Exotic - Chapter 4: Chapter 4

My heart dropped into my stomach. I replayed my words in my head and wanted to bite my tongue off. My prior confidence abandoned me, running off down my body and slipping down the drain as anxiety rose in my chest. With it went all my control of the situation. I was just Miles Stewart again, a seventeen-year-old student in a wig and school-inappropriate shoes.
"I don't know what you're talking about." The lie was lacklustre - not even Reece would have believed it. Caleb's eyes were wide, and petrified, and so fucking blue. He studied me for a split second, a confirmatory second before he buried his head in his hands.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck..." he was muttering, and his eyes snapped back to me, full of unfair accusations. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Sephora!" Zsa Zsa yelled from the stage, searching the crowd. "That was your cue! Get off the bar, you freeloader!"
The crowd yelled and hollered, eager for my second set. I felt like my brain was short-circuiting. Too much going on.
I turned my back on Caleb and darted towards the door. I shoved and shouldered my way through the crowd as Zsa Zsa continued to ramble into the microphone. I wished I'd worn some more conventional shoes. I finally got to the doors, where Emanuel was waiting, eyebrows furrowed in concern. I ran right by him without so much as an excuse thrown over my shoulder, out into the darkened streets. It was spitting rain, and speeding cars flashed past me on the roads. I rubbed my naked arms and started forwards, only to hear the glass doors swing open behind me with a bang.
Warm fingers wrapped around my upper arm, stopping me in my tracks. I swung around with my hands up to defend myself.
It was Caleb who had followed me outside, Caleb that had grabbed my arm. Caleb, who looked like he was on the verge of having a mental and physical breakdown at the same time.
"Miles..." he started, but I cut him off.
"It's raining," I stated the obvious, shouldering him off and walking away. I got about five metres, under the awning of a dark shop, when Caleb caught up to me, jogging around me in an arch and cutting me off. We were still close enough that the neon Crescendo threw colour across his face, highlighting the angles in his face.
"Listen," Caleb's breathing was shallow, and his blue eyes were wide and panicky, his hair whipping in the wind. "You can't tell... anyone. I thought you were a chick. That's the only reason..."
I laughed shortly, despite myself. "You were in Crescendo, a bar universally known as the penultimate spot for gay hook-ups, and you expect me to still believe you're straight? They announced me as a drag performer. Good try, but I'm not an idiot."
Caleb was buttoning up his shirt furiously. "Why would you do that?"
"What? Kiss an attractive guy in a gay club?" I felt a little bit of Sephora Utah's poise seeping back, now he was the one stammering. "Come on, it's not that deep."
"You know what I..."
"Yeah, yeah," I waved him off. "I freaked. I tried to make myself sparse, but you were... persistent. And I've had a few."
I'd had exactly one drink, but I felt like I needed more of an excuse than I've had a schoolgirl crush on you since I laid eyes on you. I sensed it would not have been received well.
"I'm not gay," he said shakily.
"Mmhmm," I crossed my arms, hugging my goose-bumped skin. Caleb flustered and collapsed against the shop window with his hand clenched over his face. He dragged them down his cheeks, eyes wide and terrified. I almost felt bad for him. And then he went and opened his mouth.
"This is illegal," his voice was trembling, but I didn't miss his tone. He gestured towards the club. "You're seventeen. I bet they don't know that, or they wouldn't be letting in. Letting you perform. If I told them..."
I felt my blood run cold. "You're going to tell them?"
Caleb's blue eyes looked sinister under the blue light of the club sign. "I don't know. Are you going to tell anyone about what happened tonight?"
"Are you... blackmailing me?"
Caleb shrugged, somewhat weakly. "Call it what you want."
Caleb Proust was a menace. I ran one hand through my wig and tousled it over my shoulder. "Touché. But two can play that game. I'm sure the owner, my good friend Jamie Tullier would be very happy to hand over the extensive security camera footage to me if I asked. I'm sure there are some epic stills of tonight in there."
He fixed me with a steady glare. "You're a dick."
"And you're an idiot. You think you have the upper hand here?" I leaned in. "I turn eighteen in six months. After that, your blackmail means jack shit. Seventeen is temporary. But gay? Gay is forever, sweetness."
"Don't call me that," Caleb snapped, scrubbing his hands through his hair. It stuck up in quills as he worried away at his lip. "I'll... I'll tell everyone what you do. The school, the soccer team... I'll... I'll tell your dad."
I inhaled sharply, and then instantly regretted it, because it told Caleb that what he said scared me. His eyes took on a triumphant glint. Bastard.
"We've reached an impasse then," he dropped his hands by his sides. "Neither of us has an upper hand. So, we keep each other's secrets. And if either of us blabs, the other one goes down too. Sound fair?"
I started chewing on the side of my lip again. I was backed into a corner. We'd backed each other into opposite corners and were now staring wide-eyed at one another from across a metaphorical room.
"No one finds out about Sephora," I emphasised. "Not your soccer team, not the school, not Reece. If I so much as hear Miles Stewart and heels in the same sentence, I'm going to get that video. I'll print every frame of it and plaster it around school. You can say goodbye to your comfy heterosexual life at Truman. Aidan will probably get you kicked from the team. But you'd probably be more upset about missing out on the boy's locker rooms after practice, right?"
Caleb scowled, but surprisingly didn't swing at me. "And if I so much as suspect you've let something slip to anyone, everyone's going to know that Miles Stewart wears mini-skirts in his spare time. Agreed?"
He held out a single hand, a peace offering. I took it and shook it. His hands were soft and warm. I quickly reminded myself that he had no issue with ruining my life and detached my hand from his. Caleb turned and started walking in the opposite direction.
Despite my brain screaming at me to leave it, I called out after him. "Wait! How are you getting home?"
Caleb turned, his expression bewildered. "In my car?"
I let out a sigh of resignation, letting all of my dignity go with it. "Would you be able to give me a lift?"
Caleb gaped. "Are you kidding me? Get an Uber or something."
I folded my arms across my chest and cocked out one hip. "My bag is in the dressing room, and I can't exactly go back there after running out. Along with my day clothes. If I get home and Reece sees me in this getup, you have nothing to hold over my head to stop me telling the whole school about your extracurricular interests."
He ran his hands through his hair several times, teeth gritted. "Fine. Whatever. Where do you live?"
"Oh, you don't have to drive me home," I responded. "Just take me to your place so I can get changed. I'll catch the bus from there."
"What?" Caleb demanded. "You're not going anywhere near my house."
"Do you have a pair of jeans in the back of your car?" I asked, tilting my head. "You let me wash off this and get changed at your place, or you can risk Reece seeing me sneak in looking like this and lose everything. I would think the choice would be pretty easy."
Caleb pursed his lips, and then jerked his head for me to follow him. I trotted after him, my heels making me almost as tall as he was. It gave me some semblance of a power balance. "You're an angel."
"You need to stop talking." He dug his keys out of his pocket and unlocked a black car parked at the side of the road. It was a beaten sedan, obviously secondhand and with a cracked back window, but a car, nonetheless. He opened the passenger door for me and walked around to get in the driver's side.
I climbed in, smirking minutely. Caleb noticed, brow furrowed adorably as he dug his keys into the ignition. "What?"
"Chivalry isn't dead," I said smugly, shutting the door loudly.
Caleb seemed to realise what he'd done and flushed again. "You look like a chick."
I was still smiling to myself as he pulled off the curb. A week ago, if someone had told me I would be sitting pretty in Caleb Proust's passenger seat, a place where I had assumed many a girl had their first orgasm, I would have questioned their sanity. It felt like a dream come true, despite the nightmarishness of the situation.
Caleb's skittishness put me at ease; or at least helped me fake it. If he knew how terrified I really was, he probably would have called my bluff.
"So, what is it about drag queens?" I drummed my fingers on the dashboard. "Is it the duality? Fluidity? The illusion of heterosexuality you're so desperately clinging to?"
"We're not talking about this," Caleb hummed. When we stopped at the traffic lights, he turned to face me. "Though if we were, I might ask where you get off wearing lipstick and... that ensemble."
"Spectacular, isn't it?" I rattled off, and Caleb jerked his eyes back to the road. I bent down to slid out of my heels, curling and uncurling my toes to get the circulation back through them.
I allowed myself a glance across at Caleb while he was distracted by a hairpin turn. He looked exhausted. The lights of the city flashed across his face. He was so fucking gorgeous. His hair had escaped its gelled restraints and was hanging heavy over his eyes, those killer eyes.
We sat in silence for a good few minutes. I was a little cold, my sleeveless dress not providing much coverage at all, but I didn't want to ask Caleb if he could turn up the heat. It felt like a surrender. Admitting weakness. If I wanted to stay on top, there could be none of that.
"I didn't know you could sing," Caleb said quietly as we spun into a quiet residential street. I smiled into my hair.
"You should hear me when I'm actually trying." Conceited wasn't exactly in my nature, but since it was likely the only performance he'd ever see from me, I felt I had to tell him what he was missing. "I can do a mean one-woman cover of The Messiah."
Caleb's face didn't give anything away. I shrugged back into my seat.
The drive to his house was exceptionally awkward from that point on. Finally, he indicated and pulled into a driveway of an unlit house. He turned off the engine and sat back in his seat, scrubbed at his hair a final time before he got out, slamming the door behind him. I partially wanted to wait to see if he opened the door for me but decided to spare him the cognitive dissonance. I climbed out, carrying my shoes in one hand, and followed him to the front porch. He unlocked the front door, giving me a last look that read make a noise and I'll kill you. I raised one hand in agreement and tip-toed through the front door. Caleb silently shut the door behind him, encasing us in darkness.
"My bedroom's at the end of the hall," he whispered, his lips very close to my ear. I knew it was just so he wouldn't be heard by whoever else was living in this house, but it felt especially intimate. I walked slowly forwards, praying that the floorboards wouldn't creak.
Unfortunately, the pitch-black darkness was harder to navigate than I'd anticipated. I tripped on my own feet and crashed my hip against something hard and wooden. I yelped in pain automatically and staggered to the side. Caleb's arm encircled my waist and pulled me up, hissing something along the lines of 'shut the hell up' right next to my ear. That did not feel so intimate.
"Caleb?"