Page 38 of Lace

Caleb’s heart thudded in slow motion as Levi moved close again, cupped his face and kissed him softly. It almost wasn’t a kiss at all—a touch of lips, only. It could have been goodbye. It could be a promise. Caleb had no idea which it was.

“I want you to be happy, Caleb. But it’s your choice.” His hands drifted away from Caleb’s face and he backed off. “Good show, guys.”

He turned and walked back the way he’d come. Not out to the front and the audience, but out the back of the student centre and towards the Council office.

“He’s not going to watch the show, is he?” Caleb asked.

“Does he need to?”

Caleb swallowed a sigh. “I guess not. I guess he always knew…” Caleb stared along the narrow corridor between the portable change cubicles and the covered pool tables where Levi had walked away.

“Don’t, Caleb.” Mitchell touched his arm lightly. “Don’t try and read his mind. Just…don’t do this for him. Don’tnotdo it for your uncle. Don’t even do it for me, though I will be rightly pissed at you if you don’t, and you will owe me, like, your firstborn or something.” He grinned. “But I get it. If you can’t, you can’t, and that’s fine. I’ll make it work with or without you. This is who I am, and prima donna models come as a clause in the contract. I’ll figure it out and hash out what you owe me afterwards.”

Caleb made a face, but Mitchell just winked one of those strange blue eyes at him. “Just decide quick, because I have a shitload of alterations to make if you say no, and I hope to God the musicians can cover my ass while I do it, because I am shit out of time.”

Caleb managed to quirk half a grin. “I won’t say no. I’ve come this far, right? And Levi made his choice. He told me he loves me. My skirts are the deal breaker. So. This is who I am, too. It is time.”

Decision made, actually walking out onto the runway wasn’t as hard as Caleb had feared it would be. His first trip, in the same red sweater and kilt he’d helped touch up himself, was actually exhilarating, and he didn’t spare a single hip sway.

It was glorious to have every eye on him. The cool thrill sliding down his spine as people commented on the design boosted his energy. He flicked a hip at the very end of the walk, and there was Uncle Jase, right where Caleb’s gaze fell. And the man had a sea-to-sea wide grin on his face. Caleb lifted both brows in surprise and Uncle Jase gave him two unabashed thumbs-up.

To think he’d been terrified of this moment when he walked out in front of this surrogate father and showed him all of himself. He wanted to laugh out loud and very nearly did. Lifting his gaze further, he caught a glimpse of Shank, saw his lipsmoving and the sneer on his face, and realised he couldn’t hear the man over the sounds of clapping.

Tossing off a wide, fuck-you grin, he sauntered back up the catwalk to the sound of wild applause trailing him.

He was barely off the stage stairs when Mitchell was on him, arms wrapped around his neck. “This is going to work!” he crowed.

“It’s your clothes they’re cheering. Now get me out of this. I have to get the next outfit on.”

They worked in practiced silence, Caleb stripping down to his bare torso and leather pants. The next look was simpler—the pants and a long blouse pleated across the small of his back and flowing down to mid-thigh.

“Thank God I don’t have to unlace and buckle these boots,” he muttered as he fiddled with the ghillie ties on the front of the shirt.

“No, but gimme your left leg. I have to change the flashes.” Mitchell knelt and yanked a bright red garter tie loose from under the woolly sock sticking up from the tops of Caleb’s boots. He replaced the tie with a white one and hurried to the other side to change that, too.

“All set?” Caleb asked.

“Just one addition.” Mitchell held up the armband Levi had given Caleb. “I think you should wear this. Even if he’s not watching, you should.”

“It’s not part?—”

“Styling, Caleb. Gimme your wrist. There are a million buckles on this thing and we only have another minute.”

Caleb relented and held out his hand.

Mitchell fastened the many-buckled bracelet on his wrist over the cuff of the shirt and declared him ready just in time to hurry him out onto the walk as the previous model jumped down to his waiting dressers.

The rest of the show passed in a blur of smiling faces, applause and hurried changes. Caleb was exhausted by the end of it and surprised he could still find his feet as Mitchell guided him off the stage and down to one of the changing booths.

“Wait, I thought we were done.” Caleb looked down at the flowing waft of silk gliding over his leather pants, falling in love all over again with the way the skirt skimmed the tops of his boots and draped in loose pleats and a high slit to show tightly, leather-encased thigh.

“The show is done. You have one more look to pull off, and you’re coming out there to accept the donation on behalf of the Benevolent Fund Committee.”

“Wait, what?”

Instead of replying, Mitchell reached outside the booth and brought back Caleb’s mauve skirt.

Caleb gasped. He’d forgotten all about giving the skirt to Mitchell to modify for him. Now he looked at the way the new panel of pleated leather offset the flittering silk and his mouth watered.

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