Chapter 5

“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.