Chapter 14 #2
“What I’m sure of,” Levi replied, voice growing stronger as he spoke, “is that I don’t want half of you.
Not anymore. I was attracted to you knowing there was something different, something deeper, and every little hint you gave—the glam, and the scarves and the kilt, and eyeliner—I knew it was in there.
I knew it, and I was so mad at you for not coming out and telling me.
I wanted you to tell me. To trust me. I wanted to be the one you could share that with.
I was so very pissed off at you for keeping it hidden, like I didn’t matter enough to tell the truth—this thing that mattered so much to you, you had to protect it with everything you had.
And then Mitchell came along, and it was so easy for you to just…
lay it all out on his living room floor and prance around in his designs, and everything we’d struggled through the past year was nothing.
It was nothing to you to show him all the things I wanted you to show me.
I couldn’t watch the show because I just wanted to strangle the little shit.
I hated him. I was fucking pissed at you.
I couldn’t breathe. I just wanted to take you and shake you and…
make you tell me. And I wanted to be him. I wanted that.”
“Here it is,” Caleb said weakly, suddenly, positively, knowing it was too little, and far too late.
“Yeah.” Levi slumped. “Last and least. That’s me.”
“No.” Caleb moved forward, already sensing Levi was moving away even though his feet hadn’t shifted on the grimy carpet. “Not least. Not… Levi… please.”
“Please what? Please pretend you didn’t get up there and show the whole world what you couldn’t show me ever, in private, where I could be a part of this thing that’s everything to you?”
“Please…” Caleb had reached out, but there was a wall between them. One he hadn’t seen growing before and couldn’t reach through now. His hands closed into fists on empty air. “Please understand.”
“I do. A year and a half I put up with the angst and the fear and your tentative probing out into the world in hopes I could make you feel safe enough to want to really be with me. And you got up on the stage and gave that to a room full of strangers. I understand. I didn’t matter.”
“No!” Caleb rushed forward all in a step, gripped Levi’s clasped arms. “No. That isn’t it at all.
You did matter. You do. You mattered so much I couldn’t risk you.
Couldn’t give up the one bright spot, the only thing I had to lean on, to ground me.
I wasn’t brave enough, maybe. I just wanted you to love me, and I was scared you wouldn’t, and I wanted to cling to you.
” He stopped and hauled in a breath. “I couldn’t do this with you.
I—I had to do it first and be what I am, and then come to you.
Whole.” He shook his head, as if the vigorous movement would shake his thoughts into some sort of arrangement that made sense.
Like he could make them come out in coherent order.
“I’m sorry. I was so wrapped up in myself, I didn’t see.
” Caleb swallowed a lump of fear greater than anything he’d felt over coming to Levi and telling him the truth.
“I didn’t see how much I was hurting you. I’m so sorry.”
Levi trembled under his hands. He didn’t know if the emotion that whirled through his lover’s eyes was anger or something else. When had he lost the ability to read him? Or had he never actually known how he felt about anything?
“What else is there you haven’t told me?” Levi asked. “What other secrets don’t I know about you?”
Caleb drew in a breath and let go of Levi. “Can we go inside?”
“Tell me.”
“There aren’t any more secrets,” Caleb said. “Nothing else.”
“Your uncle called me, you know. Five or six times in the past few weeks, wanting to know if you were all right—if you’d told me…”
“Told you what?”
“I don’t know, do I? But he was worried about you, and it wasn’t really about the skirts, was it?”
“No. I suppose not.” Caleb imagined his Uncle Jase must really have been worried about him to be calling Levi, going through his things. Had he been acting that far out of character since he’d discovered the truth about his father? “It’s a long story. Please, can we go inside?”
“Tell me now. Maybe I don’t want you inside at all.”
That lump of fear Caleb had swallowed ground at him from the inside out—mill stones turning the chaff of his life into a spoiled, gooey mess that made it hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to focus on anything else.
“Okay. Fine.” He dug in the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out his puffer, using it to at least get his breathing under control. For a few minutes, he leaned on the wall by the elevator, trying to figure out where to start.
At the beginning seemed best, so he told Levi everything from his father kicking him out of the house the first time, which Levi already knew, to his sending him off again when Caleb confronted him with the truth.
“So why…?” Levi was leaning on the opposite wall now, hands braced behind him. “Why didn’t you just tell me? Come and talk to me? Why… God, Cally, I missed you so much.”
“I did. That night I found you in the office, but you…” He took a few sharp, shallow breaths. “You were already mad by then. It had already started, and then there was Mitchell, and…and…”
“There was Mitchell.” Levi gazed at him, eyes flat, face blank. “What does that mean? What else of you did he get that I’ve never had?”
“Nothing.” Caleb pushed himself away from the wall. “Nothing, I swear. We’re friends. I never wanted anything else from him. Never asked. Never offered. I don’t even know if he’s gay. I don’t care, frankly. I only ever wanted you, since the day we met.”
“But you didn’t trust me.”
“No.” Caleb’s gaze fell to the dirty carpet, to Levi’s bare toes peeking from the cuffs of his pyjamas.
“No, I didn’t, and I’m sorry. I was scared.
Which isn’t an excuse. Just a fact. I couldn’t see past it.
Couldn’t see that you aren’t my so-called father, not my uncle.
That you’re different.” He struggled, but managed to look up again. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”
“And now?”
Caleb held out both arms, showing off his outfit again, displaying himself.
“I’m here. No leather. No armour. Just me.
Invite me in, or tell me to go. This is who I am, and who I want to be.
I know now you don’t care about the clothes.
That you never did. It’s the rest you have to decide if you can forgive. I’m only asking for a second chance.”
“Is this…?” Levi, too pushed himself away from the wall. “Are you always going to dress like this now?”
Caleb shrugged. “No idea. Doesn’t really seem practical.
I like it. I’m comfortable. But I don’t have any desire to be anything other than a man who likes men.
Who loves you. I don’t know if I’m ready to always go out in the world like this.
Everybody has their public face, right? And the leather and the kilts don’t seem so restricting anymore, now that I’ve given myself the other option. ”
“And what about your private face?”
Caleb managed a shaky grin. “I’d prance around in heels and garters for you, if I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“But you don’t know what I want. You didn’t know I wanted this until tonight. You never asked.”
“You want this?” The last, constricting strap holding Caleb back, at the mercy of all his reservations, snapped. “Really? It’s not something you’d put up with because your boyfriend’s a bit on the bent side?”
“I told you earlier, there are any number of boys who’d never be caught dead in a skirt willing to give me a shot.
I want you. I want you in leather and those…
insane boots, or in nothing at all.” Levi moved, this time, closing the last of the space between them.
“But mostly, I want you just the way you are. This turns me on, Cally. This makes me hot for you, makes me want to lay you down and just take every little bit of you that you’ll let me take. ”
They were standing chest to chest now, and Caleb’s heaved with his fight for breath, with the hammering of his heart. His cock shifted against the silky-rough lace of his underwear and he almost managed to stifle a moan.
“Oh yeah?” Levi asked, taking his strangled sound for some sort of consent. Levi’s hands dropped from where he’d been holding Caleb close by his shoulders, until his fingers tickled Caleb’s thigh. “I like these,” he whispered, lips just brushing Caleb’s. “Sweet.”
He caressed Caleb more surely, fingers sliding along in a firm, smooth glide, upward to where they met the garters, then farther, to the crease of his ass. “How far up did you shave?”
Caleb licked his lips, tried to answer, but only a small squeak came out as Levi’s fingers continued their exploration, up and over the silk panties.
Levi’s lips curled against Caleb’s mouth. “Oh, yeah,” he breathed. “I like that.” His hands, warm and strong, cupped Caleb’s ass. “The leather was sexy, but this…” He flexed his hands, then his forearms, and yanked Caleb against him. “You see what this does to me?”
Caleb could feel Levi’s erection, hard against his own, and he gasped.
“Fuck.” Levi dragged his tongue along Caleb’s slightly parted lips. “Open your mouth, Cally,” he whispered.
Caleb did, and Levi ploughed his tongue inside, deep, wet, and demanding.
Caleb’s knees buckled, and only Levi’s hands on his ass, his arms tight around his hips, kept him on his feet.
He gripped Levi’s shoulders hard, melting into every probe, every brush of lips, knowing he was losing any chance he might have had of controlling the direction of the rest of the encounter.
Eventually, Levi drifted back from the kiss, and Caleb struggled out of the haze.
“You still want to come inside?” Levi asked.
Caleb nodded.