Page 36 of Lace

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.

“I don’t get why you wear that stuff.” Jase shrugged. “You don’t seem to get that I don’t really care that you do. Just so long as I know you’re good. Safe. Happy. Closest thing to familywe both got, Caleb, is this, right here. You and me—we get to choose, right now. To be family, or to chuck it. I chose you once, when that teacher called. Yes, I knew then there was no blood between us. I took you in anyway. And I’m choosing again now. I don’t have to understand you to know you’re my family. I just have to accept you are who you are.”

“Just like that?” Caleb eyed him.

Thick arms, spread a little wider now. Jase’s big, calloused hands were splayed wide, his broad chest stretched out underneath the white T-shirt. He was all power, strength, calm, and Caleb longed to have that around him, protecting him, like he was the tossed away fourteen-year-old again.

Caleb’s lip trembled. He had to steady it with a sharp bite of his teeth. “Just like that?” He crossed his arms over his own thin chest. “You decide it’s fine I’m a freak, as long as I’m your freak?”

Again, Jase shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. We don’t need blood. Just… the decision.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why? Because. I’m sorry your mom died. I’m sorry… about the rest. I can’t change any of it. You have to live with him turning you out. You don’t have to live with it happening again. I won’t do that to you.”

“Why?” Caleb dug his fingers into his sides. It was something to hold onto. Something to feel in the confusion.

“Because you’re a good kid. You’ve made my life better being here. I want you in my life. I might never have kids of my own, but I have you. And you’ll always have me. I promise.”

He held out both arms, and for the second time in as many weeks, Caleb found he couldn’t resist the need to feel them, thick and strong, wrap around him in a way his father’s never had. Not even when he was little.

“Might not be your dad, kid… I can’t be, but I hope… I mean, I can try. If you’ll let me try… maybe?—”

“Yes,” Caleb mumbled, trying to stop the poor man fumbling for words he didn’t have when the embrace was more than enough to convey what they were both feeling.

“Good.”

Uncle Jase patted his back, squeezed, and Caleb was sure he heard the older man sniff quietly. It made him smile through his own tears a bit. At least he had this.

In the end, with everything ready to go, Caleb gazed out at the filled seats, at the way his uncle sat in the midst of the Outdoor Rec faculty—his friends, the other high school coaches, and his peers—a smug smile on his face, and he knew he couldn’t go through with modelling the skirt. He noticed Larry Shank and his cronies standing at the back of the Student Hall—just waiting, ready with their cat calls and hate, to tear him down. He couldn’t bring himself to visit the ugly side of what he was on the fragile newthinghe and his uncle had found. Uncle Jase might be tough, a man’s man coach, but all the gossip, whispering, and people wondering about his nephew would just make his position at the local high school harder. Caleb couldn’t force this kind of controversy on him.

No. Caleb couldn’t bring himself to shower all that hate onto his uncle. Not now.

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