tightens the friendly grip he still has on the back of Ian’s neck as they turn a corner and the hotel grounds come into full view. A vividly green lawn rolling down a slight slope towards the brilliantly blue lake glittering in the midday sun, little clusters of people in light summer clothes lounging on spread out blankets, sunbathing by the pool, and rowing on the lake. The music is sounding clearer now, echoing across the water and floating up the grounds on the mild breeze.

”We’ve got rowing on the lake,” Mr Kenney says, pointing out the shoreside dock and then moving on to the gazebo further up on a low hill, ”dancing lessons in the fun house, and of course,” he turns to Clayton with a playful wink, sweeping his hand in the direction of the trees edging the lawn, ”18 holes just waiting for Dr Gallagher to throw himself in with some well-earned leisure.”

“Excellent,” Clayton says, something blissful glazing over his eyes at the thought.

”And down there we have our renowned floating swimming pool,” Mr Kenney sweeps his hand with a flourish in the direction of the structure floating on the lake, attached to the end of the boat dock. It’s lined with little people lounging on towels and sun chairs, their wide-brimmed hats almost resembling flowers as they dip and bow with far-away conversation and laughter.

Mr Kenney huffs, mouth twisted in playful disapprovement. ”Though the ladies do seem to prefer the deck to the actual pool.”

”They don’t want to get their bathing suits wet,” Lucy explains with a wry smile, coming up to her husband’s side and linking his arm in hers. ”And what is sunbathing if not a type of bathing, wouldn’t you agree?”

Mr Kenney bows his head in reluctant agreement.

”if only I’d known and I would have built a deck and not bothered with the pool, at all, saving us a pretty penny in the process,” he says with a chuckle, ”but I would surely be a fool to argue against a woman’s whimsy with sense and logic.”

“And where would the world be with only logic and no whimsy?” Lucy asks in her usual quick and light manner. Whip-sharp and soft as silk, Ian thinks, remembering the way his uncle had described her once in one of his more lucid moments, a wistful smile on his cracked lips. “Would you be able to show off just a deck without the pool? Surely such a thing would be renowned for all the wrong reasons!”

“Whimsy and wisdom,” Clayton says and smiles dotingly at his wife, “the minds of women certainly work in mysterious ways, but the right one will never lead you astray.”

“Mrs Kenney often likes to tell me as much,” Mr Kenney says with a beleaguered sigh, “before promptly leading me astray, usually.”

Clayton chuckles as Lucy rolls her eyes goodnaturedly, lips pressed together in a slight smile. Ian looks around the grounds, ignoring Jacob making juvenile faces at him behind their parents’ backs, trying to get his attention.

It’s a beautiful place, rolling green hills and a clear blue sky opening up over the glittering lake embraced by thick woods. The mild wind rustling through the grass and swaying the beach umbrellas down by the lake’s edge, pushing the water up over the narrow strip of stony shore in lazy little waves. He breathes in and slowly out again, angling his face to catch the midday sun beaming down over Nippersink Resort.

“How about it, Junior?” Mr Kenney interrupts the moment, giving him a little shake for emphasis. “Not too shabby for an old family resort, huh?”

“No, sir,” Ian answers honestly, confused when Mr Kenney shifts his hand to grip him by the shoulder and hold him at an arm’s distance so he can peer at him suspiciously, narrowing his eyes. Ian can’t imagine what he might have said or done to deserve such scrutiny, but he’s got a feeling he isn’t going to enjoy whatever it is that suddenly twists Mr Kenney’s mouth into a smirk.

“Unless we’re keeping you from something more interesting back home?” he asks, eyes twinkling. Feeling a whole lot like he’s missing something, Ian can’t think of anything that would fit whatever the man might be insinuating.

“No, sir?” he says, relieved when Mr Kenney laughs and turns his attention to Clayton and Lucy, lightly jostling Ian’s shoulder.

“Such a polite young man!” he says, delighted. “I can tell he’ll be a hit with the daughters.”

“Just like his father,” Clayton says, at the same time as Lucy tells them; “Don’t embarrass the poor boy.”

Ian is just glad for a chance to step out of the limelight, itching to rub the lingering sensation out of his shoulder when Mr Kenney finally lets him go.

“Let me show you to your cabin, if only–,” he starts and looks around, lighting up with joy when he spots a young woman approaching them. “Ah, here she is! Lisa, come say hello to the Gallaghers.”

The familial resemblance is immediate, even while Lisa appears like the complete opposite of Mr Kenney; as thin as he is broad and as serious as he is jovial, hair as dark as his is grayed.

“My daughter, Lisa,” Mr Kenney is quick to introduce them when she steps up to his side, “she helps us out with the summer crowd between semesters.”

Lisa gives Lucy and Clayton a polite curtsy and regards Ian curiously for a moment before Clayton retains her attention.

“High school?”

“The Cornell School of Hotel Management,” Lisa corrects him, a little sharply, “and as the assistant manager to Mr Kenney you’re welcome to turn to me with any little concern you may have during your stay, I’m here to help.”

She gives her father a pointed look and which he casually ignores.

“Isn’t she precious?” he says and gestures for his guests to follow when Lisa promptly turns and starts walking along the winding path heading for the cabins scattered along the shore of the lake. “Every year I tell her to relax and enjoy her time off, but she’s always been a terribly serious child and who am I to tell her no if dressing up and ordering my staff around makes her happy.”

Trailing behind them, Ian gladly tunes out Mr Kenney’s continued chatter as they walk. Jacob tries to keep an even pace with him and nudges their shoulders together to point out the people dancing The Merengue in the gazebo as they pass it.

“Come on ladies!” someone shouts over the music, her bright voice sharp and amused. “God wouldn’t have given you maracas if he didn’t want you to shake ‘em!”

Ian keeps his eyes firmly affixed on his father’s back and walks faster.

“I’m going up to the main house to look around.”

Ian doesn’t wait for a response before he’s outside, the screen door clattering behind him as he bounds down the wooden porch steps. Walking along the winding path to the hotel, he looks up at the treetops swaying gently in the breeze. He can hear the distant sound of people, laughing and playing in the water, their indistinct voices carrying over the lake and filtering through the trees.

He sees them when he makes his way out on the lawn and out in the sun, blinking at the blinding sight of it reflecting on the still water, before he heads up the hill to the main house. There’s a wide wooden deck running along this side of the stately brick building, chairs and tables folded away and stacked in a little alcove next to the double doors leading inside. He wanders along the deck, covertly peering in through the windows to find an office, a busy kitchen in full swing, preparing for the evening, and a large dining room.

The doors are propped wide open, but Ian still hesitates when he gets to them, looking over his shoulder to scan the grounds for some kind of sign that he isn’t supposed to be up here. This time of the day, the porch is partially cast in shadow and the relatively cool air runs goosebumps up his bare forearms when he realises that he’s been out of the sun for a minute.

The house casts an impressive shadow, and guests at the hotel seem to have migrated down the hill along with the sun over the course of the day. He could go out there, down to the lake, take off his shoes and roll up his pants and join the group of boys throwing a ball around, water splashing around their ankles.

But then he hears music coming from somewhere inside the house, and it pulls his attention back to the dining room. He turns and wanders closer to the side of the doors, leaning slightly to peer into the brightly lit interior without being too obvious about it.

It’s a magnificent room with a high ceiling, panelled with wood in a geometric pattern and with intricate lights hanging low over round tables placed out around the room, leaving a clear space of shiny hardwood floor in front of a raised stage at the back of the hall. The tables are covered in crisp white linen and young men in black suits and white gloves are milling around them with practiced movements, neatly placing silverware and glasses and carefully folded napkins in front of each seat. There’s a band on the stage, smiling and relaxed as they play through an upbeat tune Ian doesn’t recognize. They’re watching a couple dancing across the floor, movements fluid and sharp, the woman’s layered skirt flowing around them when the man spins her around.

She laughs and easily moves from the choreographed step to throw her arms around the man’s neck and look up at him with starry eyes as he pulls her in close. The music tapers off, the drummer definitively ending it with a pointed rimshot; ba-dum-tish.

The stage lights flicker on for a moment, making the musicians and dancers look up at the rig and cheer when the lights snap back on – and stay on, this time. Ian’s eyes are drawn to the custodian standing off to the side of the stage, one hand still on the control panel recessed into the wood slatted wall, wires sticking out at odd angles where he’s been fixing it.

Unbidden, Ian’s eyes sweep over the man’s navy blue coveralls tied at the hips, the white undershirt stained and clinging to his toned back, the smudge of grease on his shoulder, the pronounced line of a farmer’s tan across his arm.

“A truly stunning display,” someone says, loud enough for it to carry across the low hubbub in the room. Ian blinks and zeroes in on a smirking face among the waiters, watching the dancers still locked in their embrace on the floor. “But maybe consider toning it down for the evening crowd, don’t want every single man in the room thinking he can have a go, do we?”

The male dancer bares his teeth and takes a threatening step forward, but his partner holds him back with a hand on his shoulder, clinging to him as she throws the waiter a vicious grin.

“That’s the whole point, fink, didn’t you know?” she says and laughs when the waiter looks annoyed, probably expecting a different reaction, “thinking they can.”

“Yes, but isn’t the idea to leave them wanting more?” the waiter retorts, quickly regaining confidence when the rest of the room seems to slow down and pay attention. “Why pay for the lesson if they can go through all the steps on the dance floor, so to speak.”

This time, the girl’s partner won’t be held back and has almost reached his target when another waiter steps in between, hands out to hold them apart. Ian can’t see his face from this angle, but he knows his voice as well as his own.

“It’s not worth it, Danny,” Lip says, turning all of his attention to holding the dancer back when he tries to charge again.

“Danny,” the girl implores, tugging at his arm, “let’s just go, or we’re gonna be late for the Gundersons’ lesson.”

“A foursome, is that extra?” the smarmy waiter with an apparent death wish asks, visibly flinching when Lip turns around and gets in his face.

“Keep it up, Robbie,” he says and even at a distance, Ian can clearly recognize his dangerously lazy smirk. Ian has seen it precede someone getting a bloodied nose on more than one occasion. “Next time I’ll gladly stand back and let him break your face.”

Robbie looks like he’s about to argue for a moment, but the dancers have already left through a side door and taken the easiest target in the room with them. Closing his mouth, he smiles and takes a couple of steps back, holding his hands up.

“Just making sure the entertainment knows their place, that’s all,” he says, “someone has to.”

“Yeah, someone has to,” Lip says, in that way he has where he manages to agree and somehow make it sound like a threat at the same time. Ian always hated it whenever Lip did it to him, but the familiarity of it feels almost precious now.

Like a collective exhale, the room is propelled back into action, filling the tense silence with the klacking of cutlery and fine china. Ian watches him as Lip moves through the room and says something to the custodian who’s been leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and a mildly amused look on his face throughout the whole drama. He grins at Lip now, eyebrows raising expressively when Lip seems to ask him something.

It appears to take some convincing, but then the custodian reluctantly pulls out a pack of smokes from his back pocket and hands it over with what looks to be a warning. Or a funny joke, judging by the smirk on Lip’s face when he turns and starts walking in Ian’s direction.

Ian quickly takes a couple of steps back, away from the doors and across the porch. Placing his hands on the railing, the weathered wood rough against his palms, he looks out over the grounds and waits.

He hears the change of Lip’s quick steps from the hall’s hardwood floors to the creaking boards outside. He stops and lights a cigarette, takes a moment before he notices that he isn’t alone.

“Ian?”

Ian feels something settle inside him at the sound and allows himself a quick smile before he turns around.

“Lip,” he says, stalling a little at the sight of Lip’s stern frown. He hadn’t expected an exuberant welcome, but guess he’d at least hoped Lip would be happy to see him. “Hey.”

Smoke billowing around his face, Lip seems to regard him for a moment. Then he nods, face blank once more. “Didn’t know you’d be here already.”

“Just arrived,” Ian says and swallows uselessly, “this afternoon.”

A discomforting silence settles between them, unsure and unusual. Ian has never been the one to lead their conversations and their relationship has never been one to need a lot of words just to fill space. Suddenly he feels like maybe he’s supposed to, but he doesn’t know how.

Then Lip looks away and walks up to the railing to lean his elbows on it and watch the grounds as he smokes. Turning around and fixing his gaze on the sun glittering on the water, Ian stands beside him.

“This is a nice place,” he tries, blurting out the first thing that comes to mind.

“Sure,” Lip says, and glancing at the side of his face Ian can’t tell if he means it or not. “Real nice.”

Maybe not the most unfraught topic, seeing as they’re not exactly here on an equal footing. Wincing slightly, he decides to try something else. “How’s MIT?”

“It’s fine,” Lip says, “Hard work.”

Ian lets out a measured exhale and nods. He knows that, he wishes Lip would tell him anything else about his life there, just anything. More.

“I’ve applied to Harvard,” he offers his own update, before remembering the second part of it. “We–, I’m gonna defer a semester to work at the practice but maybe next year we could...”

He doesn’t know what, so he leaves the sentence hanging and risks a sideways glance at Lip. His brother is looking at something very far away, rolling the cigarette between his fingers as he takes his time to answer.

“Yeah, maybe.”

‘Maybe’ is better than ‘no’. It’s not a no. Ian nods.

“How’s everyone back home?”

“Fine,” Lip says, head dipping as a soft smile pulls at his mouth, before it twists into something else. “Fiona got hitched.”

Ian gapes at him, caught completely off guard. “What? When?”

“Couple of months ago,” Lip says with a shrug, clearly trying to make it seem less important than it is. It stings, a sharp pain in Ian’s chest at the thought of no one telling him, or inviting him. Thinking of him. “I was a small thing, quick too. Moved out for a while.”

Ian frowns, doing his best to try and piece together a clear picture from Lip’s terse recount. “She left you on your own with the kids?”

“They’re not really kids anymore,” Lip says, which doesn’t seem right to Ian at all. Debbie and Carl are both younger than Jacob, and Jacob wouldn’t survive as much as a day on his own. Lip huffs, like he thinks it’s a joke, albeit not a very funny one. “And Monica was there when she split, guess she saw her shot and took it.”

Ian stares at him, trying to gauge if he’s serious or not.

“Mom’s home?”

“Nah, didn’t stick around, big surprise,” Lip smirks and meets Ian’s eyes for a moment, and for a moment it feels just like it used to. Then he makes a face and looks away. “Just long enough to stick us with a new baby brother.”

Ian doesn’t know what to say, all that’s missing is a damned funeral he wasn’t invited to (oh God, he’s afraid to ask). But he did this, he’s the reason why they’re like this, he doesn’t deserve to be angry about it. Or happy, really.

Swallowing down the resentment and excitement, he settles for stating the obvious. “I didn’t know.”

It sounds pathetic out loud, and hurt. He feels both, but he hadn’t meant for Lip to know that.

“Well,” Lip says, not unkindly. “Now you do.”

“Can I see him?” is the very next thing that comes to mind, the only thing that matters, really. “Maybe I could come visit sometime?”

Lip nods.

“Maybe.”

Maybe is not a no, it’s not a no. Ian opens his mouth to ask something else, anything, but Lip beats him to it.

“Gotta get back to work,” he says, reaching over to stub out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray. “It’s nice… seeing you.”

“Yeah,” Ian smiles, glad to hear it. “You too, Lip.”

He has time to think about how badly he wants to reach out and pull Lip in for a hug but not enough to do anything about it, before Lip nods at him and disappears back inside.

“You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you shake it all about–”

Dessert plates cleared from the table, the dance floor is slowly filled with people half-dancing to the playfully sung instructions. Lucy lets out a delighted laugh at the sight of Mr Kenney shoulder-shimmying his way past their table, his daughter trailing after him.

“–you do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around, that’s what it’s all about!”

“Mr Gallagher, Mrs Gallagher,” Lisa says, coming up to their table, “how are you enjoying yourself so far?”

“Wonderfully,” Clayton says and smiles up at her, Lucy nodding at his side.

“Dinner was superb,” she adds, “please pass on our compliments to the chef.”

“I will,” Lisa says, looking a little apprehensive for a second before letting out a put-upon huff and turning her determined gaze on Ian. “I’ve been ordered to stop working and enjoy myself this evening, for which I could use your help.”

“–head in, you put your head out–”

Ian straightens up in his chair and his brain stalls for long enough that Lucy leans closer to stage-whisper “CJ, honey, she’s asking you for a dance.”

“The Hokey Pokey?” Ian asks, and he thinks he manages to not sound as panicked about that as he feels.

She nods, clearly used to ordering people around and not expecting Ian to be any different. “The Hokey Pokey.”

“–you put your right hip in and you shake it all about–”

Steeling himself against the embarrassment he’s about to suffer, Ian gets up and offers Lisa his arm to lead her across the floor and in amongst the crowd gleefully jutting their hips around in time with the song.

“–you put your whole self in, you put your whole self out–”

Swerving away from a laughing man with rosy cheeks busy putting his whole self right in Ian’s path, he guides Lisa to an empty pocket and tries to look like he knows what he’s doing.

“–put your backside in, put your backside out–”

Lisa is already sticking her backside in and out, giving Ian an encouraging look. He wants to sink through the floor as he tries to mimic her movements.

“–do the Hokey Pokey! The Hokey Pokey! You do the Hokey Pokey, that’s what it’s all about!”

The song ends, not a moment too soon. The crowd claps and cheers and Lisa moves in closer.

“Too bad!” she says in his ear. He nods and just barely resists groaning when the musicians start playing again, something faster this time.

“Mambo!” Lisa exclaims and pulls him closer by the arm. “Yeah! Come on!”

He should tell her that he can’t even dance the Hokey Pokey, so what in the world makes her think he’d be able to dance the Mambo, but his mind goes a complete blank when she holds up their joined hands and starts moving back and forth with terrifyingly swift steps.

“I don’t–,” he starts, cutting himself off when someone bumps into his back, forcing him to walk Lisa backwards and out of her rhythm. She looks annoyed for a second, before it becomes clear that the whole crowd is moving to the edge of the floor, making room for something.

It’s the dancers Ian stole a glimpse of earlier in the day, now dressed up to the nines and gracefully sweeping across the floor, placing themselves in the middle of the space left by the curious crowd.

“Amazing, aren’t they?” Lisa asks, and Ian tears his eyes off the intimidating display of talent to give her a quick nod. “That’s Mandy Milkovich, she used to be a Rockette.”

Ian doesn’t know what that means, but it sounds impressive. It must be good, if it means she learned to dance like that. Like she isn’t affected by gravity, like it’s as easy as breathing.

Without much warning, Mandy leaps into her partner’s arms and they spin around the floor in an intricate set of steps, ending with her partner twirling her around and releasing her to approach a man in their audience.

“And that’s Danny, he’s a real crowd pleaser,” Lisa says, pursing her lips together as she watches the male dancer scan the crowd and pull in women for a couple of steps before moving on to the next. “Perhaps a bit too ready to please the crowd, if you ask me.”

She’s watching the dancer’s movements across the floor, an absentminded frown crowning her forehead. This is most likely Ian’s one chance to escape, while she’s still distracted. Any second now she’ll remember that they’re supposed to be dancing, and he can’t let that happen.

“Think I’m gonna barf,” he blurts out, going for the first thing that comes to mind. It’s technically true, only not for the reasons he’s about to give. Lisa stares at him, speechless.

“I’m not great with cars,” he explains with what he hopes is a suitably apologetic grimace, “still feeling kinda sick from the ride up.”

“Oh!” Lisa looks him over with concern, and he feels a little bad for lying to her. “We’ve got some first aid in reception, and an on-call nurse. Do you need anything?”

“No,” Ian says, quickly, and then remembers himself, “thank you. Should probably just go lie down.”

“We didn’t even get to dance properly!” Lisa laments and then gives him a hopeful smile. “Well, I suppose there’s always tomorrow?”

Ian feels the urge to just agree and leave it to his future self to deal with the fall-out, but she seems sweet and he doesn’t want to string her along.

“I’m sure there are plenty of guys here who wanna dance with you,” he says instead. “All of them much better at it than me, too. For sure.”

He meant for it to be a gentle rebuff and not to sound humble or self-sacrificing, but by the look of her it would seem that he failed.

“Lessons, then,” she says, as though it’s already decided. “I can set it up. My father will be pleased that I partake in the activities, and we can learn together. Win-win, isn’t that what they say?”

A part of him is screaming at him to say no, to find another excuse and weasel out of it, but another part of him recognizes that Lisa is nice, and he’s looking at three weeks of potential resort activities, and having a friend and a fixed appointment to get him through it wouldn’t be the worst.

He might even learn how to dance, granted a minor miracle.

“Okay, yeah,” he says and smiles, hoping it looks more convincing than he feels. “Win-win. Great.”

Ian does not go back to the cabin. He goes down to the floating pool and sits on the empty deck for a while, watching the sky turn pink as the sun sets. He doesn’t know how long he’s there, but he leaves when a giggling couple interrupts his solitude, not even noticing him when they scurry past his sun lounger and start ripping off their clothes. Keeping his eyes steadily upwards, he sneaks in the opposite direction until he can feel steady ground under his feet again.

He should go back to the cabin. He considers it, lingers by the fork in the path where one choice leads up to an early night of peace and quiet, and the other out further into the woods. But he doesn’t actually want to go to bed, it’s still light out and the thought of sitting in the cabin alone waiting for his family to come back isn’t at all appealing.

So he decides to explore. The woods aren't particularly thick, golden rays of the slowly setting sun filtering through the leaves and finding his face in spots as he ambles along the path. It takes him to a new set of buildings, nothing like the impressive main house or picturesque guest cabins, but more like simple, utilitarian huts, placed close together and separated from the resort by a substantial stretch of trees.

Ian ignores the sign and makes his way past the rows of huts, toward some winding stairs climbing up a slight hill to a central building. He hears music playing up there, and people laughing and talking over it, the sound echoing through the empty village and luring his curiosity.

“Hey!” someone yells at him as he sets a foot on the first step. He looks around himself until he spots one of the dancers from before. What had Lisa called her? Mandy, something.

She’s carrying three large watermelons, all together too large for the size of her, and when she gets closer she’s very evidently not happy to see him.

“Can’t you read, ya dang dip?” she scolds him. “No guests allowed, Mr Kenney will kill us if he finds you in here!”

“I was–,” Ian starts, but he doesn’t really have a good reason for why she should let him stay so he cuts himself off and elects to make himself useful instead by taking one of the watermelons off her hands. She rolls her eyes and dumps a second one on him while she has the chance. They slip and slide against each other for a second, but he tightens his grip and holds them firmly against his chest. “I was looking for someone.”

Mandy narrows her eyes at him.

“You’re Ian, right?” she says, the shock of hearing his name sending a small thrill up the back of his neck. “Lip’s cousin? He said you’d show up at some point.”

Ian feels himself relax a little, giving her an affirmative smile.

“And you’re Mandy,” he says, flexing the fingers on his right hand in a feeble excuse for a wave, in lieu of a handshake, the best he can do with his arms full of melon.

She looks at him like she thinks he’s a fool, but she doesn’t seem angry anymore.

“Saw you dance back there,” he says, angling himself slightly to nod in the direction of the main house. “It was…”

“What?” she asks. Not angry, perhaps, but still very much not to be trifled with.

“Um,” Ian tries to think of something suitable that won’t sound like mindless flatter, before deciding to just be honest. “Intimidating.”

Mandy stares at him blankly for a terrifying moment, before cracking a delighted grin.

“Okay, I like you,” she decides and starts climbing the stairs, nodding her head for him to follow. “I could show you how if you want? You’ll need more than the Hokey Pokey if you want to impress your girl.”

Ian feels his ears burn at the thought of someone so talented seeing him flail around on the dance floor, failing to follow even the simplest instructions.

“Who?” he asks, focusing on the second part of her sentence instead.

“I saw you dancing with the bossman’s daughter,” Mandy says and throws him a playful look over her shoulder. “Little Miss Manager.”

“She’s not–,” Ian starts to deny whatever she’s trying to insinuate, but doesn’t imagine that’s gonna get him anywhere good. “If you could–, I mean, you could just show me how to actually dance the Hokey Pokey and it’d be an improvement.”

He smiles to himself when Mandy laughs, a delightful cackle that doesn’t seem to entirely match her pretty features or graceful presentation. Ian likes her.

Reaching the top of the winding stairs, Mandy turns around and backs up to a pair of wide doors, the muffled music getting louder with each step closer to the building.

“Can you keep a secret?” she asks and barely waits for him to nod before she grins and shoves the doors open with her rear. They fly apart and reveal a large common room – cramped in comparison to the dining hall in the main house – filled to the brim with people. The music and heat spills out of there, it almost feels like stepping through a physical barrier when Ian follows behind Mandy as she enters.

He tries not to stare, but there’s not really anywhere to look except at the sweaty, gyrating bodies dancing past him as he weaves his way after Mandy. He recognizes some of them, the waiter who’d poured his parents their wine, the maid who’d left their cabin when they arrived, head bowed as she answered all of Lisa’s enquiries with affirmatives. She’s exchanged her grey uniform for a colorful loose dress, pushed up by her partner’s hand to reveal her thigh. Embarrassed, Ian’s eyes snap up to catch her watching him over the curly head of her partner, his face hidden in the crook of her neck.

Swallowing, Ian shifts his hold on the melons slightly and does his best to edge past them, ignoring her amused smirk. Cheeks flushed and clothes loose, arms slung over her partner’s shoulders, she looks comfortable. Happy.

Some kind of absurd envy tangles up with his discomfort. He pushes it aside and fumbles his way through the crowd until he’s caught up with Mandy by a long table at the edge of the room, laden with drinks.

Letting Mandy take the watermelons off his hands, he absetly wipes them on the seat of his pants as he looks around the room, more comfortable now that he isn’t smack in the center of the lively crowd. The music is loud and very different from anything they would play at the main house. He recognizes the song well, pretty sure it was on constant rotation on the radio last summer when he worked shifts at the local convenience store.

He’s never heard it this way though, stripped down and live, loud and urgent. Stretching his neck, he tries to look over the heads of the dancing people until he spots the three piece band in a corner, the drummer sitting somewhere out of sight and Billy the bellhop in the front, eyes closed as he belts into the microphone.

“Do you love me?” he sings, aggressive and pleading all at once, his band echoing him with backup vocals. “Now that I can dance?”

He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until Mandy is nudging his arm to get his attention.

“You wanna try it?” she asks and laughs when his face presumably contorts into a look of sheer panic. “Maybe not. Guess this isn’t the kinda stuff that’d go down well with the bosslady, huh?”

“Probably not,” Ian agrees, hoping it’s enough of an excuse to escape the calculating gleam in Mandy’s eyes. The one that tells him she wouldn’t hesitate to drag him out on the floor and disrespect all of his personal boundaries.

Luckily, he’s saved by someone breaking out of the crowd and hip-checking Mandy for her attention. Ian would have warned her, if it hadn’t happened so fast and if he hadn’t used the precious little time he had to recognize the assailant as the custodian he’d seen with Lip earlier.

He’s still in his grease-stained work clothes, but his bare arms are the least distracting thing about him this up-close.

“Hey bitch,” he says to Mandy, but his voice is loud enough for anyone to hear him. Tensing up, Ian instantly scraps any favorable thoughts he might have idly entertained and wonders if there’s any way he could drag the scoundrel outside without making a scene.

But one look at Mandy takes the wind out of his sails. She doesn’t look offended, she just rolls her eyes and drapes an arm over the man’s shoulders. They’re about the same height, Ian can’t help but notice, and have the same blue eyes and black hair.

“Danny’s looking for you,” the man says and arches an eyebrow when Mandy sighs. “Lover’s spat?”

“He’s just such a–,” Mandy interrupts herself, pressing her lips together while obviously searching for the right word. “Man!”

The man under her arm laughs and shoves her off him, with what Ian now can recognize as brotherly familiarity. Ian feels his mouth go dry when the man turns away from Mandy and spots him, smirk falling from his lips.

“And who’s this?” he asks, eyes suddenly hard as he looks Ian over.

“My ding-bat brother Mickey,” Mandy starts the introductions, waving a dismissive hand in her brother’s direction, “this is Ian, Lip’s cousin.”

“Didn’t know we had new staff comin’ in the middle of the week,” Mickey says, still eying Ian suspiciously.

“No–, remember?” Mandy slaps him lightly on the shoulder. “Lip told us about it the other day.”

She makes a face at her brother, presumably so she won’t have to repeat what Lip told them out loud. She doesn’t have to, Ian can guess. The whole situation is awkward for him, but he imagines that it’s even worse for Lip. It makes him wish he was here as another worker, it probably would suit him better than the golfing or the dance lessons, anyway.

Mickey nods at him, clearly not as interested in delicacy as his sister. “What are you doing here then, sosh?”

“I carried a watermelon,” Ian says, wincing slightly when the music stops and his voice carries a little louder than he intended.

Mickey stares at him for a tense moment, before raising his eyebrows. The music starts again.

“He carried a watermelon?” Mickey repeats and gives Mandy a look that Ian doesn’t know how to interpret.

“Two, actually,” he says, not even sure if the siblings can hear him as the band picks up momentum and Billy starts bellowing out an extra rumbustious rendition of ‘Shout’.

“Mandy!”

The crowd parts just enough to let someone through and Mandy’s dancing partner bursts out and sweeps her up in a messy twirl, before dragging her out on the dance floor.

Frowning, Ian looks after them, trying to tell if Mandy needs him to step in, in any way. She looks as fierce as he’s ever seen her, mouth moving animatedly as she most likely chews her partner out about something. But she’s also dancing, pressing herself into Danny’s arms and never missing a beat when he spins her around or dips her.

Having some guy she doesn’t know inserting himself in her private business based on half-formed assumptions is likely the last thing she needs. And Danny showing up to sweep her off her feet certainly did save him from getting cohearced into an impromptu dance lesson.

Besides, if the odd combination of dancing and arguing was something to be concerned about, surely Mickey would be the first one out to defend his sister’s honor? Opening his mouth, Ian turns to say something, only to realize that he’s been abandoned by both sister and brother.

He scans the dancing crowd for a glimpse of him, something twisting inside at the thought of finding him in the mass of bodies, caught up in the music and glistening with sweat.

But he’s gone. Ian sighs and picks up a cup of something, hoping it will make him look like he’s standing alone by the drinks table on purpose.

“‘I carried a watermelon’,” Ian mutters to himself as he slowly makes his way around the perimeter of the room. “Idiot.”

It took a couple of songs and one quickly averted look at Mandy (who’d found something else to do with Danny and their mouths instead of arguing) for him to abandon his post and go looking for a way out. The uninhibited woman he’d accidentally stared at when he arrived pinning him with a look and crooking an inviting finger at him certainly also helped convince him that an escape was overdue.

Finding a back door, he closes his eyes at the feeling of fresh air rushing over his face as he steps outside. The sun has finally set on the other side of the building, the sky cast in a dark blue with little spots of early stars showing up over the dark tops of the trees. He finds himself on a rickety porch, most likely rounding the communal building and connecting with the stairs he climbed to get there. The porch is barely lit up with one rusty lantern hung next to the door and it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light.

The porch overlooks a patch of unkempt grass, separating it from the forest proper surrounding the resort. Beyond the shapes of the first row of trees, the dense woods seem to stretch out endlessly.

“Did you get lost again, Dorothy?”

Ian turns around and sees Mickey further down on the porch, leaning against the wall and cast in shadows, the embers of his cigarette glowing bright when he sucks on it.

“Nope,” Ian says and takes a couple of steps closer, looking at the door as he walks past it. “Guess it’s not really my thing. Dancing.”

Mickey only grunts in reply and Ian stops, a decent distance still between them. He has a feeling he’ll have to keep the ball rolling on this conversation if he wants there to be one, at all. And he kinda does.

“You don’t dance?” he asks, putting his hands in his pockets in an effort to appear unbothered when Mickey doesn’t immediately reply. He can wait, he’s very good at waiting out uncomfortable silences. It’s how he managed to win at least some of his childhood arguments with Lip.

Mickey huffs out a cloud of smoke, angles the cigarette away to worry at the side of his mouth with his thumb.

“Not if I can help it.”

Ian nods, pleased to get a reply at all, even one that doesn’t really say anything.

“I’m not very good,” he says, latching on to something they seem to have in common, “two left feet.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Mickey complains, but it doesn’t necessarily sound mean or like he’s about to tell Ian to leave.

He’s still trying to think of something to say that isn’t to do with watermelons, when Mickey seems to lose patience with him.

“Shouldn’t you be down at the main house shindig, anyway?” he says, gesturing loosely in the direction of the resort. “Know for a fact your cousin spent half the day polishing the silverware and the other half complaining about it.”

“Probably,” Ian allows, tilting his head back to look up at the sky. The stars have already doubled in numbers.

“Not your thing?”

Assuming he’s being teased, Ian fights back a smile.

“Not if I can help it,” he says and walks a small circle on the deck, looking out over the nature surrounding them. He thinks he can make out a lot more details now, the different shades of tall grass moving in the breeze, the tree tops catching a pale sheen from the waxing gibbous moon rising above them.

He turns back to Mickey and is surprised to find him watching him closely, cigarette dangling from his lips.

“There’s dancing there too, you know,” Ian says and smiles when Mickey looks less than impressed. “Only try telling people you can’t do the Hokey Pokey, I’d rather be here tellin’ people I can’t do–”

He hesitates, gesturing at the closed door and the dancing still going on behind it.

“–that, whatever it is.”

“It’s a mix of Cuban rhythms and soul dancing,” Mickey starts, sounding curiously unguarded for a moment before he seems to catch himself and scowls at Ian, “hold on, you don’t know how to do the Hokey Pokey?”

Crossing his arms, Ian huffs. “Do you know how to do the Hokey Pokey?”

“They tell you how in the song!” Mickey exclaims, eyebrows shooting up incredulously. “I’ve been working resorts since I was 15, can’t not know how to do the fucking Hokey Pokey.”

“Uh-huh, okay,” Ian says, pretending to be annoyed and probably failing, “so you put your left foot in and your left foot out and your left foot in and you shake it all about–”

He lifts his foot and shakes it, for demonstration.

“Then you... do the Hokey Pokey?” he says and gestures at his dangling foot for emphasis. “But what is the Hokey Pokey? They never tell us!”

Mickey looks up from his demonstration and stares at him, as though he can’t quite figure out if Ian is joking or just an idiot. Something hot flares up inside him and his cheeks burn. Maybe the half of that one drink he had was stronger than he thought.

He sets his foot down and shuts up, hoping the night hides the heat rising up his neck.

Mickey’s eyes dip for a second and then return to meet his, holds them there, steady. Ian is abruptly surprised, he hadn’t expected this. He picks up his eyebrows but doesn’t look away, returns the silent question until it turns into its own answer, thrumming between them with possibility.

He hadn’t expected this at all, but it certainly isn’t unwelcome. He feels his lips quirk up in a pleased smik. This, this he knows how to do.

Mickey snorts and looks away, reaching over to snub out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray.

“Fine,” he says and points warningly at Ian as he walks past him, “but I swear to God if you start talking again I will stop and leave you hanging, got it?”

Ian’s grin widens, and he nods.

“Christ,” Mickey mutters, like he’s committing some great act of sacrifice. Ian is pretty sure it’s just an act. “Give it a minute before you follow.”

With that, he grabs the railing and slips under it, jumping off the porch. Ian hangs back, eyes glued to Mickey’s shoulders as he walks through the tall grass, until he disappears between the trees.

He counts to sixty, times the seconds with the beat still flowing from the dance hall. Listening to it, he finally recognizes the tune, right before Billy starts singing.

“I’m running wild, lost control.”

Ian allows himself to feel it, the anticipation, the excitement, the heat, and then follows Mickey into the night.

“Running wild, mighty bold.”

“CJ, honey!”

Ian pulls himself up on the deck and grabs his towel, ruffling it vigorously over his head before looking for Lucy. She waves and smiles at him from the edge of the lawn when he spots her, and slinging the towel over his shoulders he weaves his way through the sunbathers and off the floating pool.

“Look at you,” she laughs, reaching up to smooth back some of his hair, “get yourself cleaned up, we have charades in ten minutes.”

Ian frowns, he hadn’t realized he’d been included in Mr Kenney’s invitation made over breakfast.

“Don’t give me that look,” Lucy scolds, but the knowing smile belies her reprimanding tone, “we made a commitment and we will honor it, even if it means watching your father flounder and getting increasingly frustrated every time we guess something wrong.”

“Maybe he can team up with Mr Kenney,” Ian suggests, smiling when Lucy hides a surprised laugh behind her hand.

“We can certainly suggest it,” she says, grabbing a corner of the towel and gently wiping it down the side of his face, where he still feels drops of water running along his skin. “Ten minutes, in the west lobby.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ian says and grins when she smothers the towel over his face.

He should hurry straight for the cabin to get changed if he wants to make it on time, but all thoughts of any perennial ire his tardiness might incur slip from his mind when he spots Mickey over by the boats.

“Okay, great, thank you, enjoy yourselves!” he’s calling out after a couple rowing away from the rickety dock. “Hope you tip over, Jesus fucking Christ–”

He’s still muttering to himself as he turns around and visibly starts when he notices Ian standing there and watching him.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says and flips down the sunglasses resting on his head so they cover his eyes. “Probably shouldn’t sneak up on a guy like that.”

Ian knows he should say something, but only a limited few things come to mind and none of them appropriate without a little bit of build-up and preferably the cover of night. He hasn’t seen Mickey in three days, not since they were putting their clothes back on in the chill night and silently trailed out of the woods, parting ways without a word once they got to the path leading back to the resort. He’d started wondering if Mickey was avoiding him.

“Hey,” he eventually settles on, and can’t help smiling when Mickey’s eyebrows climb above the top of his shades.

“Hey yourself,” he says and walks over to a large structure stacked with canoes. “Did you want something?”

“Don’t know,” Ian says, aiming for casual. “Depends on what you’re offering, I guess.”

Ian knows how these things work – how he wants them to work – and one time usually doesn’t mean more, even when that one time was exceptionally good. But he has another two and half weeks at the resort and he can either set up something regular with Mickey or look for it somewhere else, and he doesn’t like his chances of finding anyone else from such a small pool. At least not someone who appeals to him in the same way.

Mickey still hasn’t said anything, but he hasn’t said ‘no’ either, so Ian is tempted to call it a win.

“CJ!”

Ian looks over his shoulder to see Calvin Moore and some of his friends looking his way. Cal is a couple of years his senior and halfway through pre-law at Harvard, so when he’d been properly introduced to them over lunch the other day, Clayton had wasted no time negotiating some kind of mentor-mentee situation on their behalf.

Ian finds himself having very little in common with Cal and his friends, but they don’t need to know that. He’s used to it, he spent most of his high school years blending in with these kinds of people, keeping quiet and letting them assume that he was one of them.

Cal smiles when Ian raises a hand in greeting. “What-say, charades in the–”

“In the west lobby, yeah I know,” Ian says and nods, “I’ll be there, I just gotta–”

What, he doesn’t know. He can’t exactly tell them that he’d trade every single game of charade that can fit in the west lobby for a minute of awkward conversation with the custodian.

And looking back at where Mickey was just a second ago and finds only canoes, so he can’t even pretend that he has some boat-related emergency he needs to deal with before he can join his new friends.

“Just gotta go change,” he concludes, “I’ll meet you there.”

It’s a foolish hope that leads him back to the boats after dinner. He excused himself before dessert and kissed Lucy’s cheek reassuringly when she gave him a concerned look.

“Just tired,” he said, “those charades really took it out of me.”

The lawn is completely abandoned at this hour, parasols folded away and sun loungers already stacked up on the pool deck. The lake lies undisturbed under the setting sun, rowing boats tied to the dock and nudging each other gently with the lapping of the water’s edge.

Mickey is there, hefting a canoe up on the top bars of the rack when Ian sees him. Arms straining, he grunts when his hands slip for a second, before he gets a better grip and shoves the canoe in place. He’s tightening the straps to keep it secure when he seems to become aware of Ian’s presence and turns around.

“CJ,” he says and Ian’s stomach drops at hearing it. He doesn’t understand why, most people call him CJ and he’s used to it. Likes it, usually.

“Don’t call me that,” he croaks out, before he’s had a chance to think it over. He doesn’t know why it feels so important.

“No?” Mickey smirks and pulls at another strap, checking that it’s taut. “Why not? Is it because CJ doesn’t want anyone telling people he likes spending his nights fucking the–”

He stops abruptly when Ian grabs him by the shirt and man-handles him in behind the rack of canoes. Ian isn’t thinking, urged on by a desperate need to make Mickey shut up and understand. He shoves Mickey against the trunk of a tree, crowding up to him in the sheltering shadows.

Mickey is shorter than him, but Ian knows better than to underestimate the guy. He could easily shove him back, could most likely take him if it came to a fight. He shouldn’t push him, he shouldn’t be doing this, but Mickey’s shoulders hit the hard bark of the tree and he grins, challenging and dangerous, and Ian can’t step away from it.

“Don’t call me that,” he says again, and it comes out sounding like a threat but it feels more like a plea.

Mickey’s grin widens as he raises his eyebrows. He thinks this is funny.

“Or what?”

Pressing in closer, Ian’s hand tightens in Mickey’s shirt as he looks down into his eyes, the difference between their heights exasperated by the lack of distance.

Mickey hums, dropping his head back against the tree with a thunk, still looking up at Ian steadily.

“Hate to break it to ya, but this feels more like a reward than a threat,” he points out and shifts his stance.

The small movement makes Ian suddenly hyper aware of every place where they are pressed together, and the confused jumble of feelings pushing him forward is completely washed away by a wave of arousal.

Taking a shaky breath, he pushes himself even closer and slowly rolls his hips against Mickey’s, eyes dipping to his parted lips when he lets out a strangled groan.

“Kiss me and I’ll cut your fucking tongue out,” Mickey mutters, scowling at him when Ian’s eyes snap back to his.

Ian smirks. The thought hadn’t even really crossed his mind, it isn’t the kind of thing he ever does with guys. It’s good to know that they’re on the same page.

“Won’t be a problem,” he says, releasing his grip on Mickey’s shirt so he can use both hands to pull at the knot tying the sleeves of his coveralls together, digging into his abdomen. “Say it.”

He grins when Mickey looks up at him, narrowing his eyes at the command. The sleeves untied, the coveralls hang loosely around Mickey’s hips. He inhales sharply when Ian snakes a hand between them, pressing in but not moving.

“I wanna hear you say it,” he says, surprised at himself but enjoying the feeling of Mickey’s rapid breaths against his chest too much to stop. “Say my name.”

“Ian,” Mickey exhales, hands flying up to grab on to his hair when Ian sinks to his knees.

“So when it was Rosalie’s turn,” Lisa giggles and shakes her head, “she didn’t make it three steps before her heel broke clean off, tripped into the lineup and bowled half of the girls over, skirts up! It was a miracle no one ended up in the fountain.”

Ian grins at the mental image, he doesn’t have to understand anything about hotel management schools or fundraising beauty pageants to find this part of the story funny, especially since Lisa seems to think so too. He imagines that she was less lighthearted about it at the time, seeing as she’d been on the planning committee.

“Serves me right for trusting Elmer’s duplicitous wife,” Lisa jokes, “the absolute cow!”

Ian chuckles and readily remembers the Elmer’s Glue commercial. “That’s my Bethoven!”

“That’s my Elmer,” Lisa continues the quote and rolls her eyes, “what a racket!”

She’s funny, Ian thinks, quietly adding the observation to the long list of things he got wrong about the hotel director’s daughter when they first met. She’s funny and smart and especially pretty today, hair let down and wearing a colourful dress that seems to fit her in a way that lets her relax for once.

He has no doubt he appears slow and simple next to her, but he doesn’t mind. He kind of likes it. He’s always been drawn to strong, illuminous people.

“I’m sorry,” she sighs, leaning against the gazebo’s railing to look out over the grounds, “this is getting embarrassing, I can’t imagine what’s keeping them this long.”

“It’s only been five minutes,” Ian says, trying to stop her annoyance from building too much before Mandy and Danny can show up and get chewed out for being late to their dance lesson.

Lisa looks ready to argue when they both notice a woman hurrying their way across the lawn. She’s dressed in about the same way he’s seen Mandy when she’s leading a group lesson, and she doesn’t waste time before sprinting up the gazebo steps and addressing Lisa directly.

“It’s Mandy, Miss Kenney,” she says, dread shooting through Ian at her tone, “she twisted her ankle.”

Ian lets out a quick breath, biting back the urge to ask if Mandy’s okay and looking at Lisa when she speaks, the stern managerial tone back in her voice.

“What do you mean she twisted her ankle?” she demands. “When? Why haven’t I been informed?”

“Just now,” the dancer says, impressively calm considering. “You’re the first to know.”

Lisa clucks her tongue. “Where is she now?”

“We told her to rest,” the dancer says, perking up minutely, “she asked me and Elijah to cover for them, if that’s alright?”

“And where’s Danny?” Lisa asks, clearly not convinced still.

“With Mandy, making sure she got back to her room safely,” the dancer says, her eyes darting to Ian for a second. The sight piques some suspicion in him, suddenly reminding him of every time he’s covered for his brothers whenever they got themselves in trouble. He remains quiet.

Checking her watch, Lisa frowns. “Don’t you have a Samba class right now?”

Ian tunes them out some, concerned about Mandy and feeling like it isn’t his business how they decide to iron out the logistical kinks her absence has caused. Turning away to give them privacy, he looks out across the water, his cheeks warming pleasantly when his eyes land on the rows of boats, tied to the dock and bobbing on the water.

“Yes,” he hears the dancer say, “Elijah can lead it himself, just this once, and I could get you started here?”

Mickey is in one of the boats, rowing it the short distance from the dock to the grassy lake’s edge, wobbling slightly when he stands up to step ashore. He grabs the tether and Ian has an unfairly perfect sight of him as he bends over and tugs the boat up after him, arms tense and impressive as he drags the whole thing up on land.

“CJ?”

Blinking, Ian tears himself away from the view and turns to find both women watching him.

“Yes?” he says innocently, hoping the unflattering tan he managed to get during a too long set of beach volleyball the other day helps to disguise his flush. To his surprise, Lisa laughs.

“Don’t look so relieved!” she says, with obvious good humor, before turning back to the dancer. “It’s alright, Tamara, go help Elijah with the Samba and I’ll reschedule with Mandy when she’s back on her feet.”

The dancer, Tamara, looks between them uncertainly. Ian has a feeling she isn’t too used to Lisa being lenient with anyone messing with her schedule, for any reason.

“If you’re sure?”

“Yes, absolutely,” Lisa smiles and shoots Ian a playfully reproachful look. “Something tells me my date would be happy to do pretty much anything else, so how about we postpone the dancing and go for a row on the lake? We can bring a picnic, make a day of it.”

Ian swallows, pushing any stray thoughts of Mickey and his many alluring attributes out his mind before he nods.

“Besides,” Lisa says to Tamara, “you know how the wives get when that Latin rhythm starts, go save poor Elijah before they eat him alive.”

“Thank you, Miss Kenney,” Tamara says and starts backing away, “I’ll tell Mandy to report back as soon as she’s feeling better.”

“You do that,” Lisa nods, before turning to Ian and holding her hand out. “Come on, let’s go raid the kitchen.”

Ian isn’t sure what she expects from him, but she seems pleased when he offers her his elbow. She links their arms together, resting her gloved hand on his bicep.

He also isn’t entirely sure he would consider an hour’s lesson for a full day’s picnic a good trade, but at least there won’t be any dancing. For now.

Mandy isn’t in her room, nursing a twisted ankle. She’s on the floor in the empty kitchen, face blotchy and silent tears streaming down her cheeks when she meets Ian’s eyes through a rack of dangling pots and pans.

With a smooth maneuver (digestive system acting scapegoat twice in a week, Lisa looks ready to find him a gastroenterologist) he gets Lisa out of the kitchen and the picnic postponed along with the dance lesson. He pretends to be heading back to his family’s cabin until he’s sure he’s out of her sight, making a sharp turn as soon as he’s safe to hurry his way back to the boats.

Mickey isn’t there anymore, but he finds Lip smoking by the water’s edge.

“You seen Mickey?” he asks, without preamble. Lip frowns at him.

“Why?”

“It’s Mandy,” Ian says, and it seems to be enough of an explanation to get Lip to throw the butt of his cigarette in the lake and lead the way across the lawn.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, not turning his head to look back at Ian as they round the main house and start climbing up a winding trail in the opposite direction from Ian’s cabin and the staff village.

“Don’t know,” Ian says, honestly. “Saw her in the kitchen, she was crying.”

“She didn’t tell you why?”

“Couldn’t ask, I had to get Lisa out of there without seeing her,” Ian starts and then figures the more Lip knows, the better. “We were supposed to have a private lesson and she didn’t show, and another dancer, Tamara? She told Lisa that Mandy had twisted her ankle and needed to rest, so if anyone sees her out of her room and Lisa finds out they’re all gonna be in trouble.”

“Shit,” Lip mutters and picks up the pace, leading them to a large barn. The stables, Ian assumes, considering the smell.

They find Mickey in one of the stalls, wielding his pitchfork with a vengeance.

“Mick,” Lip says, catching his attention. His head snaps around, eyes narrowing when he sees Ian, hovering restlessly behind Lip’s shoulder.

“Bitchen,” he mutters, “literally up to my ankles in shit, congratulations, you found me.”

“It’s Mandy.”

Like Lip before him, Mickey doesn’t seem to need to hear more than that. He drops the pitchfork in the soiled hay and shucks his protective gloves aside, stepping out of the stall.

“Where?” he asks, already leading the way. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Lip tells him, same as Ian had. “Kitchen.”

Ian looks over his shoulder as they trail out of the stables.

“What is your job, anyway?”

“Whatever they tell me to do,” Mickey says, and then seems to remember himself. “Shut up.”

When they get to the kitchen, Mandy is still in the same spot where Ian first found her. He stands back with Lip, watching as Mickey hurries to her side and scoops her up in a hug. Face hidden in his chest, her shoulders shake with silent tears and her hands clutch at the coarse fabric of his coveralls.

When she does make a noise, it almost sounds like she’s laughing. Wet and cut off, but not without some humor.

“You smell like shit,” she says, pushing at Mickey to give her some space. He sits down more comfortably, but doesn’t move out of her reach.

“I know,” he says. “What happened?”

“You were right,” Mandy mumbles, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Lip finds a clean kitchen towel and hands it to her. She nods and hides her face in it for a second before looking back up at Mickey, eyes wide and brimming with fresh tears. “I told him last night and he seemed fine… shook up, but fine. Promised that everything… everything was gonna be alright.”

“How was I right about that?” Mickey asks.

“He left,” Mandy says, dropping her head back on the stainless steel cabinet behind her. “Packed all his shit and left, no note, not a word, nothing. Asshole left me all alone to deal with his fucking mess.”

Ian thinks he can see how Mickey physically has to restrain himself from flying off the handle, shoulders tense and fists clenched tightly. Ian feels struck numb with queasy anger as the truth of the situation slowly dawns on him, and he can’t imagine the kind of poisonous rage must be coursing through Mickey right now. If this was one of Ian’s sisters, he would have been right for murder at this point.

But to Ian’s surprise, Mickey puts a gentle hand on the back of Mandy’s neck and guides her closer so he can press a lingering kiss to the top of her head.

“You’re not all alone,” he says, taking a shuddering breath. “Did you make the call?”

He sits back again when she doesn’t immediately answer, watching her carefully until she scoffs wetly, but nods.

“It’s no good, Mickey,” she says, “the doc has an open spot in three weeks, but…”

“But what?”

“It’s 250 dollars,” Mandy sighs, closing her eyes. “Where am I gonna get that kind of money? Even if Danny… oh God, I don’t even know if they’re gonna pay me my full salary with him gone.”

Mickey’s eyes blaze at the suggestion. “They fucking better.”

“Can’t you–,” Ian starts and swallows when they all turn to look at him, like they’d forgotten he was there. “Isn’t there anyone you could borrow the money from?”

“You stay the fuck out of this,” Mickey says, and Ian starts at the furious contempt in his voice.

“Mickey,” Mandy says and gives Ian an exhausted look, “no, kid, there really isn’t.”

Ian frowns, hating how helpless he feels and how defeated they’re acting. There must be something they can do? Someone who can help?

Before he gets the chance to say anything else, Lip puts a warning hand on his shoulder.

“We should beat it,” he says, “before the lunch prep starts and they find us in here.”

Grunting, Mickey gets on his feet and helps Mandy up after him, letting her throw an arm over his shoulders for support. Lip quickly moves over to her other side.

“Can I–,” Ian starts, not sure what he can do but desperately needing to do something.

“No,” Lip tells him quietly, “just… go back where you belong, Ian.”

Ian stares at the door swinging closed behind them for a long time, until it is completely still and until the sounds of the outside world starts filtering back through the noise buzzing in his ears.

When he finally leaves the kitchen, he knows what he has to do.

“Why does it do that?” Lucy calls across the green as her golf ball sails past the hole by a few good feet.

“You’re lining it up a little wrong, Lucy,” Clayton says and gives Ian a knowing look when he sees him approach. “If she ever leaves me it’ll be for Arnold Palmer. How are you getting on, son? Didn’t think we’d see you before dinner.”

“Something came up,” Ian very carefully doesn’t lie, “Lisa had work to do.”

The two weren’t necessarily related, but something had come up and Lisa had recited a whole list of things requiring her attention as reassurance when he apologized for begging off their plans. Ian is not known for his ability to lie, but he has a lifetime of practice bending the truth to fit his needs.

“Too bad,” Clayton hums, eying his wife’s third attempt to put the ball in the right direction. “Careful with the angle, honey.”

“Not helpful, dearest!”

“You know how–,” Ian starts, getting his father’s attention again and faltering a little, gathering his courage before he continues. “You know how you always say we should help people who need it, when we can?”

Clayton lets his club slide down into a looser grip as he steps closer, a proud tilt to his smile. “Yes?”

“Someone needs help, and I can’t tell you who it is or what it’s for, but–,” Ian takes a breath, “I need to borrow 250 dollars.”

The smile turns into a concerned frown.

“You’re not in trouble, are you?” Clayton asks, and Ian barely has time to shake his head before he’s onto the next thought. “Is it that no-good cousin of yours, asking you for handouts again?”

“No,” Ian says emphatically, something twisting inside him when Clayton lets out a relieved sigh.

“No, I apologize,” he says, lowering his voice a little and putting a hand on Ian’s shoulder to give it a gentle squeeze. “I just don’t want to see him take advantage of your kindness, CJ.”

Ian barely resists rolling his eyes, sidestepping the old argument so he can focus on his mission.

“I will pay you back,” he says, “I’ll put in extra hours at the practice, you won’t even have to pay me.”

Thinking it over, Clayton is quiet for a moment. His grip tightens on Ian’s shoulder.

“It’s not for something illegal, is it?”

“No,” Ian says, right before properly realizing the lie. Trying to look like he isn’t having a minor moral crisis, he can practically hear Lip groan and beg him to play it cool, for once. Desperate, he goes for the one thing he knows will get him exactly what he needs. “No, Dad.”

Clayton visibly softens, eyebrows bunched together as he silently considers it.

“No,” he eventually says, “of course not.”

Ian hopes he doesn’t look too relieved.

“Is everything alright?” Lucy asks, glancing between them as she comes closer.

“Everything is just fine,” Clayton says, ruffling Ian’s hair before letting him go. “I will have it for you before dinner.”

Right after dinner, Ian excuses himself from the table and heads back to the staff village. Without thinking about it too much, he first makes a stop at the cabin to chuck his dinner jacket and shirt, leaving only his white undershirt and his grey slacks. Digging the check out of his jacket, he folds it in half and tucks it securely into a back pocket.

It gets warm in the great hall, even with his dinner jacket hung over the back of his chair, and the chill evening breeze on his bare shoulders is a welcome change as he bounds up the stairs toward the already rocking common house.

“Ey.”

Heading for the doors, Ian stops in his tracks at the sound of a familiar voice and looks around to find Mickey leaning in the shadows of the building.

“Great,” Ian mutters and steps a little closer. “What do you want?”

“What do I want?” Mickey asks, stubbing out his cigarette. “I’m not the one running around tryna play both sides of the fence here.”

Ian frowns, he doesn’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.

“Silly little rich kid,” Mickey continues and actually spits on the ground, “think you can fix everything just by wanting it, bet no one’s ever fucking told you ‘no’ before.”

Ian sighs. He doesn’t have to listen to this, and he really needs to get a move on before Mickey decides to chase him back to the resort.

“Okay,” Ian says and points at the doors. “Mandy in there?”

If he didn’t know better, he’d think Mickey’s scowl looks more frustrated than annoyed.

“Maybe, I don’t know,” he says with a huff, and now he definitely looks annoyed. “Listen–”

“It’s fine,” Ian interrupts, not really interested in learning more about Mickey’s low opinion of him. “I get it, you think I’m a spoiled brat, you hate me, it’s fine. I’m just gonna–”

Cutting himself off with a tightlipped smile, Ian leaves before Mickey has the chance to respond, pushing the doors open and making his way through the lively dancefloor.

He finds Mandy in the middle of the crowd, wrapped up in Lip’s arms and swaying languidly to the music. Suspecting that he’s got Mickey on his heels looking for the first opportunity to throw him out, Ian taps Mandy on the shoulder and walks them both to step aside with him.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything, he just hands the check over to Mandy. Her suspicious glare turns into disbelief when she unfolds it, holding it in her hands so Lip can read it as well.

“What?” she says, shaking her head. “How?”

Ian shrugs, trying his best to ignore Mickey when he pops up on Mandy’s other side, staring at the check in her hands.

“You need it,” he says, “I could get it.”

Mandy lets out a shaky laugh. “Can you believe this kid?”

“Takes a real hero to ask his daddy for money,” Mickey mutters. Ian ignores him harder, heat rushing up his neck.

“Did you tell him what it’s for?” Lip asks, not even a flicker of embarrassment on his face when Ian stares at him indignantly.

“Of course I didn’t, I’m not stupid!” he says, glancing between the three people giving him looks varying from distrustful to straight up offensive. “I didn’t tell him anything!”

Mandy sounds close to crying when she laughs again and looks from Lip to Mickey, trying to gauge their reactions. Lip doesn’t take his eyes off Ian when he merely offers a lopsided shrug, and Mickey looks like he doesn’t know what he should think.

Ian tries not to let it get to him when he eventually seems to settle on anger.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he bites out, talking a half step forward to block Mandy with his shoulder. “What is your angle here? This just another piece of entertainment for you? Something you can throw your dough at, buying your way to feeling good about all the shit you got that you don’t deserve?”

“I–,” Ian starts, frustrated with himself when he feels unwelcome tears welling behind his eyes. Those won’t help. Neither will socking Mickey in the jaw, which is the other thing he’d really like to do right now.

Mandy beats him to it, punching Mickey hard in the shoulder. He looks like he’s about to argue for a second, but one glance at his sister and his mouth snaps shut. Arms crossed tightly over his chest, he backs down.

“Thank you, Ian,” Mandy says with a sigh, the initial shock seems to have worn off and Ian thinks he can see something like hope in her eyes now. It makes the whole thing worth it. “I can’t… I will pay you back for this, every cent, as soon as I get paid for the season.”

“You don’t–,”

“I’m not a fucking charity case,” Mandy interrupts him, voice hard as steel.

Ian swallows uncomfortably and nods. He can respect that. “Sure, no. I know that. Whenever you’re able. I know you will.”

Carefully folding the check back up, Mandy tucks it into her brassiere and puts a hand over her chest.

“Well,” she says, “that’s one less problem, I guess.”

“There’s more?” Ian asks, and he really should start thinking before opening his mouth. Mickey groans, Lip shakes his head, and Mandy gives him an exasperated look.

“Nothing you can help with, sunshine,” she says. “It’s fine. Miss Manager still thinks my ankle’s bust so Tam and Eli are okay to cover the evening entertainment, and I don’t need Danny to lead the classes or the one-on-one sessions… that only leaves the showcase, really.”

“Which is half your paycheck,” Lip concludes, as though they’ve had this conversation before.”

“Exactly,” Mandy groans and rubs her hands over her face. “Fucking Danny. Can’t believe he’d just split like this, he knows how bad I need that money, especially now.”

“What’s the showcase?” Ian asks, looking to Lip for answers when Mandy makes an unintelligible noise into her hands. He can practically feel Mickey’s glare boring into the side of his face.

“It’s the main event here, every summer,” Lip takes pity on him and explains. “It’s like a talent show, and Mandy and Danny are supposed to be the big opening number.”

“We’ve been practicing the routine for months,” Mandy adds, reemerging from her hands. “It’s amazing, but I can’t do it on my own. I need a partner.”

“Can’t someone else do it?” Ian tries, even though he probably should know better at this point.

“No,” Mickey says, “someone else can’t do it.”

“Tam and Eli have too much already, covering for me,” Mandy elaborates. “No one else here could learn the whole routine in only two weeks.”

Mickey throws his hands out in a wide gesture. “We’ve all got jobs to do here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“There must be someone–,”

“Ian,” Lip sighs, holding up a hand, “stop.”

This is not one of the things Ian has missed about him, not by far. He frowns.

“But–”

“What?” Mickey says, interrupting him. “Do you wanna do it, Mr Two Left Feet?”

Mouth suddenly dry at the thought, Ian shakes his head. “No, I–”

“Hey!” Mandy exclaims, slapping Mickey in the chest with the back of her hand. “That’s an idea.”

Ian shakes his head, he should have kept his mouth shut. “Absolutely not.”

“You wanted to learn, didn’t you?” Mandy looks at him, eyes wide and innocent. Ian doesn’t trust it for a second.

“Not–,” he says, he’s still shaking his head. He can’t seem to stop. “I–”

Mandy looks like she’s already made her mind up, it’s a daunting sight. “Why not?”

“Because he can’t even fucking do the Hokey Pokey,” Mickey tells her, speaking about Ian’s dancing inadequacies as though he isn’t standing right there, “that’s why not!”

“You can move, you can dance,” Mandy argues haughtily, shooting her brother a knowing smirk. “Isn’t that what–”

“He can’t,” Mickey interrupts her, gesturing at Ian but still not looking at him. “He cannot do it! There is no way in hell he can do this.”

Fiona used to joke that Ian’s stubbornness would get him through life, but also end up getting him killed one day. On this day, it will get him dancing.

“Relax, wait for the two.”

Ian, very much not relaxed, is certain that he’s waited for the two this time. He steps on Mandy’s shoe.

“Ow, no,” Mandy huffs and Ian wants to get his feet as far away from hers as he can, but she tightens her grip on his arms, keeping him in place. “Step on the two; one, two, three–, that’s the three.”

Grimacing, Ian nods and looks up at the ceiling, trying to count along with her. He doesn’t know what it is he’s supposed to be counting.

“Two, three, four,” Mandy says, and shit, he missed it again. “It’s not the Mambo, look at me, step on the two.”

Forcing himself to meet Mandy’s eyes, he tries to push away his embarrassment. It’s difficult, and it’s not made easier with the steady weight of Mickey’s judgemental supervision from the sidelines.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he mutters, as if that wasn’t already abundantly clear to everyone in the room.

“I know,” Mandy says, her hand in his giving him a sympathetic squeeze. “But you will. From the start.”

The music comes to an abrupt stop as Mickey picks up the needle and brings it back to the beginning of the track, flipping the lever to lower it down.

“I fucking hate this song,” he complains as it starts back up, “it’s only been ten minutes and I already wanna kill myself.”

“Don’t give me shit about my music,” Mandy shoots back, absently adjusting Ian’s stance while she talks. “Why are you even here if it’s so painful for you?”

Ian risks a glance in his direction in time to see Mickey shrug. He’s seated on the tattered couch next to the record player, legs spread wide and arms crossed over his chest. Ian quickly looks away again.

I will follow him, Little Peggy March starts singing, for the umpteenth time. Follow him wherever he may go.

“Gotta keep an eye out,” Mickey drawls, and Ian almost forgets to be mortified long enough to smile when Mandy rolls her eyes. “Make sure nothing, you know… untoward goes down.”

“Chucks, Mickey,” Mandy says and grins at her brother, cocking her head, “are you worried about my virtue?”

Mickey snorts.

“Nah,” he says, “I’m here to protect his virtue from you.”

Letting out a distressed sigh, Ian starts counting again, trying to find the two. A two, any two.

“We missed it,” Mandy tells him, “Again, from the start.”

Ian ignores the way his stomach flips when Mickey groans and resets the track.

Closing his eyes and getting his arms back in position, Ian tries to recall the beat in his head. It shouldn’t be a problem, he has heard the song enough times now that it haunts his every waking hour, sneaking through his mind the second he isn’t thinking about anything else.

But the song and the beat seem like different things, to him. He can’t hear them both at the same time the way Mandy seems to do, he can’t find the count when the music plays and he can’t hear the music when he’s counting out the beat to himself.

“From the top,” he mumbles and tries to focus, humming the song under his breath as he tries to tap out the beat with his foot.

Moving into the first step, he instantly knows that he’s off and stops again, hands falling uselessly to his sides with a heavy sigh. At least he can tell when he’s doing it wrong now, that’s some kind of progress.

He holds his arms up again, finds his position, and is about to get the step right (so help him God) when the door creaks open behind him. Bringing his arms up over his head in an auspicious stretch, he pretends to yawn for good measure and turns around.

“Good morning, CJ,” Lucy says, stepping out on the porch with Jacob close behind her. “We’re heading up to the main house to see what they’ve got going on today, do you want to join us?”

Ian shakes his head, clasping his hands together behind his back.

“No, thanks,” he says and tries for an easygoing smile, “got plans.”

Jacob looks suspicious, he’s been doing that a lot lately. Ian ignores him.

“Oh?” Lucy doesn’t seem at all suspicious, only pleasantly surprised. Ian feels a pang of guilt.

“Gonna be on the lake with Cal and everybody all morning,” he recites the lie he carefully thought out last night, trying to fall asleep. It’s the safest thing he could come up with; Lucy hasn’t been great at hiding her dislike of Cal since they first met him, and Clayton has never been interested in getting to know any of Ian’s friends. Combined with Jacob’s fear of open water, Ian should be in the clear to do his own thing at least half the day and not have anyone accidentally blow his cover.

He’s been able to meet up with Mandy an hour here and there, using any time he has to himself to practice his steps on his own while she’s unable to get away. For all his talk about having to work, Mickey has been joining them every time, mostly to complain about the music, rag on his sister, and criticize Ian’s progress. His presence still makes Ian’s skin crawl with some unidentified sensation, goosebumps prickling his arms just thinking about it.

He tries not to think about it. Mickey can antagonize him all he wants, Ian can pretend it doesn’t bother him. It doesn’t bother him.

“Perfectly fine,” Lucy says with a polite smile, snapping Ian back to the little lie he almost managed to forget already. “Have fun, don’t forget the sunscreen this time, and please wear a lifewest when you’re out on the water.”

“Yes mother,” Ian drily jokes without thinking, the word sticking in his mouth when he says it. Lucy doesn’t say anything, she only pats him kindly on the cheek as they walk past him on the way across the porch.

Jacob gives him a curious look, but Ian doesn’t acknowledge it.

“You too,” he says. “Have fun, I mean.”

He’s got a couple of hours before Mandy said she would have a break and they’ve decided to meet up in the little dance studio above the common room. He needs to nail the start before then, unless he wants Mickey to spend the whole session making fun of him while he steps on Mandy’s feet.

He watches Lucy and Jacob walk away from the cabin until they’ve completely disappeared amongst the trees.

Letting out a quick breath, he lifts his arms into position.

“Two, three four.”

“You look like an idiot,” Mickey tells him a couple of days later. Ian lets his arms drop and turns around, squinting up at where Mickey sits on the deck behind the common room, legs dangling off the edge of it, soles of his boots brushing the tops of the tall grass.

The strong afternoon sun is bathing him in light, his eyes hidden behind a pair of dark shades as he takes apart a row of rifles with practiced movements. He’d told Ian they were for clay pigeon shooting, and Ian had hoped the task would be enough to distract him from Ian’s practicing. It clearly isn’t.

Putting his hands on his hips, Ian looks around himself as he tries to catch his breath. With everybody off doing their jobs at the resort, the staff village is almost eerily peaceful, and the patch of wild grass behind the silent dance hall seems like a pocket in time and space, just out of pace with the rest of the world. The grass is both soft and rough against his bare feet, he’s worked up a sweat trying to get through his steps and tiny bugs are buzzing through the air, sticking to his skin whenever they get close enough to land.

It would be kind of perfect, if only he could be left alone for a minute to look like an idiot without an audience. Especially one so blunt and generous with his thoughts. He could tell Mickey to go somewhere else. He should tell him to go somewhere else.

“I know,” is what he says.

Mickey smirks and adjusts his grip on the rifle he’s cleaning, snapping it back in place. Then he cradles it to his shoulder and aims it at Ian, the barrel pressing into his cheek as he looks through the sight.

Swallowing uncomfortably, Ian doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t feel threatened, but his pulse picks up all the same. He stands still, watching as Mickey slowly lowers his aim and then pulls the trigger.

“Shit!” Ian exclaims and jumps back, staring at the tuft of grass upended by the shot just a foot short of where he’d been standing. “What the hell?”

“How’s that?” Mickey asks, relaxing his grip on the rifle, giving it a considering look. “Get you learning your steps in no time.”

“Won’t do me any good if I don’t still have my feet,” Ian points out, desperate to hide the fact that his heart is still trying to beat its way out of his chest.

“Worth a try,” Mickey shrugs, “since having your feet isn’t really working in your favor.”

Ian can’t do much else than stare at him, fighting to suppress all the things stirring up in him all at once. He wants to say something clever, something biting, something funny, he wants to grab Mickey by the collar and wrestle him to the ground, feel him wriggle under him until he taps out, surrenders, see if he still thinks it’s funny with his face in the dry mud and Ian’s weight holding him down.

If he still laughs, chest heaving against the ground, back pressing into him, warm skin pliant in his palms.

Pulling in a quick breath, Ian snaps his mouth closed and says nothing. Clears his mind of useless fantasies.

Mickey sets the rifle aside and throws a conspicuous look over his shoulder, peering in through the open door to the empty dance hall behind him. Then he turns back to Ian and quirks an eyebrow at him.

“How about we go do something you’re at least marginally better at?” he suggests and grins when Ian just keeps staring at him. “If you catch my drift.”

Ian doesn’t, gears still turning in his head when Mickey jumps down from the porch and strides part him, smirk firm on his face as Ian turns to watch him head for the trees.

Finally catching on, Ian’s pulse picks right back up, his earlier thoughts slamming back into his mind the second he stops resisting. He does a slow turn, casting his eyes about the clearing and making sure that no one is watching, before he follows.

Dodging a pair of laughing dancers, wrapped up in each other and twirling out of the way, Ian grins as he weaves his way through the heady crowd. The impromptu band has tripled in size tonight, the head of a double bass bobbing over top and the reedy sound of a trumpet adding an almost frantic drive to the music, backing up the full-bodied voice of a woman Ian doesn’t recognize.

”Hey!” Lip suddenly emerges from somewhere to his left, stopping him in his tracks with a wide, easy smile. The music is too loud to even attempt any conversation – and Lip looks three sheets to the wind already, cheeks ruddy and eyes alight with joy for once – so Ian just nods and laughs when Lip grabs his shoulder and shakes him affectionately. At some point, long ago, Lip might have used the opportunity to sling an arm over his shoulders and pull him in, wrestle his head into the crook of his elbow and squeeze until Ian had managed to wriggle free. Ian is taller than his brother now.

”Gotta split,” Ian says and throws a pointed look in the direction of the stairs, knowing Lip can’t hear him. Lip nods and puts a sweaty palm to the side of Ian’s face, pushing him on his way.

Ian smiles at Tam and Eli as they dance by, shouting cheerful greetings at him, before he has to duck away from a stray foot flying up from another couple attempting a wild lift in the crowded space. It doesn’t look too different from the thing Mandy is trying to get him to do at the moment, and his eyes follow the strong lines of the man’s arms as he leads his partner through the move, keeping their steps controlled so she can flow through it and safely spin back into his embrace.

The showcase is just over a week away, the weight of the deadline landing like a cold stone in the pit of his stomach. Ian can only hope to be so graceful one day, right now he merely asks to keep his promise to Mandy and not let her down. Or drop her on her face in front of the whole resort.

The live music is only muffled to a more manageable level as he climbs the stairs to the dance studio. They try to meet up as often as possible during the day when they can rehearse with the right song, but they usually have more time in the evenings and can focus on ironing out the details of a step, separate from the full routine.

The stairs lead straight up to the open space studio, and Ian can see through the slatted railing before he’s reached the top. Mandy hasn’t arrived yet, but Mickey lies sprawled out on the tattered couch in the corner, leafing through a magazine.

He’s pretty sure at this point that Mickey doesn’t hate him, but he isn’t entirely sure that the alternative is much better. Sometimes he finds it hard to be around the other man without his thoughts running away from him, getting lost in the thick woods and the steadily accumulating library of new memories, of warm skin and sinful sounds, of furtive glances over a shoulder, of strong fingers clutching onto rough bark, tensing and releasing under his touch.

Distracting and pointless. Ian carefully sidesteps his thoughts and climbs the rest of the stairs.

”Mickey,” he says, trying for a polite smile when Mickey throws him a glance over the top of his magazine.

“Ginger Rogers,” Mickey greets him, turning a page.

Ian sighs and steps into the room, spinning slowly on his heel in the middle of the cleared hardwood floor.

“Mandy isn’t here?” Ian asks, mostly to have something to say, and he doesn’t need Mickey’s withering glare to know what a stupid question it is. “Everything alright?”

“Got tied up at work, I’m guessing,” Mickey mutters, still caught up in his reading when Ian risks a glance his way. “Always something that needs doing, your girlfriend makes sure of that.”

Ian smiles to himself, crossing his arms as he wanders over to the other side of the room. Turning around, he is surprised to see Mickey watching him, magazine forgotten in his hands.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Ian says, because it’s true and because he can’t think of anything else to say.

Mickey scoffs, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead.

“Is that what you think?”

“Yeah,” Ian frowns, “I think I’d know.”

“You think,” Mickey repeats, shaking his head. “Ian, that chick’s been planning your honeymoon since you first set foot in this resort, trust me.”

Mickey doesn’t know what he’s talking about and Ian isn’t sure he likes the way he talks about it, but he might not be entirely off the mark. Lisa seems to like him, she seeks him out when she has some time to spare and smiles a lot when they talk, hangs on his every word when he tries to contribute his share of the conversation. And she does like to plan things, very much.

“Wouldn’t be so bad if she has,” he says, smiling crookedly at him when Mickey pulls a face, “she’s smart, funny… pretty.”

“Terrifying,” Mickey adds, causing Ian to huff out a laugh.

“All bark,” he says, “no bite.”

“Guess that depends on who she’s barking at,” Mickey points out, tossing his magazine on a pile of books stacked next to the couch.

He has a point, but Ian isn’t really in the mood to talk about all that stuff. It’s not his fault that he’s here as a guest and Mickey isn’t, but Mickey sure has a way of making him feel like it is.

The music starts again, downstairs, making Ian realize he hadn’t noticed that it stopped. The melody is very familiar this time, and Ian can’t help the pleased grin spreading across his face when he hears Billy join the other singer for the first refrain.

“Love,” they sing, “love is strange.”

To Ian’s utter delight, Mickey groans, tipping his head back against the couch.

“That fucking bastard,” he mutters. “He knows how much I hate this song.”

“Oh?” Ian says, acting ignorant and turning his head slightly as he listens to the verse. “This song?”

Mickey puts a hand over his eyes and shakes his head, only peeking through two fingers when Ian slowly makes his way across the room, hips swaying slightly to the rhythm.

“–many people, mmh-mh, don’t understand–”

Mickey drags his hand down his face, levelling Ian with an unimpressed glare. Ian stops in the middle of the studio and sways, letting himself move to the music.

“–when you leave me, sweet kisses I miss.”

“You still look like an idiot,” Mickey mutters, but the red spots high on his cheeks say something else. The distinctive guitar bridge flows up from the room below along with rapturous whoops and cheers, and Ian gives Mickey what he hopes is a beguiling look, holding up a finger.

“This part?” he asks.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Gallagher.”

“Sylvia?” Billy asks downstairs, along with half the crowd by the sounds of it.

“Yes, Mickey?” Ian replies, fraction of a beat behind Billy’s duet partner.

“Fuck off,” Mickey says.

“How do you call your loverboy?”

“Come on–,” Ian grins and gestures for Mickey to get up. “Come here, loverboy!”

Mickey gives him the middle finger, and it should probably not make Ian feel the way it does, joy bubbling up inside him until he can’t help the laugh escaping his lips.

“And if he doesn’t answer?” Billy wonders.

“Oooh,” Ian says, teasing out the sound, “loverboy?”

He almost expects Mickey to jump off the couch and attack him, playfully or not, but he doesn’t expect the way his face suddenly cracks into a reluctant smile. The way he looks to the side, almost bashful as the smile seems to spread against his will.

“And if he still doesn’t answer?”

Ian takes a breath, unsure about this shift between them but unwilling to stop. “I simply say–”

Stomping up the stairs, Mandy comes crashing into the room like the very embodiment of a foul mood. She doesn’t pay them any mind, but Ian still takes a step back and clasps his hands together behind his back as she starts chucking off her work clothes.

“They’re playing your song,” she says and grins wickedly at her brother. The angry scowl is back on his face, when Ian risks a furtive look his way.

“You’re late,” Mickey complains, which strikes Ian as lacking something of his usual repartee.

“Wouldn’t let me go until the very last fork was spotless,” Mandy sighs and is very suddenly in little more than her undergarments. Ian looks over at Mickey for a split second, before turning to the ceiling for respite. “I’ll wring that woman’s neck one day, I swear.”

“And leave poor Gallagher a widower?” Mickey asks, looking more like himself when Ian’s eyes snap back to him. He smirks and arches his eyebrows in challenge, leaning back on the couch.

“Fine,” Mandy says and snaps her fingers in front of Ian’s face, grabbing his attention. “I won’t.”

She’s put on some more clothes, but not a whole lot more. He finds that he feels strangely comfortable with it, being here in this overheated room, the air still and the sky dark outside the wide open windows, the room below pulsating with life and joy. Mandy in a simple t-shirt over her underwear, neck rolling and shoulders dropping, before her eyes open and her arms lift into position.

“Should we try the lift tonight?”

Ian doesn’t acknowledge Mickey’s derisive snort, but nods and steps himself into place, locking his arms with Mandy’s.

“We can try.”

Early in the morning, Ian sneaks down to the fun house. He isn’t by any stretch the only one awake, the kitchen is already bustling with life preparing for breakfast, steam is billowing out through the open windows to the laundry room in the main house basement.

But the gazebo is empty, and the lake is glass clear and snug under a duvet of mist, hanging on to the last moments of morning chill before the sun comes up. He has most of the steps down and committed to memory, he knows where he’s supposed to be and when, what his hands need to be doing and how he needs to move his feet to keep up with Mandy, to support her. It’s all the little connective bits in between that just won’t stick; his timing is still awful, his counting off, and his general groove is… abysmal.

“One, two, three four,” he mutters, the soles of his shoes tapping neatly against the wood flooring as he repeats the same tricky twist a few times. He always comes in late with this one, throwing off the whole next set of steps. “Shit.”

“I wanna say you’ve improved.”

Sighing, Ian sets his foot down one last time and turns to look at his brother, standing at the foot of the short set of stairs up to the raised gazebo.

“But?” he asks, unsure if he really wants to hear it. Lip offers him a crooked smile and the open end of a flattened cigarette pack.

Considering it for a second, Ian walks over and snags one out of the box by the tip of his fingers, and they sit down together on the stairs, looking up at the resort. Ian hasn’t smoked in a while, but the cigarette still fits against the shallow divot on his middle finger, the pressure still lifts from his chest for a moment when he closes his eyes and lets the smoke out on a steady exhale.

Lip is still quietly restless next to him, something on his mind. Smiling to himself, Ian lets the moment sit for as long as he can.

“Hey,” Lip says, sooner than Ian expected, and gives him a tightlipped smile when Ian looks over at him. “Here.”

Frowning, Ian leaves the cigarette between his lips so he can catch the wallet Lip lobs over to him. Giving Lip a curious look, Lip only nods at him to open it. Inside, there is a small square photograph of two children smiling at the camera, the boy holding a toddler between them. Ian recognizes Carl and Debbie right away, even with their hair combed and dressed in their Sunday best. The baby is new.

“Liam,” Lip says, a gentle smile twisting his mouth when Ian looks up from the photo. His eyes sting, but his heart feels full when he stares back down at his siblings.

“Liam,” he repeats, and then lets out a wet laugh. “Guessing Frank isn’t his father either?”

Lip snorts.

“Probably not,” he says, like it doesn’t matter. “But who knows.”

“Who knows,” Ian agrees, carefully brushing the pad of his thumb over the photo. “They look happy.”

Humming noncommittally, Lip takes the wallet back when Ian offers it to him.

“Monica took them out for photos right before she disappeared again,” he says and tucks the wallet away into a back pocket. He doesn’t have to say more, they both have their own memories of a time when they first realized that there never would be a time when she’d promise to stay and then follow through.

“You’re doing a good thing here,” Lip says instead and puts a hand to Ian’s shoulder, sliding it up to affectionately squeeze the back of his neck. “Still can’t dance worth a damn, though.”

Ian huffs out a laugh and tries to duck away when Lip playfully pushes at the back of his head.

“–I love him, I love him, I love him–”

“Relax your elbow,” Mandy mutters, right before her sharp nails dig into his bicep, “too relaxed, and you keep missing that step.”

Ian doesn’t even know the step she’s talking about anymore, he’s trying to let his feet lead the way, hoping that all the practicing has paid off. It hasn’t.

“–a mountain so high it can keep, keep me away, away from my love–”

“No, no, stop,” Mandy says and drops her arms, taking a step back. Ian tries to shake out the tense spot in his shoulders, struggling to not let his frustration show.

“–I love him, I love him, I love him–”

He could swear he’d gotten a lot better the first couple of days, but now it seems like he’s hit a wall. They keep trying, slow, fast, step-by-step, there’s just something that won’t click. Maybe he simply isn’t cut out for dancing, no matter how hard he tries to get it right.

“–where he goes I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow–”

“Again,” Mandy decides, visibly gathering what little patience she’s got left before gesturing for Ian to get back into position. “From the top.”

“–away from my lo–”

Mickey lifts the needle on the record player, cutting Little Peggy March off mid-word.

“Maybe you should–,” he starts, but doesn’t get any further than that before Mandy’s eyes blaze and everything she’s been trying to keep in check seems to boil to the surface all at once.

“If you say one more fucking thing about the song!” she warns, tearing away from Ian to face her brother fully, pointing an accusing finger at him. “I will break that record right across your empty head and shove the pieces where the sun don’t shine!”

Mickey holds up his hands. “I wasn’t–”

“You were!” Mandy insists, her voice climbing in volume. “You’ve done nothing else the whole week, just sitting around making snide comments, giving me shit about my music–, I know, alright? I know it stinks, the song is a lie and love is just some horseshit they feed us to keep selling more ratty songs telling us even more lies!”

“Mandy–,” Ian says, closing his eyes when Mandy abruptly turns her back on them and storms out of the studio.

“And learn how to fucking dance!” she yells as she scrambles down the stairs and leaves them to stew in the tense wake of her outburst.

“Well, that was something,” Mickey says and shrugs defensively when Ian glares at him. “I wasn’t gonna say anything about the stupid song!”

Ian doesn’t believe him for a second, but that’s besides the point.

“You could at least try not being such an asshole about it,” Ian huffs, pinching at the bridge of his nose. “We’ve got a week to go and I think I’m getting worse, I just wanted to help and I’m fucking it all up and I–”

He takes a quick breath, tipping his head back and blinking up at the ceiling. It isn’t Mickey’s fault that he can’t dance.

The silence stretches out over several long seconds. It’s still early evening, well before the staff begin setting up downstairs and the nightly party starts. Ian got himself invited to a dinner down in the local village with Cal and his friends, and then made up an excuse to not join them at the last minute, so he could sneak off and meet up with Mandy earlier than they normally would.

He’d hoped that an uninterrupted afternoon in the studio would do the trick. Instead it has only made it abundantly obvious that he’s in way over his head and that it’ll take a major miracle for this to not end in disaster.

“Okay,” Mickey says, but it’s really the put-upon sigh that distracts Ian out of his spiralling panic. “Come here.”

Ian turns to look at him, hoping for clearer instructions, but Mickey merely raises his eyebrows and points to the center of the room. Then he lifts up the lid on the record player and carefully stows the Little Peggy March single away in its sleeve, switching it out for a different record.

The speakers crackle for a second, and then a laid-back soul rhythm starts playing, something Ian hasn’t heard before.

“The beat is wrong,” he worriedly points out as Mickey comes to stand in front of him. He knows this much, at least. He can’t do any of the things he’s supposed to do to this music, it won’t work.

“Would you relax?” Mickey huffs, shaking his head and giving Ian a critical onceover. “Stop fucking counting for a second and just listen–, look at me.”

Unthinking, Ian’s eyes snap to Mickey, a small thrill running up his spine when it causes Mickey’s lips to quirk into a pleased smirk.

“Listen to the music, feel it,” he says and when he starts swaying, Ian finds himself helpless to do anything but follow his lead.

“–it’s all right, have a good time, ‘cause it’s all right–”

“Arms up,” Mickey says, and it’s like his words have strings attached to Ian’s body, his hands flying up into position before he’s fully thought it through. He stares at the line of Mickey’s focused frown, willing his breaths to remain steady and his heart to keep beating when he feels the tips of Mickey’s fingers touch his skin just above the elbow, gently correcting it.

“–we’re gonna move it slow, when lights are low–”

The fingers trace the outside of his forearm, raising a trail of goosebumps and drying out his throat, until they grasp his hand and bring it down to press into the center of Mickey’s chest.

“Feel that?” Mickey wonders, his own hand covering Ian’s, trapping him between his chest and palm, fingers gently tapping against his knuckles, measuring out a heartbeat. “Feel the rhythm inside you, like it’s pushing the blood through your veins.”

“–now listen to the beat, kinda pat your feet–”

“Step,” Mickey says, but it doesn’t register until he huffs out a laugh and kicks out a foot to lightly nudge against Ian’s. “Step?”

“–you got soul and everybody knows–”

Ian tries to feel it, between the warmth thrumming through his trapped hand and the beat of his own heart throbbing in his ears. He takes his first step and Mickey easily follows him.

“Good,” he says, and Ian has to look down at their feet, anywhere that isn’t Mickey’s face. “That’s better.”

“–that it’s all right, whoa, it’s all right.“

“Look up,” Mickey murmurs, “eyes on me.”

They’ve been closer than this before, a fair few times, naked and pressed together, the skin of Mickey’s back sticking to Ian’s chest, too wrapped up in the moment to protest when Ian puts his open mouth to his shoulder, tastes the salt of his sweat, works his way up his neck.

This is different. There’s an empty field of space between them, a set distance that is maintained with every step forward being countered by a step back, a magnetic force pushing and pulling and keeping them in orbit. He can feel it in his hand on Mickey’s chest, tethering him in place, he can feel it in his feet, leading and following at the same time.

He lets his gaze travel up to lock with Mickey’s, allows himself to look his fill for once, not turn away or tune it out. Mickey blinks but keeps his eyes steady, holds him firmly in place as they move together, as one.

“Mind your face,” Mickey says and smirks when Ian frowns at the strange request. “Dancing is all about suggestion, lookin’ like you wanna flip a guy over and start railing him right then and there ain’t exactly subtle.”

Ian lets out a startled laugh, heart in his throat when Mickey grins at him. Not knowing what he could possibly say to that, he subtly switches his grip on Mickey’s hand and then promptly leads him into an underarm turn.

“The fuck?” Mickey grouses, but he easily follows Ian’s lead as he spins him around.

“You’re a dancer,” Ian says as they step back together, closer this time. He doesn’t know why, but it feels like this is the first truly personal thing Mickey has shared with him, more vulnerable and intimate than anything he’s experienced before.

Mickey rolls his eyes. “Not if I can help it.”

Yet they keep dancing, leisurely stepping together, following an uncharted path slowly turning them through the studio.

“This is–,” Ian says and swallows, he doesn’t know how to explain it. Something is just clicking into place that wasn’t there before. It’s as though his feet are catching up to him, finally, and his hands know where they’re supposed to go, and he can hear that undercurrent in the music that tells him what to do right before he needs to do it. Something must have stuck with him after all that practicing, after all.

“Check it out,” Mickey says, his voice low. “You’re a dancer.”

Ian doesn’t know when their feet stopped moving, or when their chests got close enough to brush together with a deep breath, shuddering on the exhale. He closes his eyes, fingers digging into the fabric of Mickey’s tee, into the soft skin over his ribs beneath. He feels a warm puff of air over his cheek and the tip of his tongue darts out to swipe across his bottom lip before he can think better of it. If he could just–

“Who’s playing my record?” Lip’s voice comes crashing into their bubble, tearing them across the room. Ian turns away completely, unable to look his way as Lip comes jogging up the stairs. He can’t have seen anything, or he would have said something. He’s never been delicate about a single thing in his life. He didn’t see anything.

“Pipe down, your record,” he hears Mickey scoff. Ian risks a glance over his shoulder and sees him by the stack of albums in the opposite end of the room, an indifferent look on his face. Ian feels his face burn in comparison, his pulse still racing.

“They’re looking for you up at the main house,” Lip says, seemingly noticing Ian for the first time when he turns around and nods at him in greeting. “Hey Ian–, something about a broken tubelight.”

“There’s always something,” Mickey grumbles, collecting his stuff and heading for the stairs.

“Saw Mandy outside,” Lip says, raising his eyebrows at Mickey when he moves past him, “you good?”

“Fine,” Ian says, catching his attention again, “just–, frustrated. I’m still a clod who can’t dance and then she thought Mickey was gonna make fun of her music again, so she kinda blew a fuse and left.”

“Oh, I was definitely gonna make fun of her music,” Mickey casually admits, raising his voice as he disappears down the stairs. “And you’re catchin’ on.”

Ian tries not to squirm in the awkward silence left behind, meeting Lip’s unreadable gaze head on. He can’t have seen anything, there’s no way he can know. He doesn’t know.

Reality settles once more like a cold stone in Ian’s stomach, tearing down whatever it was he thought he was feeling just moments ago. Tucking it away, just out of sight.

“I should–,” he says, gesturing in the direction of the stairs. “Go find Mandy, check that she’s alright.”

Lip doesn’t say anything, he just steps aside and lets Ian leave.

Ian finds Mandy out back, sitting on the edge of the porch with her feet dangling, looking out at the treeline. She doesn’t acknowledge him as he gets closer, or when he sits down next to her, or when he gives her a couple of minutes of silence, hoping she might start talking once she’s ready.

She doesn’t, and while Ian probably could sit here comfortably in silence for the rest of the evening, he suspects that won’t help anybody. Least of all Mandy.

“Sorry,” he says, carefully watching the side of her face for any hint that she might pop off again. “I’m trying, I promise.”

Mandy heaves a heavy sigh, her shoulders slumping as she hangs her head.

“I’m scared,” she says, so quietly that Ian almost doesn’t catch it.

He hadn’t forgotten it, the reason why they’re doing any of this at all. Why Danny left, why Mandy needs the money, why they’re sneaking around. He hasn’t forgotten it, but it hasn’t been at the forefront of his mind, either. Considering it, he imagines that Mandy has been able to think of little else, since she found out.

Mandy’s shoulders shake and Ian doesn’t know what to say, but he shuffles closer and puts his arms around her, pulling her to his chest and holding her tight while she cries.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he says, he hopes, “everything’s gonna be fine.”

“You’re smoking dope,” Mandy mutters into his chest, rubbing her face on his t-shirt when she shakes her head. “I’m knocked up.”

She sighs and then abruptly sits up, wiping a hand over her eyes and turning away slightly to stare out at the trees, the sun slowly setting beyond.

“I thought–,” she says, before cutting herself off with a rueful smile. “We’ve only been going steady since April, but...”

Pulling her feet up on the deck, she hugs her arms around her legs and rests a cheek on her knees, still not looking right at Ian.

“He could be real sweet, sometimes,” she says. “It was our song, you know? They were playing it on the radio all the time when we met, couldn’t escape it. First time we danced together, it was to that song.”

“It’s a nice song,” Ian tries, even though he’s pretty sure he could go a lifetime not hearing it again and be quite happy. Mandy snorts, shooting him an amused glare.

“Guess I’m glad he showed his colors now, before I did something really dumb like marry the bozo,” she says and huffs, the sad twist to her mouth belying her self-depricating tone. “Just wish he’d stayed. Don’t need to stay together or anything, but he could’ve stayed and helped. Stuck it out through the season, make sure we all got paid.”

Ian agrees. There’s a lot of things he thinks Danny could have done, should have done, and ‘just stuck it out’ would be the absolute bare minimum. It’s all so unfair that he can’t look at it for too long or it makes him want to break something.

There are noises coming from the house behind them, the band setting up and testing their instruments ahead of the night’s bash, the baritone sounds of the double bass playing through part of a melody, a saxophone catching on and joining in.

Mandy hums along with it, recognizing it at the same time as Ian does, and turns her head up to smile at him when they both start singing.

“I’m running wild, lost control,” Ian grins at her when Mandy lets out a laugh, something unclenching inside him at the sight. “Running wild, mighty bold.”

He’s never been good at singing, but he’s always wanted to be. Wished he’d sounded different, that people could hear what he sounded like on the inside when he had to sing in front of them in church when he was a kid, in school on Monday mornings. He stopped trying a long time ago, silently mouthing along the words whenever he was asked to join in.

In this moment, he doesn’t want to pretend.

“Feeling gay, reckless too,” he sings along with her, heart in his throat as they pick up speed, “carefree mind, all the time, never blue!”

“Always going, don’t know where,” Mandy shakes her head, rolling her eyes when Ian mimes Jack Lemmon’s over-egged bass playing, “always showing, I don’t care!”

Taking a deep breath and shaking her chest, raising a fist in the air, Mandy slows them down and bellows out the last couple of lines.

“Don’t love nobody, it’s not worth while,” stretching both arms up wide, her voice echoes across the grass and through the trees, “all alone, running wild!”

Ian hoots and cheers at her performance, laughing when she lets out a joyful scream, birds lifting from the trees in fright.

“Better?” he asks, feeling his growing affection for her burn in his chest when she nods, the usual confident gleam back in her eyes.

“Tony Curtis would never knock me up and leave me to fend for myself,” she says with playful certainty, “now that’s a man.”

Ian agrees, but he knows better than to say as much out loud.

“Guess I’m no Marilyn Monroe, on the other hand,” she says and sighs, leaning back on her hands to look up at the sky. “Can’t believe she’s gone, I forget sometimes.”

Watching the side of her upturned face, he wishes he knew what to say. Mandy is so beautiful and talented, he hates the idea that she might think she isn’t deserving of absolutely anything she wants.

The band kicks up behind them, playing a hit Ian recognizes from a few years back. It’s not something his father would ever allow to be played in their house, Ian is sure he wouldn’t approve of anything Billy and his band are covering in their late night sets. During his summer shifts at the convenience store, the little cafe next door used to rig up their radio to blast all kinds of rhythm & blues, doo-wop and soul for hours, and Ian would wedge the shop door open and pretend to agree whenever a customer would make a disparaging comment about the ruckus.

”Oooh–, won’t you stay, just a little bit longer.”

This was one of his favorites, back then, and closing his eyes he can almost feel the balmy Chicago heat, hear the whirr of the little fan behind the shop’s register, lazily oscillating from side to side, pushing the hot air around his face.

“Were you really a Rockette?” he asks, probably surprising himself more than Mandy with the out of the blue question.

Someone snorts, and Ian opens his eyes and cranes his head back to see Mickey walk past him, unceremoniously inviting himself to sit on his other side.

“Did Miss Manager tell you that?” Mandy asks and grins when Ian turns his head to look at her. “Well, who’s to say I wasn’t a Rockette?”

“You’ve never even been south of Ogden Park,” Mickey mutters and stops Ian from asking about that by thrusting a large glass bottle in his face.

Ian grabs it, eyes going wide as he tries to read the label, which is all in French.

“Mickey, this is real Champagne,” he says and doesn’t know what to do with the unimpressed look Mickey is giving him, eyebrows raising in a silent question. “This is really expensive stuff, where did you get it?”

“Don’t sweat it,” Mickey easily dismisses his concerns. “Five finger discount.”

Ian isn’t sure that makes it a whole lot better, but it’s not like he’s going to say that. Better to crack the bottle open and start working on getting rid of the evidence, posthaste.

He’s had Champagne before, Clayton and Lucy let him have half a glass when they went out last New Year’s Eve, but it’s a whole different thing to fumble the wire off, pop the cork out over the field, and quickly swig the bubbling liquid straight from the bottle, catching it as it erupts from the neck. He wipes it off his chin as he hands over the bottle to his left, ignoring the way Mickey is staring at him. He must look like a fool.

Mickey tips the whole bottle back and chugs it like it’s water, baring his teeth as he’s passing it on to Mandy.

“They pay good money for this shit?” he grumbles, wiping the condensation off his hands on his thighs.

Distracted, Ian accepts the bottle back from Mandy, taking a drink before passing it on. Glancing out of the corner of his eye he lingers on the way Mickey’s lips shape to the green glass and come away shiny as he swallows, tongue darting out to swipe across his lips.

His mouth feels dry and his hands clammy, gaze heavy and slow to look away. It must be the Champagne, beer never did this to him.

Between them, the bubbly doesn’t last long and before Ian can stop him, Mickey throws the empty bottle in an impressive arc across the clearing, landing with a thud in some tall grass a fair distance away.

Mandy giggles on his right, collapsing back to lie down on the wooden floor. Mickey follows her lead and for a little while, Ian sits between the two siblings, arms around his knees and head tipped back, staring up at the darkening sky.

“Well, before the light,” Billy and some backup singers doo-wop inside the dance hall, “hold me again with all your might, in the still of the night.”

Ian lets himself fall back, fitting himself between Mandy and Mickey’s shoulders, and looks up at the sky as the first stars twinkle to life in the twilight. Mandy sneaks her hand into his and he willingly links their fingers together, gives her a comforting squeeze and holds on to her until the sky is black as tar and the music stops and the sounds of laughter fade into the night with the last midnight stragglers making their way down to the village.

But it’s the just out of reach warmth of Mickey’s arm next to his that pulls at him, the weight of longing pressing down on his chest as he aches to reach out and feel his skin against his own, feel his hand in his.

He’s never been this scared before in his life, but he wants, he wants, and in the silence he lets his knuckles brush against the back of Mickey’s hand. Extends a finger until his nail can trace along the side of it, making it obvious that he isn’t doing it by accident.

Maybe he’s too tipsy to care, or doesn’t know how this seemingly insignificant gesture is wreaking havoc in Ian’s addled mind, because Mickey lets him.

The dance studio is empty when Ian bounds up the stairs the next day. He lingers for a while, leafing through Mickey’s magazines and perusing the crate of albums under the record player.

When it becomes obvious that Mandy isn’t going to show up, he wanders back down the hill and through the staff quarters, looking for the raised little hut he’s seen Mandy disappear into at night, after they’ve left practice together. It has a narrow porch by the door with some of Mandy’s laundry strung up across it, billowing gently in the slight breeze. It’s quiet inside, and the small house’s one dirty window is dark.

He knocks on the door anyway, unsurprisingly getting no answer.

“Looking for someone?”

Ian starts and looks around, ducking under the flowing pink fabric of a skirt to spot Billy leaning off a porch two huts down, forearms on the railing and a cigarette stuck between his fingers.

“Yeah,” Ian says, carefully moving clothes aside to walk across the porch. “I’m looking for Mandy, you know where she is?”

“Surprise staff training, mandatory,” Billy says with a quick grin, taking a drag off his smoke. “They like to spring that stuff on us, keep us on our toes.”

Stepping off the porch, Ian makes his way over, shading his eyes with a hand until he’s under the sheltering shadow of Billy’s hut.

“You managed to escape it,” he observes.

Billy inclines his head in agreement. “Yeah, this one wasn’t mandatory for me.”

“Why not?”

Narrowing his eyes, Billy seems to consider his answer for a moment. Then he blows out a puff of smoke and makes a face.

“Conducting yourself when conversing with a guest,” he says, as though reciting something. “No use training some of us when we’re not supposed to be talking to guests.”

Ian huffs and looks around the quiet barracks.

“You’re talking to me.”

A slow smile spreads over Billy’s face. It’s a nice smile, and a very nice face.

“Can I bum one?” Ian asks, nodding at his cigarette. Silently, Billy reaches out and offers it to him.

Ian steps closer and takes it, watching the embers glow as he sucks at the already slightly damp filter.

“CJ, right?”

Ian nods, and then changes his mind, smoke swirling around his face. “Ian.”

Billy makes a surprised noise, but then perks up when something seems to click.

“Ian, as in Lip’s cousin?”

“Yeah,” Ian offers the cigarette back, watching as Billy takes it. “You know Lip?”

“Sure do,” he hums. “This is my third summer here, same as him. Met first day orientation back in ‘61, even keep in touch back home when we can.”

“You’re from Chicago?”

Billy seems slightly taken aback for a second, then his mouth twists into a crooked smile.

“You know, think that was the first time I’ve called Chicago home without freaking out about it, how ‘bout that,” he says, handing Ian the smoke. “I’m from Atlanta, originally.”

Ian finds himself genuinely interested in knowing more. “What brought you to Chicago?”

Catching his bottom lip with his teeth, Billy’s eyes dip for a moment before fixing Ian with a certain look.

“Specialized interests,” he says, and Ian knows the invitation for what it is. Normally, he’d jump at the opportunity. Billy is handsome, dark skin shining in the late afternoon sun, shirt open to reveal a toned chest, strong, long-fingered hands warm when they brush against Ian’s, passing the smoke over.

He almost considers it, but the thought twists in his mind, lodges itself sideways in his throat. Accepting the cigarette, Ian takes a half step back and makes an apologetic grimace.

Billy nods, cocking his head to the side, appraising him. “Too bad.”

“Yeah,” Ian agrees, frowning. “Sorry.”

“Hey man,” Billy says with a chuckle, holding up his hands. “This is not something you gotta apologize for.”

Ian knows it isn’t, he knows. But he feels like he should. He’s been hooking up with dudes since he was fourteen, rationalizing it in his head as an easy, safe way to release some steam and avoid getting involved with a girl before he was ready to settle down. ‘Easy’ was supposed to be part of the deal, taking it when the opportunity presents itself, and walking away the moment it’s over.

“It isn’t?”

“No, it really isn’t,” Billy says with a kind smile. “It’s called free love, baby, nothing mandatory about it.”

Love.

The word rattles in Ian’s chest, restless and unfitting. He never thought he would fall in love, not with a man. Not with anyone, probably. He thought he would marry a woman and he would come to love her in a way – as a friend and a companion, as a partner – that when it happened it would come to him as easily as it does when a man gives him a certain look. Maybe even easier, better, right.

He never thought he would–

“Don’t think this is–, that,” he says, swallowing over the lump of something struck in his throat. He can’t even say the word, stomach twisting just trying. “Sorry.”

Billy hums, watching him as Ian drops the cigarette butt on the dirt floor, grounding it out with the toe of his shoe.

“My old man used to say ‘never apologize for who you are’,” Billy eventually says, straightening up a little. “‘William’, he’d say, people gonna hate you and push you down and step all over you for the mere look of you, for who you are. You can fight or not, accept it or not, but you must never apologize for who you are, for being who you were born to be.”

Ian shudders despite the warm breeze, looking up at this man he doesn’t really know and knowing him at once as if they were one and the same.

“If you apologize, he said, you become a little more wrong each time until they got all the right and you’ve got nothing left,” Billy continues and shakes his head. “I never forgot that. Though he sure did when it got down to it.”

Ian wants to ask, but he isn’t sure he wants to know. He wants to know, but he doesn’t think he has the right to ask.

“Sorry,” he says, before he can stop himself.

“Hey now,” Billy smiles again, bright and kind, “you don’t gotta be sorry for that either.”

Ian feels so lost, sorry is all he’s ever had. That and plausible deniability.

“No?”

Someone calls out a ‘hey!’ from a few huts away, making Ian start. They look over to see a maid waving for Billy to follow her, before she turns and heads in the direction of the resort.

Billy sighs and climbs off his porch.

“No, kid,” he says as he walks away, turning to take a couple of steps backward and baring his teeth in a brilliant grin, “you be fucking furious instead.”

Ian is looking out over the lake, half turned away from the table and entirely tuned out from the conversation between Lucy and Jacob, occasionally accompanied by the rustling of Clayton’s newspaper.

It’s a beautiful summer morning, like almost every morning has been since they arrived, and a few brave people are already braving the chill water, their shrill laughter reaching all the way up to the breakfast deck when they dip their toes in. Ian idly follows the distant figures of the lifeguards, the waiters, the maintenance staff, the two guys in shorts and sandals struggling to get the boats back in the water. None of them have the right gait, the right slant to their shoulders, or the precision of their movements.

He hasn’t seen Mickey since that night, when they got drunk behind the dance hall. Since he blindly ghosted his fingertips over his dry palm, heart in his throat and his thumb resting on Mickey’s wrist. He’s still been practicing with Mandy every day, but it’s just been the two of them, having to do without both their critic and DJ. Mandy had almost looked guilty about it when they realized that he was staying away on purpose, but it didn’t last very long. She was too happy with Ian’s sudden improvement, too focused on getting them both ready for next week’s big show.

Ian was worse off, because he was pretty sure he knew the real reason why Mickey was staying away, and every time he got to the studio to find the ratty couch empty, something unspoken ached inside him.

He could go find Mickey on his own time, but all his thoughts turned to white noise whenever he so much as considered the idea. It was confusing and uncomfortable and he was glad Mickey was doing the right thing and keeping his distance. He hated it.

“Good morning, Gallaghers.”

Snapping out of his thoughts, Ian turns his head to see Lisa standing by their table, a bellhop hovering behind her with a large wicker basket in his arms.

“Lisa!” Lucy smiles up at her, holding a hand to her forehead to shade her eyes from the sun. “You look lovely today!”

“Thank you, Mrs Gallagher,” Lisa says, ducking her head for a moment as her gloved hands smooth down the skirt of her pale blue dress. “I thought it was about time to take a proper day off, finally make good on that picnic we had planned?”

She’s looking right at him, and Ian tries to think of a good excuse – any excuse – but he doesn’t have one. He doesn’t even have an honest excuse, since Mandy is going to be busy all day and they won’t be able to meet up until after hours, anyway.

“You didn’t have anything else planned for today, did you?” Lucy tries to help out when he probably takes too long to answer, her eyes widening pointedly when he looks at her.

“No–, yeah, okay,” Ian says and gets on his feet. This could be nice. Better than sitting around all day not thinking about Mickey, at least. “Let’s do it.”

Ian offers to carry the basket, relieved when the bellhop scurries away and leaves them to wander down the hill on their own. Lisa is quiet, but there’s a small smile curving the corner of her tinted lips every time he looks at her. It’s fetching and concerning in equal measures, and Ian can’t help wondering if Mickey was right about her intentions. Can’t help wondering if he shouldn’t feel more excited by the prospect.

They’re a good match. Lisa is just the type of girl he always imagined he would settle down with, eventually. Smart, self-sufficient, practical. A light pink blush dusting the apples of her cheeks, a kind of dreamy sheen in her eyes when she’s glancing his way.

They’re going out on open water, alone, for a picnic. If she tries to kiss him he might just eject himself over the edge of the boat and let Tombeau Lake pull him down into oblivion.

The change from soft grass to rickety wood under his feet cuts through his panicked thoughts, zoning the world back into focus. They’re strolling out over the water, Lisa’s arm linked through his on the narrow dock, and there’s a small rowboat waiting for them at the end.

Maybe he should just get it over with, he can’t be scared of kissing girls his whole life, not if he wants to make something of it. Have a family, kids, someone who loves him.

Limbs heavy like lead, Ian helps Lisa to get in their boat safely, grip tightening on her gloved hand when it wobbles under her step. Turning around with a happy smile, she reaches for the picnic basket so he can hand it over before following.

He watches her set it down between the seats, straightening up and turning back to look at him expectantly.

“Miss Kenney!”

They both turn their heads to see a woman standing by the water’s edge, a child on her hip, his little face streaked with tears and dried blood on his knees.

“What happened?” Lisa asks, immediately grabbing on to Ian’s forearm to heave herself out of the boat and hurry back to shore.

“We had a little fall, didn’t we?” the woman says, hitching her son up her hip. “Do you have something we can use to clean him up?”

“Of course,” Lisa turns back and holds up her hands. “I’m sorry, CJ. I’ll be right back!”

Ian chuckles at the unnecessary apology and waves her off, feeling more relieved and guilty with every step away from him she takes. He’s startled out of his mixed emotions when Mickey suddenly appears, the wooden boards rattling underfoot as he strides past Ian and climbs into the rowboat without fanfare. Grumbling under his breath and stirring up sloshing waves around the hull, he manages to turn around and sit down on the stern seat, meeting Ian’s eyes for the first time in days.

Opening his mouth to say something, Ian only manages to let out a quick breath, knocked out of him by the relief surging through him, leaving only excitement in its wake.

“How about it, Sylvia,” Mickey says, raising his eyebrows. “Wanna book it?”

Ian rows, crutches rattling and squeaking as the oars turn, his arms and shoulders aching pleasantly with each pull through the clear water. Mickey is sprawled out bowside, eyes closed and leaned back with his hands behind his head, feet resting on the seat next to Ian’s hip.

Ian rows until he forgets to worry about Lisa’s reaction when she comes back to find him gone, until he stops imagining what she’ll tell his parents, until they round a bend in the lake and the resort disappears from sight. Until the echoing sounds of playing children mellows out and is replaced by lapping water and buzzing insects, wind rustling through leaves.

He steers the boat into a small, grassy cove, lifting the oars to rest on the edge of the boat before he stands up and precariously leaps ashore. Mickey doesn’t move from his relaxed position as Ian grabs the bow and pulls it as far up on the grass as he can.

“Easy,” Mickey mutters when the boat rocks. Ian huffs out a laugh and tugs on the bow again, assuming that it’s stuck enough to not drift away from them.

“You could help,” he points out, letting go of the bow and sitting down in the grass.

“Nah,” Mickey smirks, his eyes still closed. “I’m on vacation.”

Ian waits until Mickey huffs at his petulant silence, until he cracks an eye open, until he leisurely gets on his feet, until he climbs ashore, arms stretching above his head as he looks around the peaceful cove. Then he springs to his feet and tackles him in the stomach, shoulder first, wrapping his arms around him tight and using his momentum to launch them both into the water. Mickey shouts in surprise, hands fisting the back of Ian’s shirt as he’s carried a few feet out – the water quickly rising from kneehigh to waist high – and unceremoniously thrown into the lake.

Mickey emerges spitting and flailing, swearing loudly as he dogpaddles against the sudden depth. Ian laughs and gets water pushed in his face, seconds before Mickey throws himself at him, hooking an arm around his neck and pushing his head under the surface. Ian does his best to pull him down with him.

They struggle back for air together, spluttering and laughing so hard Ian thinks they might end up drowning just from that. Unwilling to rein himself in, he clings to Mickey, their feet paddling together to keep them afloat.

The arm around his shoulders slips until Mickey’s hand grasps onto his neck as he tips his head back, dipping his hair just below the water’s surface. Ian lets himself watch, his hungry eyes savouring each little detail of his throat, the line of his jaw, his soft-looking skin, thin and sensitive as it stretches out in front of him, just within reach.

Then his face abruptly tips forward again and fills Ian’s whole world with a wide grin, right before Mickey vigorously shakes his head and laughs as Ian has to duck away from the splattering water.

Ian’s feet find some kind of firm ground, sludge surging around his shoes as he drifts them closer to shore until he can stand with his head firmly above the surface.

“I feel so light,” he says, “bet it would be so much easier to practice that lift in the water.”

“You can knock that thought outta your head right now,” Mickey grumbles, pointing a warning finger at his face. He’s still clinging to Ian’s shoulders, Ian’s arm around his waist. “If you tryna lift me we gonna hassle, I swear to God.”

Ian huffs and squares his jaw, steadying his feet in the sludge and switching his hands to grip Mickey by the hips. Mickey yelps and desperately grabs hold of Ian’s hands, and Ian only manages to lift him out of the water to his navel before gravity kicks in. And then Mickey kicks in, wrapping both arms and legs around him and tipping them both over.

After, they take most of their dripping clothes off and sprawl out on the grass to dry. Ian feels like he’s sunk into a different world. His skin warming under the high midday sun, the tall grass framing his vision of white clouds slowly sailing across a blue sky. Little insects buzzing past his face, going about their lives.

When their stomachs start grumbling, Ian gets the picnic basket from the boat. Well, he gets the picnic basket after he swims out and gets the boat, towing it back to shore and lifting it up on the grass with Mickey’s help, this time.

Then they sit with their bare feet in the water, leisurely kicking up waves as they split the lovingly prepared spread of sandwiches, fruit and cold cuts between them. Mickey uncorks the wine, which turns out to be a not quite cold lemonade in an old wine bottle, and they pass it back and forth until it’s empty.

“Think I always wanted to know how to dance,” Ian says, his feet taking him through a set of steps that would have had him falling on his ass just a week ago.

He should feel exposed in just his underwear, their wet clothes spread out to dry over a nearby bush. But Mickey looks so unbothered and beautiful, stretched out on the grass, supporting himself on his elbows to keep watching Ian. He feels seen, and completely at ease for the first time in a very long time.

“Couldn’t even do the Locomotion to save my life,” he says and huffs, putting his hands on his hips as he follows his own lead; “Swing your hips, jump back, jump up, jump back, okay–”

“Even her little sister can do it, with ease,” Mickey lazily recites the song.

“A little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul,” Ian continues the lyrics, flapping his arms uncertainly, “do it holding hands if you get the notion?”

“Crystal clear instructions,” Mickey says, “don’t see what the problem is.”

“Okay so, shimmy shimmy ko-ko-pop,” Ian bops his head to the imagined beat of one of the many dance-craze songs that haunted his childhood, “left one forward, sure, and right one back, fine, bring them side by side, easy enough.”

He does the steps, even puts a little extra flair in it just because he can, just to see Mickey roll his eyes at him.

“Then you glide where?” he asks, attempting a sideways slide with his bare feet on the rough grass, stumbling a little. “Arch my back, how? Keep along the rhythm track the girls will show me how, who?”

“How many of these fucking songs do you know?” Mickey complains, putting his hands behind his head and stretching out, looking up at the sky.

No longer observed, Ian’s movements stall. His eyes linger on the taut lines of Mickey’s arms, the smattering of hair on his chest, the inviting sprawl of his legs. He huffs.

“All of them,” he says, strolling over to collapse next to Mickey, turning his head to watch the side of his face through the grass. “Told you I really wanted to know how to dance.”

“That shit ain’t dancing,” Mickey mutters without any real heat and Ian wonders, not for the first time, where Mickey came from, when he learned to dance, and why he stopped. He wonders how much he’s allowed to know, how much Mickey will tell him if he asks.

“Mandy said you did good yesterday,” Mickey takes his chance away before he’s worked up the courage to try, his lips curling into a smirk. “Or better anyway, couldn’t get much worse after all.”

“Thanks,” Ian says with all the sarcasm he can muster, letting his head loll back until all he can see is blue skies.

“You’re welcome,” Mickey hums, clearly pleased with himself.

“You’ve been staying away,” Ian very carefully doesn’t pose it as a question, unsure if he wants to know why. Likes to imagine that it doesn’t matter now, here. “Missed you.”

Mickey scoffs.

“Yeah well,” he says, “Mandy was under the impression that me being there is what made you shy, or something.”

Ian smiles.

“And now you all but proved her point by getting good while I was away, so,” Mickey says with a reproachful tut, “guess I won’t be welcome no more.”

Closing his eyes, Ian just keeps smiling. Mickey doesn’t make him shy, no, but he sure makes him stupid.

Being around Mickey ties his tongue and loosens his lips and crawls under his skin, pushing up gooseflesh and burning his neck. Being around Mickey is like every lovesick song suddenly making perfect, terrifying sense. None of this was ever part of his plan, but resisting it seems increasingly useless with every new moment they spend together, inching closer, piquing his hope.

Merely a thought, a sliver of possibility, illuminating his future just enough for him to finally recognize the shape of a cage.

It makes him want to stop breathing.

It makes him want to roll over and press himself into Mickey’s sun-kissed skin and–

“Why do they call you CJ, anyway?” Mickey asks, gruffly, his mind clearly gone in a very different direction to Ian’s.

“My middle name is Clayton,” Ian says the thing he usually says when people ask. He looks up at the sky, realizing that he wants to tell Mickey all the things he never says, to anyone. “They started calling me Junior when I moved in to live with Clayton and Lucy.”

He hears the grass rustle, imagines that Mickey has turned his head and is watching him. He keeps still, taking a quick breath.

“Grew up with Lip and our sister, Fiona, our kid brother Carl and little sister Debbie,” he says, swallowing the lump in his throat when he remembers their grown up faces in Lip’s photo. “I was twelve when we got booked, Mom was missing and Dad got wrapped up in some scheme that got him sent to the pokey for a year, so Lip and Fi got placed in a halfway house, we had an aunt who took care of the kids, and me–, I… we found out that Mom had put down our Dad’s estranged brother Clayton as my real father, on my birth certificate.”

Hearing it all tumble out of his own mouth, Ian wonders what it sounds like to someone who hasn’t had to live with it for six years. It still sounds like a nightmare to Ian, even after all this time.

“No way, man,” Mickey shakes his head, incredulous, “you’re South Side?”

Ian huffs out a laugh, cheeks aching when he smiles up at the empty sky. Of course that’s what he takes away from Ian’s messed up family history.

“Born and raised,” he says, and then amends; “well, until I wasn’t.”

They never talked about it, not once. He went from his delapidated childhood home to a brand new house on the other side of the tracks, with a new family half the size of his old. Lucy would iron his clothes and Clayton called him Junior, and they would have quiet meals together in the dining room, listen to talk radio in the sitting room while Clayton smoked his pipe before bed. They would call his brothers and sisters ‘cousins’ until he stopped correcting them, and then they stopped calling them anything at all.

They never talked about it. They never talk about anything.

“Didn’t get into Harvard,” he says, voice almost failing him.

“So?” Mickey asks, sounding utterly confused by the sudden turn. “Who wants to go to Harvard?”

Closing his eyes, Ian lets out a slow breath. The world didn’t end, saying it out loud. Mickey doesn’t know that Ian has his whole life staked out, and that he’s already failing.

“I was supposed to get in,” he says.

“Fuck Harvard,” Mickey decides with a derissive snort, “what were you gonna do there anyway, fuckin’ water polo or some shit?”

Ian laughs, tears stinging in the corners of his eyes.

“Law school.”

Mickey blows a raspberry. “Law schools are a dime a dozen, know for a fact that U of C got more candyass civil rights courses than you’d know what to do with.”

Ian lets his head tip to the side so he can watch Mickey’s face, profiled against the soft grass, glowing in the late afternoon sun.

“Civil rights?”

“Or whatever it’s called,” Mickey sighs. “Figured it’s the kinda thing you’re into. Soft bitch. Caring about people and their rights and shit.”

Ian stares at him, his whole world jogged off kilter.

“So,” Mickey frowns, seemingly oblivious to Ian’s inner crisis, “when Lip says he’s your cousin..?”

“Guess technically he’s maybe both,” Ian says, surprised to hear how steady his voice is. He looks back up at the sky, it’s starting to turn orange around the edges. “But he was my brother first.”

Mickey lets out a thoughtful hum, but doesn’t say anything.

“I look more like Clayton than Frank,” Ian admits, “and Clayton does a better job at the whole father thing, so there’s that.”

Mickey snorts. “Because he’s a sosh doctor with a fat bank account?”

“No,” Ian says and frowns. “Because he... loves me. Cares about what I wanna do with my life.”

Sucking in a quick breath, Ian snaps his mouth shut. Mickey doesn’t say anything more, so Ian closes his eyes and listens to the sounds of the nature around him. The water lapping against shore, birds chirping in the trees. He wonders what they’re doing back at the resort, probably sitting down for dinner if the position of the sun is anything to go by.

He hopes no one is looking for him. He’s pretty sure no one is looking for him.

They pack up and row back in silence, different than when they set out. Mickey sits in the stern, laid-back and relaxed as ever, eyes affixed on the landscape slowly rolling past as they glide through the water.

From time to time, he will turn his head and watch Ian row, meet his gaze and still say nothing. It should perhaps concern him, and maybe it would have if Ian had anything to say of his own. He lets himself look, watches Mickey when he’s turned away, meets his eyes when he isn’t, his mind singularly preoccupied with a single thought.

He wants this.

They tie the rowboat to the dock and Ian follows Mickey’s lead as he takes them around the edge of the lawn and into the woods, finding his way through to the staff area without one of the marked trails.

They stop outside one of the small huts and Mickey turns to face him in front of the closed door. Thumbing at the side of his mouth, he looks away.

“You should go back,” he says.

Ian stares at him and says nothing. He’s tired of doing things he should, the only way he’s leaving is if Mickey says he wants him to leave. He doesn’t look like he wants him to leave.

Mickey unlocks the door and doesn’t close it behind himself when he goes inside, so Ian follows. Leaning back against the worn wood, he hears it click shut behind him as he takes in the small space. There isn’t much, a couple of mismatched chairs, a bookcase full of albums, a record player on an upturned crate, a bed. It’s unmade, sheets twisted up in the middle from this morning, left behind just the way it was when Mickey woke up.

Mickey has moved across the room, back turned and neck bent as he fiddles with his records, stacking a couple of singles on the turntable. Ian locks the door.

The arm moves into position with a thunk as the first single starts spinning, a low crackle filling the room when the needle fits into the track. A couple of seconds later, a slow melancholy tune starts, Sam Cooke humming along to it pleasantly.

Ian smirks and walks into the room, placing himself in the center and smiling wider when Mickey turns around and sees him.

“Dance with me,” he says, swinging his hips and wagging his eyebrows suggestively when Mickey huffs and shakes his head. He takes a demonstrative step back and folds his arms across his chest when Ian holds out a hand, but his shoulders drop and the worried tension between his eyes seems to smooth out.

“Come on,” Ian tries to coax him, taking a step closer. “Dance with me.”

”–I often think of you, night and day–”

Mickey leans back against the bookcase and raises his eyebrows, his eyes dipping and the corner of his lips quirking up in an appreciative smirk when Ian moves his hips through a slow roll.

“Oh, loverboy?” he says and smiles when it surprises a bright laugh out of Mickey, uncrossing his arms to wipe a hand over his face.

“I simply say, ‘baby... oh baby’,” Ian sings, badly, softly, the words thick in his throat. “You’re the one.”

Mickey swears under his breath, then he’s striding across the distance between them, hand on Ian’s cheek the only warning before he pulls himself up and slots their lips together.

It’s a gentle touch at first, his lips rough and slick at once, his shaky breath fanning over Ian’s cheek sending a shiver through his whole body. Ian grabs him by his shirt and holds him still, fists pulling the fabric taut across his back when he’s pressing in closer. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but his lips part and mould to Mickey’s, desperate for more and Mickey groans into his mouth. He must be doing something right.

”–I know that someday, oh someday darling, I won’t be trouble no more.”

Ian adjusts the sheet over his shoulders, feeling it slide down to gather across his lower back when he settles himself comfortably on Mickey’s chest, propping his chin up so he can look at him.

Mickey is watching him, eyes narrowing when Ian smiles.

“Tell me something,” Ian says, his voice still rough. “Tell me something no one else knows about you.”

“This not enough for you?” Mickey asks, the hand still on Ian’s thigh squeezing him pointedly.

“Nope,” Ian jokes, popping the ‘p’. “Where did you grow up? When did you learn to dance? Who was your first kiss?”

Mickey huffs and tries to push Ian’s face away, smiling when Ian laughs and grabs him by the wrist, pinning his hand into the pillow next to his face.

“Chicago,” he says, telling Ian nothing he didn’t already know. “Who gives a shit, and none of your fucking business.”

“Think it is my business,” Ian says, rolling more fully on top of him so he can support himself on an elbow while still holding Mickey’s hand in place. He smirks when Mickey’s legs spread wider to let him settle in between his thighs.

“Who was yours?” Mickey shoots back, arching his eyebrows like he thinks he’s proven some kind of point by turning the tables on him. Ian lets his eyes roam across his face, sinking down just enough to rub their noses together, hovering his lips just out of reach when Mickey tips his head back to get closer.

“None of your fucking business,” he murmurs, certain that Mickey already knows. He must know.

Ian lets himself be pulled closer by the fingers curling around the back of his neck, until he feels Mickey’s breath fan across his face and his lips part under his.

A sharp knock on the door tears them out of the moment, the sound settling like a heavy stone on Ian’s chest when they look at each other, and the softness seems to drain from Mickey’s face.

“Get dressed,” he says, “stay out of sight.”

They scramble out of the bed and Ian grabs all of his crumpled clothes before he presses himself into the corner of the small room least likely to be seen from the door. He pulls on his pants and undershirt, cringing on his creased dress shirt as Mickey unlocks the door, already dressed.

The knocking hasn’t stopped, the frantic sound filling Ian with dread as he tries to blend into the shadows.

“Don’t have a cow,” Mickey mutters, flinging the door open. “What?”

Ian can’t see him, but he recognizes Lip’s voice right away.

“It’s Mandy.”

The hand still adjusting his collar stills, and Mickey throws an uncertain look his way.

“What’s wrong?”

Implications forgotten, Ian steps out of his dark corner and comes up behind Mickey, saying nothing when Lip’s sharp eyes snap to him and then back to Mickey.

“She needs you, now.”

They hurry through the village, Lip’s voice low and grave as he explains while they walk.

“The doc called, said he had to move the appointment and that tonight was the only other option.”

He throws a glance over his shoulder at Ian, but visibly holds himself back from saying whatever it is he’s thinking.

“We tried to find you but no one knew where you were, so I drove her there.”

“What happened?” Mickey asks again as they sprint up the stairs to Mandy’s hut, his face pale in the dark.

Lip doesn’t answer, he just leads the way inside and steps out of Mickey’s path when he barges through and drops to his knees next to Mandy, curled up in pain on her bed.

“Mick,” she pants, clutching on to his hand when he offers it. “Please.”

“What the fuck happened?” Mickey growls, looking up at Lip with fury in his eyes. Ian lingers by the door, unsure what he can do.

“The second he closed the door I knew something was wrong,” Lip says, visibly shaken. “He had a rusty knife and a folding table, she was screaming. I tried to get to her, Mickey, I swear.”

Mickey looks at his sister, face screwed up in pain, hair stuck to her sweaty forehead.

“Water,” he says, “get some clean water, boil it, we’ll need clean rags to stop the bleeding. Break into the nurse’s station, take everything you can get your hands on.”

Lip nods, but Ian can’t stop staring at the dark stain spreading on Mandy’s white sheets.

“I’ll get help,” he says, eyes snapping up to meet Mickey’s. He looks like he’s about to argue for a second, but then his jaw sets in grim determination and he nods.

“Don’t move,” Ian says and doesn’t wait until he’s outside to start running, leaping off the porch before Lip has had the chance to ask; ‘where would we go?’

The trees fly by as Ian runs through the forest, heart in his throat as his feet stumble over the uneven ground in the dark. The cabin is dark when he arrives and Lucy and Clayton are fast asleep when he sneaks into their room to grab his father’s bag and urgently shake him awake by the shoulder.

Clayton doesn’t push when Ian only tells him that it’s an emergency, years of practice getting him up and ready to help in seconds, following Ian as he leads them back to the staff village and up to Mandy’s room.

Lip is already outside, eyes wide when he sees who Ian brought. Clayton strides past him without a word and then promptly tells Mickey to leave as well, not wasting any time to lay out his things and get started, talking to Mandy in a low, soothing voice.

Closing the door, Mickey slumps down in front of it, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

Ian is still standing on the dirt path in front of the hut, panting from the run, frozen with fear and adrenaline, fighting the urge to crawl up on the porch and cover Mickey’s curled up body with his own.

“What are you doing, Ian?”

Ian blinks and looks away from Mickey to find Lip staring at him. Unsure what he means, Ian just shakes his head.

“Him?” Lip asks, pointing at Mickey, his hand shaking. “I thought we decided you were gonna fly that shit low if you were gonna do it at all.”

You decided, Ian thinks in a flash of anger, gone as soon as it came.

“I am,” he says, frowning at the unease crawling up his spine just saying it. “I was–, I–”

“What the fuck, Ian?” Lip groans, pinching his eyes shut. He thinks Ian is being stupid, he always thinks he knows better.

“Save the speech, Lip,” Ian says, he doesn’t know if he can stand hearing it again. “I haven’t forgotten, alright?”

Lip stares at him as though he’s grown a second head, speechless for once in his life. Ian feels a grim kind of satisfaction at managing to shut him up.

“Anyway,” he goes on, unable to keep the spite out of his voice, “it’s legal now so you’re gonna have to come up with some other way to tell me how sick you think I am.”

“It’s legal in Illinois!” Lip exclaims, before lowering his voice again and taking a couple of urgent steps closer. “Do you think fucking Bob Kenney is gonna care that it’s legal in Illinois if he finds out his prospect son-in-law spends his days getting sodomized in the woods, by him?”

He gestures in Mickey’s direction and Ian rolls his eyes, suddenly amazed that he ever listened to what Lip had to say about this.

Because it’s almost funny how obvious it is now that Lip doesn’t know, doesn’t understand what it’s like at all. Ian had thought he could do it, ignore the part of him that wanted, that desired and hoped. Trade it in for a safe, normal life, for a family of his own. When he was twelve years old and the only person who knew about him was telling him to hide it away, Ian hadn’t understood what it would mean.

That it wasn’t just giving away his desires, his wants, his hopes, he was also giving away a part of himself.

“You don’t know,” Ian says, hating how unsteady his voice sounds, how impossible it feels to find the right words. “You don’t know–”

The door opens and Mickey shoots to his feet, moving out of the way when Clayton steps out on the porch.

“Are you Mickey?”

“Yeah,” Mickey nods. “Yes, sir.”

“She’s going to be fine,” Clayton says, and Mickey sags with relief. Lip runs his hands through his hair with a sigh, and Ian feels like he can finally breathe again. Clayton holds up a small glass jar, handing it over to Mickey. “One more in the morning should help with the pain.”

“Thank you,” Mickey says and throws a quick glance at Ian. “Thank you, Dr Gallagher.”

“It was a terrible thing, bringing her to that butcher,” Clayton tells him, quietly furious. “You’re lucky she’s made of tough stuff.”

Mickey just nods, visibly anxious when he swallows and tries to catch a glimpse of his sister over Clayton’s shoulder.

Clayton shakes his head but steps aside, letting him pass.

“Dr Gallagher,” Lip tries to approach him as Clayton walks down from the porch. “We can’t tell you how–”

He stops himself when it’s clear that he is being ignored, Clayton marching past him without a word and grabbing Ian’s arm in a hard grip, dragging him away.

“I’m so disappointed in you,” he says after a minute of terrifying silence, when they’re alone on the dark path winding through the woods. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore, CJ. First you lie to me about the money–”

“I didn’t–”

“Then you disappear all day yesterday to do God knows what–”

“I wasn’t–”

“And now this,” his grip tightens, fingers digging painfully into Ian’s arm. “Loose women, back alley abortions.”

Ian knows he shouldn’t argue, but he needs to at least make sure his father knows that his friend isn’t what he thinks she is. “Mandy–”

“What about Lisa?” Clayton interrupts him again. “That poor girl, did you even think about her? You are never to see those people again, especially that no-good cousin of yours. He’s a terrible influence on you, always has been.”

The air leaves Ian’s lungs in a rush, he can’t do this. He can’t do this anymore.

“Brother.”

Clayton doesn’t stop.

“What?” he bites out, but he doesn’t even turn his head to look at Ian.

“He’s my brother,” Ian repeats, swallowing thickly, “and I don’t think–”

He can’t do this.

“I don’t think I can be what you want me to be.”

“Yes you can, CJ,” Clayton casually dismisses him, eyes still on the path ahead of them. “We’ll just forget this ever happened and focus on the plan–”

“No,” Ian interrupts him and tries to make them stop, only to have his father tug him back into motion.

“We’re done talking about this.”

“I can’t–,” Ian takes a deep breath, “I can’t go to Harvard, I can’t study corporate law, I can’t get married to Lisa. Or anyone, ever.”

That gets Clayton to stop, turning around to face Ian with a concerned frown.

“Is this about Harvard?” he asks, fingers still digging into Ian’s arm. “I know you’re worried about not getting in, right now. It’s all part of the process, CJ, we just need to talk to the right people, sort it out.”

Ian closes his eyes and swallows back his tears, he can’t do this.

“No, you’re not–,” he says. “This isn’t–”

Clayton shakes him, making him open his eyes and look at him. “What is this about?”

“I thought I could do it, Dad,” Ian says, pleading, “I really tried, but I can’t.”

“What are you trying to say?” Clayton stares at him like he’s never seen him before, as though he can’t comprehend what he’s hearing.

“Yesterday, when I was gone, I wasn’t–,” Ian starts, steeling himself. “I wasn’t with Mandy. I was with Mickey, and I think I–”

Clayton’s hand connects sharply with the side of his face, slapping him with enough force to make his ear ring in the silence that follows.

“You forget that filth, right this instance,” he then says in a low, dangerous tone, pointing a finger in his face. “You forget it and never mention it again, you hear me? Not to me, not to your mother, not to anyone, not as long as you want to be part of this family.”

Ian stares at him, cheek warm and throbbing, heart stalling in his chest. Clayton lets go of his arm and tries to readjust his hopelessly rumpled shirt, straightening out the collar.

“First thing tomorrow morning,” he says, his voice back to normal. “You will apologize to Lisa and pray that she forgives you and never finds out about any of this, then we will go home and you will work at the practice and reapply to Harvard and you will get in this time, and we will all forget that this cursed summer ever happened.”

He doesn’t meet Ian’s eyes once, gaze fixed on anything else while he talks. When he’s done, he pats Ian lightly on the shoulder and walks away.

And Ian stands alone in the dark for a long time, feeling nothing but the emptiness expanding around him.

Lucy finds him in the early morning, sitting on the gazebo steps and watching the mist clear from the lake as the sun slowly peeks through the treetops.

She hands him a cup of coffee and drapes a soft blanket over his back before she sits down next to him, hugging an arm around his shoulders.

He holds on to the warm cup, stares down at the dark liquid. His fingers sting, hands red from the cold.

“Ever since you came to us,” Lucy says after a long moment of silence, her hand stroking down his back in a slow, soothing arc. “I’ve thought of you as my own.”

He lets her talk, too tired to know what he’s supposed to say.

“I know I’m not your mother, but you are my son,” she continues, her kind gaze a heavy weight on the side of his face. She runs her fingers through his hair, combs it down the side. “It’s such a painful life, CJ.”

Ian bends his head. He doesn’t know how she knows. Maybe she’s always known and looked the other way, same as he has. He can’t look the other way anymore. He can’t look away.

“Clay is scared for you,” she says, voice pitched to little more than a whisper. “We don’t want you to go through all that pain. We love you so much.”

His last shred of strength crumbling, Ian buries his face in Lucy’s warm embrace and cries. She winds her arms around his head and holds him close, holds him until the sun rises above the resort for the start of another day.

Staring at the food on his plate, Ian wonders if his father will let him leave if he says he isn’t feeling well and looks pitiful enough to be believed. He’s been held on a tight leash all day, a pointed look or a stern word shooting him down whenever he’s made to wander off in the wrong direction.

He can’t get the image of Mandy’s bloodied sheets out of his mind. All he wants is to see her and make sure she’s alright, beg her forgiveness for his not insignificant part in letting this happen to her.

He can’t get the image of Mickey out either, slumped against the door with his head in his hands.

He does feel kind of sick, so he wouldn’t even have to lie. He just needs to get away for an hour, then he’ll let things go back to normal. Blend back in.

“–my apologies again, for allowing this to go on for so long,” he hears Mr Kenney’s voice. He looks up to find the rotund man supporting himself on the back of Clayton’s chair, dabbing his damp forehead with a white handkerchief. “But don’t you worry, my old friend, the problem has been dealt with, fired the hoodlums myself this afternoon. They’ll be gone by nightfall, contracts nullified.”

Ian sits up straight, looking between his father and Mr Kenney.

“What?” he says, catching their attention. Lucy reaches out and puts a hand on his arm, but he doesn’t heed her warning.

“Don’t worry yourself, CJ,” Clayton dismisses him, he still isn’t meeting his eyes, hasn’t once since last night.

“What I wanted to do is thank you,” Mr Kenney says, following Clayton’s lead and ignoring Ian’s question. “If you hadn’t alerted us to this unsavoury business, who knows how long they would have carried on, sullying the reputation of this fine resort–”

There’s a loud clattering noise bringing the whole dining hall to a grinding halt, guests and waiters around the surrounding tables dropping their conversations and lowering their utensils to curiously peer at the chair tipped over on the hardwood floor.

Ian doesn't know when he stood up, hands shaking as he stares at his father. The doctor. Who must not have wasted a minute before he broke his oath and got Mandy in trouble.

“CJ,” Lucy quietly pleads, “sit down.”

“What’s going on?” Lisa asks, stepping up to their table and turning from her father to Ian. “CJ?”

Ian can’t look at her, fists clenching at his sides.

“You told him,” he says, mind stuck on this one thought, unable to get past it.

Clayton rubs at his forehead and sighs.

“The girl made her choice,” he says, “these things have consequences–”

“Someone knocked her up and then flaked on her!” Ian argues wildly, ignoring the way Lucy starts at his outburst. “What choice? There was no choice!”

Mr Kenney opens his mouth, the affronted look on his face only egging Ian on.

“Mandy didn’t have enough money to even pay for the abortion that nearly killed her,” Ian seethes, glancing at Lisa when she gasps. “And you fired her without pay, for what?”

Lisa’s eyes grow wide in shock, looking to her father to confirm or deny Ian’s accusation.

“CJ, sit down, son,” Clayton says, holding up a hand in a placating gesture. “You’re causing a scene.”

“Ian.”

That does it. Clayton finally meets his eyes.

“It’s Ian,” he repeats, letting out an unsteady breath, “and I don’t think I’m your son anymore.”

Ian blinks as he steps out on the breakfast deck, the distant sound of Lisa yelling at her father fading into the background as he strides out on the luscious grass and takes a deep breath.

“Ian!”

He turns around in time to see Lip jog out of a side door, catching up to him.

“Ian–”

“I know you think it’s sick,” Ian cuts him off before he can say anything, “I know you don’t like it, but–”

He stops talking when Lip doesn’t slow down until he’s close enough to throw his arms around him in a fierce embrace.

“I don’t,” he mutters into Ian’s shoulder, squeezing him tighter when Ian’s arms fly up to hug him back. “I never thought it was.”

Ian isn’t sure he believes him, but he’s not going to argue. He hides his face in Lip’s jean jacket. He’s not wearing his uniform.

“Not gonna say I understand it,” Lip says and grips the back of Ian’s shirt when he snorts at the understatement, “but you’re my brother.”

He grabs Ian by the shoulders and gently holds him at an arm’s distance, making sure Ian can see his face.

“You’re my brother and I love you,” he says. “All I ever wanted was to protect you.”

Ian huffs and ducks his head, feeling his whole chest bloom with some kind of hope when Lip chuckles.

“I was wrong.”

Letting out a wet laugh, Ian tips his head back and tries to smile, feeling it immediately twist into something else.

“Everything’s gone to hell,” he says. “It’s all my fault.”

“Hey,” Lip says and grabs his neck, jostling him gently. “It’s not your fault, none of this is your fault.”

Ian shakes his head.

“I got her the money, I got her fired,” he says, wincing. “And Mickey…”

Wiping at his nose with the back of his hand, Ian frowns at Lip’s get-up.

“You too, by the looks of it.”

“Fuck it,” Lip shrugs, and it feels so familiar that it hurts. “We’ll be fine, the Milkoviches especially. They’re like cockroaches.”

It should be an insult, but the way he says it makes Ian think that it really isn’t. He can’t help smiling at the thought of them, of him.

“I need to see them.”

“Man, then you gotta run,” Lip says and shoves him in the direction of the off-site parking lot. “They were already packed up and ready to go when I saw them half hour ago.”

Ian takes a couple of breathless steps backward, needing a moment to remember the sore sight of his brother, backlit by the golden evening sunlight glittering over the lake below. He looks like a promise.

Feeling lighter than he has in years, he runs.

Heart in his throat, he runs up the hill until the loose gravel of the parking lot comes into view. He stops for a second to scan the area, silently thanking his luck when he spots Mandy standing next to a beat-up black Chevy, not too far away.

He scrambles down the hill and runs through the scattered cars, only slowing down when Mandy turns at the sound of his steps.

“Ian,” she says and throws her arms around his neck, clearly not as upset with him as she rightfully should be. He hugs her back gingerly, worried about causing her any unnecessary pain.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she sighs into his shoulder, smiling up at him with shining eyes when he steps back. “Thanks to you and Dr Gallagher.”

Ian looks down, he doesn’t deserve her gratitude, and Clayton even less so.

“Only sad we never got to do the show,” Mandy says and laughs when Ian lets out a pained groan. He cups the sides of her head and rests their foreheads together, so very happy to see her smile.

“Maybe next year,” he says, even though they both know neither of them are likely to ever be welcomed back to Nippersink Resort.

They startle apart at the sound of someone closing the boot, Ian’s breath catching when he turns to see Mickey walk around the car.

If Ian hadn’t already seen him in nothing but his birthday suit, Mickey would be almost unrecognizable out of his coveralls. He’s in a worn leather jacket and jeans, taking off his shades and hooking them over the hem of his tee as he steps up to say goodbye.

“Sylvia,” he says, looking away when Ian can’t stop himself from smiling.

“Mickey.”

“Ian,” Mandy says, rolling her eyes as she smacks a kiss to his cheek, before leaving them to it and getting herself in the car.

They stand in silence for a moment, just watching each other. Then Ian sucks in a quick breath, suddenly overwhelmed by the thought that Mickey might leave before he can–

What, he doesn’t know. Do something, anything. Everything.

“Come here,” he begs, hands coming up to cradle Mickey’s face when they’re close enough. “Say my name.”

Mickey turns his face into Ian’s hand, pressing a lingering kiss to his palm.

“Ian,” he murmurs.

Closing his eyes, Ian knows this will be worth any pain it might cause.

“Take me with you,” he says, words tumbling out on an unsteady breath. “I want to be with you.”

Mickey sighs, it tickles over his skin. “Ian…”

“Wherever you’re going,” Ian smiles and pulls Mickey closer, opens his eyes so he can watch his thumb stroke across Mickey’s mouth, up his cheek. “Like the song, right?”

Mickey shakes his head.

“Like the fucking song,” he says, leaning in and pressing his lips to Ian’s in a lingering kiss. It feels like a goodbye.

It is a goodbye, Mickey patting him on the cheek with a tightlipped smile before stepping out of his arms, putting his shades back on as he rounds the car and disappears into the driver’s seat without another word.

Ian stands in the dust kicking up around the wheels as Mickey turns the Chevy around and tears out of the lot. Shading his eyes with a hand, he looks after the car until all he can see is the setting sun. Until he hears Lip walk up next to him, putting an arm over his shoulders.

Until the dust finally settles, and there’s nothing left to do but go home.