Mike and Micky came back jubilant from their meeting with the club manager.

"We got the gig," Mike announced, as soon as they came through the Pad door.

"Not only that, but the guy wants Mike to meet his daughter," Micky added. "He's got the feeling they could have a freakishly tall future together."

"Where's Davy?" Mike asked. "We oughta tell him – and start planning how we're gonna pull this thing off. Turns out the manager doesn't just have a grudge against short people - he's got a minimum…well, I guess more of a maximum… height requirement for musicians. He says patrons can't hear the music if the guy playing is less than 5'9."

"Yeah – if Davy shows up looking like Davy, we're not going to make it through the door. You gotta be at least this tall," Micky demonstrated by holding his hand up to Peter's head, "to play at The Sasquatch."

"He went out," Peter said. "He'll be back soon."

"Oh, okay. In that case, Micky – you see if you can dig out those stilts. I'm going to look for a stovepipe hat, and Peter…Pete?"

Peter looked up.

"You okay, Pete? You look a little, I don't know…blue."

Peter didn't feel a little blue. He felt like a distinctly more saturated shade –indigo, maybe – but he managed a smile and said, "I'm fine. I'm glad about the gig."

When Davy came back, they ate, and Mike and Micky kept the conversation going by planning out how Davy was going to infiltrate The Sasquatch without getting stomped like a bug – kind of like a modern, groovier version of Jack and the Beanstalk. Still, as Peter stared down and stirred his meal components into an indistinguishable soup, it seemed to him that dinner was very quiet.

Maybe it was the fact that, after a token protest about having to sing while on stilts, Davy didn't say a whole lot. Maybe it was because, even though Peter kept his eyes resolutely fixed on his unappetizing plate, he could still feel Davy looking at him.

Afterwards, they spent some time practicing their set with Davy on stilts – a much more precarious proposition than normal, that saw several songs end prematurely with the sound of a body falling onto a drum kit.

When Mike made the judicious decision to call it a night, based on the increased volume and frequency of swearing when Davy pitched into the drums yet again, everyone picked themselves up and looked to be drifting bedwards.

Bedwards meant him and Davy. In their room. Alone.

"Wait!" he said.

Everyone paused.

"Everything all right, Pete?" Mike asked, frowning.

"Doesn't anyone feel like playing checkers?" he asked. "Or – or hopscotch?"

Mike looked at him. "You do seem kind of keyed up. I guess one or two games couldn't hurt. Checkers," he decided.

Peter felt dizzy with relief.

"Winner plays Mr Schneider?" Micky suggested, as he began the search for the checker-board. "You know how he gets when we leave him out."

"I'm going to bed," Davy said suddenly. Instinctively, Peter looked over at him, and their eyes caught for a breathless second. "I'm kind of tired," he said with a smile and a shrug in Micky and Mike's direction.

"Well, all right," Mike said. "G'night."

"G'night," Davy said. Peter stared very hard at Mr Schneider's hands, and not just to make sure he didn't have the opportunity to cheat, but he still caught the very edge of Davy's smile before he turned away.

A couple of games later, and even Mike was fading, chin propped on his hand. "Am I black or red?" he asked.

"I think we decided it was undemocratic to separate them," Peter told him. "We said setting reds against blacks had the potential to unwittingly reinforce a culture based on discrimination and segregation."

"That makes sense," Mike said, and paused. "And that's a sign that I need to go to bed straightaway. C'mon, Micky."

"Mmhmszwh?" Micky didn't lift his forehead up from its resting place on his forearm.

"Come on - time for bed. You oughta hit the hay too, Pete - it's late, and we gotta lot of practicing to do over the next couple of days if we're going to make a splash at The Sasquatch."

Peter looked at his watch, which wasn't much help as it had stopped several days ago. "Okay," he said anyway, because it was late, and there was a good chance Davy was already asleep by now.

Mike helped Micky to his feet and pushed him in the direction of the stairs. Before following him, he hesitated, and said, "You sure you're okay, Pete? No offence, but you just seem a little...off tonight."

"S'Pete. S'always off. Faulty wiring," Micky said sagely, before missing a step and twisting to sit down heavily on the stairs.

Mike's eyes were kind. Tired, but kind. Peter took a breath. "Mike - did you ever want something a whole lot...something you knew you could never have? And then...one day, out of the blue, someone told you that you could have that thing? But...even though you really really wanted it...you knew it would be a bad idea to - take it?" He stopped. "Do you know what I mean?"

There was a brief, puzzled silence.

Mike stared at him. "Did that green van park by the beach again? Has that guy been hasslin' you? Because if he has, first thing tomorrow, we are gonna head down to the police station and make a report to the cops."

"No, I" - Peter began, but Mike took two steps closer and laid a hand on his shoulder. "I'm proud of you. You did the right thing, Pete. And you just keep rememberin' - no matter what he says, there ain't no ice-cream in the back of that van."

"I wasn't talking about the man in the green van," Peter said.

Mike blinked. "Oh." He considered it. "Well - it's still good advice. Keep it in mind."

"I will," Peter assured him. And as Mike hauled Micky up the stairs, Peter decided that even though they might have been speaking at cross-purposes for the most part, maybe they'd managed to talk their way over to an intersection. After all, Mike's advice was good advice and probably applied to a whole lot of other situations. If you squinted.

It was this that bolstered his confidence and allowed him to finally square his shoulders and open the door to his and Davy's bedroom. But when he stepped inside, the figure curled up in Davy's bed didn't even move. Peter's shoulders immediately slumped in relief.

He took one deep breath, and then two, feeling the tension in his stomach untwist, and then he carefully and quietly flicked the light switch.

Immediately, Davy sat up in his bed. "Peter," he said, then stifled a yawn.

Peter jumped. "Davy. I thought you'd be asleep by now."

"Yeah. Well, I just thought - after today, what happened...we should probably talk a bit first." He ran a hand through his hair, already rumpled, which rumpled it further. Peter felt a pang low down in his stomach, and he had to remind himself, very sternly, that there was no ice-cream in the van.

"Do you really think we should? I mean, people always say you shouldn't really talk for at least an hour before sleeping." He gripped the doorknob behind his back with both hands.

"I think that's 'don't eat for an hour before swimming,'" Davy informed him.

"Oh. Well. Same principle, I guess. And - better safe than sorry."

"I suppose," Davy said with a frown. "Just - well, I did say we'd sort it out later. And, well - it is later."

"Or earlier. But I guess that's all a matter of perspective - you can look at the glass as being half-early, or half-late. Either way, you probably got the wrong order, because you can't drink time."

"It's late," Davy decided. "When that stuff starts making sense to me, it's late."

"...Okay," Peter said.

"Okay," Davy said. He cleared his throat and, desperately, Peter interrupted, "But is there really anything to sort out? I mean - like you said, it wasn't a big deal."

"Well...yeah, I know I said that, but - it did happen," Davy said, slowly. He had his head tilted to the side, and Peter wanted to smooth out the crease between his eyebrows with his fingers, or maybe his lips. It was something he'd wanted to do before, but now, for the first time, there was a small possibility that Davy might actually let him. It made it very hard to stay where he was. Resolutely, he looked at the floor.

He breathed in. He breathed out.

It felt hollow instead of cleansing, the same way it had earlier, with Neil - because just like then, the memory of kissing Davy caught in his chest as he breathed in, dug into his heart with kitten claws...and he let it. He breathed out, and kept the memory clutched tightly in his fist, like a kid holding on to a balloon.

He didn't let go.

He told himself it didn't matter in the end - because him keeping the memory wasn't going to change anything. Davy had kissed a lot of girls and then left them behind with only a regretful glance...but Peter wasn't going to let that happen here.

"A lot of things happen to us," he said. "If we talked about all of the things that happened to us, we'd never stop talking and then things would never happen to us."

Davy looked at him, and surmised, "You...don't want to talk about it?"

Peter didn't say anything. It was definitely long past bedtime, because his limited supply of excuses were now exhausted.

"It's late," he said simply.

"You're right," Davy said finally. "We should probably - get some sleep."

Relieved, Peter crossed over to his bed - but Davy didn't close his eyes or move to lie down. He stayed sitting up, that frown still on his face. Peter changed into his pajamas, awkwardly aware of Davy even though he'd turned his back to him to undress.

"Pete?" Davy asked, voice low. Peter stopped and his shoulders stiffened. "It - the kiss, I mean - was it not...I mean, was I not" -

Peter turned around and did the only thing he could do - he played dumb. ("Don't sell yourself short," Micky had once told him. "This isn't your average, common-garden type of playing dumb. You could play dumb professionally.")

"Hmm?" he asked, benignly blank expression on his face.

Davy just looked at him for a moment. "Nothing," he said. He shook his head. "It's...nothing. Goodnight."

Then he lay down and turned over on his side, so his back was facing Peter, who took the chance to look without being observed. It was a cheat, he knew, but between the bedclothes and the pajamas, he couldn't see very much, just Davy's hair, really. He guessed the saying was right. Cheaters never prosper.

"Goodnight," he said, in a quiet voice.

The next morning, Davy seemed to be in a better mood - which was...well, only to be expected. You couldn't expect him to mourn what amounted to a half-formed possibility for very long, after all, Peter told himself, as he caught Davy's eye over the kitchen table and Davy smiled at him.

It felt good to have things back to normal. Well, mostly good, with just this tiny thornprick of loss. Which was silly, because he hadn't really lost anything to begin with. Yesterday's memory unhelpfully intruded, pointedly reminding him of the way Davy's mouth had fitted against his. He guessed that was what was called a rebuttal.

He was a little busy wrestling the remembered sensation of Davy's skin under his hands into submission as they finished breakfast and so he missed a portion of the conversation.

" - Pete?" Davy asked, and he finally jerked back to the present.

He looked at Davy inquiringly.

"I was saying - I thought...it might be nice to go for a walk. If you want." Davy was smiling at him, like what he was saying was a regular, everyday suggestion - but there was something oddly careful in the way he spoke.

"Sounds good," Micky said. "Hey - we can try out the stilts on the boardwalk!"

Davy hesitated but then said, in that same careful tone, "Actually, I was asking Peter. Just - Peter."

Peter blinked. Happiness flared in his chest, like Davy's words had flicked a lightswitch inside him - and the feeling only got bigger and brighter as he looked at Davy, standing expectantly by the table.

"You mean - like a date?" he said. There was a sudden scraping noise as Mike and Micky pulled their chairs in close on either side of him, the better to stare at Davy, who didn't appear to notice, still smiling at Peter.

"It could be," he said. "If you want." His hands were open by his sides.

The happiness abruptly switched off as Peter remembered that this wasn't a good idea. That it was only going to lead to awkwardness and pain down the road. Not 'down the road' like at the end of the boardwalk, but in a more metaphorical sense.

It was very hard to keep that shadowy end of the road in mind while looking into Davy's eyes. "I...um...I think - that...Neil might be coming over, so..."

"That's all right," Davy said. "We can always go later instead."

Peter swallowed and thought very hard about how awful it would be when the walking and dating came to an end, and was replaced with Davy not-looking at him, and not-smiling at him, and not-dating him - but in a different, more painful way than he'd been not-dating Peter all along.

He straightened in his seat. "We thank you for expressing your interest in our goods and services, but unfortunately we regret to inform you that there are no vacancies available at this present time."

Davy blinked. "You're saying you...don't want to go for a walk right now?"

"I should tell you that we don't anticipate any future vacancies, either," Peter finished miserably.

"You're saying you don't - want to go for a walk with me...ever?" he realized.

"I think it would be a bad idea," Peter said. He didn't recognize his own voice. "I mean...with the club and everything...it's probably a conflict of interest..."

The worst part was that it took a few moments for that soft, hopeful smile to fade from Davy's face.

"Oh," he said.

It seemed to echo in the silence, sending ripples of discomfort through the Pad - ripples that got bigger and bigger and harder to ignore until finally -

"I'll walk with you!" Micky yelped, pushing his chair back and scrambling to his feet. "Let's go! If you want to walk, then - hey, let's get going!"

Mike too got to his feet. "Micky's right!" he said. "You're right! We need some - some fresh air and exercise...right away!"

There followed a few brief but action-packed moments of that ended with Micky and Mike hustling a somewhat bewildered looking Davy out of the Pad door.

He wandered from the kitchen area into the living room, over to the band stand, then around the staircase, and back to the kitchen. It felt like he was missing something - like part of him had followed Davy out the door, leaving the rest of him here, like a heavy, unused paperweight.

Mike would fix it, he told himself. Mike would talk to Davy, and even if he didn't understand the situation fully, Peter had faith that he would do a better job of explaining it than Peter would.

Still, the lost, not-quite-there feeling persisted. He tried to push it down when Neil showed up, but every so often it made itself felt in swampy silences and conversational dead-ends.

"Are you okay?" Neil said finally, reluctantly. His eyes met Peter's, only to dart away almost immediately. "After yesterday?"

"I'm sure I...will be," Peter said. He was facing Neil on the couch, legs folded up like pretzels underneath him.

There was a pause.

"I didn't mean to make you miserable, you know," Neil told him. "When I said all that stuff yesterday, about you and Jones...I didn't do it to hurt you."

"It's okay," Peter said. "I know. You told me what you really thought. That's what friends do for each other."

Neil looked at him again. "It's just - you're...the best person I know. Jones isn't good enough for you. No-one's good enough for you."

"Oh." Peter smiled. "That's really flattering." The smile faded from his face. "...and lonely."

"Yeah, well..." Neil gazed down at his fingers in his lap. After a moment's pause, he said, "You know...I don't know if this is going to mean anything to you, but...my girlfriend and I broke up yesterday."

He made a face. "I broke up with her. I figured - if you were sacrificing something big...maybe I could do the same. Keep you company, y'know? And - it was the right thing to do."

Peter looked at him. "Are you okay?"

"Kind of scared, actually," he admitted, with a sheepish kind of honesty that was all the more endearing coming from someone who looked like they could knock down walls without even trying. "But - it was the right thing to do. Beryl, Ber, she's a great girl, but I couldn't keep letting her think I felt something for her that - I'm never going to feel." He stared down at his knees. "No matter how much I wish I could."

Peter reached out and placed his hand over Neil's. "It's going to be all right," he said. "And I think you did the right thing."

"Yeah," Neil said. He turned his hand so that he and Peter were palm to palm, and stared down at the result. "I've been feeling like - like I was just stringing her along, like Jones."

Peter frowned. "Davy doesn't do that to people."

"Yeah. You said that," Neil said. The words were free of censure, but flat, another conversational dead end.

"You know, it might turn out to be a good thing," Peter said. "Breaking up."

Neil nodded. "Maybe. Beryl should be with a guy who really likes her. She deserves that."

"And you," Peter said. "Don't forget yourself. You deserve good things too."

Neil just looked at him for a long moment before shaking his head. "I never met anyone like you before," he said. "The way you see things...I don't know. You know - if I'd never met you, I never would've even thought about breaking up with Beryl."

Peter opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Neil said, "I don't mean it in a bad way. It's just - that stuff you told me...about it being okay to - miss Jones, to miss a guy. About - being okay the way I am, the way we are... That there's somebody out there for me..."

"You believe all that now?" Peter asked.

Neil shook his head, once. "No," he said, and Peter looked at him, confused.

He reached out, and took both of Peter's hands in his as he said, "But you - you make me want to believe that stuff."

It was strange, because as he looked at Peter, the look on his face faded from one thing into something else entirely, and Peter wasn't sure what either of them meant.

And then, Neil was moving closer, and Peter suddenly remembered how he used to play in his grandmother's rocking chair, and how once, he had pushed too hard, and ended up crashing backwards onto the floor.

There had been a moment, just at the point where the chair began to tip backwards, and Peter realized that he was going to fall, when he'd stared up at the ceiling, and felt...curiously suspended. A victim of forces (speed, gravity, oscillation) currently completely outside of his control.

And as Neil leaned in, and in, and touched his mouth to Peter's, he had a flash of that exact feeling, peculiar and precise. Of course, barring the couch suddenly growing rockers, and tipping them both backwards, it wasn't exactly the same, but sheer surprise fixed him in place, and the shock of the whole world seeming to turn upside down was eerily familiar.

For someone so immense and forcefully physically present, the kiss was strangely gentle. The feel of Neil's lips on his was...well - odd...but warm and careful, and they demanded nothing in return.

Peter just sat there and tried to absorb this sudden weirdness that Neil seemed bent on passing on via mouth-to-mouth contact, and wondered when the rocking chair was going to fall.

His unasked question received a non-verbal answer couple of moments later when the Pad door swung open.

His heart gave a sudden stutter in his chest, and he found himself on his feet, facing Mike, and beside him, Davy. Mike looked surprised, eyebrows shooting towards his hat, and Davy looked, well, stunned was probably the easiest way to describe it - but to Peter, the look on Davy's face felt exactly like that spine-jarring moment he'd finally hit the floor in his grandmother's rocking chair.

Behind them, out of view, Micky's voice filtered into the Pad, "- telling you, Mike, there is no way we should have gotten all the way there, and all the way back in that kind of time. Call me crazy, but this feels exactly like some kind of" -

He entered the Pad, and immediately stopped, eyes darting from Peter to Neil, still frozen on the couch, and then to Mike and Davy.

" - cheap narrative shortcut," he finished.