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“Not for much longer.”

Arlo gave him one last look of utter smugness before a more familiar expression settled in its place. He made a motion for Bren to stand and, considering whether or not the lad deserved obedience, he stood.

“Thank you so much for doing this with me, Bren.”

Arlo’s head rested in the crook of Bren’s neck, his arms pulling them together by the waist. Bren’s hands found Arlo’s back and held him close.

“Thanks for lettin’ me do you—I mean, letting me do this with you,” Bren grinned.

The sputter Bren had been aiming for didn’t come. Instead, Arlo sighed and pulled him closer still, Bren’s head coming to rest against a warm shoulder.

“Love you too, Bren.”

29

The prickling buzz of electricity danced in the air as everyone took their positions under the blue-tinged backstage light. The voices on the other side of the grand drape had been growing louder over the last twenty minutes, and the chattering of nearly a thousand people had reached such a steady thrum that A.J. was surprised the curtains weren’t vibrating.

A group of freshmen girls were fighting hard to suppress their giggles, and Yu muttered instructions into the battle-worn headset he used to conduct the fifteen person crew. Whether it was because Mrs. Lovell had let everyone in drama thirty take a nap yesterday, or because of the boy who was grinning at him from a few feet behind, A.J. had never been more ready to sing in his entire life.

The orchestra played a few last tuning notes and Mrs. Lovell’s voice echoed from the other side of the curtain to welcome their guests.

This was it, then. Opening night for the last musical of his high school career. He knew some part of him should have been sad about that, but the Bren-shaped glow in his heart wasn’t having it.

“You’re supposed to be in the green room,” A.J. said quietly.

“You’re about to make your big debut.” Bren gave A.J.’s ass a pat that he hoped no one else caught through the dim light. “If you think I’m gonna miss that, you’re off your head.”

As stage manager, Yu usually ran a tighter ship than this—people milling around the wings when they weren’t in a scene got underfoot fast.

“You’re not going to stay and watch the whole thing, are you?” A.J. asked, although he knew the answer.

Bren’s eyes searched for his in the dark, and when A.J. met them, he saw a sincerity that seldom crossed them away from secluded fly galleries.

“Fine, just—try to stay out of the crew's way or Yu’s going to burn through all nine of your lives.”

Bren’s reply was lost when the curtain opened and the first of their castmates skulked onto the stage along with the opening notes of the show. Nat came next, emerging through a ring of hula hoops, covered in grey fabric that was meant to be a concrete pipe, and then A.J.’s legs were carrying him onto center stage for his first line.

His eyes fixed on Bren long enough to see him mouth, “I love you,” and so, when Munkustrap delivered his first line, there was a glow on his words that would have put the most prideful feline to shame.

***

Bren sighed as the tingling charge that had been skittering up and down his limbs ceased with relief, and he walked back on stage. His most recent appearance had lasted just long enough for him to kidnap Dustin’s character in one of the rare moments when the show remembered it had a plot.

Not only was this appearance longer, but it let him get his hands on the lad who had been making his heart soar for the last hour and a half, never mind the last twelve months.

In all the time they’d spent rehearsing, Bren had never seen Arlo like this. The black and white airbrushing that completed his costume did nothing to hide the light that shone behind his eyes as he danced with flowing movements so different from his usual twitchy nature. And that voice! What must it be like down in Arlo’s core to make music so pure?

Bren danced towards Arlo in the steps that Mrs. Dénommée had mapped out with his uncooperative feet in mind, glad as always that this was happening in Moose Jaw instead of Glenbridge. Could you imagine?

One two.

Arlo took a swipe that Bren ducked.

Three four.

Bren made for a tackle that Arlo sidestepped, hand catching his chest in a swipe as he passed.

One two.