Page 39 of His Holy Chaos

"These are exceptional," he says, and you can tell he means it. He's not saying it only to please Noa. This is a man who's eaten in very expensive restaurants and knows the difference between good and extraordinary.

Noa beams, his whole face lighting up, and I love him for it, love how he never tries to pretend what he feels. He just feels it and shows it, every time.

"Family recipe," Noa says. "My abuela would haunt me from Seville if I messed it up."

Shakira transitions to Daddy Yankee's "Gasolina," and Noa's entire body responds before his brain does. His shoulders start moving, then his hips, then he's doing a full reggaeton bounce in front of the stove with a papas brava in his hand, chewing and dancing simultaneously.

"Tell me about yourself, Ford," Noa says between bites and body rolls, turning down the music one notch. "What do you do? Besides spanking my best friend."

"I'm going to move out," I announce to no one.

"You can't afford to move out."

"I'll live in a box. A nice box. A box with thicker walls. I won't invite you to visit."

"You'll miss my food, asshole," he says, and he's right.

Ford doesn't seem to mind Noa's antics. If anything, he looks amused in that particular way that means he's genuinely enjoying himself. He takes another bite of potato and considers the question.

"I'm retired, mostly," he says. "I was in finance for a long time. Investments, portfolio management. I'm also a choir director, and although that takes up most of my week, as Jude knows, it's nothing formal."

Noa freezes mid-bounce. His eyes go wide. "You joined a CHOIR and didn't tell me?!"

"I… I…" I hesitate, but Noa is about to murder me.

"What about you? What do you do?" Ford asks, probably sensing the tension. Noa still glares at me, mouthing "we will talk about this later," before turning to Ford with a smile, the ever-polite host.

Noa starts talking about his IT job. Yes, he's also into kink and also in IT; and Ford listens with genuine attention, asking follow-up questions that prove he's actually hearing what Noa says. I eat my papas bravas and watch them and feel something I haven't felt in a long time. Emmett never came here. He said he didn't have time for it. It sucked.

Then the song changes.

The opening notes of Bad Bunny's "Baile Inolvidable" pour from the phone, and Noa's head snaps toward it. His eyes go huge. His mouth falls open in that way it does when his favorite song comes on, which happens approximately every third song because Noa has a lot of favorite songs.

"Oh no," I say, because I know what's coming.

"Oh YES," Noa says, and sets his plate down with a clatter, and grabs my hand, and yanks me off the stool.

"Noa, fuck, be careful, my ass was just destroyed… Noa!"

"Your ass will survive. Dance with me or die. I'll kill you."

And I let him pull me, because I always let him pull me, because this is the thing about Noa and me. We watch musicals, we sing, we dance. We have always danced. Since the first week we moved in together when he caught me dancing to my favorite song. We dance in the kitchen, in the living room, at three in the morning after bad dates, at noon on lazy Sundays.

I drilled salsa basics until they lived in my muscle memory, back in drama school, taught by a retired champion from Havana. She smoked unfiltered cigarettes during warm-ups and told me I had "good hips and no discipline," which, fair.

Noa leads first. He's shorter than me by a good bit, which should make it awkward but doesn't, because he leads very well. That kid knows what he's doing. His feet are quick and precise, and I follow, spinning under his arm, catching his hand on the return, our bodies finding the rhythm. My ass aches. My thighs burn from earlier. I don't care. The music is in me now and my body responds.

We switch. I take the lead, and Noa melts into the follow like water, his curls bouncing as I spin him, pull him back, guide him through a cross-body lead that ends with him laughing breathlessly. And then, mid-turn, my arm extended, Noa's hand in mine, I catch Ford's face.

He's still on the high stool, but he's gone completely still. His half-eaten plate of papas bravas sits forgotten in front of him. His hands rest on the counter, his body angled toward us, and his expression…

God, his expression.

I've seen Ford look at me with desire. I've seen him look at me with authority, with amusement, with that intensity of his. But this is something else. This is surprise. Real, almost childlike surprise, his blue eyes wide, his lips slightly parted, the composed mask gone entirely.

I wink at him, laughing. Can't help it. The brat in me would never let a moment like this pass unexploited.

Noa spins me out, and I go, letting the momentum carry me, and when I come back, I'm closer to the counter, close enough to lean in toward Ford.