Page 13 of Lace

Levi didn’t have time to react before he was pounced on, Shank clearly too drunk to know any better as he began flailing wildly at Levi’s head. Levi could only raise his arms and fend of the worst of the attack.

“Oh, fuck, no!”

Caleb launched himself, ploughing his full weight into Shank’s midsection and tumbling him off Levi. He rolled both of them across the floor. A quick flip landed Shank against the legs of the hastily retreating dancers. Caleb twisted the bully onto his back where he could straddle his chest. One hand rested with most of Caleb’s weight behind it on Shank’s clavicle. Caleb curled his fingers threateningly on either side of Shank’s throat and raised his other, clenched into a fist, over him.

“Who’s the pansy-ass now, dickwad?” he snarled.

“Get the fuck off!” Shank squirmed uselessly beneath Caleb.

Behind Caleb, shouts rose, panic blooming up from where he pinned the jerk who’d dared to hurt his boyfriend. The music thumped, the beat winding heedlessly through the crowd, stirring heavy threads of aggression with it. Hands gripped Caleb’s arms and he let a bouncer and Levi pull him to his feet. Someone else helped the other man up and they stood glaring at one another.

The fight was over, Caleb knew that, and as the adrenaline rush faded, his chest tightened and his breath clammed up behind steel bands of panic around his chest.

“Caleb…” Levi’s hand moved from his arm to his chest. “Babe, let’s go. Come on. I have your puffer.”

“Caleb,” another, gruffer voice on his other side drew his attention, too.

Slowly, he turned his head to peer into dark brown eyes set in a concerned face. Dwayne, Angel’s cousin, peered at him. “Hey, Dwayne.”

“Yeah, buddy, we’re going to take you outside. To get some fresh air, yeah?”

Caleb nodded but glared back to where his adversary was still being held between another bouncer and the guy who had supported his taunts.

“Him first, though. He doesn’t get to diss me and not get tossed out on his fucking head.”

Dwayne made a motion, and his bouncer partner and the other man hauled Shank towards the exit.

“Okay?” Dwayne asked.

They headed for the door as well, and Caleb followed without protest as Levi handed him his inhaler. He only needed a quick puff of the medicine to right his constricted air passages.

On the way out, he noticed the stranger who had helped him up watching him leave. The man ran a self-conscious hand over his top and looked away the instant Caleb met his eye. It took a fair amount of concentration for Caleb not to let the sting close up his airways again.

“Want to get out of here?” Levi asked him as they made it to the front door of the bar.

“Yeah.” Caleb smiled at him. “Yeah. I do. Let’s jet.”

“Hey.” Dwayne’s hand remained on Caleb’s arm. “You guys either call campus security or I’m calling Eric to come get you.” Eric was Dwayne’s boyfriend and always seemed to be at the man’s beck and call. “I wouldn’t put it past an asshole like that to wait just out of sight for another chance to get his ass kicked by a fag in a skirt.”

Caleb gave his kilt a stiff tug. “It’s a kilt, asshole.”

“And it suits you,” Dwayne agreed. “But call the patrol anyway, right?”

“We will.” Levi replied for them, already holding his phone to his ear. He asked for the escort, not having to explain why they needed it. Likely some bar employee had already called the patrol and asked them to come do a walk-by—standard procedure after a brawl in the campus pub for the very reason Dwayne had already cited. Only took one jerk-off with a vendetta to make the whole of the school grounds feel unsafe.

They waited just inside the door, next to Dwayne’s post, for the guard.

“So…” Caleb said when the stretch of quiet between the three of them grew uncomfortable. He glanced at Dwayne. “Glad you decided to take this job now?”

Dwayne studied him for a minute. “Yeah, actually. I am. Pays the bills and I get to use some of the fantastic training being in the slammer offered.” He made a face. “Why?”

Caleb shrugged.

“You think you’re the only one people shit on, think again.” Dwayne nodded to the flashy guy who had picked Caleb up off the dance floor. “The world is full of assholes making judgments, and you’re the one can’t meet that kid’s eye, so you tell me what’s what, yeah?”

Caleb flinched. Dwayne was one of those perceptive types. Caleb spared another glance for the man leaning on the bar, watching them. This time, it was the other man’ gaze that flitted away first and Caleb felt another stab of guilt.

“Campus cop’s here, babe,” Levi told him, settling a hand on the small of his back and rubbing, like he knew the contact would press the softer material under Caleb’s clothes against his skin. “Ready?”

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