Chapter 13
Thirteen
It took every spare moment they had to pull the show off. Each night when Caleb tiptoed into the house late, he found his uncle in his customary chair in the living room, waiting. The first few days, he said nothing, just nodded and watched Caleb drag himself, exhausted, up the stairs to his room.
Around day three, he started asking questions like “Were you with that designer kid again?” or make comments like— “I hear Eric Sinclair is back involved with the Student Council. Someone said he was going to model in this show. You got the whole school dressing up now?”
Soon enough, when the one-word answers Caleb offered weren’t satisfying, Uncle Jase’s questions dug deeper, getting more probing, and it occurred to Caleb that he’d never seemed this interested before.
Caleb wasn’t sure why he always waited up, why he kept asking. He did his best to answer the questions as neutrally as he could, but whatever was going on with his uncle, he wasn’t sure he could keep his comments on his activities neutral enough.
Still, he didn’t want to get into it, not ready to reveal all. Not yet. Maybe not until he walked down that runway and Uncle Jase saw for himself the full extent of all the things about Caleb he could never understand.
If there was any real hope for a relationship, Caleb would have to tell him everything. He knew that. He just didn’t know how to say any of it. Showing him, on the runway, would be easier.
But maybe it wasn’t fair to let Jase find out in a room full of perhaps otherwise jeering people, but Caleb didn’t have the guts to do it face to face.
He’d come out of the closet once already, and got kicked out of his home, out of his family, for the trouble.
Never mind he now knew the man he’d thought was his father had just been waiting for an excuse.
The fact remained—he’d used Caleb’s sexuality as that excuse.
Caleb wasn’t willing to take the same risk again, even though he knew, ultimately, he had to tell Jase his truth. But he could put it off as long as possible.
Couldn’t he?
“Where were you?” Uncle Jase asked this time, as Caleb slipped into the house.
Fitting the show’s centrepiece had taken longer than either he or Mitchell had anticipated, and it was well past even bar closing time.
Caleb let his bag drop with a thud to the carpet. “Out.” He tried not to sigh, but he was tired. He was definitely not in the mood for one of Uncle Jase’s nightly bouts of twenty questions.
“Left some ‘za in the fridge for you.”
“I hate pizza, Uncle Jase. Pretty sure I’ve told you that before. Like, a few hundred times,” he mumbled under his breath as he crossed his arms and leaned on the railing by the front door.
“Listen, kid, I promised I’d take care of you, right? So, eat some supper. You’re thin as a rail, you.”
Caleb shook his head and pushed himself upright, ready to haul himself up the stairs. “You don’t have to look after me anymore. I’m a grown man.”
“A grown man who’s moped about this house for the past month like an emo teenager, maybe. What’s up with that?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re failing exams and losing weight. That’s not nothing.”
“You wouldn’t understand, remember?”
“You haven’t even tried me yet, son.”
Caleb slumped onto the bottom step. “Not your son, Uncle Jase.” He spread out one hand and stroked at the palm with the fingers of the other.
He rubbed all the colour away, chasing the pink with the flat of his thumb, watching it come back each time.
“Not even family, really. Not seriously. You can’t stand to look at me, to see me. ”
“Caleb…” Jase let out a loud, exasperated sound and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
“You’ve tried so hard to make me someone else, someone you can bear to look at—an accountant, for God’s sake, when I’m a musician.
You want me to eat pizza. Gluten makes me sick.
You want me to kiss girls, and I prefer dick.
You want things the way you want them, and that isn’t the way I am.
” He lifted his gaze finally, to find Jason standing over him.
“This thing that Mitchell’s doing… I have to do it with him.
I have to. I don’t expect you to understand, but… ”
Uncle Jase settled onto the step beside him. “Maybe a few weeks ago, I would have said I wanted you to get your head out of your fucking ass and see that you’re only going to get that ass kicked if you don’t forget all this shit and be a real man.”
Fiery anger flashed through Caleb as he shot to his feet. Why would the man not understand? “You can try and do the honours. I will throw your fat ass down, and I’ll still want to fuck my boyfriend after.”
Uncle Jase laughed. “You see? Now that’s what I want to see. You standing up. Being tough, like I know you are. Not the limp, skulking kid you’ve been acting like lately.”
“I am tough! I have to be!”
“I know you do, son.” Jase pursed his lips.
“Not how I wanted you to have to be, but how I always knew you’d need to be.
I made things harder for you than I should have.
I see that now. But I was only ever hoping you’d be tough enough to be okay out there.
Maybe some part of me thought something normal?—”
“Fuck off.” Caleb tried to pass him on the stairs, but Jase caught his wrist, clamped a big hand over Levi’s cuff and held tight.
“Sorry. Poor word choice. Something stable?—”
“Like accounting?” He laced the word with as much venom as he could.
Jase sighed and nodded. “Like accounting. Some stable ground in your life would help you, offer you shelter for the rest.”
“I’m a musician. A gay musician. You know that.” He sank back onto the step again, all the fight gone out of him. “Don’t even try to tell me you don’t know.”
“Of course I know. I know that. I know it all, kid. I’m not blind, not stupid.” He curled his hand around the back of Caleb’s neck. His voice dropped to quiet soothing, and Caleb wanted to close his eyes, to lean on the older man.
“Son, I haven’t always been the best at communication. And I think I taught you some bad habits about not talking that hasn’t helped either of us. But if you think I don’t see you, your music, your boyfriend, your fem side, how deep your heart goes, you haven’t been paying attention.
“Uncle Jase…” Caleb’s throat closed over any other words he might have wanted to say. The fact Jase even let words like ‘your fem side’ pass his lips was more than Caleb had thought possible, even thirty seconds ago.
“Now, I know you think I’m some kind of dumb jock, that I don’t care about any of that, that I’m embarrassed of you.
You’re wrong. I see now my attempts to protect you have done more to hurt you than help you, and that’s on me.
But I do need you to understand something before you go into this show. ”
“What?” Caleb asked, voice clogged.
“You need to know that no matter what happens, no matter what anyone says, this house, this little family that’s you and me? This is a safe place for you. Understand me?”
All Caleb could do was nod. “I’m really sorry. I?—”
“Nah, now None of that. If you’re going to sit here and fumble over all sorts of apologies and ‘I never knew you knew’s’, don’t bother.
We’re family. Shit happens. I wish I could be better at understanding you.
Wish I’d said something sooner. Maybe you wish you hadn’t judged me, decided I was a lost cause before you even tried.
I’d say we’re about even in how we screwed this up, yeah? ”
Caleb nodded. Heat stung at his eyes and his hands trembled, prompting him to tuck them up under his arms and pin them tight. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Good.” Jase watched him silently for a few minutes.
Caleb couldn’t bring himself to look up at his uncle. He hunched forward and tucked into a tighter ball.
“I got eyes, kid.” Uncle Jase said quietly. “I hear people talk. I know about bar fights and laying other kids out in the hall for commenting, and like any good parent, I snoop in the back of my kid’s closet.”
Caleb jerked his head up, his heart skimming over actually beating, right into explosion. “What?”
“Come on, now. You didn’t think I wasn’t paying attention?
I know you had this shock with finding out about your father.
I know you’re going through a rough patch with your boyfriend.
But you’ve closed off, Caleb. Even for you.
Just when I thought we were getting somewhere, you disappeared on me. I worried.”
“And you went through my things?” He pitched to his feet and dashed up the stairs.
In seconds, he had his closet door wrenched open.
Everything was as he’d left it. He flung aside jeans and button-down shirts to the rack behind—his secrets—and pulled down the fancy vest Levi had accidentally torn.
It was still there, ripped seams and all.
He clenched it into a tight fist, resisting the almost overwhelming urge to hide his face in the lacy folds, or tear it to shreds.
“I didn’t touch, Caleb.” Uncle Jase had followed and stood just inside the door to his room. “I didn’t hurt anything. I just wanted to be sure you weren’t hiding something worse than a few skirts.”
“Like what?” Caleb choked out. “What could I possibly be hiding worse than that?” He waved helplessly at his exposed secret as the first tears scalded tracks down his cheeks.
“Plenty, Caleb. Drugs, maybe—something you might hurt yourself with. I’m just glad… I mean, this is just…” His words lurched to an uncertain stop.
“Just what?” Caleb asked, fear making the words harsh.
“Not all that unexpected, right?” Jase asked.
“I don’t understand.”
“I can see that.”
Caleb looked up to see Uncle Jase in the mirror, crossing the room slowly, hands partly up. As though Caleb was a spooked dog and might bolt or bite any second, his uncle took small, hesitant steps. “I guess this not understanding thing goes both ways, huh?”
“Huh?” Caleb stood very still, shivering.