Metamorphosis

Chapter 18

The next morning, Mikasa sent out a mass email to all the employees of Club Rose to inform them that the club wouldn't be reopening until this Saturday. She wanted to give Eren a three day break to rest and recuperate from everything that happened the previous night. No one argued with her on this, although everyone agreed that when we reopened this weekend, there was going to have to be a main attraction to lure in more customers to make up some of the lost revenue. Armin suggested that I make my grand appearance as an official male dancer. After several emails, text messages, and phone calls, we all decided that this Saturday I would debut as Club Rose's latest cage/pole dancer.

Although I was excited for this to happen—I had been working my ass off for the past few months—I was also nervous. I always thought that Eren would be working during my first performance, but his arm wouldn't miraculously heal in three days, and I didn't want to cause him further injury by making him strain it. Mikasa was going to put him behind the bar with Marco until he fully recovered from his stab wound. That was understandable, of course, but I still wished that he would be in his usual position this Saturday. I wanted him right there by the stage, watching over me. With him around, I felt like no harm could come to me. I was being biased, because I was sure that everything would be fine under Jean's guidance, but still.

"What's on your mind?" Eren asked. "You've been really quiet for the past twenty minutes or so."

For lunch, we had stopped by one of my favorite Thai restaurants. It was full of people this afternoon, all chatting among themselves and filling the large space with their voices and the clinking of glass plates as they ate. We sat near the front window, our table awash in sunlight.

"I'm a little nervous about this Saturday," I admitted, pushing around the Pad Thai on my plate. Everything looked and smelled delicious, but I found that I couldn't eat one bite. The nerves started to kick in, making their grand appearance when I least expected it.

"That's natural. It will be your first time going up there as an official dancer, but we all know that you're going to blow the crowd away. You've been working really hard, Levi."

I smiled and looked up at him with shy eyes. "What if I fall on my ass?"

"Then you fall on your ass, and I'll go around punching anyone who laughs at you."

"You would not," I said.

"Try me."

I leaned forward in my seat and he mirrored the movement, so we met in the middle. I kissed him, aloof to all the people surrounding us. "You can't go around punching customers for laughing at me."

"Watch me," he said as he kissed me again. "I will not hold back. I may only have one good arm at my disposal, but I will use it."

I laughed and sat back in my seat. "Well, I guess I better not mess up, then."

"You won't. You're going to do great. Trust me on that."

I rested my chin in my hand and just looked at him sitting across the table from me. The sunlight lit the stray away hairs on the top of his head to a bright, golden hue that accentuated his different colored eyes and tan skin. Although the right side of his face was riddled with bruises that shouldn't have been there in the first place, they did not take away from his overall appearance. I could look at him forever and not get tired of it.

"You know," I said, "you're too gorgeous."

He smiled in a bashful way that was unfamiliar to me. I loved it immediately. "Is that so?"