Chapter Aspen #3
I scoffed, glancing away from him as the implication of his words hit me.
He was always saying stuff like that, and I could usually laugh it off but it had started feeling more and more…
Real. Was I allowed to lean into it and really believe that we’d live together someday?
Protecting my feelings by blowing everything off had become my default, but Caelyx hated letting me have any defense mechanisms.
“I… I guess. Whatever you want.”
He chuckled, kissing both of my heated cheeks before gliding to my lips.
“Can I see your room before we go?” He asked, and I sighed. I’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask.
“Fine.” I led him past the kitchen, down the tiny hallway and past the closed door of my mom’s room, into mine. Knowing what was coming, I marched through the doorway and plopped onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling.
“Oh, my god.” His laughter was immediate and completely unrestrained.
My mom had basically always let me run wild with whatever hobbies or creative endeavors I wanted, and my bedroom was no exception.
It was like stepping into a Hot Topic wet dream.
The walls were black, but you could hardly tell anyway, because basically every inch was covered by posters.
Punk rock and emo musicians everywhere you looked, all sporting eyeliner and leather and piercings.
They’d served not only as all my crushes, but what I’d aspired to look like, as an awkward little trans boy who was still taping down my chest and practicing talking in a deeper voice.
“Holy shit,” he said as he made his way around the room, staring down all my rock stars and picking up some of the stuff I had displayed.
I collected bat plushies, and had a bunch of those stuffed on top of a bookshelf.
The fairy lights strung all around my headboard were red, giving the room a creepy glow when I flicked them on.
The full length mirror I’d used to take selfies with my middle finger up and my tongue out had song lyrics penned around the edges.
“Edgy, edgy boy,” he added, and I groaned, trying to drown him out as he kept picking things up and commenting on them.
If all those Christians who’d warned me to change my sinful ways were right and hell was real, then I was pretty sure it would just be this, for all eternity. Laying on my back and listening to the guy I liked rattle off his observations at my embarrassing childhood bedroom.
“No sports trophies?” He asked, which I answered with a sarcastic laugh.
“You know I hated jocks,” I reminded him, when a certain thought occurred to me. “You didn’t play sports in school, right?”
He glanced over, looking a bit sheepish.
“Well… Not exactly. It wasn’t in school.”
“Tell me,” I ordered.
“Are you sure you want to know?” He asked, grinning.
“How bad could it be?”
“Well, I… Played a lot of tennis. At my family’s country club. I’ve actually won a few tournaments and stuff, too.” The corner of my mouth twitched up as I struggled to hold in my laughter. He put a hand on his hip, eyeing me with obvious amusement. “Hey, you forced me to tell you.”
“It’s okay. I should have guessed you would be into something like that.”
“Tennis is incredibly difficult and taxing,” he informed me, and I bit down into my lip, nodding. “It requires a great deal of athleticism and dexterity.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, even though I had basically no freaking clue about anything tennis required. “Did you ever wear those little white shorts?”
“All the time,” he admitted, then blinked his lashes as he tilted his head. “Are you imagining me in my little white shorts, Cupcake?”
“Are you done snooping through my stuff yet?” I asked, dodging the question because I was most definitely imagining him in little white shorts. His butt looked good in everything, and I was pretty sure those would be no exception.
“Your mom’s so chill to let you put up all this stuff,” he observed after a few more minutes of inspecting my possessions. “She must be really supportive.”
“Always,” I confirmed.
“Did she let you get all those tattoos, or did you do it behind her back?” He wondered.
“She let me,” I said, turning over on my side so I could face him. “I bagged groceries at the store down the street sophomore, junior, and senior year so I could help with bills and stuff. Any extra money I made went to these,” I said, lifting my arms and twisting them to indicate all the tattoos.
“Are you going to get any more?” He asked, and I nodded.
“Yeah, when I have money again. I have a bunch of inspo pics saved on my laptop.”
“Are they all cute and sparkly like the ones you have now?”
“Yes,” I answered, scoffing when he grinned at me like I was the cutest thing in the world. He’d asked me before, why all my tattoos were like that when it didn’t seem like my style, but I hadn’t answered his question. I watched him carefully, wondering if he would try again.
“How come you get tattoos like this, when you only wear black?” He finally asked, running a fingertip up my arm, over the stars and hearts and rainbow shapes.
I hesitated for a split second, only because I’d never actually told anyone why before.
But it was Caelyx. I could be real with him, if no one else.
“I can always wear long sleeves or whatever if I don’t feel like being colorful that day,” I started.
“But the reason I decided to get all my tattoos like this is because… I didn’t know if I would ever like looking at myself in a mirror.
So I figured I should have something fun to look at and focus on, for the days that I’m not in love with what I see. ”
“Do you still feel that way?” He asked as he sat down on my bed next to where I was lying, his brows drawing together like he really hated the idea.
“Not as much,” I said honestly. “I still have a bad day every once in a while, but… It’s a lot easier now.”
“I know I can’t really understand what it’s like for you, but… If you ever feel that way, please tell me. I want to try to help.”
“You help,” I promised him, my heart doing a stupid tumble in my chest at the earnest sincerity in his tone and eyes. He really couldn’t stand the thought that I would be suffering like that. “It’s hard to feel ugly when you’re so…”
“Obsessed?” He finished, grinning a little and I nodded.
“Basically.”
“If you don’t feel at least slightly creeped out by the intensity of my feelings, then I’m doing something wrong,” he said, giving me a mock salute.
Wrinkling my nose, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Little did he know, my brain had long ago shifted from creeped out to infatuated when it came to his slightly psychotic and unhinged declarations of his attraction to me.
“That’s quite a philosophy,” I said, leaving it at that.
“Do you have a diary or something I can read?” He asked after a little stretch of silence, and I snorted.
“Absolutely fucking not.”
When he gave me a pleading look, I shook my head.
“I never kept an actual paper diary. Just online journal entries. And they’re all deleted,” I tacked on quickly, which was actually true.
When he pouted, obviously disappointed, I rolled my eyes.
“Believe me, it would take you 10 minutes to think up everything I ever wrote, anyway. A whole lot of feeling alone in a crowded room and no one understands me type of crybaby whining.”
“You have absolutely no idea how adorable all this is, do you?”
“Shut up or I’m going to smother you in your sleep tonight.”
“I can think of one very appealing way you could smother me,” he remarked. “I’d prefer to be awake for it, though.”
I could only shake my head, rolling onto my stomach so I could bury my face in my pillows.
“Pervert.”
“Your one and only,” he said.
I was starting to think he was right, that he really was my one and only, and that if anything happened and I was forced to try and date other guys after him, I was in for a world of disappointment.
“Can I ask you something, Cupcake?”
“Go ahead.”
“Will you go with me tonight? To have dinner with my dad?”
“You changed your mind?” I asked, popping my head up from my pillows to look at him.
“Yeah. I changed my mind. So, will you?”
It was an awkward situation. I wasn’t sure what Faulkner would want. But I knew what Caelyx wanted, and that was more important.
“Yeah,” I said, shifting back onto my side so I could stare up at him. “As long as… I mean, do you think your dad will mind?”
“I don’t think he will,” he answered, looking thoughtful for a second. “I kind of… I wanted to keep you a secret from him, but… I changed my mind about that, too.”
That cat had long been out of the bag, but of course I couldn’t tell him that.
“Um, he won’t mind that I’m… Trans?” I wondered, forcing myself to think of a question someone who hadn’t met with Faulkner Vane on two separate occasions and been referred to as his son-in-law to a random waitress, would ask.
“Nah. If anything, he’ll probably love that you’re on a scholarship and have a kickass GPA. And anyway, his opinion about you doesn’t matter to me.”
“Okay,” I conceded, the anxiety of Caelyx finding out I already knew Faulkner curling up in my stomach as usual. “Can you at least… Let him know I’m coming too? I don’t want to be a surprise.”
“Yeah, of course. I’m going to text him back when we’re in the car.”
“Okay,” I said again, and pulled myself up to a sitting position. “I guess we should get going, then.” When I stood up, I noticed he stayed sitting, a somewhat tense look on his face. “Are you nervous?”
“A little,” he admitted. “I haven’t talked to him face-to-face in over a year.”
“Don’t be nervous,” I told him. “You’ve come so far, and you’re doing amazing in your classes. You have nothing to feel ashamed of, and he should be proud of you.”
Caelyx blinked up at me for a moment, before his sculpted mouth stretched into a perfectly handsome, pearly smile.
“You are so good at that,” he said.
“Good at what?” I asked, confused.
“Making me really, really fucking happy.”