Chapter 7
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…” 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.