by Iris, Nell;
Before he could think, he walked over to the door, opened it, and started running.
He ran through the hallway, down the stairs, and out on the street. He hesitated a second outside the entrance. Then he turned right and ran, the beautiful veil sparkling and billowing behind him.
Chapter 3: What Did You Say to Him?
Gus glanced at his watch for the millionth time the last hour.
“Thirty-seven minutes ‘til show time,” he muttered and wondered if he’d gotten stuck in some weird time loop since only a minute had passed since last time he’d checked.
He bounced on the balls of his feet and swung his arms around, trying to get rid of some excess excitement. When it didn’t work, he hummed a melody and practiced a few dance steps. He chuckled as he caught sight of himself in the full-length mirror.
“Probably won’t be necessary anyway.”
Knowing Luca, their first dance as husbands would be anything but formal. Luca would most likely grab him by the ass and plaster himself against Gus. He’d stick his tongue down Gus’s throat while shuffling their feet across the dance floor in an attempt to make it look like a dance and not just a make-out session. Not that Gus would mind—he took every chance to be close to Luca. He didn’t care if his mother and coworkers were there to watch. It was his wedding day, and if he wanted to make out with his husband, he would.
He peered down at his watch again and groaned. Thirty-six minutes. Maybe it had been a mistake to send his mother away after she’d finished pinning the boutonniere to his lapel, but he’d asked for a few minutes alone and she’d obliged. She’d kissed him on his cheek and squeezed his hand before leaving the room.
He patted his breast pocket to make sure the ring box hadn’t magically disappeared in the last couple minutes. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Luca’s face when he saw the ring.
Asking Luca to marry him had been a spur-of-the-moment decision. When he’d learned of the Supreme Court’s ruling, he’d immediately known he wanted to pop the question. When he’d come home from work that Friday evening, he’d gone down on one knee. He hadn’t had the time to prepare or buy a ring, but Luca had said he didn’t care.
Gus had felt bad about it after. He knew Luca would have loved a fancy ring on his finger, so he’d promised himself he’d make it up with something extravagant for the wedding.
He’d done a lot of research, looked at hundreds of rings without finding the right one. Even though he’d seen several beautiful diamond-studded wedding bands for men, nothing felt right. Not until he’d wandered into a jewelry store and seen a platinum band with a big emerald-cut diamond.
“I’m sorry, sir, that ring is for a woman,” the store clerk said with his mouth set in a thin line when Gus indicated he wanted to buy the ring for his fiancé.
Gus explained that Luca had long slender fingers and size wouldn’t be an issue, but the clerk kept refusing.
“What’s the problem?” Gus finally asked, tired of the way the clerk treated him.
“That ring is not for people like you,” the clerk hissed between clenched teeth and stared at Gus with a look so disdainful, it sent shivers down Gus’s spine.
“I see.” Gus took a deep breath and counted to ten in his head, determined not to stoop to the clerk’s level and be rude or raise his voice.
Instead, he nodded and walked out the door without another word. He wandered aimlessly around the mall, considering his options. He could take his business elsewhere. He was about to spend a large amount of money and would prefer not to do it with bigots. There had to be a lot of jewelry stores willing to sell him a ring, no matter what gender his spouse-to-be was.
But that ring had screamed Luca. The narrow band itself was plain brushed platinum, but the diamond was the reason Gus couldn’t walk away from it. It was just the right size: big, but not too big to make it impractical and unwearable. And he knew in his heart Luca would love the straight, severe lines of the stone. The cut of the diamond gave the ring almost an androgynous feeling; feminine and masculine at the same time. Just the way Luca preferred his clothes and accessories.
Gus clenched his teeth. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. He couldn’t believe the blatant rudeness of the clerk and the things the man had said right to Gus’s face. He shouldn’t be surprised; he’d read articles about how members of the LGBT community were treated when they wanted to order wedding cakes or book a venue. He just hadn’t taken into consideration how humiliated it would make him feel.
He could take it, but he imagined what would happen if someone less confident had walked into that store. Someone more sensitive or not as sure of their identity as Gus.
That thought was what finally made up his mind. He marched back to the store and sat down on a bench in front of it. He pulled out his phone and searched online for their phone number. When he found it, he called and asked to speak to the manager.
At first, the manager wasn’t much better than the clerk had been, but as soon as Gus uttered the word “discrimination,” the manager became very accommodating. His voice dripped of honey, and he apologized a thousand times.
In the end, he even offered Gus a substantial discount on his purchase. Gus recognized a bribe when it stared him in the face, so he left the store with a warning.
“If I ever hear someone else being treated like this in your store, I’m calling the newspapers. Got it?”
The manager paled but nodded and promised, and Gus walked out with Luca’s ring.
Gus couldn’t wait to slide it on Luca’s finger. To look him in the eyes and say the vows he’d written and memorized by heart a long time ago. He wanted nothing more than to hear the officiant pronounce them husbands, and he yearned for their first kiss as a married couple.
Thirty-two minutes. Gus sighed.
A knock at the door startled him out of his thoughts. Gus smiled, hoping Luca had changed his mind about not seeing each other before the ceremony and come to sneak a kiss or two. But when he opened the door, he was surprised to see Luca’s mother.
“Giovanna? Please, come in,” he said and stepped aside to let her enter. “Is everything all right with Luca?”
“That boy is impossible,” she complained, followed by a smattering of Italian he didn’t understand. Judging by the tone, it wasn’t nice. She shook her head, looking grim.
“What?” Gus urged. Had something happened to his fiancé?
“He wear that stupid thing on his head,” she said and gestured to her own head. “He will embarrass us both.” Her voice grew louder with every word, and she started walking a path from one end of the room to another. “He never learn. I thought he’d stopped that foolishness now that you’re getting married, but I come into his room and he wears…that!” Every resentful word was emphasized with angry slashes of her hands. “But I told him to take it off, to stop being a freak—”
“Stop talking!”
The authoritative tone of Gus’s voice managed to stop both her word flow and her pacing. She stared at him with her mouth hanging open, and Gus held up his hand to make sure she understood he didn’t want to listen to her anymore.
Gus pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to make sense of her ranting. What was going on? Luca had been wearing something she didn’t approve of, that much he understood.
He fished out his phone from the inside breast pocket, pushed the speed dial button, and waited for Luca to pick up. It rang and rang until it went to voicemail. Gus frowned. Luca’s phone was, more or less, glued to his hand, and not once during their relationship had he neglected to answer when Gus called. He tried again, and this time, he listened to the message and started talking after the beep.
“Luca, your mother is here,” he said in a low voice with his back turned to Giovanna. “Please call me back. I’m worried.” He ended the call and turned to look at Luca’s mother. “What did you say to him?”
“That he looked stupid in that thing. Like a freak,” she answered with a stubborn tilt of her chin.
>
Freak?
Her words hit Gus like a shock from a defibrillator. He knew how Luca felt about that word. He didn’t know the background, but he remembered the day when they’d only been dating a couple months, and Gus had started telling him about the victims of a freak accident he’d treated at work. Luca had grown still and asked Gus to refrain from saying freak. He’d been so serious, which was unusual for Luca, and Gus had promised without asking for details. Luca’s demeanor had screamed that he didn’t want to talk about it, and Gus had respected that.
The whole situation made him feel uneasy, and he was filled with a sudden intense need to see his husband-to-be. Screw traditions.
He grabbed the room key, and with a few long strides, he was out the door. He hurried down the corridor, but after just a couple steps, he gave in to the urge and started jogging. A minute later, he stood in front of Luca’s door and knocked.
“Luca, I’m coming in. Hide in the bathroom if you don’t want me to see you.” He waited a few seconds before opening the door with the key card Luca had given him before they’d parted ways earlier.
Nothing seemed out of place in Luca’s room. There was an empty champagne glass on the table. His suitcase lay open on the floor, and it looked like the clothes had exploded out of it.
But then he saw it: the new flashy iPhone lying on the bed. Luca never went anywhere without his phone. He even took the damn thing to the bathroom. Gus loved teasing him about it, saying he ought to buy a waterproof phone so he could use it in the shower.
“Luca?”
Something felt wrong. Gus rushed into the bathroom, but it was empty. All Luca’s beauty products were strewn over the vanity: hair products, face creams, aftershave, and, of course, the lip gloss. Gus picked it up, unscrewed the lid, pulled out the applicator wand, and inhaled the scent of the deep red gloss.
“Where are you?” he mumbled.
He put the lid back on and slid the tube of gloss into his pocket. He squeezed his eyes shut, knocked lightly on his forehead with his fist, and then massaged his temples with his thumb and middle finger.
He knew Luca and his catholic mother had had problems when she found out her son was gay. Gus had never gotten all the details—Luca said he preferred to forget that time in his relationship with his mother. They had barely been speaking when Gus and Luca met, but gradually over the years, the relationship had gotten easier, if not cordial. She’d been to their house for dinner several times over the years and had seemed genuinely happy when they’d told her about the wedding. What happened today to change that?
When his phone started vibrating in his pocket, he snapped his eyes open. He answered without looking at the display.
“Luca?”
“Um, no, it’s Mary from the café,” a hesitant female voice said on the other end of the line.
“Mary?” He furrowed his eyebrows. Why was Luca’s employee calling him?
“Yes.” Gus could hear her taking a deep breath before continuing. “I think you’d better get over here.” Gus turned on his heel and hurried out of the bathroom. “Luca rushed in a few minutes ago and went into his office,” she continued. “He looked real upset. I…I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s all right, Mary. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Gus was already halfway down the stairs when he hung up the phone, too impatient to wait for the elevator. He looked at his watch: twenty minutes before the ceremony, and he was running for all he was worth to find his fiancé.
He shoved the phone in his pocket, but as he reached the street, he changed his mind and took it back out. He stopped for a second to find the correct phone number, but as it rang, he started running again.
“Did you change your mind, honey? Do you need your mother?” Mona Hanson answered with a smile.
“Mom, listen,” Gus panted and sped up. “Something happened. I need you to delay the ceremony for an hour…”
Chapter 4: Sinner, Repent!
As soon as Luca closed the door behind him, he toed off his shoes and stood with bare feet on the soft, long-haired rug taking up a big part of the floor of his office at the café. The rug he didn’t allow anyone to step on unless they removed their shoes first. He buried his toes in the green shag and sighed as he tried to imagine tendrils of calmness worming their way from the rug, up through his body.
He adored that green rug. It was the exact color of grass in spring, and he stood on it whenever he needed to center himself. Gus teased him for being so afraid of bugs, he didn’t dare to be barefoot on real grass and called it Luca’s fake office lawn. Luca didn’t mind; he retaliated by sticking out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout, which always ended with Gus trying to kiss it away. Anything resulting in a kiss from Gus was a win in Luca’s book.
Gus.
Luca’s breath caught at the thought of his fiancé, and a sharp pain pierced his heart. What would Gus do when Luca didn’t show up? Would he think Luca had stood him up? That he had changed his mind, not wanting to get married anymore?
But he was rooted to the floor, unable to move. It didn’t matter that he was thirty-one years old and should know better than to let his mother get to him. Her words had been a sledgehammer to his confidence and had robbed him of his usual bravery. The thought of walking down the aisle under his mother’s disapproving stare made him want to hide, and he couldn’t make his feet walk out of the room and back to his fiancé.
Instead, he shrugged out of the jacket, unzipped the pants, and shimmied out of them. He stretched toward the office chair and put the white tuxedo carefully on it, before sinking down on the rug. He curled in on himself, pulled up his legs, and hugged them. Let his hair fall and hide his face, resting his smooth cheek on his knees. He shivered, naked except for his bright pink skimpy briefs and the veil.
He grabbed the hem, determined to pull it off and throw away the piece of fabric that had resulted in him being naked in his office, alone. But he couldn’t do it. His mother might not like it, but this was who he was. He just had to calm down, forget her hurtful words, and convince himself Gus loved him just the way he was. Veil and all.
It was much harder than he’d expected, considering Gus had been nothing but supportive and loving since the first moment they met.
Luca would never forget the first present Gus had ever given him. It had been small and wrapped in shiny pink paper, and his boyfriend had blushed when handing it over. If Luca had seen anything more adorable in his life, he couldn’t recall.
“It’s cherry. I love cherry,” Gus had stammered when Luca tore the paper off a tube of deep red lip gloss from his favorite brand.
Luca had stared at it, unable to believe his eyes. He knew Gus liked kissing him when he was wearing gloss, and that he didn’t mind his feminine-looking clothes—but he’d never expected this kind of acceptance. No one had ever respected him like this before. Not any of his previous lovers and definitely not his mother.
To say she had been upset when she’d found out he was gay was an understatement. One afternoon, senior year in high school, Luca had brought his boyfriend Mike home. They’d been in the middle of a heavy make-out session when his mother had come home early from work and found them on the couch. She’d taken one look at them and started screaming, wordless, hysterical screeching as if someone was being murdered right before her eyes.
Mike had jumped up and run out as if his ass were on fire, leaving his shirt behind, and Luca was alone with his livid mother.
For the longest time, she’d just stared at him with flaring nostrils. Before Luca had time to react, she’d raised a shaking hand and slapped him. Luca’s head had jerked back, not because she’d hit so hard, but because he’d been utterly surprised. Never before had she raised a hand to him. She hardly ever yelled at him, always spoke in a low, controlled voice.
Luca’s hand flew to his stinging cheek, and tears welled up in his eyes.
“You’re a sinner. A pervert,” she’d roared so loud
, he’d been afraid the neighbors would hear. “I didn’t raise my son to be a freak!”
The words had stung worse than her palm, and he would never forget them.
The rest of the spring semester had been awful. Gone was the warm loving mother he’d always known. Instead, she’d demanded he’d change or he was going to hell. She’d dragged him to church and forced him to talk to a priest in an effort to save his immortal soul.
At first, Luca had tried his best to keep calm and to reason with her, hoping she’d come to her senses and realize he was the same person as always. He was so afraid of losing her. They’d always been close, and she was the only family he had. He’d never known his father; the guy had taken off when his mother had told him she was pregnant and hadn’t been seen since.
Luca had only been eighteen and hadn’t known how to deal with this furious woman, who took every opportunity to condemn him and his behavior.
Deep down, Luca had realized this would be the outcome if he ever told her about his sexuality. It wasn’t that she’d openly spoken against gays, because she tried her hardest not to judge anyone, at least not with words. It was the look on her face whenever she saw a same-sex couple that had given her away; a pinched expression like she’d witnessed something repulsing. So he hadn’t planned on letting her know until much later, if ever.
The situation had culminated a few days before he’d left for college. His mother had marched into the house, followed by two serious-looking, elderly men, and informed Luca he was going with them to a pray-the-gay-away-camp. At first, he’d been stunned and couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d pleaded and asked her to reconsider, saying she’d regret it later, but nothing had helped. She’d been adamant—he was going.
When Luca had gotten upset, one of the men had grabbed his arm in an attempt to lead him out of the house. Luca had shoved him and run out, leaving his mother and the two men behind.
He’d spent the night at a friend’s house, trying to silence his distressed sobbing with an old borrowed pillow. When he’d returned the next day, he’d hoped she’d changed her mind, but she’d been even angrier than before. With ice in her voice, she’d told him she’d never accept a freak in her house. But at least she’d allowed him to pack some things before she’d thrown him out.