“It’s no wonder you love him,” she said. “Do you have all those shows she was talking about?”
“Yes, we do. Catnip, why don’t you steer Loretta that way while I get this cleanup started.”
They spent most of Sunday doing not much. Victor was finding it unusually easy to talk Andy into spending an hour on the lounger, or listening to music, or watching a movie. They had a great excuse to simply hang out and consume entertainment: Loretta kept finding things in their collection that she’d never seen or heard. Molly was delighted to have an extra human around, and especially to have her own humans both there so much of the time. She was with Andy and Victor in the sunroom on Monday morning, when they settled in with some coffee to figure out their Broadway concert.
“We need to send Sharon some flowers,” Andy said, about two hours in.
“I would never have thought of putting a mini fridge and a coffeemaker upstairs, but this shit is lit.”
Victor laughed. He was also a fan of not having to go downstairs for a beverage or a snack. Especially now that they were confining all their love play to the master bedroom. “Thank God our house guest is an adult.”
“For real. An adult who can drive.” Loretta was making regular, if tentative, forays into the maelstrom of Los Angeles traffic. She was showing no sign of wanting to go back to Miami. They’d promised they’d start taking her out dancing once she had a few more tango lessons. They had also suggested to Jim that he should take a few dance lessons. “Okay. So we have a lot going on here.”
Victor studied the list. He read it out to Andy. “Is that what you have too?”
“Yep. Eighteen numbers, counting ‘Mein Herr’ for the encore. ‘At the Ballet,’ we need to line up two more singers to do it with you, and two more dancers to do it with me.”
“That’s a lot of dancing. Two rumbas together, plus ‘Hot Honey Rag’
and ‘Mein Herr.’ Then you’ve got your tap extravaganzas to ‘Lullaby of
Broadway’ and ‘Let’s Misbehave,’ and the ballet thing. This is going to be a hell of a show. Who are you thinking to dance with you?”
“Mike and Zach, probably. I’ll bet I can bribe them to choreograph it.”
Victor laughed. Andy was grinning at him. “Jesus, I can’t wait to do this. I need to get back in tap class, stat.”
“And I need to get back in jazz. Dmitri can give us the rumbas. Who do you want to choreograph the Hot Honey? Tomás?”
Andy set his notepad down on the table between them and shoved a hand through his hair, which he still hadn’t cut. Victor watched that hand move, the Australian ring flashing, and thought yum. Then he tuned back in to what Andy was saying. “Yeah, he’d be good. He can give it some of that tango flavor. And we can ask Dmitri for some tango in the rumbas, too. This is going to be so much fucking fun.”
“You know what’s funny? How we ended up with so many of the same things before we even started comparing lists. Did you ever play Julian Marsh?”
“No. I was in the chorus for a while. They might take me seriously for it now. If the show is ever casting here I might go out for it.” Andy stood up, stretching his back. “I want to watch every one of these shows again.”
“Me too. Are there any we don’t have?”
“Not really. Nothing essential, in terms of creating references. I don’t even want to reference ‘Phantom,’ ugh. Let’s pretend all that is, is a nice sweet somewhat-over-the-top love song.”
Victor watched Andy, now bending over to touch his toes, pet Molly’s head, and then fold himself even further. “I should stretch more.”
“Yes you should.” The voice issued from between Andy’s knees. He unfolded slightly to shoot a sideways look at Victor. “I could help you with that. I could help you with that right now.” He straightened up, expecting some kind of flirty or dirty comment from Victor.
Instead he got gender-bent Shakespeare. “Age cannot wither him, nor custom stale his infinite variety.” Victor said it softly, registered Andy’s expression, and stood up. “God, when you look at me that way.” He stepped over Molly, laid a hand on Andy’s bearded face, and kissed him.
About fifteen minutes later Andy said, “I wish there were some way to actually quantify how much I love you. Because it seems like it’s more all the
time. I keep thinking there has to be a limit, and then the next day it’s like okay, another record shattered.” Victor was smiling against his skin. He was lying in Andy’s arms, sweaty and satisfied. Andy’s hand was stroking lightly, lazily, up and down Victor’s arm. Victor’s hand was behind Andy’s neck, still closed around a hank of hair. “You know my hair hasn’t been this long since I was actually in ‘Hair.’” Victor laughed silently. “I forgot how nice it could be to have my hair pulled.” Victor tugged on it again. “Maybe you should let yours grow too.”
“Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t cut it till it’s time for Broadway.”
“I’d like to see that.” Andy moved his head, and made a sound of protest.
Victor let go of his hair. Andy kissed his forehead. “Now that you’re all relaxed, let’s get down on the floor and stretch. And then one of us needs to put some pants on and take Molly outside.”
“Counteroffer. Let’s put on warmups and both go out. We can stretch on the patio and then lie on the loungers for a while.”
“I accept.” Andy patted him. “Let’s get moving.”
The topic of the property next door came up that night. It wasn’t posted for sale, but Victor hadn’t been able to dismiss the idea. “It’s awful, and it’s in awful shape. The people in there have either been there forever, or they’re renting
