Page 32 of Lace

“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.”

Just the thought of moving on without Levi sent a cold wind howling through him. It didn’t matter. He knew exactly what his lover expected of him. It wasn’t like Levi was too dumb to have caught on by now. Caleb could only trust that hisboyfriend already knew, or if he didn’t know the extent of Caleb’s deviation, that he would at least learn to accept it in time. But Caleb couldn’t go on pretending—walking around in a fading, ill-fitting guise of something he was not and could never be.

Both Levi’s and his uncle’s reactions aside, Caleb knew—he couldn’t keep faking it. He didn’t want to. He was tired. He wanted a life he could be proud of, one that was his and didn’t depend on whose son he may or may not be, or who approved of him.

Drawing in a deep breath, he blew it out, rose to his feet and held both arms out. “So? You happy with this, Mr. Designer?”

“Actually…” Mitchell looked thoughtful a moment. “Not quite.” For the next few minutes, he muttered to himself, dug through one of the bags, and finally, with a shout of triumph, held up a snarl of black belts. “Come here.”

Caleb stood patiently while Mitchell draped the belts over his shoulder and across his torso, picking and choosing until he had three that somewhat matched. “Can you sew?”

Caleb grunted. “You think the outfits I wear come off the rack? I know my way around a needle and thread. What do you need?”

Quickly, Mitchell arranged the belts across Caleb’s shoulder and pinned them in place, the buckles set in a diagonal row just below his right shoulder and across his chest to the opposite lower hem of the sweater. “You’ll have to cut them and angle them, like this—like one of those…scarf thingies…”

He went on muttering as he worked, and Caleb listened carefully as Mitchell explained how he should attach the thick leather to the heavy wool without ruining everything. It didn’t seem that difficult, and for the next few hours, he was happy to sit in the comfortable silence and work.

As the week progressed, Caleb organised desserts baked by the culinary students in the hospitality department and music for the reception from students looking for performance experience. He figured he could at least try and pull the college together on some level, and hoped the student body would pull together for the sake of the kids they were trying to raise money for.

He tried not to think about how he just wanted to keep himself occupied so he couldn’t miss Levi’s presence.

Mitchell’s determination to make his show about the students, and remind the Student Council exactly why they were there, became the glue that held the whole event together. It was the glue that held Caleb together, too.

He’d failed some test his boyfriend had set him that he hadn’t known about, and he didn’t know how to ask for a re-take. While they hadn’t officially broken things off, Levi was distant and preoccupied, leaving Caleb to fill his spare hours seeking some kind of companionship from Mitchell and his designs.

“You have a knack for this,” Mitchell told him.

They sat together once more in the main room of his tiny apartment sewing trim on jackets and belts. Most of the outfits were basically done except for finishing touches and fittings, which couldn’t happen without models. Caleb was just one person. He couldn’t walk every piece down the aisle.

Caleb shrugged. “I just know what I like.”

“Well.” Mitchell focused his attention on the belt in his hands. “That’s more than half the battle right there. Do you know how many people wear jeans and T-shirts because it’s easy? Because that’s what everyone wears? Half the world has noidea what they even like—never mind the guts to actually dig it out of their closets and put it on.”

Caleb snorted. “You think I have the guts to do that?” He thought about the purple skirt still stuffed in the back of his own closet. “You’ve listened to half the school, all month, denigrating this whole show, right?”

Mitchell shrugged. “They have no idea what they’re talking about, so who gives a rat’s ass what they think?”

Caleb set the jacket down. “You don’t?”

Mitchell’s hand wavered. His needle jolted into his fingertip and he yelped, then cursed. “I can’t.” He stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked for a minute.

Caleb watched him.

“I can’t,” Mitchell said again, examining the jacket for blood. “This is what I want. I’m good at it, and these clothes are what I want to design. I have to have the guts to go for it, or I might as well be taking Business.” He looked up at Caleb. “Right?”

“Fuck you.”

“Just sayin’.” Mitchell gave a small shrug as he pinched more blood from the tiny pin prick. “Not that I’m judging. Just saying.”

“No. Not judging at fucking all,” Caleb muttered as he yanked a tissue from a nearby box and handed it to Mitchell.

“Thank you. And I’m not. Much. Just pointing out that a person has to decide where their compromises are going to be, and for me, this is not the place. It’s too much who I am to compromise. Like, I could go to a fish fry with a friend if they really wanted me too, even though I’m vegan. Because I’m vegan by choice.”

“You saying your clothes style isn’t a choice?” The idea of that squeezed at Caleb’s chest. Made it hard to breathe. He’d never considered anyone else feeling the way he did about where his fashion sense stopped, and his soul began.

“Obviously, anything you put on your body is a choice you make when you get out of bed in the morning.” Mitchell wrapped the offered tissue around his injured finger, still lecturing while he secured it there with a bit of tape. “What I’m saying is sometimes the choice makes me feel more myself, or less, depending on what decision I make about it. And that I have the skills to give myself more choices in that particular arena.” He smiled grimly at Caleb. “So why wouldn’t I do that?”

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