Lace

Chapter 7

Seven

“Stunning?”

Caleb stared after Mitchell even once he’d disappeared into the throng of milling students.

And not afraid to be…what? Caleb shivered.

Afraid to be. End of. Maybe some people who knew to look could decipher his secret.

He glanced down his body. There was nothing girly or remotely non-masculine about what he had on.

Leather pants, tight T-shirt, and almost-knee-high biker boots. No. It was all very hard-core male.

And he felt like he was wearing someone else’s skin to cover up his own.

He slid both hands heavily down his front.

He had an almost overwhelming urge to peel it all off.

He turned and hurried towards the bathroom, and inside, glared at himself in the mirror.

The navy highlights swirled through curls slightly crushed after his sleepless night, and his face looked naked without eyeliner or mascara.

He had a stash of everything he needed to make himself presentable in Levi’s dorm room, but he’d felt so exposed this morning, feeling Levi watch him dress.

He hadn’t been able to bring himself to sit at the tiny desk and make himself up.

He didn’t want to let the uncertainty between them fester, but if neither of them broke open the Pandora’s box of silence, nothing bad could come out.

He didn’t want to know what would come out, so he’d opted for flight instead.

He needed to get home—to get changed, or at least undressed—and for a little while remember what it was like in his own skin. He had time, would have the house to himself before his uncle got home.

“To play dress-up,” he muttered. There wasn’t ever going to be a day when what he was would be okay with the rest of the world. Best that he hide. Best that he ignore whether anyone even thought they knew the truth. Best that he didn’t think about Mitchell, about his fashion designs.

About how much he wanted it.

The house, when he arrived, was as deserted as he’d expected.

“Uncle Jase?” he called anyway. He knocked on his uncle’s bedroom door, checked the workshop in the garage, and poked his head down to the laundry area in the basement. No uncle.

“Thank God.”

Dashing up to his room, he closed and locked the door, shucked out of the tight pants and tossed Levi’s shirt into the laundry pile. A quick shower washed off the discomfort and the feeling like he’d been walking around all day inside a peeling, ragged layer of fake.

He had a half hour. It wouldn’t be enough to do it all up right, but it was something.

He started with his favourite lace undergarments.

These ones felt best, with their odd dual sensation of silkiness and a bit of rough.

He’d always wondered if the really expensive ones would have more of the silk and less of the rough.

He couldn’t afford to find out, though, so he settled for department store three to a package bargain. Better than nothing.

The skirt he chose was more girly than anything he’d ever wear in public.

Chiffon and flippy, it twirled out when he spun and the deep, shimmering purple colour looked good against his skin.

He needed something simple on top, that hint of the unexpected, just a cropped football net jersey that left his belly bare and did little to hide the rest of his pale chest or pink, tight nipples.

Here he had the advantage. Girls got themselves into trouble showing that much.

While technically, it wasn’t illegal, practically, people didn’t like it.

He smiled at his reflection. He didn’t have that problem.

Might get his ass kicked into next Tuesday, but no one could tell him to put his tits away.

That’s what was so great about living in a free country. That constant squeeze between the rock of ridicule and the hard place of intolerance.

“Caleb?”

Caleb jumped, whirled to glare at the door handle as it wiggled.

“Caleb? Son? You in there?” Even the reasonable tone of his uncle’s bass voice didn’t offset the wicked flash of heat or slow the way his heart thundered.

“Uh…yeah…Uncle…” Caleb grabbed up his bathrobe from the bed and whipped the plush material around his shoulders. “Here. Just…doing homework.”

“Why is the door locked?”

“Just…” Caleb gulped and fumbled with the robe’s tie. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Sure.” He heard the smirk in his uncle’s voice. “You’re alone, right? Ain’t got a girl stashed away in there, have you?”

“You wish,” Caleb muttered as he finally got the robe tightly, safely closed over the clothing. “No, Uncle Jase. No girl,” he said more loudly. “Asshole,” he added, once again under his breath.

“Well, finish up there, big guy.” He tapped lightly on the door. “I brought pizza for supper.”

“Sure. Be right down.”

Pizza. Caleb hated pizza. He didn’t sleep with girls. Still, it didn’t stop his uncle from bringing the pies home every other night or asking about his sex life, basically ignoring anything Caleb said about any of it.

Sighing, he ran a hand down the front of his terry-cloth armour and waited for the tight grip of panic to ease so he could breathe clearly again.

Finally, he loosened the tie and dropped the robe onto the bed.

Turning back to the mirror, he gazed at himself, fingered the soft material of his skirt and frowned.

Some things he didn’t even have the guts to say out loud.

He glanced to the door. He could just march down those steps.

Walk right past his uncle and out the door.

He could ignore the pizza and the uncaring, self-righteous asshole.

Or better yet, tell him he was going on a date with his boyfriend. In a skirt. He could.

Not.

Stifling a deep sigh, he shucked the feminine clothes and donned jeans and a T-shirt then stashed the skirt in the back of his closet where he could shut it safely away.

Grabbing a scarf from his bedpost, he threaded the silky material through his belt loops and snatched his jacket off the bed.

He hurried down the stairs, past his uncle and the half-eaten pizza, past his school bag and out the door.

“Hey!”

He heard the expletive. He ignored it.

“Caleb!” Heavy footsteps clambered after him down the front hall.

It was unlike Jason to actually get up and follow him like that.

Most of the time, Caleb got the impression his uncle didn’t really care if he came or went.

He didn’t have much use for Caleb. Not for anything his nephew wanted to be, anyway.

If Caleb suddenly took up sports and girls and scarfing down pizza five times a week, then maybe Uncle Jase would show some actual interest in his life.

But that wasn’t going to happen any sooner than his uncle was ever going to simply accept that being coach of the high school football team didn’t make him uncle of the year.

“Caleb Robert Driver!”

“Fuck.” Caleb kept the swear quietly under his breath as he turned.

“What is that?” Uncle Jason pointed one thick finger at Caleb’s middle. “Around your waist?”

“Its a scarf, Uncle Jase.” He tried, with little success, to conceal the eye roll.

“Take it off.”

“Fuck you!” No point in hiding that. The asshole might intimidate his ball players, but there was no way he would make Caleb cower.

“I’m only concerned you’ll get hurt, son.”

“No, you’re not. You’re concerned if I get my ass kicked, you’ll have to come claim my body, and that would mean having to explain the guyliner. We wouldn’t want anyone to think you ever tolerated such a thing, would we? Mustn’t tarnish your perfect boy’s club rep.”

Jason blinked at him. “I don’t even know what guyliner is.”

Caleb snorted and turned on his heel, but he didn’t get more than a few steps before Uncle Jason was once more following him.

“What is with you lately, Caleb?” Uncle Jason moved further down the hallway, herding Caleb up against the heavy wood of the closed front door.

“You come in without a word, leave with barely any acknowledgement of my presence, and now you throw that at me. You think I would ever deny you? Really? That’s what you think of me? ”

“No, Uncle Jase. That isn’t what I think.” He knew it sounded insincere. He didn’t really care. Nine years later, and he still had nothing in common with this man except that they lived under the same roof.

Uncle Jase’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t even try, Caleb. You think you know me, but you have no idea. You’ve never stopped for even a minute to really talk to me, so do not judge.”

Caleb pursed his lips and crossed his arms over his chest, leaning in his uncle’s face.

“I know you let me live here under conditions you dictate to make yourself feel better. From the courses I take”—he pointed to the pizza box on the living room table— “to the food you want me to eat, you have no idea who I really am. You never did. If you actually cared, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

You say you want me here, that you want what’s best for me, but all that really matters is what makes you feel good about it all.

Kinda like my own father, that. He’ll say he didn’t kick me out.

No. He just dumped all my shit on the front lawn and locked the door and told me it was for my own good.

You can call it whatever the hell you want. The results are the same.”

“Do not lump me in with that man!” Uncle Jase never raised his voice.

The fact he was shouting now had Caleb regretting his tirade.

He could hold his own against anyone, but this was his uncle.

His family. “Bad enough I have to call him my brother. He’s not your father and does not deserve the title. ”

“He just doesn’t want to be my father,” Caleb reluctantly had to agree with that. “Any more than you want to be the uncle of a gay, slightly cross-dressing freak.”

“Enough!” Jason snarled and took a step back, fists clenched.

“Enough, Caleb,” he repeated in a slightly less voluminous voice, though his entire body shook with the effort of controlling his temper.

“I did not take you into this house because I didn’t want to.

I took you in because my brother is a stupid, delusional asshole, and he didn’t deserve you, even if you had been his…

” He let out a loud, sad sigh, cutting off his own tirade.

“His what?” Caleb slumped back against the door, shaking hands hidden behind him, palms pressed against the rough wood grain.

“If I had been his what, Uncle Jase? His ideal son? His perfect little suburban prince, following in his banker footsteps? Screw that. He couldn’t even stand me being a musician.

Just imagine what he’d think about me liking—“He cut himself off before he got too vulgar, but Jason flushed red anyway.

His uncle ran a hand over the greying stubble on the top of his head.

“You have to talk to your father about all of this, Caleb. It isn’t my place to tell you what he was thinking, but tossing you out had nothing to do with you being gay or anything else.

As for me taking you in, I did that because you needed a place, and I didn’t want my brother’s actions to be all you knew of our family.

” He turned away, all the anger and confrontation gone from him.

His shoulders sagged and he suddenly looked like a man who didn’t know which way was up anymore.

“If you’re going out, please take the scarf off until you get where you’re going.

Believe what you want—I don’t want to collect you from the morgue or the hospital because that would break my heart.

It has nothing to do with what anyone else thinks.

They can all go fuck themselves, for all I care. I just want you to be safe.”

Caleb stared at him, incapable of retaining his own ire. “Wait. What is it I’m asking Dad about, exactly, Uncle Jase?” He left the rest. He didn’t even know how to process the open plea for prudence or the admission that this man gave two flying fucks about Caleb.

“Ask him why he really threw you out. Ask him…” Another huge sigh leaked out, a hissing release of frustration as thick fingers tightened on the door jamb to the kitchen and his uncle visibly pulled himself up and around to face him again.

“I am a coward, Caleb, in some ways. I had hoped he would be the one to tell you. That I could be the good guy. I had this stupid idea, once, that it could be you and me out here doing our thing in spite of your father and your grandfather, and-…” he shook his head.

“But it’s too late now. I could have told you years ago.

I didn’t. I told myself it was none of my business.

That it was his responsibility. Or your mother’s, but then she died and he found out for sure, and everything hit the fan.

After that, it was all I could do to keep you in one piece.

I didn’t want to throw more shit on you.

So, I kept quiet. Maybe I shouldn’t have. I just don’t know anymore.”

“Told me what, Uncle Jase?” It required all of Caleb’s will to keep it together as cold dread zipped along just under his skin, leaving behind goosebumps and shivering and those tightening bands of constriction around his chest.

“He isn’t… he isn’t your father. He always suspected, but he never really knew for sure until he read your mother’s will. It was in there.”

“But you knew.” Certainty made it even harder to breathe.

Jason nodded. “She told me. She knew it wasn’t Robert. She didn’t know who it was, but she knew it wasn’t him.”

“And you knew this.”

“Caleb—”

“You knew? ” Caleb wished, suddenly, irrationally, that he had something to throw. Something he could launch across that room at his uncle. Something that would hurt the man as bad as he was hurting. There was nothing. He turned and fled.

“Caleb!”

He didn’t stop. He didn’t care what else his uncle had to say.

He didn’t care that he’d left his inhaler behind, or his phone, or that he didn’t have a clue where he was going to go.

He wanted, somehow, to believe that the past nine years of drudgery under this man hadn’t all been more lies and secrets.

He wanted everything to be as simple as dancing and a bar fight, and fucking.