Chapter 12
Twelve
In the end, Caleb couldn’t refuse the challenge Angel had laid out to him.
He concentrated on the fashion show, and on Mitchell.
He knew it would take all the time they had between obtaining approval from the Council and the faculty advisor—who, mercifully, was gay enough to get what they were trying to do—and the date of the show to get everything ready.
Even though the Student Council and the Benevolent Council had little to do other than make sure the construction of the catwalk met with safety regulations and convince the cafeteria caterers to supply finger sandwiches and drinks, Caleb knew that Mitchell had bitten off a huge workload.
The man’s designs were ambitious and he’d put himself under an almost impossible time constraint to have the looks put together in less than a month.
“They do a garment a day on Project Runway every week, right?” Mitchell said one day when he and Caleb, Levi and a couple of other council members were sprawled on Mitchell’s living room floor, sorting through numerous bags of second-hand finds.
His smile, though, was weak—far from his regular one-hundred-watt dazzle.
Even his voice sounded thin and uncertain.
Just about everyone in the room glanced furtively at one another, then they all looked to Caleb. Levi’s glance bounced away quickly and went back to the computer screen where he was fiddling with program layouts.
Caleb ignored the stab of rejection and turned to Mitchell with a nod. “They do, and so will you, if you have to.” He pulled a sweater, deep red and sporting a high, thick turtleneck from one of the bags. “Here it is!” he crowed, triumphant as he held it up.
“You really think?” Mitchell eyed the chunky, woollen top dubiously. “I thought…in the store, but now I’m not so sure…”
“Be sure.” The previous year’s Council president, Marcus, stood and patted Mitchell on the shoulder. “We’re all in now. There is no going back. Guys?” He glanced around the room. “We should get going.”
“Unless any of you know how to sew?” Mitchell asked, his voice rising hopefully.
His question was met with a lot of good-natured grins but also shaking heads.
“Sorry,” Marcus said. “Not really in my skill set, but don’t worry.
Caleb gave us a list of shops to go round to and see if we can’t get the owners and staff to come see what you can do.
We’ll have posters to put up in their windows next week, too, soon as Levi’s done with them.
Hopefully, some their customers will turn out.
So that’s where we’re headed now. We’re off to blitz the city. ”
“Thanks.” Mitchell got up to see them out, leaving Caleb, Levi and himself, when he came back, alone in the small apartment.
Levi snapped his laptop shut. “I can finish this at home. I’ve got papers to write and…stuff.” He busied himself packing up his things.
“You don’t have to run out just because they did,” Mitchell said, casting a furtive glance at Caleb.
“I know. But I do have my own shit to take care of, too. Don’t worry.” He patted his laptop case. “I’ll get this done on time.”
Caleb walked with Levi to the door. “You leaving because it’s just us?”
Levi turned in the doorway to look him in the eye. “Enjoy your sew-in.”
“Levi—”
“See you around.”
“Lev—”
“Look, you have this thing”—he waved his hand vaguely in Mitchell’s direction— “with him. Keep him working, whatever. It’s got nothing to do with us.
” His gaze darted to Mitchell, bent over one of his shopping bags, and something dark flitted through his eyes.
“He gets you; you get him. No freaks in the room.” His gaze came back to Caleb and there was none of the usual brightness in it.
“No, they. You two are all on the same side and shit. I have to go.”
Caleb lifted a hand, thinking he’d somehow be able to hold Levi in place with just a touch.
Levi didn’t shrug him off, didn’t stop. Just walked out from under Caleb’s hand and didn’t look back.
“Hey.” Mitchell’s voice was soft, drifting over the empty space around Caleb and jostling him.
“Yeah.”
“Lots of work to do, I guess,” Mitchell said. “You don’t have to stay.”
Caleb closed the door and returned to pick up the red sweater.
“Where else would I go?” He smiled, but Mitchell’s sympathetic look didn’t change, which told him the smile didn’t look any more genuine than it felt.
“Lots of work to do.” He held up the sweater.
“But first, we get to see one of Mitchell Ingersall’s full creations.
I’ll show you. Don’t move.” He hurried to the doorway of Mitchell’s bedroom, then back for his own bag of clothes and once again to the bedroom before he turned back around.
“Well—move,” he corrected. “Get the rest unpacked and sorted while I change.” And he closed himself inside the room.
It took hard focus to make himself continue after the door was closed.
He didn’t actually feel the clothing in his hands as he changed.
He didn’t really see what he was doing at all.
He proceeded by rote, his mind alternating between blank pain and the image of Levi’s arm and his hand sliding away from it, like the touch had meant nothing to the other man.
“Fuck!” he swore quietly, fumbling with the sweater as it caught on the buckles of the wristband he still wore, then cursed again when he couldn’t get the buckles of his boots unfastened because his hands kept shaking.
“Get over it. You knew this was going to happen. Just…” He blinked and swallowed and dug his teeth into his bottom lip until his eyes watered again and he could concentrate on the physical pain. “Just put on the skirt and show him you don’t care what he thinks.”
That was his advice to himself. Shitty advice he didn’t want to listen to.
He wanted to put on his jeans and a sweatshirt and run after Levi and make him see that there was nothing to worry about. And he wanted to hate him for walking away. He turned to the hanger on the closet doorframe and glared at it, hating that he could not turn his back on it.
The day before, Mitchell had completed one of the more flamboyant skirt-like affairs, and Caleb knew, in his heart, Mitchell had created something truly unique and wonderful.
Something Caleb coveted with every fibre of who he was.
It wasn’t just a skirt. It wasn’t just an expression of who he wanted to be.
It was as much a part of him as loving men.
He couldn’t deny it. Paired with the rich colour and texture of the sweater, he just knew the outfit would look exactly how Mitchell wanted. Exactly how he, Caleb, wanted to look.
Quickly, he switched out his jeans for his black leather, donned the skirt and sweater and hauled on his almost-knee-high boots.
“You ready?” he called through the closed door, forcing the shake out of his voice.
He twisted this way and that, examining the effect in the full-length mirror on the back of Mitchell’s door.
He had to concede—the effect was stunning, even if the skirt was a bit big around his waist. The man really knew what he was doing.
And he deserved all the support Caleb could give him.
“As I’ll ever be, I suppose.” Mitchell sounded more resigned than excited, so Caleb made his entrance grand.
For the space of a few heartbeats, a few held breaths, Mitchell said nothing.
“You have to admit,” Caleb said, holding out his arms and sashaying in a slow circle. “This is pretty awesome.”
Confidence soothed away some of Caleb’s hurt. There was strength in admitting this. In being this, in front of another person. He lifted his chin and grinned.
Mitchell nodded, still silent.
“What is it?” Caleb stopped and took a few steps closer. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
“It’s happening,” Mitchell said, gaze glued to the outfit Caleb modelled for him. “I’m really doing this.”
“You really are.”
“I can’t…” In an instant, Mitchell had collapsed beside the heap of bags, face in his hands. “I can’t do this.”
“Wait, wait.” Caleb knelt beside him and put a tentative hand on his shoulder. “Mitch, yes, you can. You did. Look at this. Look at me! It’s perfect.”
“It’s—”
“Mitchell, it’s different. Risky. Yes, absolutely. But also? It’s amazing. This line is amazing. You can do this.”
“I’ll be out, then, won’t I?” He lifted his face; a pleading look in his eye as he stared at Caleb. “Everyone will know.”
“Well.” Caleb settled on the ugly gold plush beside him and patted his knee. “Then I guess we’ll both be, won’t we?”
“But your uncle?” Mitchell shared a look of concern with him. “That won’t go down well.”
“Uncle Jase is just going to have to get used to it. Used to me. He’ll deal.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then I will. It’s time I did this. I have to do this.” Caleb offered the best smile he could muster. “I owe it to a lot of people to be honest, finally.”
“A lot?” Mitchell asked. “Or one in particular?”
“He thinks I don’t trust him.”
“Do you?”
Caleb shrugged. “I thought I did.” Caleb noticed he was rubbing a finger over the rhinestone letters on his wristband as he’d caught himself doing more and more with every day that passed that Levi didn’t answer his calls.
“I guess I didn’t. Maybe, if he sees me do this—publicly, in a way I can’t take it back—he’ll know. Maybe he’ll forgive me.”
“That’s an awfully public way to ask for forgiveness.”
“It’s not like I’m ever going to be hiding in the closet after this, is it?
” Caleb’s smile grew weaker the more he thought about it.
“There won’t be any going back. If he accepts it, then he does, and he forgives me for not sharing this with him sooner.
If he doesn’t accept it, then I have to know that. I have to move on.”