Chapter 9
Nine
Caleb arrived back at the bus stop at the same time as the bus, and he rode it back to campus instead of home.
What was there to say to his uncle now? They weren’t family, either.
Not really, and Uncle Jase had made it perfectly clear—the way he’d tried to change everything about Caleb, from his clothes to the food he ate, even to talking him out of the music program and into business—that he preferred it if Caleb hid most of his freakishness.
By the time the bus arrived back at the college, Caleb was more than ready for even a glimpse of a friendly face. He hurried up the path to the main doors and went inside.
The colourful scarf tied around his waist floated along like an exotic tail as he ran through the mostly deserted hallways to the second floor, through the Great Hall to the Council office.
Caleb burst in the door to find Levi slumped behind his desk staring at nothing.
“Lev.”
“Caleb!” scrambling to his feet, Levi crossed the room in two strides, and Caleb all but threw himself into the other man’s open arms. “Cally,” Levi whispered, lips and words obscured in the hair behind Caleb’s ear. “Where were you?”
“Class.” He wrapped both arms around Levi’s waist and held on.
“Home. Everywhere…nowhere… Just…” Breathing in deep, aware that he finally could breathe freely, he savoured the scent of his lover, of the room, of the one place he’d found where he almost felt he belonged, and buried his face in the crook of Levi’s neck. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Levi assured him. “Nothing.” He ran his hands up and down Caleb’s back for a few seconds more before he stepped back. “You okay?”
Caleb nodded through the lie. He was so not okay. He didn’t even know where to start with how not okay everything was. He only knew he desperately needed Levi’s presence. His unwavering support.
A quirky grin curled up one side of Levi’s lips as he eyed Caleb, head to toe. He picked up the end of the flowing scarf. “This is new.”
Caleb’s heart pounded; his pulse thrummed. He knew exactly how girly the thing looked. Barely breathing, he studied Levi’s face. “Not really. Had it a long time.”
Levi tilted his head to one side. “I’ve never seen it.” Carefully, he untied the silk knot, then pulled the scarf from Caleb’s belt loops. “Have I?”
“I don’t—” Caleb frowned. “Don’t know.” His fingers shook when he wrapped them around the loose scarf.
Levi didn’t let go.
“What are you doing? I don’t have to…” Caleb stared at the floor. “You don’t…” He tried to smile, but it didn’t work very well. “I mean… probably don’t want a boyfriend who?—”
“Stop,” Levi whispered, holding the material close to Caleb’s cheek. “It’s cool how it brings out the green in your eyes.”
“My… what? My eyes are hazel.”
“Or green, depending what you wear.” Gentle, Levi looped the scarf around the back of Caleb’s neck, brought the ends together, and tied it in a loose knot so the ends draped along his shoulder.
He smiled. “Much better.” He lifted Caleb’s face with a hand on his cheek.
“Where it however makes you happy.” He touched his thumb to the side of Caleb’s mouth. “Does it make you happy?”
“I wanted to be able to feel it.” He ran the ends of the silk through his fingers.
Levi bit his lower lip.
“I know,” Caleb confessed quietly, fighting the tide of misery. “I’m a freak.”
“Don’t.” Levi’s hand fell away. He turned to face the desk, leaning all his weight on it with both hands. “Don’t say things like that, Cally. You aren’t being fair.”
“Fair?” The sight of his lover’s back, tense and hunched against him, made Caleb’s stomach collapse in on itself, a crumpled ball of anxiety and sick.
Levi picked something up off the desk and circled, holding it out. “I know it isn’t what you’d really like, Cally, but you don’t actually tell me what you really like, do you?”
The bracelet Levi had given him the night before dangled between them.
“What do you mean?”
Levi’s face fell. “Don’t you know?”
“I—” Caleb couldn’t stand the look of defeat on Levi’s face. He didn’t know how to make it go away. Didn’t know how to stop the falling sensation that started in his gut and carried on into forever.
Clenching a fist around the leather and buckles, Levi grimaced.
Caleb could see the grit of his teeth through the hard set of his jaw.
Levi tossed the cuff back onto the desk. “Some kid named Mitchell stopped by this afternoon and pitched us an idea for a fashion show. He said he’s already talked to you, and you went all soft over the showpiece.”
“What?” Caleb stared. “I did not! Levi, I never said?—”
“He lied? He didn’t talk to you about the show?”
“Well, yes, but?—”
“And you didn’t tell him you wanted some of his designs?”
“I…” Caleb twisted his hands together, the soft material of his scarf catching in clutching fingers.
If he said yes, he would be admitting too much, risking losing the one person left in his life who maybe didn’t think he was an utter freak.
If he said no, he’d be calling a perfectly nice guy a liar when it wasn’t true.
Levi frowned. “How long have we been together? Over a year, Cally? And you can’t trust me?”
“I do! Of course I do.”
Levi picked up Caleb’s hand, placed the armband across his palm and closed his fingers.
“No, Caleb, you don’t.” He turned again, picked up his book bag and shuffled head down, to the door before he finally gazed at Caleb.
“We told him yes, if you care. The rest of the guys weren’t sure, but the girls out-voted them. ”
“How…?” Caleb tightened his grip on the bracelet. “How did you vote?” he asked, damning the small, uncertain squeak of his voice.
“The really sad thing, Cally? You should already know the answer to that question.”
Then he was gone, and Caleb was left to stare after him, confused and completely at a loss. The second person to walk out on him in as many hours. He was pretty sure that would give him a complex, if he didn’t know he already had one.
There was no point staying there on his own. He left, locking the door behind himself. When he caught sight of his reflection in the window, of the scarf knotted so gently—if messily—around his neck, his eyes watered.
“Fuck.” He dug his fingers into the twist of the knot, but the memory of Levi’s hand on his face, his defeated look, his sadness, stopped him undoing it. It had, for an instant, felt like some kind of claiming. He couldn’t bear to undo that.
Walking through the halls, he felt as though every person he passed stared. Judged. Like he was wearing his bastard status, the fight with Levi—even the skirt he was too chicken to claim as his own—out there where all the world could see and call him on all of it.
One snicker was all it took. One jibe as he walked by and heard someone mumble under their breath something about a freak. He couldn’t even say afterwards what, exactly, the comment had been. He only knew he recognised Shank’s voice, saw red, and his reflex was to strike first.
The guy fell like a sack of bricks and Caleb lent over to grab the front of his coat to haul him up and lay him out again.
He had the bully’s weight in one fist clenched around a handful of his jacket and the other fist raised and back when he felt resistance against his swing, heard shouts and voices penetrating the fog of anger.
“Caleb, for God’s sake!” Levi’s voice, urgent and furious, knifed through his consciousness and he glanced over his shoulder. “Stop it! Let him go!”
“What do you care?” Caleb snarled, straining against Levi’s hold. “Get off me.”
“Let. Him. Go!” Levi’s eyes snapped with anger and the shock of seeing such ferocity directed at him snapped Caleb out of the aggression. He loosened his hold on the offender and Shank staggered back a few steps.
“Freak,” he snapped, touching a finger to a bleeding lip.
Caleb growled and turned on him again, arm once more raised. The asshole’s flinch sent a ferocious wave of gratification through him and he grinned, showing all his teeth.
“Caleb!” Levi thrust him back and inserted himself between Caleb and his victim. “Just go, jerk off!” He said, turning and shoving Shank back. He kept his other hand on Caleb’s chest to hold him in place.
“I didn’t do anything!” Shank protested. “You saw! He hit me first?—”
“And I’ll hit you second. I heard what you said and if you don’t want to be sued for slander or harassment, walk the fuck away.”
“You can’t do that…” The guy looked less certain as Levi continued to glare at him.
“Can’t I?”
“You…” Shank’s friends had already drifted away. All but one who now plucked at his sleeve.
“Jeez, Lare, just come on. They’re not worth it. Let’s go.”
“Whatever.” Shank dabbed at the blood on his lip again and jerked his coat back into place on his shoulders. “Couple freak-ass homos.”
“I swear to God…” Caleb snarled, but Levi stopped his forward momentum with that hand on his chest.
“Stop it, Caleb. Just stop.” When he finally turned from watching the other men walk away and fixed his gaze on Caleb, he looked tired. “You always have to be the first one to throw a punch, don’t you?”
“You heard him!” Caleb pointed after the guy.
“So? He’s a jerk. But he’s entitled to his opinion, and just because you don’t like it doesn’t give you the right to punch him in the face.
One of these days, one of them is going to sue your ass and you won’t have a leg to stand on.
You’re just lucky he walked away. He was well within his rights to call the cops. ”
“You…” The hollow in his gut filled with acid and bile. “You’re defending him? He gets to spew hate and I have to just take it?”
Levi sighed and backed up a step. “He can say whatever he wants. If you ignore him, it’s just so much hot air. For once, be the bigger man, Cally. Don’t give him a target. Don’t give him a reason to keep being an asshole.”
“Right.” Caleb closed his fingers around the tail ends of his scarf.
“You’re right. I should have just kept it all to myself.
” He ripped the knot holding the scarf loose and yanked it off, barely able to control the shaking of his hands long enough to free himself of the damning bit of silk.
“Thanks. Good to know.” Dropping the colourful material on the floor, he spun away, all but running before the cloud of acidic emotion ate him alive from the inside out and left him puddle on the floor.
“Caleb!” Levi called after him but he didn’t slow. “Cally! That isn’t what I meant!”
Rounding the corner at the end of the hallway, Caleb risked a glance back. Levi stood alone in the deserted hallway, scarf dangling from his hand and an expression on his face like he’d just been gut punched.