﻿"NEW YORK." I STARE AT FELIX FROM MY SEAT IN FRONT OF THE PIANO. "You want to spend the weekend in New York?"
He'd walked into the music room with this wide smile on his face and a pep in his step. Truth be told the moment I saw him, I knew he had a secret, he's so bad at hiding them.
"It's technically a day," he says. "A couple of hours really."
"Oh fun." I place my hands on the keys again. "What's this for?"
"Your birthday, Lev. What else?"
"My birthday isn't for two more weeks."
"I know, that's what makes this the surprise." Felix sits down on the bench with me, pulling the sleeves of his sweater down to cover his hands. "So…"
He stares at me intently.
I can't help but blush at the way he looks at me, and panic at the way my nerves fill my heart when he sits this close, our knees touching.
"We're going to get in trouble," I tell him.
"Better to ask for forgiveness than permission."
"That logic is so flawed."
"But that's not a no."
"Who's going?"
"Just the two of us."
I wait a bit, weighing the options in my head.
Right now, the last place I should be is alone with Felix Young, on the opposite side of the country, away from our bandmates who'd save me from any awkward fumbling or terrible choices. But when Felix looks at me, his warm brown eyes big like a puppy dog's, the answer is obvious.
"Fine."
"Excellent!" He pulls down the key cover, barely giving me enough time to move away my hands before my fingers get crushed.
"I was playing!"
"You need to pack; we leave in the morning!" He's already halfway out the door.
"Fine."
"So why New York?" I ask him as we walk through LAX.
Normally we'd have a ring of security that surrounds us, but today there's nothing to protect us from any fans that might notice, except for the sunglasses, hoodies, and masks that hide the lower halves of our faces.
I'd be lying if I said my heart isn't thudding in my chest.
Anyone could see us.
"I thought it'd be nice, visit your old stomping grounds," Felix says, his backpack slung over his shoulders. We'd both packed light, what would we need for just a few hours in New York anyway?
"'Stomping grounds'? Who has ever said that?"
"People! I heard it on TV once!"
"Pfft, okay." I shake my head. "Who else knows we're going?"
"I told Mickey, just in case the label put an APB out on us."
"We're going to be in so much trouble when we get back…"
"Hey!" Felix wraps an arm around my shoulder, which is tough because I'm a solid foot taller than him. "You let me worry about that."
Felix has always been seen and marketed as the baby of the group—even though he's six months older than me—he's the baby, I'm the cold, stoic, shy one, Mickey is the big brother, Drew is the handsome pretty boy, and Corey the hot "nerd" who wears fake glasses. All things that none of us are really like in real life, but we accept the roles we're given.
Not that we have a choice. We do what the label wants us to.
Eventually, Felix's arm falls back to his side since it'd be incredibly awkward for us to walk around with his feet nearly dragging off the floor, but I want him to stay so badly. I want to feel closer to him. I want his arm around me, I want his hand in mine, I want…
I want more, and I know I shouldn't.
Things would just get messy.
Hell, I don't even know if Felix is queer. None of us are allowed to present as anything other than cis and straight, it's actually in our contracts. We need to be marketable to our "straight female audience." Never mind that the fans wouldn't care. We're shipped with each other constantly: fan fiction, art, videos, edited pictures and posts, all made to look like we're dating or hooking up with each other. I'm tagged in no less than a hundred posts every single day where I'm paired with Felix. Or, when the label gets involved, tells me to look at Felix during a certain part of a slow love song, or tells Drew to grab Corey and dance with him onstage. We've read some of it out loud backstage, laughed at the things the label makes us do, put the edited pictures or fan fiction links in the group chat.
I never care when it's Mickey or Drew or Corey laughing.
But when it's Felix…
When we sit down at our terminal, I pull out my phone, willing our managers to call and end this entire trip. But it doesn't do me any good.
"Gimmie." Felix holds out his hand.
"What?"
"Your phone," he says. "No distractions."
"I'm not distracted," I say.
"Yes, you are!" He snatches the phone right out of my hand, and I don't fight him as he turns it off and slips it into his backpack. "You can have this back when we're home again."
"Okay."
"It's your birthday trip. I'm not going to let anyone ruin it."
"Fine." I tuck my hands into my pockets. "Where are we going anyway?"
"To New York," he says with a smug grin.
"You know what I mean."
"You'll see."
"You can't tell me now?"
"Well, young Levi. That would spoil the surprise."
I feel a surge of nervousness as he uses my name. We've already risked so much just going through the TSA precheck, but either the attendants didn't know us or they just didn't care.
"If you keep my phone that means we have to share AirPods on the flight."
"Fine by me." Felix pulls out the earbuds, handing one to me and keeping the other for himself. While we listen, we wait, Felix's head resting on my shoulders, and I barely dare to breathe for fear of disturbing him.
Felix takes sleeping meds once we're on the plane so he can pass out and not have to deal with flying anxiety, which leaves me with my thoughts for five whole hours. I try to read this book Mickey lent me, to listen to music, to watch a movie, but nothing catches my attention because my mind won't stop racing. There's the fear of being caught, which could happen at any time; from our fans or our managers.
And the way Felix is bundled up against me certainly isn't calming my heart either.
When we began training for our debut four years ago, I knew instantly that I liked him.
But it was just a tangential crush then. I was thirteen, just discovering that boys are very cute, I looked at him and realized that I thought that he was attractive, that was it.
That was all it was.
Falling in love with him has been one long accident, and I don't know how much longer I can do it. The way he says my name, even when it's just the two of us talking, the way he smiles when he sees me, the way I feel when I see him.
The skip my heart does, the flutter in my stomach. It's the small things, the comfortable intimacy that we share with each other, the kind that comes from spending the last thousand odd days together, from feeling that we're the two that fit the best together. It's moments like this that I can't stand, because I don't know where it leaves me with Felix. I don't know if he wants more, or if this is just what friendship is to him. The way we gravitate towards each other, the way that he's the one I go to first when I have a problem or news to share, the way we drape ourselves over each other when we're relaxing backstage, share the bed some nights when I can't sleep.
Even now, we're listening to Felix's playlist on my Spotify account because he doesn't want to pay for his own; and I don't even care.
I want him so much more than he'll ever realize, and I wonder if I'll ever have the courage to ask him for more.
"Lev?" I feel a pushing on my shoulder. "Lev?"
"Hmmm?"
"We landed."
"What?"
"Like five minutes ago. We're headed towards the gate."
"What?" I repeat, my mouth gross and eyes crusty. Sure enough, the plane is slowly driving along the tarmac. "Landed?"
"Yes," Felix sings. "Can't believe you slept through that."
"I contain multitudes." I smile at him. "So, what's our first stop?"
"The hotel," he says.
"I'm starving."
"Well lunch can be a part of the equation."
"Goodie."
We sit back, Felix situating the black bucket hat back on his head, matting his bleached blond hair, and he pulls his face mask back up. The things we have to do just to walk around a city.
Honestly, sometimes I wonder when it's going to be enough, when we'll finally be done with music. Not that I ever want to be done, but after years in the spotlight, being on the covers of magazines, performing at awards shows, signing thousands of autographs, being crowded by fans wherever I walk; I'm craving a place where I can work behind the scenes like recording, mixing, producing.
Those are the kinds of things I expected to do when I first explored the music scene online, but one really good audition later—and then several follow-up auditions, a year and a half of training—and I was plugged as the lead guitarist in a boy band that would storm the world in just a few short months. I never could've known how much my life would change.
But it did, for better or worse.
It takes us half an hour, but eventually we're off the plane and in a Lyft heading into Manhattan. Felix falls back into his seat, fishing his phone out of his pocket. I can read the text over his shoulder.
MICK: Managers are officially pissed. They've got security ready to drive all over LA. Expect a call ☹
Like clockwork, the text vanishes, and our head manager Stephen's name pops up.
"Let me," I say.
Felix hands the phone to me and I shut it off, putting in my jacket pocket.
"If I can't have my phone, neither can you."
He smiles. "Fair enough."
I brighten at that smile, thinking about all the times he's shared it with me. If I was ever asked to pinpoint my favorite thing about Felix, I think it'd be impossible. There's his smile, his always messy hair, his booming laughter, his love of musical theater that he tries to hide, the way he performs, his dedication.
There's a lot to love about Felix Young.
"What?" He looks at me.
I didn't even realize I was staring. "Nothing."
"Weirdo," he says, the grin still on his face. "Food or hotel first?"
"Hmmm… would you hate me if I said I was craving McDonald's?"
"It's your birthday." Felix sighs. "So, I suppose I can't really hate you, can I?"
"I suppose not," I tell him with a smile on my lips.
Food comes first.
We didn't even get weird looks from anyone inside the McDonald's because we certainly weren't the strangest-looking people on the street. At the hotel, we checked in quickly, picking fries out of the bag as we rode up to our floor.
I miss food that's bad for me.