Chapter 6
Six
Grey morning crept into the room as Caleb slid from the bed.
He felt Levi watching him dress, but his lover didn’t say a word to stop him leaving.
Carefully, Caleb folded his kilt and tucked it into one of Levi’s drawers, under a pile of jeans, exchanging it for a T-shirt to replace his own sweat-crusted one from the night before.
Levi said nothing.
It was still on the gloomy side of dawn, though Caleb could feel the damp in the air promising an overcast, dismal day when he eased the door open and snuck out into the quiet hallway.
Back on campus proper, he checked the time, decided there was no point in going home before his first class, and instead, wandered to the Council office by way of the cafeteria and the coffee kiosk.
A wet day greeted him through the wide expanse of windows in the office and he set out his breakfast at Levi’s desk, his back to the dripping view.
He was still sitting there, waiting until it was mercifully time to go to the torture chamber that was Bookkeeping for Small Business Owners , when the door to the office opened. He looked up, a hopeful greeting on his lips.
Fake blue eyes under a shaggy green, unkempt haircut greeted him instead.
“Hey.” The young man in the doorway lifted a hand in greeting.
Caleb narrowed his eyes. He straightened his back and pursed his lips, saying nothing.
“Okay.” The guy came in and closed the door behind him. “Early Friday morning class. I get it.”
“Get what?” Caleb packed up the breakfast he’d spread out on the desk but hadn’t actually touched. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Wow.” The interloper tossed his books onto the couch and flopped down after them to watch Caleb with amusement. “Cranky much?”
Caleb glared in silence. It wasn’t this kid’s fault he’d been disappointed at seeing him, and not Levi, walk through the door.
“Whatever.” The guy rolled his eyes. “My name’s Mitchell. I’m in the design program. We met at the pub last night.” He tilted his head, peering at Caleb’s legs under the desk, a smirk twisting his glossed lips to one side. “Friday morning class of shame, then?”
“We didn’t meet.” Caleb got up with every intention of showing Mitchell the door… and the other side of it.
“No. I just picked you up off the floor while your boyfriend was too busy getting into a fight to be bothered.” He smirked. “And getting his ass kicked, if I recall.”
“Oh, just fuck off,” Caleb snarled. “I am in no mood for this shit.”
“Okay, okay.” Mitchell held up both hands in front of him. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m sure he was playing the valiant and all that.”
“Whatever. Just leave me alone. He is my boyfriend, and I’m not interested in you.”
“Holy shit, girlfriend. Get over yourself. I’m not here for that.
I’m here because it’s all over the school you guys are desperate for fundraiser ideas, and despite this chilly reception, I have a peach of a plan that I think might just work.
” He leaned forward, both elbows on his knees.
“And maybe it’s right up your alley.” He eyed Caleb’s black leather pants and the tight red T-shirt he’d pilfered from Levi’s meagre stash of clean clothing.
“I see you’ve forgone wearing the kilt today. ”
“What I wear is none of your goddamn business.” It might have been exciting for Caleb to think Levi had wanted him to wear that outfit out last night, but in the cold light of a drizzly day on campus, it seemed like a poor choice.
He wasn’t really up for more threats of getting his ass kicked.
He didn’t have to justify himself to this flamboyantly dressed spectacle, either.
“Wear what you want. Get all the attention for it you want. Leave me the fuck alone.”
“Defensive much?” Mitchell got up to block Caleb’s way to the door.
“Get out of my way.”
“I just want to talk.”
“I’m not interested. I don’t need to make a splash. Unlike some people.”
“Me, you mean.” Mitchell cocked his head, but his face went bright red.
“I didn’t mean?—”
“Sure, you did.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I see it in the way you look at me—half in horror, half in fear. I don’t wear skirts, and I don’t want to wear them, but I don’t want to go around trying to look like someone I’m not, either.”
“Goody for you.”
“I just want to take back my right to look however I want and not get harassed. Don’t tell me you’ve never felt the same.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Caleb dropped his messenger bag, giving in to the fact Mitchell was not letting him leave before he’d said his piece.
“Everything. Not everyone is willing to push boundaries, and that’s fine.”
“I’m not afraid to?—”
Mitchell held up a hand “I don’t much care why you want to fly under the radar.
That’s your business. Yes, I want to push the boundaries.
And I’m willing to so that people like you—people who just want to be—can.
But I can’t do it alone. The Benevolent Fund needs money.
The Student Council needs a real way to get the campus back to being about the students.
My idea will do both of those things, and it might help you, too. ”
“Really?” Despite his foul mood and scepticism, Caleb paused.
If this guy really did have that good of an idea to raise some money for the Children’s Christmas Party the Student Council sponsored every year, maybe he owed it to them to hear him out.
He wasn’t on the Student Council, but he had joined the Benevolent Committee to help with the Christmas charity.
Plus, he was the one who was here right now.
Judging by Mitchell’s demeanour and his over-the-top dress, maybe Caleb was the best one to listen to him.
“Fine,” he said at last, though he kept his hand on the strap of his book bag and the other on his hip. “Say what you have to say, but be quick. I have a class in ten minutes.”
“Fashion show,” Mitchell said, practically vibrating.
“I need a venue for a class project, and you need an event—one to top last year’s oh-so-scandalous car wash and send the message to the staff and the board members that we aren’t going away just because we make guys like them uncomfortable.
” He picked one of the books he’d dropped on the couch and opened it.
Inside was a fashion drawing of a man in a short, flippy skirt, thigh-high boots, and a billowing pirate shirt with a tartan throw hanging down behind him.
Caleb stared at the picture for a silent heartbeat, blinking and taking in the idea someone else actually thought such an outfit might be plausible on a guy. It took him a moment to remember what the conversation was really about.
“We’re not making this about being gay, Mitchell,” he said at last. “It’s about the kids.”
“The party is about the kids, sure. The Student Council, the Benevolent Fund, and everything else is about us.” He thumped a hand against his chest. “The students. About the people who go to this school, remember?” Closing the book, the contents for the moment forgotten, he took a few steps forward.
“Do you know why the basketball team is losing so bad? They intimidated the best player off the team because he happens to like dick. That’s bullshit, and you know it.
No one stuck up for Eric Sinclair. Only one person stuck up for you last night, and only because you’re fucking him.
If we don’t stand up together, make them see we have value to contribute to what they view as their world, how will it ever get better? ”
“And you think holding a gay fashion show is the way to prove to them we have something to add to their world?” Caleb snorted. “Fat chance.”
“There, you see? Their world. It doesn’t fucking belong to them. There shouldn’t even be an ‘us’ or ‘them’.”
“But there is!” Caleb lifted his book bag and strode to the door, which he partially opened. “There always will be.”
“No.” Mitchell shook his head as he gathered the other books he’d dropped on the couch. “No, I don’t buy that.” He scrambled to follow Caleb to the door.
“Well, good, because I’m not selling. I’m giving advice away for free here.
We”—he waved his hand between his own cliché outfit and Mitchell’s long, flared coat over tight jeans— “are freaks. They… and trust me, there is a they, whether you want to think so or not—even Levi, great as he is, is a they who puts up with this”—again, he waved his hand at his own clothing—“because it suits him to indulge me. They will always think we’re freaks.
We don’t fit, we never will. Get over it.
” He yanked the door the rest of the way open. “I have class.”
Mitchell scowled, not making a move for the door.
“Goodbye!” Caleb shouted, at the end of his patience and control.
“Fine.” Mitchell pointed a finger at him. “I’ll be back, though, because you’ll see. I’m right.” He grabbed his book from Caleb and stormed out, all attitude, huffing his way past Levi, who Caleb hadn’t seen until then standing just on the other side of the door.
“And here I thought you actually understood…” Levi shook his head. Muscles along his biceps tightened, and Caleb glanced down to his lover’s clenched fists and the leather bracelet peeking from tightened fingers.
Caleb had forgotten it in his haste to flee the awkward aftermath of their sleepless stalemate that morning.
“Lev—”
“Forget it. You have class.” He pushed past into the room, but when Caleb reached for the armband, Levi pulled it out of his reach and closed the door in his face.
Caleb waited a heartbeat, then two, listening for the thunder rolling in from the storm.
Wasn’t that how pathetic fallacy worked?
All he heard was the low murmur of voices as other students ambled down the hall or hightailed it to class.
Caleb sank back, needing at least the cold support the tiled wall offered.
Support Levi had never failed to give, and all Caleb had done was throw it back in his face and whinge about how that wasn’t enough.