by Max Walker
Red climbed into bed and under the covers. Caleb gravitated toward Red’s body like a meteor stuck in Earth’s atmosphere. He loved being the little spoon, which worked out perfectly since Red seemed to enjoy being the big one. He tossed a comforting arm across Caleb’s side and drew him in, pressing his soft cock against his ass. If Caleb weren’t so exhausted, he would have been on the verge of starting round four. Or was it five?
He couldn’t even keep count.
“What… a night.” Red’s breath was soft on Caleb’s neck. It felt nice. So did the vibrations in Red’s chest whenever he spoke.
“Dinner was great,” Caleb said, sticking to the positive. “Dessert was better,” he added, mischievously.
“Cake was the best I’ve ever had,” Red toyed back. He lazily ran his fingers up and down Caleb’s side, sending soft chills through his body and putting him into a state of bliss. “God, I wish I didn’t have to leave tomorrow.”
“How long are you gone?”
“We shoot for two weeks in New Zealand.”
Caleb sighed slightly, already disliking the time apart.
Maybe it was the bright glow in the room, or maybe it was the endorphins flooding his body, or maybe it was none of those things. Caleb would never really know what made him say the next three words out loud.
“I love you.”
What the absolute fuck.
Caleb threw himself into panic mode. Leave it to him to blurt out the three most important words in the English dictionary, probably way sooner than he should have. Why would Red ever say it back? This wasn’t anything that serio—
“I love you, too.”
Oh…
Caleb rolled over, his face now inches away from Red’s. He could clearly make out all of his handsome features under the sun’s light. Those full lips curled into a smile as their eyes locked on each others.
“I’m in love with you, Caleb.” Red’s smile tipped wider. His eyes practically glowed like magical orbs. Caleb could feel his heart drumming in his chest. He wondered if Red could tell? “You’ve shown me that I can be truly happy, even when I was positive I didn’t have a chance. I thought I was going to be the rich, single relative who comes around for a few family functions and disappears to his lonely life in secret somewhere. Growing up, I had it all and yet I still felt so empty.” Red pushed in a little closer. His hand came up to Caleb’s face, his thumb tracing along the top of Caleb’s cheek bone. “Not anymore.”
“I’ve never felt this before, either.” Caleb felt himself opening up like a broken dam. “I thought I did at one point, but nothing compares to what I feel when I’m with you, Red. It’s like this was always meant to happen. Every decision I’ve made—shitty or otherwise—took me here, and I couldn’t be any happier.”
Red took a breath. “You could, though, and that’s my fault, too.” Red closed his eyes for a second, seeming to collect his thoughts.
“No, none of it is your fault.” Caleb cut in. “It’s society's fault. Bullshit norms that have the both of us locked up. As if just because we’re gay, we’ll start fucking in the middle of a damn grocery aisle. As if someone’s kids are going to have their eyes burned out by seeing two men holding hands. It’s bullshit, and it’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, but none of that is going to change if we stay quiet.”
“And I don’t think you will stay quiet.” Caleb smirked, feeling one-hundred percent at ease laying across from Red. “I have full confidence in you. I know you’ll come out when the time is right, and that’s ok with me. You aren’t like the last monster I fell for. Far from it.”
“I wish you never had to deal with that.”
Caleb shook his head. “I don’t. I’m so happy I did go through it.”
Red seemed a little taken aback. He knew how much Jackson had hurt Caleb. “If I didn’t go through it, then I wouldn’t have found you,” Caleb explained.
Red said, “I love you.”
“I love you,” Caleb replied, never meaning anything more in his entire life. He pushed in for a kiss.
Caleb slept in Red’s arms again that night, finally understanding what love truly meant.
Twenty-Four
Red Miller
One Week Later
Red’s film shoot got cut short on the seventh day. For any other reason, he would have been happy. He would have looked forward to spending that time with Caleb. Not this time. He was flying back early because he got a call from Sandy, half-drunk. She cried out that his father was in the hospital and things weren’t looking good. He should be there. Postponing a film shoot always cost a shitton of money, but the producers gave him the green light. They were ok with taking the hit financially. Red thanked them and said the money would be coming out of his paycheck.
The flight was excruciatingly long. Red was alone, flying in his family’s private jet, drinking champagne to try and ease some of the anxiety. Flights were normally meditative for Red. He loved being up in the air, rocketing through the sky above everyone else, with their own tiny little lives and tiny little families and tiny little worries underneath. Ironically, that grounded him. It reminded him of how he wasn’t alone in this world, everyone was figuring it all out together even though sometimes Red had felt secluded, like he was never treated like part of the group.
This flight was different. Red was nervous. He was scared about what he would see when he walked into that hospital room. He was also scared because he knew what he had to do when he got there. Red didn’t have a doubt in his mind anymore. He couldn’t keep hiding, and he couldn’t risk waking up one day and finding out he never got the chance to tell his father who he really was. If his father was in good enough health, then he was going to come out to him.
It terrified him because he had no idea what would come of it. He wasn’t sure if he was being selfish in his need to tell him. What if Red could go on without putting his father through that? It would be a sad life, but maybe it wouldn’t be forever...
No. Absolutely not.
Red had to tell his father. Not only for himself, but for Caleb.
The plane landed at night. Red got into a car and had the driver speed off to Sierra View Hospital. He considered calling Caleb, his thumb hovering over his name a few times, but always backed out at the last second. This was something he had to do alone. He would talk to Caleb after, and then go from there.
The driver pulled up to the front of the hospital, behind a parked ambulance. Red thanked the man and got out, pulling his blue LA Dodgers cap tighter down his forehead. It was a force of habit, and in this case, it didn’t stop one man from recognizing Red. He heard his name getting called out from afar.
Are you fucking kidding me?
“Red! Everything ok, man?”
The man trotted up to Red as he was feet away from the hospital entrance. He was wearing a scruffy red track jacket and a pair of sweats. The normal manic energy found in a regular swarm of paparazzi was missing from this one guy.
“Well, Red, hope it gets better soon. You have family here? Selena ok?”
It took a special type of man to stalk a hospital for celebrity gossip, but in that moment, something struck Red. Maybe this could be beneficial to the both of them.
Red continued to walk, his head down, the edge of the cap covering his eyes. He looked up then. “Me and Selena aren’t together anymore. I’m with Caleb now.”
Red walked through the sliding glass doors of the hospital. The paparazzo was left outside, a look of confusion on his face as he tried to piece together what he had just captured on tape. Red continued to walk, scared of what was to come, but feeling like one weight had just been shed.
His father was on the same floor as he was the time he saw Caleb for his ribs. He knocked on the door, expecting Sandy to open it. Instead, a petite nurse with curly black hair and a warm smile opened. She stepped aside and let Red enter, leaving and closing the door when he was in.
“Dad.”
“Heya, Red.” Hi
s father was smiling, lying down on the hospital bed with the covers drawn up and an IV hanging down like a vine, slowly pumping liquid into his body. He seemed alert, bright.
“How are you?” Red asked, walking over to a heavy black chair. He pulled it over to the side of the bed.
“Better,” Michael said, coughing. “Got a bit hairy for a few hours, but I’m doing much better.”
“What happened?”
“Pneumonia.”
Red grabbed a cup of water off the nearby table and handed it to his father.
“Sandy sounded really bad on the phone,” he said.
“I passed out, which probably scared her.”
It didn’t occur to Red to even ask where she was. He didn’t really care. He was just so relieved to see his father doing well, and then came the fear of what he was about to do.
Now was the time. He had to tell him. There was no more waiting.
“Dad.” Red started. He took a moment. Heavy silence. “I’m gay.”
“I know, son.”
“You… what?”
“I already knew, and I don’t care. I still love you more than anything else on this damn floating rock.”
Red mouthed a few words. All that was audible was, “How?”
“Sandy.” Michael sat up on the bed. He was looking good. Much better than what Red was expecting. Sandy had wailed into the phone as though she had found him as a dried up husk on the floor. “She told me. She said she saw you kissing a guy after your party. I didn’t believe it at first, but I started thinking back, putting things together. What really sealed it was meeting Caleb. When you introduced him to me, I knew. There was something there. Something I’ve only ever seen once before.”
“Really?”
Michael nodded. “Between me and your mother. And let me tell you, Red, that shit is really hard to find.”
Red laughed at that. He couldn’t believe he was laughing. That was the last thing he expected to be doing after telling his father he was gay. This felt so… freeing. He couldn’t begin to describe the lightness that was overwhelming him from top to bottom.
“For example: Sandy. I thought I may have found something like it with her.” He shook his head. Anger amplified by the few wrinkles he had. “She brought up you and Caleb again, about four times actually, in the ambulance ride here. Then she let it slip. She mentioned my will.”
Red felt like he knew where this was going, and was getting angrier by the second.
“I knew then,” Michael continued, “she was trying to get me to write you off of it. She wanted her name to take your place.”
“Fucking bitch.” Red was being taken on a damn roller coaster. Ups and downs. Fists balled and relaxed and balled up again. “I’m not even upset about the will, but that she would use you and tear up a family doing it. What the fuck? I had suspicions that she was in it for the wrong reasons, but things seemed fine. I didn’t want to ruin any of your happiness.”
“It’s fine. That pre-nup is a solid concrete wall, anyway.” Michael smiled through a few coughs. “She’ll be out of our hair by next week.”
“She scared me too,” Red confessed, “when she told me about your friend.”
“My friend?” His father looked confused.
“She said a close friend of yours came out recently and you were furious.”
Michael shook his head, sadness replacing anger. “Jesus. Really? She was trying to manipulate you, too. That never happened.”
“Fuck. I should have known.”
“I’m sorry, Red.”
“For what?”
“For everything. For not knowing sooner. For saying stupid shit when you were younger. I didn’t know. It was such a different time, and that’s no fucking excuse, but damnit, I’m sorry.”
Then, Michael started to cry. Red had only seen his father cry once before. Red was sitting in the backseat. His father driving. Red could never forget seeing him in the rearview mirror, as the graveyard got smaller and smaller behind them, and tears rolling down his face in silent, tortured rivers.
“Hey, it’s alright.” Red reached out, grabbing his father's hand. “I’m ok. I turned out fine. Took me a little to get here, but I made it and I found an amazing guy, too. It’s all up from here, no need to hold onto all that bullshit.”
“How did I raise such a great man?”
“I had a great role model.”
Red felt a sense of peace come over him. Everything was ok. No more secrets, no more shame.
Just love. All love.
Twenty-Five
Caleb Forester
The courtroom was dead quiet. All eyes were turned to the judge. Judge Judy. Caleb took a bite of his sub while he watched the livestream on his phone, propped up against his black lunchbox. He found the show to be a mindless escape while he was on break, the perfect way to destress before he got back onto the floor. There was a gaggle of residents in the break room so Caleb had to throw on his headphones, figuring not everyone wanted to join in with him.
He was mid-bite, finally deciding that the tuna sub was a good decision, when an alert made his phone buzz and slide down flat onto the table. He went to swipe the notification away when something caught his attention. A name.
The alert had the news outlet written across the top in bold: TMZ.
The subject line just underneath:
Red Miller Dating Mystery Man, Selena Furious.
“Holy fuck,” Caleb said out loud. He clicked the notification and landed on a page with a video. He pressed play. Immediately, Caleb was disgusted by the man asking the questions. He felt sick, seeing Red clearly distraught over something. For a split second, he forgot what the video was even about. All he wanted to do was find Red and ask him what happened. And then, the next part of the video floored Caleb. Absolutely stunned.
Red Miller had just come out to the world. No more questions or rumors or hiding.
Caleb collapsed back in his chair. The residents looked his way, one staring through his thick-rimmed glasses. Caleb sat up in his chair. Did they know? Holy shit did the news spread that fast? He got up, wrapping up what was left of his sub. A ball of anxiety bounced between his ribs. He turned and realized the residents weren’t staring at him. They were looking over his shoulder where one of their friends was asking whether they wanted coke or sprite.
Duh.
Caleb put his sub away and pulled out his phone. He still had thirty minutes before he was back on the floor. He had to figure out what was going on with Red.
Red picked up on the second ring.
“Red? How are you? Where are you? What room?” Caleb was already out in the hall, standing by a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out to a bustling courtyard, a fountain surrounded by green hedges marked the center.
“Room 49V. My dad, he has pneumonia. He’s doing ok now, though.”
“Ok good. Mind if I drop by?”
“I’d love it.”
Caleb smiled, glad everything was ok. “See you soon.”
He hung up and went down the hall, through the bridge that connected the two different hospital buildings, and took the elevator up three floors. The entire time, he kept thinking about Red and how proud he was of him. He came out. He said it and now it was out in the world. He knew only good things were going to come of it. Kids were going to have a gay action star to look up to. That was something unheard of during Caleb’s childhood.
And Caleb was going to get to go on that journey with Red. They were in it together, now more than ever. There was nothing left to stop them from living a life full of love and happiness. No more eyes to hide from, no more tears spent over shame. Everything was out in the open.
He couldn’t stop the smile from spreading.
Caleb turned the corner. He was expecting to see Red’s room straight ahead, instead he walked right into a body. He apologized and looked up and froze.
The smile disappeared in a flash.
“Caleb,” Jackson said. He didn’t step ba
ck, so Caleb did. He was not going to let this man intimidate him again. He was older, stronger. He was a different person than when Jackson had control over him. Caleb wasn’t going to let Jackson scare him. “You need to stop seeing Red Miller.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard. Stop.”
Caleb shook his head, unable to believe the words he was hearing. “Is this some jealousy thing? Are you jealous I’m with a man that’s a thousand times better than you can ever be?”
That stung him. He kept his composure, but Caleb recognized the twitch in his well-kept brow. It said that the pressure was rising.
“Caleb, I don’t want a repeat of what happened at Trinity.”
The mention of Trinity Hospital more than stung. It felt like a stab. Jackson uprooted Caleb’s entire life… could he do it again?
“You’re a monster.” Caleb put his hands in the pockets of his blue scrubs. He didn’t want Jackson to see the fists. “You don’t have the same pull here. You can’t frame me, you can’t do it. I’m going to see Red and that’s it.”
Caleb moved to walk around Jackson when he felt a tight grip clamp around his wrist. It was a quick and subtle move, gone unnoticed by the nurses nearby. It stopped Caleb in his tracks. He may have looked like a muscular guy who could hold up his own in a fight, but the truth was, Caleb hated conflict and tried to desperately avoid it. This grab by Jackson made him feel like things could escalate in the blink of an eye if he made the wrong move. So, he froze. Jackson let go. The men stood side by side.
“You’ll regret it. Break up with him.”