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“Have you ever seen Texasville? The Bogdanovich movie?”
Connor asks as they share a cigarette on the balcony of his hotel room.
It’s late. François should’ve left hours ago, right after the movie ended. But Connor kept talking enthusiastically about Gene Kelly, and somehow the conversation stretched longer and longer. That happens a lot with them.
Watching movies together had been Connor’s idea. He said that when you spend weeks locked in interchangeable hotel rooms, too exhausted to actually go out and be reckless, you might as well do something decent with your evenings. François agreed immediately.
By now, they’ve worked through most of each other’s favorites and discovered they have surprisingly similar tastes, which still amazes François because Connor is a real cinephile. He’s unusually well-versed in European cinema. They’ve had long conversations about the Nouvelle Vague, and François was absurdly grateful the night they watched Le Beau Serge without subtitles. But earlier in the week, during skating practice, Connor casually admitted he had never really cared for old Hollywood musicals and had somehow never seen Singin’ in the Rain. François decided that had to be fixed.
They always watch movies in Connor’s room. More precisely, in his bed. It’s just how it ended up happening. They pick something beforehand, and by the time François knocks on the door, Connor already has it rented and ready.
It had felt awkward the first time, at least for François. Connor had been completely unbothered, already in pajamas, sitting cross-legged against the headboard.
Sometimes he leans over during a scene to whisper something, the way people do in movie theaters, and François has to concentrate very hard on what he’s saying instead of how close he is.
Right now, they’re sitting close again, shoulders touching as they smoke.
Connor’s wearing a hoodie, his answer to the cold night air. François tries not to stare, but he looks particularly beautiful like this: the moonlight catching the side of his face, his cheeks flushed from the cold, his hair a mess from lying on the pillow for two hours.
“Yes,” he says finally. “It’s the sequel to The Last Picture Show, right? I saw them both a long time ago. I think I was still in college.”
Connor exhales a thin line of smoke and nods.
“Yeah.” He stays quiet for a moment, thinking. “There’s this scene where Jeff Bridges’ character has to drive to the next town over to talk to some guy about a loan. He’s trying to save his oil company.”
“Oh, right,” François says quickly. “Jeff Bridges is the main guy. I forgot that. Didn’t he get nominated for an Oscar for the first one?”
Connor smiles sideways at him. “He did. Should’ve won, honestly. For both movies.” He takes another drag from the cigarette. “But that’s not the point. He’s about to get in the car when Cybill Shepherd asks him where he’s going. Do you remember what he says?”
Connor looks at François expectantly. François shakes his head.
“He says, ‘I’m going to Odessa. The worst town in the world.’”
Connor deepens his voice, doing a dramatic Jeff Bridges impression, exaggerating the Texas drawl so much that François laughs out loud. Connor starts laughing too.
“That’s where I’m from, you know,” he adds once he catches his breath. “The worst town in the fucking world.”
François loves when Connor talks about himself like this, casually revealing pieces of his past. It doesn’t happen often. They’re still new friends, after all. Three months ago, François had no idea who Connor Storrie even was.
“I remember watching The Last Picture Show with some friends in LA,” Connor keeps talking. “And they kept asking me, ‘Does Texas really look like that? Is that where you grew up?’” He snorts. “And I had to tell them no. Because I wasn’t born in the fifties.” He glances at François. “And also because it’s actually way worse.”
They both laugh again. Then Connor goes quiet for a moment, turning the cigarette between his fingers like he’s thinking something through before saying it out loud.
“It’s weird,” he says finally. “Growing up, I tried really hard to distance myself from everything around me. I was obsessed with being different. Watching avant-garde movies, listening to niche European artists on SoundCloud, weird techno stuff.” He shrugs. “Which I still love, by the way.”
François smiles. “Of course.”
“But the other day,” he continues, “they were playing Waylon Jennings on the radio. Ever heard of him?”
François shakes his head. “Can’t say I have.”
“Big country artist. One of the pioneers of the Outlaw genre. Him, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson… the Highwaymen! They were actually pretty progressive for country guys. Not the usual conservative nonsense.”
François feels a little out of his depth talking about country music, so he reaches for the only connection he has.
“Willie Nelson has a song with Orville Peck.”
Connor turns to him with an immediate grin. “Of course you’d know that.”
François rolls his eyes. Connor doesn’t elaborate, but the teasing is obvious. François had been in an Orville Peck music video. And yes, he had kissed him on camera. Connor’s eyes are clearly enjoying that fact, but he lets it go fast.
“Anyway,” he says, flicking ash over the balcony rail, “there’s this song I really like. The Wurlitzer Prize. It’s from a record Waylon did with Willie in ’78.”
“Wurlitzer?” François asks.
Connor raises an eyebrow. “You know what that is, old man?”
“It’s a jukebox brand.”
Connor’s smile widens. “You really are old.”
“There’s a Young Marble Giants song about it,” François says defensively.
Connor points at him with the cigarette. “Put that on our playlist.”
The shared playlist is barely two weeks old and already has more than fifty songs. François started it after realizing how many obscure artists Connor casually referenced. Connor’s taste is all over the place—ambient techno, European indie, old country records, apparently—and somehow, just like with movies, their preferences align.
“I will,” he says. “But what’s so special about that song?”
Connor looks down for a second before answering.
“My mom loves it.” He gives a small, almost embarrassed smile. “She’s not even that into country. Never was. But she used to sing that one around the house when I was growing up.” He shrugs lightly. “I always pretended to hate it. But I think I actually love it.”
François bumps his shoulder lightly. “So you’re a proud Texan now?”
Connor doesn’t seem bothered by the teasing. “I don’t think Texas needs more proud Texans,” he says dryly.
He pauses, looking out over the dark parking lot below.
“For the longest time I thought of my hometown as this hostile place,” he continues. “Somewhere I had to escape as fast as possible. It was the worst town in the world, after all.”
He glances back at François.
“But now that I actually left… I can appreciate it a little more.”
The moment shifts almost without François noticing. It becomes quieter. More intimate than it had been a minute ago. Nothing dramatic was said, nothing that should change the air between them. Connor is just a young guy who sometimes misses home. That’s all. François can’t even really relate. But there’s something in the way Connor talks about it. The way he chooses his words. He seems almost too grounded for someone his age. François isn’t used to that.
He finds himself wishing they could keep talking like this forever. He wants to see how many layers Connor has, wants to keep peeling them back. But more than that, part of him just wants Connor to know he understands. Not because he’s older or wiser, but because being this close to someone like him, someone so uncannily similar, already feels like a rare kind of luck.
But that’s not really how things work. François knows that better than most.
They have, what—two more weeks of filming?
And then what?
Sure, they both live in Los Angeles. They’ve already talked about visiting each other, about keeping the movie nights going once production ends. But François can’t help wondering if this particular kind of closeness can survive outside the strange little bubble they’re living in right now.
It would be a shame if it didn’t.
“That’s really beautiful, Con,” he says eventually.
Connor scoffs softly.
“You always say that,” he replies. “Every time I go on some random rant, you say it’s beautiful.”
François smiles to himself.
“Well,” he says, “it’s true. I like the way your mind works.”
Connor immediately looks away. “Shut up.”
“No, seriously. Most of the LA kids I’ve met would rather die than admit where they’re actually from. They’ve all mastered that neutral accent thing. It’s kind of annoying.”
Connor smiles, but when he looks back at François, there’s something thoughtful in his expression.
“Most of the time they have good reasons to run from the past,” he says. “I definitely did.”
François studies him for a moment. “But not anymore?”
Connor gives him a small, easy smile.
“No. Not anymore.”
“I want to watch Texasville with you,” François says.
It comes out almost absentmindedly, a thought that slipped loose before he could stop it.
What he really wants to say is that he wants to watch every movie ever made with Connor. Spend the rest of his life sitting next to him in dim rooms, pretending to pay attention to the screen while secretly studying him in his peripheral vision; memorizing the way his face changes when he’s absorbed in a scene. The way he presses his lips together when something bad is about to happen. The way anticipation spreads across his face before a big moment. The way he laughs with his whole body, his arms involuntarily touching François’.
But can he have that? And if he could, what would that make them?
Because François has already accepted something he can’t undo: he’s completely, helplessly in love with the boy sitting beside him.
It didn’t even take long. He was probably halfway there by their third movie night. But he understood it fully on a random Thursday afternoon, watching Connor at the rink during rehearsal, laughing easily in his hockey gear, somehow commanding the entire space without even trying.
He told Jacob about it later that night. Jacob had laughed and asked what he planned to do about it. François still doesn’t know. Nothing about their time together clearly points to anything beyond friendship. Connor never seems nervous around him, never fishes for personal confessions, never tests the boundary between them. He certainly never tries anything.
Maybe that’s okay.
Maybe they’re just building something friendly. Something good. Maybe years from now François will look back and remember these nights. Maybe that will be the whole story.
He’s so lost in the thought that he almost misses Connor’s answer.
“Okay,” Connor says. “We can watch it tomorrow.”
He stubs the cigarette out against the railing.
“But just so you know,” he adds, glancing sideways at François, “I usually break down by the third act.”
François smiles.
“That’s fine,” he says.
And he means it.
This, whatever this is, is also fine.
-
“Okay. Top five albums of the 2010s. Go.”
Connor says it like he’s starting a game show.
They’re sitting together on the edge of the rink, still half-dressed in their hockey costumes. It’s Hudson’s turn to shoot the endless skating coverage, which means they’re both temporarily off duty. Connor, as usual, is a very effective distraction.
The exercise was originally François’s idea, a little High Fidelity-style game to figure out Connor’s eccentric music taste before they started the shared playlist. It worked well as an icebreaker—no pun intended. But after François realized he was more or less hopelessly in love with Connor, it started to feel a little like an exam. And François really, really wants to look cool in front of the guy he likes.
“Mitski,” he says immediately. “Bury Me at Makeout Creek.”
Connor nods, like he expected that. “Nice. I thought you’d say Be the Cowboy.”
He’s probably thinking about the number of Be the Cowboy tracks François has already added to their playlist.
“Depends on the day,” he says.
Connor shrugs. “Fair.” He nudges François lightly with his elbow. “Okay. What else?”
François thinks for a moment. He did actually live through the 2010s. That means his answers are inevitably shaped by it. He was in his late twenties, running between endless festivals, packed concerts, late-night hangouts with music journalists in filthy bars. It was chaotic and pretentious and even a little embarrassing in retrospect, but he really did live his best life during those years.
It’s hard not to tie all of that to the music of the time. The hipsters, himself very much included, were insufferable, sure. But they also made some incredible records. Records that probably sound painfully uncool to Connor’s generation. So he sighs a little and says, “This is going to sound extremely millennial, but… This Is Happening. LCD Soundsystem.”
To his surprise, Connor immediately breaks into a wide grin, like he just passed the first half of the test.
“That is extremely millennial,” he says. “But it’s also correct.”
François laughs.
“That record is basically perfect,” he continues. “Not even my favorite LCD Soundsystem album, but still… flawless.”
François smiles, feeling a little stupid for assuming Connor would judge him the way he tends to judge most forty-year-olds. “Thank you for your clemency.”
“You’re welcome,” Connor says solemnly. He gestures for François to continue. “Next.”
François thinks for a second. Then the answer arrives fully formed. One he knows Connor will appreciate.
“Leonard Cohen,” he says. “You Want It Darker.”
Their shared Cohen obsession was one of the first things they discovered about each other. François had shown up to a crew dinner during pre-production wearing a faded Songs of Leonard Cohen t-shirt, which had led to a forty-minute smoke break discussing Cohen’s albums.
Of course, Connor’s taste is slightly different. He’s much more enthusiastic about the synth-heavy era, stubbornly insisting that I’m Your Man is the superior Cohen record. François prefers the earlier stuff—Songs from a Room especially—and still jokingly pretends to be offended whenever Connor dismisses it.
Connor nods approvingly. “Oh yeah. Of course.”
Another correct answer. François congratulates himself internally.
“Two more,” Connor reminds him.
This time he doesn’t hesitate. He’s starting to feel oddly confident in this ridiculous game.
“The Magnetic Fields,” he says. “Love at the Bottom of the Sea. I was listening to it on the way here.”
He doesn’t mention that The Only Boy in Town has been haunting him lately. Just another entry in the long list of songs gently reminding him that he might be a complete fool for falling for someone younger, brighter, and with far more options.
Connor tilts his head, intrigued.
“Okay,” he says. “I didn’t see that one coming. Is that your favorite Magnetic Fields album?”
“Absolutely not. It’s great, but 69 Love Songs is their best.” Then he nudges the question back. “What about you? What’s your favorite?”
“Get Lost,” Connor says simply, and François makes a mental note to revisit it.
“Alright,” Connor says, turning toward him with exaggerated seriousness. “Last one.” He narrows his eyes, putting on a ridiculous game-show host expression, like the stakes have suddenly become very high. “What’s the final pick, François?”
François looks at him for a second before answering. Connor’s blue eyes are bright with curiosity, a little mischievous, like he’s expecting to be impressed. The answer arrives almost immediately.
“Destroyer,” François says. “Kaputt. The most perfect Canadian album ever recorded.”
The second track on the record is called Blue Eyes. Somewhere in the middle of it, Dan Bejar sings I want you to love me, which, unfortunately, feels a little too appropriate for the situation François has gotten himself into.
He was twenty-five when the album came out, roughly Connor’s age now. That was the age when everything still felt possible. When the world started making sense. When you were allowed to be stupid and romantic and fall a little bit in love with every interesting person you met. Kaputt had always captured that feeling for him. But this is the first time he has ever associated it with someone specific. Not only because of Connor’s blue eyes—though that certainly doesn’t hurt—but because Connor reminds him of the kind of free American spirit Bejar seems to be singing about throughout the album. Someone on the verge of being introduced to the world. He wishes he could explain any of this out loud, but doing so would almost certainly make him sound obsessive, and that’s not exactly the impression he’s hoping to leave.
Connor’s reaction tells him immediately that he’s won the round. For a second, he looks genuinely thrown. “I don’t think I’ve actually heard that one,” he says carefully.
François blinks. “What?”
“I’ve listened to the newer stuff,” he explains quickly. “I’m the one who added Tinseltown Swimming in Blood to the playlist, remember?”
“Yeah,” François says, leaning a little closer. “But you’ve never listened to their magnum opus? Are you serious?”
He’s enjoying this more than he should. It’s rare that he gets to be the authority in these conversations, given Connor’s frighteningly wide musical knowledge. At the same time, the idea of introducing him to such a perfect album feels oddly meaningful. If only he could explain why.
“François,” Connor says, adopting a tone of patient reason, “I was ten when it came out.”
“That’s not an excuse,” he replies immediately. “It’s timeless!”
Connor laughs, the argument clearly settled. “Okay, okay. I’ll listen to it tonight. I promise.”
They exchange a complicit smile. They’ve been doing this for weeks now, slowly stepping into each other’s worlds. Trading recommendations, discovering what the other loves, what annoys them, what excites them. Art has always been François’s preferred language. His safest one. And so every song he recommends carries a little more weight than he likes to admit. He hopes, foolishly, that Connor listens closely. That he reads the lyrics. Because that’s where he leaves the real things he can’t quite say himself.
“Alright,” he says, nudging Connor’s shoulder lightly. “Your turn. Top five albums of the 2010s, Storrie.”
Connor’s answer arrives first as a smile; the wide, bright one François is starting to recognize as dangerous.
-
“Wait—you know him?” Connor says, like it’s a personal offense, leaning forward across the table, coffee forgotten.
They’ve ended up here, at a coffee shop near their hotel, on a rare shared day off. The sunlight is a little too bright for how late they both slept last night after watching Inland Empire. Connor has just spent the last ten minutes talking about Perfume Genius with focused intensity, emphasizing how long he’s been following him. It felt, at some point, like the natural moment to mention that François actually knows him. Not as Perfume Genius, but as Mike Hadreas. That they’ve been friends for a while now.
François shrugs, like it’s nothing. He stirs the coffee he’s not drinking. “Yeah. A bit.”
Connor just stares at him.
François exhales, giving in a little. “We met at a friend-of-a-friend’s thing years ago. I’d wanted to meet him forever, so I went up to him, fully prepared to embarrass myself. But he was—” he pauses, searching for it “—normal. And funny. He knew my work, which helped.” A small smile. “His husband, Alan, too. They’re very nice people. It’s easy to be around them.”
Connor shakes his head, half-accusing. “I cannot believe you never told me this.”
François lifts a shoulder. “It never came up.”
“That’s insane. I’ve put, like, half his discography on our playlist.”
François knows. He knows exactly which ones:
Without You. Your Body Changes Everything. Teeth. Hellbent. Valley. And Slip Away, obviously.
He’s gone through them all, more than once, trying to read them like they were addressed to him specifically. There had been moments where he thought he recognized something, a pattern, a message that seemed to lean slightly in his direction. And then, just as quickly, he would pull back, embarrassed by his own foolishness.
“You want to meet him?” François asks, the question light, though it carries a lot of intention.
Connor’s eyes widen, all restraint gone. “Are you serious?”
“Sure,” François replies, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “He lives in LA too.”
It doesn’t feel like a complicated offer. Mike is not someone he sees all the time, but they’re close enough that an invitation wouldn’t feel misplaced. François can already imagine their meeting: Connor talking too much at first, Mike easing into it, their humor aligning in that slightly offbeat register they both share. It would work. He’s almost certain of it.
“Fuck yes I want to meet him,” Connor says, excitement unfiltered. Then, just as quickly, he leans back, studying him now with a different kind of curiosity. “Any other famous friends I should know about?”
François huffs a laugh.
After twenty years in the industry, the idea of famous has thinned out for him. It’s not a category so much as a series of degrees, constantly shifting depending on where you stand. He doesn’t think of himself as part of it, not really. He’s an actor, yes, but mostly in the margins, relying on small productions and secondary roles.
Los Angeles allows for that kind of anonymity. There are too many guys like him there. He can move through most days unrecognized. And when he isn’t, when someone does stop him, it’s brief, always gentle. But he has friends who exist at the other end of that spectrum. People who cannot sit like this, unobserved, always moving between obligations, always held in place by attention. Actors, musicians, directors, models—each negotiating their own version of exposure.
It’s too much to explain, and unnecessary. Connor, after all, has been in California long enough to understand the outline of it.
“Plenty, baby,” François says instead, letting the answer stay light.
Connor smiles, but it softens quickly, giving way to something more tentative. There’s a brief hesitation, then:
“Can I be weird for a second?” he asks.
“Always.”
“When we’re back in LA, I want you to meet my friends too. The very non-famous ones.”
When we’re back in LA.
They’ve been saying it often, lately. At first, it had felt like a way of keeping this contained, of not presuming too much about what would follow. François had accepted it easily, even gratefully. It aligned with his own instinct to treat this as temporary, to assume that once they returned, Connor would slip back into his own life. But something has shifted. Connor speaks now as if that future is not hypothetical, but waiting, already taking shape in accumulating obligations. The things they will do, the people they will see.
It does something to François. It opens a space he had been careful not to look at directly.
“Why would that be weird?” he asks, a little too quickly, but still sincere. “I’d love to meet your friends. You talk about them all the time.”
Connor hesitates. It’s brief, but visible. Something flickers across his face, a kind of self-consciousness that doesn’t quite settle into anything François can name.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Introducing someone to your friends… it’s kind of a date thing, isn’t it?”
Oh.
The word lands painfully. François feels it rearrange something internally. Of course. That makes sense. That’s the correct category: friend, not date.
He smiles—well enough, he hopes. “Maybe it’s a Gen Z thing,” he says lightly. “I think it’s perfectly normal. That’s how people met before social media, you know.”
Connor rolls his eyes immediately. “Oh no. Not the back-in-my-day speech again.”
“It’s true.”
“I know, I know. We still do that. It’s just—” he pauses. “—I’ve talked about you so much to them, they’re probably sick of hearing your name. I kind of want you to meet them so they can… I don’t know. Actually get it.”
“Get what?” François asks, before he can stop himself.
There’s something disorientating in the idea that Connor has been speaking about him elsewhere, to people he doesn’t know. François hasn’t managed to say much of anything about Connor to anyone, except Jacob, who found the whole situation vaguely amusing and not particularly worthy of concern.
Connor looks at him like it’s obvious. “You.”
“Sounds like you’re setting them up for disappointment,” François says, deflecting. “I might not live up to it.”
Connor smiles, unbothered. “Trust me. You will.”
He says it so simply that, for a moment, François almost believes him.
“If you say so.”
The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable. It settles naturally, the way it often does between them. Connor shifts a little closer, lowering his voice like he’s about to confess something.
“Is he cuter in person?”
François frowns slightly, a beat too slow. “Who?”
“Mike.”
“Oh.” François lets out a small laugh. “He’s married.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
François hesitates, then shrugs. “Yeah. He is. Both of them, actually. Him and Alan. It’s… a very unfair situation. They’re a good-looking couple.”
Connor grins. “You think they’re looking for a third?”
The jealousy is immediate and unwelcome, so much that François has to school his expression before it shows.
“If they are,” he says, measured, “I’d argue I’m a better candidate than you.”
Connor laughs. “So greedy. Jesus. Fine. I’ll be a fourth. Or I’ll just watch. I’m flexible.”
François feels the heat rise to his face before he can stop it. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore.”
Connor reaches across the table, stealing a piece of his cookie.
“Oh, you do,” he says, grinning. “I love it when you blush, old man.”
-
François hasn’t seriously considered letting go of this stupid crush until now.
Maybe because there was always some small, stubborn hope. Maybe because it’s an easy fantasy to live inside while they’re still in production, sneaking into each other’s hotel rooms to watch movies, texting through the day like teenagers. Maybe he thought, idiotically, that he could make Connor fall in love with him.
They have so much in common. Connor listens to everything he says, takes his recommendations seriously, remembers things. He’s attentive, warm, enthusiastic. But maybe that’s all it is. Maybe Connor is just like that. Just kind.
Because right now, standing in a bar that is both too small and too hot, half-listening to the set of the Hungarian DJ Connor was so excited about (come on, François, she never plays in the U.S.) and watching him dance with a man who is, annoyingly, undeniably beautiful, François feels like this has all been a slow, elaborate humiliation ritual from the start.
He can already hear Jacob’s voice in his head: maybe it’s for the best.
And he’d be right. It probably is for the best that nothing ever happened between him and his twenty-five-year-old co-star. It’s reasonable. The best-case scenario.
If only the part of his brain currently burning with jealousy would agree.
To be fair, Connor didn’t abandon him. François is the one who chose to stay back, leaning against the bar instead of pushing toward the stage. He’s the one who insisted Connor go ahead when he offered, unprompted, to stay with him.
“Are you sure? I really don’t mind,” Connor had said, those wide, open eyes impossible to mistrust.
“Please. Don’t ruin your night because I’m a boring old man. I’ll be here,” François had replied, and meant it.
Connor had hesitated, asked once more, then promised, I’ll come back as soon as the set’s over, before going into the crowd, swallowed whole.
François could’ve followed. But the idea of being the guy standing stiffly among people ten years younger, pretending to have fun, was unbearable. He doesn’t dance. He doesn’t even know how to pretend to without looking like a fool.
So he stayed. Ordered a beer. And for a while—twenty minutes, maybe—he was fine. Better than fine, even. The synth-heavy, dark wave set stirred something nostalgic in him, and the lights were very cinematic. The place itself was strange, not somewhere he’d usually go. Not at his age. But it worked. It was alive. People were enjoying themselves, and for a moment, he was part of it.
Then he sees Connor.
It happens in the middle of a New Order remix. François almost misses it at first. Just a shape, but then it becomes something undeniable. Connor, dancing, pressed close to someone else. François can’t see much beyond their heads, but it’s enough. Enough to know the man’s hands are on Connor’s hips.
Connor’s back is turned to him, still facing the stage, but he tilts his head slightly as the man leans in, says something into his ear. Connor laughs and keeps moving.
It’s too much.
For a second, François considers leaving. Just turning around, walking out, letting the night collapse behind him. But he won’t. He wouldn’t do that to Connor. Not when, officially, he’s nothing more than a friend. Not when Connor has made that clear, over and over again.
So why is his heart racing like this?
He can’t look away. It becomes the only thing he can see, as if the rest of the room has dimmed around it. Time distorts. The music shifts, New Order fading into a remix of Molly Nilsson’s Kids Today, and the familiarity of it hits him. Connor added that song to their shared playlist three days ago.
For a moment, François lets himself imagine being there instead, close enough to catch Connor’s eye, to share that small, private recognition when the chorus hits. A glance that says, we know this one.
He wonders if Connor is thinking about that at all. Or if all of his attention belongs to the man who doesn’t seem to move away.
François turns back to the bar.
“Something stronger,” he says.
He has a shoot tomorrow. Early. It doesn’t matter. He’ll manage. He’s been managing through the last few weeks, through every small, careless gesture from Connor that meant nothing.
The set ends abruptly. Lights flood the room, too bright, too sudden, revealing the crowd in harsh detail before everything dims again. People cheer, shouting for one more song, but it doesn’t come. Slowly, the room loosens, bodies drifting toward the bar.
And just like that, François loses him.
Connor disappears into the movement of people.
Fuck.
Now he has to find him. He’s not leaving without him. Not here, not like this. Even if Connor decides to go home with that guy, François will at least make sure he gets into a cab safely, back to the hotel.
After that—well.
After that, the room is theirs.
François moves through the crowd with urgency, slipping between bodies, murmuring apologies that no one hears. For a moment, it seems obvious that Connor will still be near the stage, but when he gets there, the space has already thinned, the front dissolving into scattered clusters of people with no clear center. Connor isn’t there.
He stops, looks around once, then again, slower this time. Nothing.
He takes out his phone. No messages. No missed calls. He calls anyway. The line drops. A flicker of concern cuts through the irritation.
What if something actually happened?
For a moment, he considers the absurdity of calling Jacob. Hi. I just lost your star in a sea of goths.
He turns back toward the bar, now dense with people pressing in on all sides, and tries to think through what Connor would do.
Then, cutting cleanly through the noise, he hears Connor’s laugh.
François turns, and there he is, only a few steps away, leaning against a bar stool as if he has been there all along. He looks entirely at ease, mid-conversation. For a brief second, relief arrives, followed just as quickly by annoyance—at himself, mostly, for having made something out of nothing.
He approaches. Connor notices him almost at once, and his face shifts into a wide smile. His hair is damp with sweat, curls falling out of place, his shirt clinging slightly at the collar. There is something unstudied in the way he looks that François finds unexpectedly difficult to meet head-on.
“There you are,” he says. “I thought we were meeting here. Where did you go?”
Of course. This was the plan. Connor did the reasonable thing: came back to the bar, waited where they said they would meet. François is the one who wandered off like an idiot.
“I lost you in the crowd,” François says, a little breathless, words tripping over themselves. “I tried calling. I don’t know, I just—”
Connor winces, already pulling his dead phone out of his pocket like proof. “Shit, yeah—my phone died halfway through. I was filming and sending stuff to Hudson.” He grins, a little sheepish. Then he gestures to the man beside him. “Oh, sorry. François, this is Vincent.”
Right.
The other presence.
François turns, the brief, stupid relief fading just enough to properly register the man who, until now, has only existed as a silhouette ruining his night.
Up close, it’s worse.
Vincent is… annoyingly good-looking. Early thirties, maybe. Blond hair, a neatly trimmed mustache, an eyebrow piercing that somehow works. A leather jacket worn open over bare skin, all of it put together effortlessly.
François almost wants to hate him on principle, but the man is smiling, easy and self-assured, already extending a hand.
“Nice to meet you. I’m a big fan.”
There’s a hint of an accent. French, but not quite. François hesitates for half a second before taking his hand. Normally, he likes this part. Being recognized is nice. Tonight, though, something in the man’s tone makes him cautious.
“Yeah?” he says, unable to keep a trace of skepticism out of his voice.
Vincent’s smile widens.
“Ouais. J’ai tué ma mère, c’est incroyable. Je l’ai vu plein de fois.”
The accent settles it. Québec. François nods once, the familiarity of the exchange doing little to soften it.
“Merci,” he says, the French coming automatically, though his tone is guarded. “C’est, ouais, un film un peu spécial.”
Vincent’s smile shifts, becoming slightly more knowing. He leans in just enough to lower the distance between them without quite invading it.
“Tu sais que t’as été le gay awakening de toute une génération de jeunes Québécois, non?”
You know that you were the gay awakening of a whole generation of young Quebecers, right?
François stills. He flicks his gaze back to Connor, who’s watching them attentively, a trace of amusement at the corner of his mouth. Of course he understands everything. François wonders if Vincent realizes that, or if he just doesn’t care.
“Come on, Vincent, you’re making him blush,” Connor says lightly.
Vincent doesn’t pull back. If anything, he leans in closer. “I thought he should know,” he says. “And I’d love to be part of a remake. Would you be up for that?”
François feels the heat rise to his face, a slow, creeping disbelief. This cannot be happening. It’s not that Vincent isn’t attractive, he is. And François has never been particularly shy about that kind of thing. He’d be a hypocrite if he pretended otherwise. But this—here, now, with Connor standing right there—it feels off. Especially because, not five minutes ago, he was almost certain Vincent and Connor were going to leave together.
“Huh…” François starts, but the word dies halfway out.
Vincent watches him struggle, and adds, almost casually, “Connor can come too.”
For a second, François genuinely thinks he misheard.
Connor laughs. “That’s very considerate.”
The room tilts, and it’s not the beers or the whiskey. François feels like he’s slipped into a scene playing out wrong, all the cues misaligned. He looks at Connor again, searching for something that might give him a clue about what’s happening. Something like discomfort or irony, but he finds nothing he can read.
He closes his eyes, just for a moment. Breathes in.
“I don’t think that’s…” He shakes his head, already stepping back. “I’m sorry. I should go. Early shoot tomorrow.”
The excuse comes out too fast, barely thought through, but it’s enough.
He turns to Connor. “Will you come?”
He doesn’t imagine leaving alone. Not even for a second. He looks at Connor with a pleading expression.
Connor, thankfully, catches it.
“Sure. Yeah, let’s go. Sorry, it’s late. I’ll just get the tab.”
“Drinks are on me, baby. Remember?” Vincent says, unbothered.
François winces at the word.
Connor, for the first time all night, looks faintly embarrassed. “You don’t have to, Vincent.”
“Don’t worry about it. Go on.” He lifts his beer, glances at François with a quick wink, then back at Connor. “And think about what I said earlier.”
Connor nods, stepping in for a quick hug. Vincent leans in, murmurs something in his ear, too low for François to catch. Not that he wants to.
By the time they pull apart, François is already halfway turned toward the door, the only thing on his mind the quiet of his hotel room and the hope that, by morning, this will all feel a little less strange.
The ride back is uneventful, which only heightens his discomfort. Connor fills the silence talking about the set. François nods when he’s supposed to, offers the occasional hum of agreement, even smiles once, though it feels disconnected from anything he actually feels.
His thoughts keep returning to the same point. He has miscalculated everything. Not just tonight, but the past few weeks. He’s let this thing grow into something too big to ignore, something that now refuses to go away, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.
It would be simpler if it were only desire. That, at least, he knows how to manage. But this is threaded through with expectation. And seeing Connor with Vincent unsettles something deeper than jealousy. It exposes how much François had already begun to take for granted.
By the time they reach the hotel, he just feels tired. Not in a way sleep will fix. His chest feels tight, something heavy and unsteady sitting where his breath should be.
They’re waiting for the elevator when Connor finally says it.
“Hey… is everything okay? Did I do something wrong?”
There’s a hesitation in his voice that François recognizes immediately. Fear.
For a moment, François considers telling the truth. Not all of it, but enough to account for the shift. The thought appears and disappears just as quickly. There is no version of that conversation that doesn’t complicate things irreparably.
“You didn’t do anything,” he says quickly. “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been off tonight. I think I just… underestimated how tired I was.” He forces a small smile. “It’s not you. Really. Please don’t take it personally.”
He expects Connor to let it drop. To accept it, the way he usually does.
But he doesn’t.
“No,” Connor says, shaking his head and turning to face him properly. “That’s not it.”
François blinks. “What?”
“You’re not just tired.” Connor holds his gaze. “You’re lying.”
“Connor, I—”
“I thought we were friends.”
“We are,” he says, though the words feel insufficient even as he speaks them.
“Then why have you been acting like this?” Connor presses, not raising his voice but not backing down either. “Not just tonight. All week. You’ve been distant. Ignoring my texts, canceling movie night.” He exhales, frustrated. “That’s why I asked you to come out today. Just you. I didn’t invite Hudson. I wanted to spend time with you.”
François doesn’t say anything.
Connor looks down for a second. “And yeah, leaving you at the bar wasn’t great. And Vincent—” he huffs. “That was a lot. But I don’t get this, François. Sometimes you’re… really open. And then other times it feels like you don’t even want to be around me.”
The elevator arrives with a soft chime. The doors open, and two people step out between them. The interruption is enough to break the intensity of the exchange. François feels the moment stretch, then settle again, unresolved.
François swallows.
“Can we talk about this in my room?” he asks, quieter now.
Connor studies him for a second, then nods.
They step inside together.
There’s no way they can survive this.
François knows it as soon as the elevator doors close. He can’t keep smoothing things over, answering questions he’s not really answering. It would be dishonest. Worse, it would be unfair to Connor, to their friendship. But the alternative is just as impossible. There’s no way to say it plainly, no way to admit that he’s let this go too far, that he’s been carrying something he can’t manage anymore.
He looks at the numbers above the door, counts without meaning to. It hasn’t even been two months. The thought feels disproportionate to the feeling, or maybe the other way around. He can’t decide which is more embarrassing.
He turns his head slightly. Connor is already looking at him.
François holds his gaze. The blue of his eyes is very clear under the artificial light. That Destroyer line comes back to him: it was just a dream of your blue eyes. He doesn’t know why he keeps thinking of it.
He smiles anyway. Small, fleeting, a little sad. Connor smiles back.
When the doors open, François steps out first. The walk to his room is quiet. He takes out the keycard, misses the reader once, then again. Only then does he notice his hand is shaking. He steadies it, tries again, waits for the green light.
Connor has been here before, but not often. They usually stay in Connor’s room. This one is the same—same furniture, same arrangement—but it feels more exposed. François is aware of Connor’s presence in a different way here.
They move almost instinctively toward the sofa, settling at opposite ends.
Connor speaks first.
“Look, I know I can be a bit much sometimes,” he says. “Needy. Clingy.” He exhales, like he’s already half-apologizing. “But I need you to tell me if it gets like that. If you feel pressured. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on.”
He pauses, then adds, “I don’t want to feel like I have to negotiate your attention. If you need space, you can just say it.”
I don’t need space. I need you all the time.
François nods. He doesn’t answer immediately. He tries to find a sentence that isn’t entirely false.
“Okay,” he says. “I can do that.”
Connor studies him for a second, then his expression softens slightly. “And I meant what I said,” he continues. “About staying in touch. When we’re back. Going out in LA.” He hesitates. “I know you’re probably busier than me, but—”
François lets out a short, dry laugh before he can stop himself. “I’m not that busy.”
Connor smiles at that, relief flickering across his face. “Good. Because I want to see you. Keep doing this. Movies, whatever.” He pauses. “Can we?”
François understands very clearly what is being asked of him. He feels, for a moment, the distance between what he wants and what is being offered. Then he lets it settle.
“Yes, Connor. We can.”
It’s not enough.
Connor shifts closer. The movement is subtle. He reaches for François’ hand. François feels the instinct to pull away rise, but he forces himself to stay still.
“You’re saying all the right things,” Connor says quietly. “But I don’t know if you mean them.”
François knows that there is no neutral way out of this. Whatever he says next will settle things in one direction or another. He can tell the truth and risk losing Connor at once, or keep deflecting and watch the distance grow, slower but just as certain. Either way, he comes out of it diminished.
He tries, for a moment, to choose the more controlled version. Apologize. Offer something that makes sense from the outside. Say they’re in different places, that it would be better to slow things down. It’s almost reasonable. It would spare Connor an explanation he never asked for. It would keep things within limits.
It would also be a lie.
“I don’t,” he says.
He regrets the sentence the moment he sees Connor’s face change. Hurt takes over.
“But it’s not your fault,” he adds. “I’m just—”
Connor looks away, posture closing slightly. “You don’t like me.”
François tightens his grip on his hand without thinking. “What? No. That’s not it.”
“Yes. It is.” Connor shakes his head, still not looking at him. “You’re just being nice. I’ve been pushing this, and you didn’t know how to say no.” He lets out a short breath. “That’s… embarrassing.”
“Connor, that’s not true,” François says, hearing the strain in his own voice now.
Connor finally looks at him. His face is flushed, his eyes brighter than before. “It’s fine. Really. I get it.”
“No,” François says, more firmly this time. “You don’t. There’s nothing to get here. What you’re saying isn’t true. I like you. I like being with you.”
Connor watches him, trying to reconcile that with everything else.
“Then why…”
François studies Connor carefully before speaking. What he’s about to say won’t make this easier—if anything, it will do the opposite—but it will at least prevent the wrong conclusion from taking hold. The idea that Connor might leave thinking he isn’t likable, that he somehow isn’t enough, feels impossible to accept. Worse than the truth itself.
“Because I’m in love with you.” He says it plainly.
“And it’s… not appropriate,” he adds almost immediately. “Given the situation. I know that. I’m not expecting anything from you. I wouldn’t—” He stops, recalibrates. “I wouldn’t do anything to make you uncomfortable. But it’s hard to pretend it’s not there. That it isn’t driving me crazy.”
Connor doesn’t react. Not right away. His expression empties slightly, as if he’s still catching up to what was said. François keeps going, filling the silence before it can settle.
“I understand if this changes things,” he says. “If you don’t want to see me after this. That’s completely fair.” A small, tense exhale. “I can go. I know it’s my room, but I can leave.”
Connor remains still, expression difficult to read, as if momentarily absent.
No reaction feels worse than immediate rejection. Rejection would at least be clear. This silence suggests something else: that the idea had never occurred to him, that there is nothing in him ready to meet it, that what François has said doesn’t fit anywhere yet and so cannot be answered.
“Please,” he says, more quietly. “Say something.”
“You’re in love with me?” Connor asks at last, disbelief caught in his voice.
François doesn’t hesitate this time. “Yes.”
Connor lets out a small, breathless laugh, like he’s trying to place the sentence somewhere it makes sense. “Why?”
It’s the question François has been asking himself for weeks. On the surface, it isn’t a difficult one. Connor is, by any standard, perfect. He has all the qualities you’d hope for in a partner, on top of the simple fact that he looks the way he does. But those are the reasons anyone would give. The reasons a stranger would fall for him. The reasons François did are more private than that.
They have to do with the way Connor says his name at two a.m., when they’re both half-asleep, talking about nothing in particular, neither willing to end the night because it feels too good to let go. With the random texts Connor sends throughout the day, the ones that always make him smile. With Connor’s insistence on speaking French with him on set, like it’s their secret language. With the forty-five songs he’s added to their playlist.
It’s about all the ways Connor has made the world feel new again. All the things François hadn’t realized he was missing until they were suddenly there.
But he can’t really say any of this. Mostly because thinking it already feels like too much. So he goes for the simpler version.
“You’re easy to love,” he says. “You’re funny, and you’re kind, and you’re open. I like being with you. I feel free around you. It’s not something I’ve felt in a long time.”
Connor’s expression remains difficult to read. He opens his mouth, then thinks better of it.
“But you’re you,” he says finally, like that should settle it.
François blinks. “What does that mean?”
Connor looks at him more insistently now. “You’re François Arnaud. You’re the gay awakening of a whole generation of young Quebecers.”
The reference to Vincent’s line takes him by surprise. He huffs a laugh, shaking his head. “Oh, no. Don’t start.”
“I’m serious.” Connor’s voice steadies. “You know what I mean.”
“I really don’t.”
“Why is François Arnaud in love with me?” He says. “Why would such an incredible, experienced guy with so many options fall for me?” He adds, tone cautious. “And why the hell would he think it’s not mutual?”
François just stares. The ease of it disorients him. The way Connor says it like it’s obvious, like it has been obvious this whole time.
“What?” he says, the only word he can find.
Connor’s mouth curves, a little crooked. “I thought it was obvious. Hudson definitely thinks it is.”
“Hudson?” François repeats, the name landing oddly, like it belongs to a different conversation.
“Yeah. Hudson.” Connor’s smile widens, a trace of embarrassment slipping through. “He’s been listening to me talk about you for weeks.”
Weeks. François registers it slowly. For a moment, he thinks he misheard. That this is a well-intentioned distortion. That Connor is being generous. Because if it’s true, the assumption he had been working under—that he was moving toward something impossible—no longer stands in his way. It’s as if the world suddenly opens up to him.
“I… don’t know what to say,” he admits.
Connor doesn’t respond immediately. Instead, his thumb moves over François’s hand in a slow, repetitive gesture. They remain like that, suspended. François becomes acutely aware of his pulse, his breathing, the hollowed sensation in his chest.
“Can you say it again?” Connor asks after a moment.
François frowns. “Say what?”
Connor glances up, meets his eyes. “That you’re in love with me.”
There’s something almost shy in it, which shifts something loose inside François. He leans in, closer than before. For the first time, he lets himself smile.
“Connor,” he says, “I’m so fucking in love with you.”
“Good. Then you won’t mind me doing this.”
He closes the distance in a single, decisive movement. His hands rise to François’s face, holding it there as they find their rhythm. François feels himself being pulled closer, inch by inch, Connor’s hands leaving his face to travel down his neck and along his back, pressing him in. He has thought about this often, but the reality is more consuming. The heat of Connor’s mouth, the slow movement of his tongue, the feeling of his hands mapping his back make him lightheaded.
His fingers tighten around Connor’s shoulders, gripping the rough fabric of his shirt, registering the shift of muscle beneath it as Connor leans further into him. Connor’s hands, still cool, move from his back to his collarbone, tracing its line before returning, repeating the gesture as if committing François’s body to memory through touch. He pulls back only slightly to change direction, his mouth leaving François’s lips to follow the line of his jaw, the contact alternating between soft kisses and controlled bites.
“Fuck,” he murmurs against François’s skin. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”
François is still tense, his body not fully adjusted to the reality of it, but each time Connor’s mouth finds a new place—his neck, his jaw, the space just below his ear—something in him gives way. He feels himself loosening in increments, his breath evening out and then catching again.
When Connor lowers him onto the couch, the movement is careful, mostly practical, but it changes everything. The cushions give beneath François’s weight, and Connor follows immediately, adjusting until there’s no real space left between them. By then, the sensation has spread through him completely. It’s like his entire body has been set alight.
Connor’s hands move under his shirt, palms cool against François’s skin. The contrast makes him shiver, a reaction he can’t suppress. François’s hands answer in turn, holding Connor’s hips at first, then moving upward along his back, tracing the line of his spine.
He has to make a conscious effort to stop himself from going further. His grip tightens instead, redirecting the impulse, holding it in place. There’s a limit he doesn’t want to cross—not now. He doesn’t have the time. He has to be up in less than five hours for the shoot. Even knowing sleep is no longer a real possibility, he wants to take his time with Connor, to let things unfold without rushing, to give space to everything he’s kept restrained. And he knows it doesn’t have to happen all at once.
Connor pulls back only when he has to, just enough to catch his breath. The break is minimal, but François feels it through his whole body.
Connor stays close, still leaning over him. His mouth is parted, lips visibly swollen, face flushed. Strands of hair have fallen forward, disturbed by François’s hands. His eyes, usually clear, remain fixed on François’s, darker now, more focused than ever.
François studies him in return, taking in each detail. For a moment, it feels unreal. Worse, it feels undeserved. But he doesn’t have the attention or the strength to linger on that thought.
Connor lets out a short breath of a laugh, disbelief passing through it, and leans forward until their foreheads touch again.
“We’re idiots,” he murmurs, words close, almost absorbed into François’s skin. “Do you realize that? This could’ve been happening the whole time.”
François shakes his head, the gesture slight, almost dismissive. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “You’re mine now.”
Connor looks at him, one eyebrow lifting, though his expression doesn’t harden. “Am I?”
François freezes. He registers the assumption behind what he just said immediately. They are still at the beginning of this, whatever the hell this is. And it sounds like he just made a decision for the two of them without consulting Connor.
“Sorry,” he says quickly. “I didn’t mean—like that. I just—” He exhales, cutting himself off before he makes it worse.
Connor watches him for a moment, then lets out a short laugh. He leans in and presses a brief kiss to François’s mouth.
“No,” he says. “I liked it.”
“Yeah?” François murmurs, his hand tightening slightly at Connor’s hip without thinking.
Connor reacts to the pressure, a small laugh slipping out as he dips his head, hiding his face in the crook of François’s neck.
“Yeah,” he says against his skin. Then he lifts his head just enough to look at him again. “I’m yours. All yours.”
François looks at him, not immediately responding. His attention splits, part fixed on Connor, the rest already moving ahead, organizing what this might become, what form it could take outside of this room.
He thinks of words. Of places he could take him, here, back in LA. Of whether they tell anyone or keep it contained a little longer. Of how, eventually, he’ll ask him properly.
But none of that feels urgent in this moment.
Right now, Connor is still on top of him, real, looking at him like this is enough.
François brings his hand up to the back of his head, fingers moving through his hair in a controlled gesture, and draws him back down into another kiss.
Everything else can be postponed.