"Caleb?" a female voice called from a room adjacent to us, and a light blinked on. Caleb swore and staggered back from me as a girl in blue pyjamas appeared in the lit doorframe, rubbing one tired eye. She had dark hair, hanging in tangles down to her waist, the same olive skin as Caleb, and the same blue eyes. She regarded us like a mirage, narrowing her eyes in and out as she tried to decide whether we were a figment of her imagination or not.

"Lauren... it's not what... hmm. There was a..." Caleb stammered over excuses, struggling to string together a coherent sentence. The girl, Lauren, was looking more and more doubtful by the second. I was surprised she wasn't a little more shocked. Caleb made it clear from his stammering that she wasn't aware of his sexuality.

You look like a chick.

Oh, yeah.

"Sorry to wake you up, honey," I stepped forwards, cutting Caleb off quickly. "You must be... Lauren! I've heard... so much... about you."

I hated myself for my hesitation, and Lauren's scepticism seemed to grow as a result. "Who are you?"

I looked back at Caleb, who looked like he was about to pass out. I turned back to Lauren with a smile I hoped was convincing. "I'm Steph. I was just popping in to... my feet really hurt. Shoes, you know! They kill you!"

I tact on a hushed giggle at the end for extra effect.

Lauren's expression didn't change. "Caleb doesn't bring girls home."

I gave her a dazzling smile. "I guess I must be special then?"

Lauren's expression relaxed, but probably because she'd bought I was a dumb, and not worth her time. Perfect. "Must be. Caleb, don't wake up Mum. I am not covering for you if you get caught."

She disappeared through the door and her light went out. Caleb let out a shaky breath that I was sure he'd been holding for the last minute. I turned towards him a gave him another smile.

He did not return it and pulled me quickly to the end of the corridor. He shoved me through a door into a dark room and closed it quickly behind us. When he brought the lights up, I found myself in a messy bedroom, clothes strewn all over the place. An unmade bed with black sheets was shoved into one corner, a desk stacked with paper in the other. There was a bedside table stacked with dirty plates and dog-eared paperbacks. His carpet looked like it hadn't been vacuumed in weeks. Despite myself, I scrunched my nose in distaste.

"Here," Caleb picked up a green t-shirt and black pants from one of the piles on the floor. "It might be a bit big for you but... whatever."

I pursed my lips together. "Are they... clean?"

Caleb pushed the shirt to his nose and inhaled, and then tossed it callously at my head. "Yup."

I sighed, and walked over to the mirror hanging to the wall beside his desk. "Do you have any makeup wipes?"

"No," Caleb sounded jumpy and defensive. "My aunt might. I'll check the bathroom."

"Your aunt?" I asked, surprised. "She lives with you?"

"Yes. And her five-year-old daughter, my two brothers, my sister and my mum and dad. And three cats, two beagles and a galah," Caleb listed off effortlessly. "So when I say be quiet, be quiet."

I mimed zipping my lips closed. Caleb turned and left the room, closing the door gently behind him. I turned back towards the mirror and dug my fingers into the sides of my wig, unclipping the sides and gently lifting it off my head. I whipped off the cap beneath and mussed my hair with both hands, sending it sticking up in every direction, still stiff from the gel. I almost sighed at my reflection. Back to the base.

I peeled off my false eyelashes, popped out the green contact lenses, and wrapped them up in a tissue. I dug the breast padding out of my dress and shimmed out of my tights. I pulled the dress over my head and tugged on Caleb's jeans. He was right; they were too big for me, but I knotted an elastic band from his desk around two of the belt loops and tied it in the middle to help it stay up on my skinny waist. I was elbow deep in the jeans, shirtless, and attempting to untuck myself with minimal pain when Caleb opened the door with a packet of makeup wipes.

He went instantaneously red and turned away. "Dude, what the hell are you doing?"

"Calm down. Dude," I teased, and held up a ball of duct tape. "Just digging my balls out from inside my body."

I had to refrain from laughing at his blushing response. I wondered how he survived in the boy's locker rooms.

I calmly tossed the duct tape away and pulled the shirt over my head. When I got my head through the collar, I found Caleb staring at where my torso had been bare, a few seconds ago. I wanted to be smug about it but decided to take pity on him. He was probably experiencing quite mixed feelings.

"Your room looks as if a bomb hit it," I commented, pulling the makeup wipes off him.

Caleb shrugged. "People don't come in my room."

"Never?" I started wiping off my eye makeup. "Even with a family as big as yours?"

"In a family as big as mine, bedrooms are sacred ground," in a way that seemed almost self-conscious, he picked up a couple of items of clothing and tossed them in the hamper by his door. "Make sure you wash that shirt. You got makeup all over the collar. I don't want my dad to ask awkward questions."

"Neither do I," my eyes done, I moved onto my eyebrows. "That's why I do my own laundry."

Caleb stood in silence while I wiped glue and powder off my eyebrows. It took me about fifteen minutes to completely remove Sephora's face, and I stared back at myself in the mirror. Without the brilliant green eyes, the long blonde hair, the thin arched eyebrows, and red lips, I looked depressingly ordinary. I sighed and swung around to face Caleb, who had moved to the bed and was tossing a tennis ball lazily at the ceiling.

I held up my arms in a tah-dah pose. "I'm back."

He turned his head slightly, and his blue eyes widened microscopically. "You look..."

"I look appropriate to set foot in Reece's house, that's what I look," I told him, standing up. "Could I borrow some equally appropriate shoes?"

Caleb sat up and tossed me some old sneakers from the end of his bed. "I was going to say you looked different. I'd forgotten what you looked like without gold eyelids for a second there."

"The illusion of Sephora Utah is strong indeed, sweetness," I pulled on the shoes, which were also too big for my feet.

"Stop that," Caleb sighed. "Look. Miles. I know tonight might have given you some ideas. But seriously. We can't see each other again after tonight."

I pouted. "What do I do with your clothes?"

"You can get rid of them," he frowned. "You can't... Nothing can happen between us. All right? At school, we're not friends. That's not going to change. I have my life and you have yours."

His words stung, even if they weren't particularly cruel. I felt like my voice would crack if I spoke, so I just shrugged nonchalantly and spoke as steadily as I could manage, "Whatever. I don't do high school romance. By the way, no more clubbing. I don't want you throwing me off at my gigs."

Caleb's mouth tightened. "I'm not giving up the only release I have. I don't go out that often."

"I don't want to risk it." I might choke on stage again if I see you watching me.

"Fine." I thought he would withdraw, but instead he pulled out his phone. "What's your phone number? I'll text you if I'm planning on going out and we can avoid each other."

I sat forward in my chair. "What happened to 'we can't see each other again'?"

"This is different. This is strictly practical," he passed me his phone, and I wrote my number into his contact. I didn't put in my name, and when I passed it back, I wondered what Caleb would put me down as. Maybe I would be his Dentist Office.

"So, you're a regular club kid," I mused. "Here I was thinking you were trying to suppress the rainbow."

Caleb shrugged emptily, and I felt a flutter in my broken heart. The clubs were my safe space, the place where I could be the version of myself I liked best. The version I wanted to be full time after I graduated. They could well have been that for Caleb too, and it was cruel of me to even think of taking that from him.

"Hey," I said gently. "There's a lot of clubs in our city. We went without incident for this long. We'll just confer to make sure it never happens again."

He graced me with the smallest of smiles, a faint tug of his lips. "How are you getting home?"

"Bus, I guess." I really didn't want to catch the bus that late in the night, but I had few other options.

"Do you have money?"

"Yeah, in my wallet..."

My wallet. Which was in the front pocket of my jeans. In the dressing room of Crescendo. I groaned in annoyance.

"Uber?" Caleb suggested.

Yeah. That would have been a great option if my phone hadn't also been in the pocket of my jeans. "Can I borrow your phone? Or, ah... two bucks for a bus ticket?"

Caleb made a face and looked outside. "Forget it. I'll take you home."

I was surprised by the decisiveness in his voice. "Really?"

"It's late. The bus stop will be dangerous," he grabbed his keys off the bedside table. "And we have a family Uber account. My parents will get a notification if you order a ride from my phone."

I could have probably just logged into my own account, but I wasn't going to refuse a lift when the alternative was 2am bus creeps and awkward small talk in an Uber. "Well... thanks. That's very kind of you, Mr. Heterosexual."

"Don't push your luck," he warned. I wandered towards the door, but Caleb grabbed my wrist before I could open it. "No. We're going out the window."

I was confused for a second, but then I figured out Caleb's reasoning. Lauren was probably still awake. Seeing a girl enter Caleb's room and a boy leave would raise a few questions. Anyone in his family seeing a boy leave his room would probably be understandably confused. Caleb was clearly still buried deep in the shoe rack of the closet.

I was closeted as well. I didn't go around announcing my sexuality at school, and definitely not to Reece. Then again, I had never denied it. It was just that no one had asked. I wasn't ashamed of who I was. I was a little afraid of how other people, such as Reece and Aidan McCaffrey, would react to who I was, but I wasn't going to date girls and play it straight to throw people off my scent. Not like Caleb.

He opened the window and gestured for me to climb through. "Ladies first."

I quirked an eyebrow but easily slid through the gap between the windowsill and the glass. When I landed heavily on the lawn outside, I turned back and rested my chin on the sill to stare in at Caleb. He pulled on a hoodie, paused with his eyes on the ceiling and his hand in his hair. His nostrils flared and his eyes drifted closed for a second.

He turned his head and saw me staring. I wondered if he preferred green eyes. If I'd found out he wore contacts, I would have certainly felt betrayed.

"Let's go," he said quietly.