Page 49 of Cover Up

Felix looked up at him, all wide-eyed and sweet. It was giving Dei very inappropriate thoughts for a damn funeral, but from what Felix said, maybe that’s what his grammy would have wanted. “She’d have wanted to see you kiss me.”

Dei licked his lips. “I would have let her. I wouldn’t have been able to resist.”

“I—” Before Felix could finish his sentence, there was a crackling sound over the PA, then organ music. It was just as muted as Dei expected it to be, but it was enough to break the spell between them. Felix settled back down against his side, and Dei tucked his disappointment away because they were at a funeral, damn it. This was no place to be coming to the realization that before the night was up, every single reservation he had about getting physical would be destroyed.

* * *

As Felix had assured him, no one made a scene. Dei relaxed when he realized that no one was going to call Felix up to talk, and no one was going to confront them in spite of all the obvious glares they were getting.

Felix cried silently at some parts and went stoic at others. He was tense all over when they played a slideshow of her life on a faded screen, which Dei could barely see with all the lights on. Halfway through, Felix started getting antsy.

“This was a bad idea,” he whispered.

Dei leaned in close. “You wanna bail?”

“People will notice,” Felix answered, his eyes darting from right to left.

They were still being watched, but Dei couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. “Do you actually care about that?”

“I,” Felix said, then laughed almost silently. “No. I really don’t.”

Dei stood up, and he extended his hand, which Felix took and hauled himself to his feet. All eyes were on them. Dei felt them like a pressing weight against his back, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was all too aware of the way Felix was on the verge of a total meltdown, and while he had the right to be, Dei couldn’t let it happen in front of an audience.

Especially not this audience.

He pressed his hand to the small of Felix’s back and gently ushered him toward the doors. There were two men standing beside them—relatives, he assumed based on the way they glowered at Felix—but neither attempted to stop them from leaving.

The doors shut behind them with a loud clang, making Dei’s ears ring, and he felt Felix’s muscles start to spasm under his palm.

“Honey,” he murmured.

“Get me outside.” Felix’s words were soft, thready, and desperate.

Dei quickly slung his arm around his would-be lover, and it was only a moment of heavy limping before they were past the front doors and out in the California sunshine. There were no clouds in the sky, the light was soft, and the air was briny and rich from the ocean. Dei took a deep breath of it as he glanced around, and eventually, he found a stone picnic bench under the shade of a few trees.

“Come on, darlin’,” he said, urging Felix along.

For his part, Felix followed like he was moving on instinct alone. His arms were like limp noodles, and his feet were dragging enough that Dei was afraid he was about to go into a seizure. He eased Felix down onto the bench, then tipped his chin up with careful fingers, his eye roving over Felix’s face, trying to see if he had any tells.

“Talk to me, sweet thing.”

Felix licked his lips. “Um.”

“Do we need to get you lyin’ down somewhere?”

Felix blinked, then shook his head. “I want to cry.”

“Okay,” Dei said with a confused frown. “It’s a funeral. You can go ahead and cry.”

“That’s what they want,” Felix said. “My mom, my sister. Everyone. They invited me because they wanted to know losing her hurt me. They got all of her last moments, and I had nothing because I ran.”

“No,” Dei said, his tone making Felix flinch back. He felt a small surge of guilt, but not enough to stop himself. “Fuck them. They didn’t get shit. You get to live, love, and eventually die knowin’ that woman accepted you for who you were. Not some version she wanted you to be. They’ll have to go the rest of their existence knowing they spent their lives too cowardly to be anything other than hateful and sad.”

Felix’s lips twitched, and then he laughed. “I don’t know if any of them are that deep, babe.”

Dei went warm all over at the sound of being called babe, but now wasn’t the time to think about it. “Maybe not, but you can’t let them control this moment. This ain’t about them.”

Felix shrugged. “I feel stupid for coming here. I thought I was proving something to myself, but instead, I just let them get to me.”

---