Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
CALEB
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
“Are you fucking shitting me?” Caleb can hear Prichard’s voice screaming out of his phone over the pilot’s staticky welcome message as the plane taxis.
Squinting, Caleb jabs at the screen. He replays the voice message twice, his brain still slow from sleep.
What? They barely touched down less than a minute ago. There’s a spot of dried drool in his sweatshirt, for God’s sake.
The next one only gets more hysterical.
“Knight—I swear to Jesus fuck—I cannot believe you would do something this stupid. It’s all over the news. Pick up the motherfucking phone.”
Somehow, the five other messages manage to get worse. Prichard devolves into a medley of threats and a grand finale consisting of what sounds like a shatter of glass in the background.
Hands trembling, Caleb opens Instagram and all the air gets sucked out of him.
In big bold letters, a Bleacher Report headline glares back at him. It reads:
KISSES AND KAYFABE: ASHER ROSS AND
CALEB KNIGHT LOCK LIPS OUTSIDE LAX
Right below it, another post. Ringside News this time:
THE RUMOR MILL: ARE ASHER ROSS AND
CALEB KNIGHT DATING?
And another.
And another.
And another.
As more and more comments stream in, the feed struggles to keep up. Every couple seconds, there’s a lag, a calm before the storm. Then an automatic update sends a burst of new comments rushing to the top of the screen. The figure goes from ninety to a hundred thousand before his very eyes.
@attitudeerarulez: is this a fucking joke????????
@turnbuckletitan: Calm down guys, it’s probably just a work.
@ur_local_anxious_fiend: I KNEW SOMETHING WAS UP THEY HAVE THE GAYEST MATCHES IVE EVER SEEN EVERYONE SAID I WAS DELULU
@rossfansite: guess asher ross is off the market brb flinging myself into a ditch
@90sGEW: VIVA LA HOMOEROTIC WRESTLING
@kingdomcrashing: Caleb Knight is gay??? Oof. Big L for the queer community.
@nightmarediva: I’ve done some God-tier snooping and have dug up some evidence that traces the course of Asher and Caleb’s relationship. Highlights are up on my profile.
The last comment has racked up over twenty thousand likes.
Against his better judgment, Caleb taps on the account.
His stomach plummets. There, splashed in high definition for the world to see, is almost every moment he’s spent with Asher, days and nights that were theirs and theirs alone: the two of them huddled in the back row of the Performance Center, Caleb outside Asher’s apartment in Kentucky with bags of groceries in hand, a grainy recording of them outside the trampoline park from what seems to be a street camera, and most damning of all, Asher’s fingers twisted into the collar of his shirt, kissing him outside LAX.
All of it taken away from them.
A split second of letting their guard down. That’s all it took.
Oh fuck, Asher! Caleb clambers around in his seat, ignoring the dirty look it earns from a nearby air stewardess. The blanket on his lap flutters to a pathetic heap on the floor as he cranes his neck, trying and failing to get a peek past the first two rows of economy.
The thing that is so completely hilarious to him, the one that sends a bout of hysterical laughter bubbling up his throat, is that a year ago, he’d be stressing over how utterly fucked he is.
But all he can think of is Asher. God, Asher’s career.
Asher’s championship. Asher’s ridiculous wide-eyed dreams. Bile burns in the back of his throat—stinging and sour.
His phone vibrates in his hand.
It’s not Asher. It’s an email from GEW’s PR team.
URGENT: ROSS AND KNIGHT DAMAGE CONTROL ACTION PLAN
FROM: pr@
TO: aross@; cknight@
CC: kprichard@
Dear Mr. Knight and Mr. Ross,
We are writing to you to address the unfortunate incident that has come to light and set out a course of action that must be undertaken, effective immediately.
Upon arrival in SFO, please leave the plane separately—Mr. Knight followed by Mr. Ross.
We have arranged for two separate taxis to take you to two different hotels.
Mr. Knight will be taken to Fairmont and Mr. Ross will be taken to the Ameswell Hotel.
As we anticipate a large number of journalists and fans at the airport, you will each be guided to a private exit by the airport staff.
To avoid further speculation until the appropriate next steps have been decided on, we encourage the both of you to cease all communication from this point forth.
Lastly, we have added a joint meeting with the PR and Management Team to your calendars. Attached are your flight tickets from SFO to JFK. Please arrive at Prichard Towers tomorrow, December 27, at 4pm sharp.
We thank you for your understanding.
Best regards,
GEW’s PR team
From there, everything moves in a blur. Caleb is escorted out of the plane, a hoodie hastily thrown over his head, and hustled down one winding corridor after another.
At some point, his checked-in luggage is shoved into a free hand, passport and boarding pass crumpled in the other.
Then he’s tumbling into a taxi. A beat later, his backpack follows, lobbed in through the window.
He’d completely forgotten about it. The ground staff have managed to reunite him with all of his belongings. All except one.
He’s left his heart on that plane.
In the back seat, like a moth to a flame, Caleb pulls up Instagram again.
His personal account, long abandoned and nothing but a relic of old scathing comments put out to incite reactions from fans has since been revived by fans and reporters alike.
Hundreds and thousands of invasive comments and DMs flood his notifications and inbox.
Are you gay? Are you really dating Asher Ross? Since when? Who tops and who bottoms?
People want to know everything. They clamor for it, trading gossip back and forth. There’s speculation regarding his sexuality, heated arguments about whether he’s good enough for Asher, whom the fans have dubbed cinnamon roll, too good for this world.
It has to be a work, the comments say. Asher could never truly love him.
Ignoring the ringing in his ears, he scrolls farther. More rancid takes. Slurs. Vitriolic attacks. So-called fans talking about him as though he isn’t a person. Like he doesn’t have feelings.
It is only as the taxi peels down the highway that a tidal wave of loss knocks Caleb off his feet.
A tangled knot of fury, violation, humiliation, and other horrifying emotions surge forward and swirl into a nasty whirlpool of grief.
Caleb claws at his chest as it fill his lungs, suffocating in its depth and intensity.
He shouldn’t be here. It was never supposed to come to this.
When he forged his gimmick, it was meant to absorb the brunt of what everyone thought of him.
A wall around his kingdom. His heart. And for what?
To end up robbed of his private life? Without his consent?
Every post and comment about who he’s allowed to love, all the talk dissecting who he supposedly falls into bed with each night, everything that bleeds out of his stupid broken heart—that’s not the Ice Prince. It’s him—Caleb Knight. It’s just him.
It wasn’t a stupid gimmick who fell in love with Asher. It was him.
It has always been him.
He stares at his hands, trying and failing to will its tremble away.
So that’s it then. The world knows. Coming out at their own time and place, taking control of the narrative, everything that should have been their choice and theirs alone.
Gone.
And even then, Caleb still can’t take any of it back into his own hands. What he gets to say or do is still dictated by GEW. He’s been defanged by Kennedy Prichard.
Sighing, Caleb leans his temple against the window, useless with his pseudo autonomy.
And Asher. God, Asher. Does he know? Does he know that Caleb tried to look for him?
Does he know that Caleb’s terrified little heart is holding onto his, even when it seems like he’s been left to walk into this nightmare alone?
Fuck. Asher could be anywhere right now.
Unless . . . Caleb lunges across the back seat, fumbles with his phone, and pulls up the Find My app.
There he is. A small circular picture of Asher moves rapidly down Route 101. He could weep, but the relief is fleeting.
Is this how it’s going to be? Do they have to learn to make themselves content with this? Loving each other through a screen? Cramming themselves into smaller and smaller boxes just to be palatable?
As though they are cosmically connected, his phone buzzes and Asher’s display picture fills the screen.
“Hello?”
“Hi, baby.” Asher looks brittle. Caleb wishes he could reach through and give him a hug. “So, that happened.”
“Sure did,” Caleb says miserably.
Asher’s exhale is shaky over the receiver. “Too late for Kakslauttanen?”
“Probably. Are you . . . are you okay?”
“Yeah.” A beat. “No.” Another beat. “I don’t know. My parents texted. They asked if you were all right.” Asher sniffles. “Are you?”
Caleb laughs wetly. “Not feeling as brave as my last name suggests.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“It was me, wasn’t it? At the airport? I was careless. It’s just that you just looked so upset; I wanted to make it better. It was a . . .” Asher trails off. “A lapse of judgment.”
Bitterness floods Caleb’s tongue, not unlike all that poison from his youth.
It sits there just waiting to curdle. That’s just it, isn’t it?
Because he looked sad. This is what you do to those you love, he thinks.
This is who you hurt. This is the life Asher has to endure just to be with you. You are the problem.
“Caleb?” Asher’s voice wavers. “What do we do?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“Okay, well.” Asher sighs. “Guess we’ll find out tomorrow. I miss you.”
Be here, Caleb thinks, with me, but that admission will only hurt Asher that much more. Instead, he says, “I miss you too,” and hangs up.