Behind Iron Lace

by Celeste, Mercy

  “You do know that where I come from mid-fifties is considered winter, don’t you?” Caleb said just to see him blush, he loved watching him turn all rosy God, the man was gorgeous. His dark hair wanted to curl now that it had grown some and Caleb couldn’t resist running his fingers through it. “I need more clothes than I brought with me if I’m going to survive up here in the frozen northwest.”

  “Then we’ll go shopping. Get dinner. Come on, I’ll show you the city.” Darcy tugged him out of bed and into the shower.

  That had been an hour ago. The new leather coat smelled nice, Caleb liked leather. He loved walking beside Darcy on the street, catching his hand in his, holding on to him for long seconds; the warmth of his fingers was soothing. No one looked twice at them.

  The walking tour of the downtown area combined with the scents wafting from some of the open restaurant doors as they passed by had Caleb’s stomach growling. “Christ, I’m starving. We should get some food in your refrigerator. And dishes, dishes would be good. Furniture too. A nice big sofa to make love on.” There was that blush again. The duck of his head, the timid smile, the bright gleam in his eyes. Caleb felt the stab of that look clear through to his toes. His heart fluttered, his stomach followed. Butterflies and love. He wanted this feeling to last forever.

  With his brain still spinning with possibilities he’d never considered before, Caleb stopped walking as they neared the end of the street, his attention captured by the huge For Sale sign on the side of a massive brick building. Three floors at least, possibly four. The upper floor was almost completely made of glass, the wrought iron balcony wrapped around it just the cherry on top.

  “What time is it, cher?” He pulled his phone from his pocket but it was dead.

  “Just after four, why?” Darcy checked the watch on his wrist.

  “Give me your phone.” He did, his gaze following Caleb’s as he dialed. “You think this town can stand a Cajun place?” he asked Darcy when the other line picked up. “I’d like to view one of your properties. What’s the chance you can get an agent out to show me the building in the next half-hour or so?”

  The agent on the line stammered and tried to stall, but Caleb wasn’t interested, he wanted what he wanted and he wanted it now. In the end, the agent on the phone said she would be at the address in ten minutes. “Bring everything you have on the place. We’ll be here waiting.”

  “What are you doing Caleb?” Darcy had paled a little listening to him talk.

  “This place, Darcy, look at it. It looks like home. Look at the balcony up there, the iron lace, we could live up there, I could have a studio; someplace to paint.” His neck started to ache from looking up. “I could open a blues bar downstairs, just like the one at home, just nicer for the yuppies up here. I know a couple of shifty cooks who would kill to work for me again, and Teela. Teela would be great, pretty, exotic, just what this place would need. The art and music scene here has got to be one of the best.”

  Darcy looked at him strangely, as if he’d never seen him before. “And that excites you, doesn’t it? Enough to lay down roots here, with me?”

  “I’m staying, Darce, I need to have something to keep me out of trouble, unless you’re going to stay in bed with me twenty-four-seven. And besides how long do you think we are going to be able to stay in your little one bedroom apartment before we start getting on each other’s nerves? This would be ours. It’s not far from your school. It looks like home to me.” Oh God, he wanted this. Darcy just had to see how much it meant to him.

  “You’ll call it Lasseigne’s and you’ll have beignets and gumbo?” Darcy smiled at him, his pretty blue eyes sparkling with more than excitement. He quickly flicked the tears away but Caleb had seen enough.

  “Beignets and gumbo and happily ever after, Darcy, I want happily ever after with you,” he said just as a blonde bombshell drove up in a silver luxury car, her heels clicking on the concrete as she hurried to them. Her eyes took them in with practiced ease. Sizing them up. She knew enough to flirt but only to seduce him out of his money.

  And in the end Caleb signed the contract offering an unholy amount of money for the place. The penthouse apartment was more room than he and Darcy would ever need, the lower floors big enough to accommodate a restaurant or three.

  He watched Darcy lean against the railing overlooking a pretty courtyard behind the building. When the realtor excused herself to phone the owner’s agent, he went over and wrapped his arm around him. “You all right, cher?”

  “Yeah, I just wonder if this is too much, too fast sometimes. There’s so much about you I don’t know.”

  “Not really, I’ve told you just about everything. I’m filthy rich, cher, between my art and my inheritance and the properties I sold in New Orleans, I have no one but myself to spend it on. You know all my secrets and my family. My crazy uncle and Martha, hell, I’m not really sure what Martha is to me, my maman’s girlfriend, not that I know exactly what their relationship was, mind you. Martha has always been there, whatever she and my maman were to each other. She is living in the plantation house, keeping it and Buster safe for me. I kept the plantation house and the blues bar.”

  “For when you need to go home?”

  “To have something of my family left to me. Nothing else mattered. When you’re ready, we can go visit. I won’t go without you.”

  “That’s good to know. I’m sorry. This is all too much. I’m going back to school in January to get my doctorate. I have a family, parents, a brother and a sister, a couple of nephews. Grandparents. The whole kit and caboodle.”

  “And you just realized they might find out about us?” Caleb understood now. He was second guessing their relationship. “I can’t tell you what to do there, cher, but I’ll do what you want. If you want to keep what we are a secret—”

  “I don’t. Shit, Caleb. I just need to work up to it. And this, this place it’s wonderful, it’s just hitting me a little too hard right now. Yesterday you were someone I used to love. Today, we are buying property. Just give me a minute to process, will you?”

  “Good news, Mr Mitchell, the owners are willing to accept your offer.” The realtor walked onto the balcony, dollar signs in her eyes, she stopped when she saw the two of them. “Is there a problem?”

  Stunned that a decision had come so quickly, Caleb just stood there staring at Darcy, waiting for him to give him a sign. Something so he would know he was home. His heart beat rapidly in his chest as he watched Darcy’s face shift from one emotion to another. Darcy was right. This was too fast. It had been too fast from the beginning.

  Darcy sighed, he relaxed his shoulders and smiled a sweet, shy smile. “No problem at all. Caleb, give the nice lady some money so we can go celebrate.”

  “It don’t exactly work that way, cher,” Caleb laughed and grabbing him by his collar he kissed him. “Come on let’s go sign the rest of the papers and you can take me out to eat. I am starved.”

  During the next week, Caleb made Darcy’s little apartment more livable, just by adding the basics. A sofa and tables. A television since he didn’t have one. The bed was moved into the lone bedroom, he liked the size, and he loved sleeping entwined in Darcy’s arms. It was all just small things. Things they would move in to the new place as soon as they closed next week.

  While Darcy taught, he got to know the city, changed over his residency, bought a new car and two motorcycles. He was saving them for Darcy’s birthday next month. He started the process for opening a business, bought food, dishes, and cookware. He even bought a cookbook to try and pretend he knew what he was doing in the kitchen.

  Darcy went to work every day, came home, made love to him, and talked his ear off about his students. He loved them. All of them. This Goth chick named Jewel had outed him but it was all right, the kids had accepted him and the faculty either didn’t care or chose not to mention it. The subject of Bailey and Chester came up once or twice. Chester had finally shown up back at the magazine. Amber and Bailey sent hi
m on his way, showing solidarity for the first time ever. Bailey finally contacted Darcy, she wished him well in his relationship and life but Caleb could hear the loss in her voice as they spoke. “She’ll find someone one day,” he told Darcy when the call ended.

  “I know she will, it’s just, we were friends for so long, I hate losing her like this.” Darcy tossed his phone on the oversized ottoman that looked remarkably like the one Caleb had first made love to him on and scrubbed his face. “Oh, and Amber called this afternoon, she said to check your email, she sent you something.”

  Curious, Caleb pulled up his email page and downloaded the attachment in the mail titled I thought you might like to have these back, the attachment revealed the series of photos he’d taken of Darcy that day out at his studio. The same photos he’d found and deleted from the camera he’d loaned Amber the day Darcy had left.

  “What is it?” Darcy came up behind him laying his fingers on his shoulder as he leaned over him to look at the screen. “Wow, that heron was spectacular. How did she get these?”

  “The camera I loaned her. That’s how she knew about us. Your eyes were so full of—I don’t know—amazement.”

  “More like awe and if I have to admit it, I want you to kiss me.”

  “My shoulder would argue the point, and my ass cheek, hitting the deck left a bruise.”

  “Yeah, well, you scared the hell out of me. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Kiss me back and let me seduce you like a good boy.”

  “I’m not a good boy.” Darcy bit his neck to prove his point.

  “Fuck no, you are a bad, bad boy. Shit, bite me again, I need more of that.” Caleb let him seduce him; the ottoman was becoming his favorite piece of furniture.

  On their second Saturday together, they’d made plans to drive out to the coast to whale watch. After a long very hot shower Caleb, dressed only in a pair of jeans, was in the kitchen pouring two mugs of coffee when the doorbell rang. “You expecting anyone, cher?” he called out on his way to the door.

  “No, it’s probably one of the neighbors coming to complain about something,” Darcy called back from the bedroom.

  Two sets of startled eyes greeted Caleb when he opened the door. The tall, stocky man with dark brown hair and too blue eyes took him in, from his bare feet to his wet hair, and the tattoos in between. The woman just looked ill at ease. “Sorry to disturb you, we must have the wrong apartment.”

  Momentarily frozen, Caleb found his voice just before they walked away. “No, I’m pretty sure you have to right apartment. I’m—you must be Darcy’s mom and dad.”

  “Who is it, Caleb?” Darcy came into the room rubbing his head with a towel. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and his jeans weren’t buttoned. He stopped dead in his tracks, terror in his eyes. “Oh.”

  “I’m going to go, ah, give you three…” shit, he didn’t know what to say, he couldn’t look at Darcy as he passed him and went into the bedroom and closed the door. On second thought, he opened it and handed Darcy out a shirt then he closed it again. But he could still hear them.

  He sat in the middle of their rumpled bed with his arms wrapped around his knees while Darcy explained why there was a nearly naked man in his bedroom. His heart did a flip when he said the words Caleb never thought to hear him say. “Mom, Dad, I guess this is probably the… shit.” He heard Darcy’s mother gasp but shrugged it off due to the language. “I’m… I’m… gay. And Caleb. I love him. We’re sort of living together.”

  Caleb listened as his parents went through the stages. Shock, denial, mild anger. They wanted to know if he was the one who broke his heart and gave him the shiner. Yes to the first. No to the second. If this were the south, the ultimate question would be “do we know his people?” Instead, they asked if he had a job. How old he was. They seemed impressed when Darcy showed them the painting. Behind Iron Lace.

  He remembered sitting against a concrete wall in New York City, his phone shattered in about a million pieces. Martha had just called to tell him his father had been killed falling off a stupid horse, his neck broken. How was he supposed to win his love now, he remembered wondering. He was so homesick he couldn’t think about anything else so he sat on the floor in his empty room and painted canvas after canvas. The wrought iron railing series the ghostly images swimming just out of focus behind the gates were haunting. The ghosts of his past, the architecture he loved, the pain in his chest all combined at that moment. One of the girls he was fucking at the time took one, he hadn’t even missed it until the gallery called telling him they had a buyer for it. He made his first million off those pieces.

  “He has a Pulitzer for crying out loud, Dad. He’s no bum, he owns a club in New Orleans, he’s going to open one here. His people are frigging blue bloods. Yes, he has long hair and tattoos. Christ, who are you people?”

  “What about Bailey?”

  “What about her, mother? We talked about her. She is having another man’s baby, and really, we were never anything more than friends. And besides it’s not like you need me to give you grandchildren or anything, Damien already did that.”

  “We just want you to be happy. You don’t look happy.” This from his father.

  “You caught me with my boyfriend. What the hell do you think I feel right now? I’m terrified.”

  “Of what? Were you afraid we would find out? Darcy, I just don’t understand, this isn’t like you. Hiding, keeping secrets—”

  “No Dad, I planned to tell you. I was trying to figure a way to break it to you gently.”

  “Then why are you terrified? I don’t understand.”

  “Because I’m afraid you won’t love me anymore. Because I’m afraid you can’t or won’t accept me like this.” The pain in his voice clawed at Caleb’s heart, he wanted to go to him, tell him it would be fine, but he couldn’t find the courage. That day long ago when he lost his family because he was gay came back to choke him. Please, he dug his fingers into his legs, please don’t hurt him, just don’t hurt him?

  “Darcy? You are my baby, I could never not love you.” He heard pain in her voice. Still he clutched his legs, hoping.

  “Mom, I love him. You have to understand I didn’t do this on purpose. I didn’t know until I met him. I didn’t know. Now it makes sense. My whole life makes sense. Don’t you see?”

  “Well, are we at least going to get to meet him? We came to take you out to eat, do some other stuff, but we can leave if you want us to.” Darcy’s father masked his hurt well but Caleb could hear it.

  Shrugging away the anxiety gripping his stomach Caleb climbed out of bed and found a nice white silk shirt and a cashmere cardigan he kept tucked in the back of the closet he shared with Darcy, he pulled a comb though his hair, and stuck his feet into a pair of Darcy’s Vans. He flipped the shirt cuff over the sweater and tugged it partway up his arm. His bracelets made a slight noise but Darcy caught him before he unclasped them.

  “Don’t take those off. Wow, you look nice,” he smiled looking him up and down. “Are those my shoes?”

  “Yeah, one of the perks of wearing the same size, don’t you think?” Caleb loved to see him blush. “I’ve never met anyone’s parents before. I want to make a good impression. I thought I’d leave the bad boy in the closet.”

  Darcy walked into the room and before Caleb knew what he was up to, he kissed him. “I know, baby, I’m scared to death. Just be your charming self and you’ll have them eating out of your hand before lunch is over.”

  “You think so?”

  “God, I hope so. However this goes, just know two things, I love you and I am not going anywhere without you.”

  “Okay, so let’s go do this, cher, introduce me to your parents.”

  “Sure you’re ready?”

  “Fuck no. I’m scared to death and I’m only doing this because I love you. Okay, Christ, let’s go.”

  He let Darcy take him by the hand and together, they faced the first hurdle to the rest of their lives. His past didn’t matter
, the future would sort itself out, now was all that mattered and Darcy’s warm hand in his was all he needed. It was all he ever needed and he knew he would never let go, no matter how bumpy the road to the future became.

  The End

  About the

  Born and raised in the wilds of North West Florida, I currently make my home in Mobile, Alabama where I attended the University of South Alabama. My interests are as diverse as the topics about which I write. I love to quilt, cook, and troll resale stores for bargains. Being a good southern girl I love football and fried food. I write southern themed spicy romance of the het and gay variety. Because love doesn’t care who you are.

  Website:

  http://mercyceleste.blogspot.com/

  Twitter:

  @themercyceleste

  Email:

  celeste.mercy@yahoo.com

  Also by Mercy Celeste:

  Available from Silver Publishing:

  Behind Iron Lace

  Available from Liquid Silver Books:

  Double Coverage

  Wicked Game