Chapter 23 #2
“I know, babe. I know. But it’s proof of what they did. The very illegal thing they did.”
Gage was quiet for too long.
“Get the proof and turn it in.”
He could hear Gage swallowing several times in a row. “You think? What if they delete it?”
“Nothing is ever gone for good. Do you know how many true crime podcasts I listen to?” Lucas said. He was telling the truth. It was too fucking many. “There are people who can find anything. Even if they throw the phone away, if it’s on their server or whatever it is, they can recover it.”
“It could work,” Gage said after a long beat. “But I can’t watch it.”
“I can’t either,” Lucas said, his gut twisting. Fuck, he’d never wished to be sighted before. Not until this moment. “Is there anyone you trust?”
“My dad, but…but I can’t make him watch that. I can’t put him through that,” Gage said, his voice so small. Lucas opened his mouth to start naming friends, but then Gage said, “I think I know someone.”
Lucas could tell from his tone it was better not to ask who. Not now. Gage needed that for himself—that safe space. That trust. “You can’t let them get away with this.”
“If I send them to jail, they’ll take the baby and put them into the system.”
Lucas couldn’t help a scoff. “Don’t you think it’s better for that baby to be raised with people who aren’t capable of doing what these two did?”
Gage said nothing for a long beat. Eventually, he breathed out. “I don’t even know anymore. Part of me wonders if that would make me a monster too.”
Lucas reached out for him, found him, and tugged on his best friend until Gage’s head was pillowed on his lap.
His hair was shorter than the last time Lucas had touched it, and his face was rough with stubble.
He stroked fingers along his scalp in the way he knew would soothe his friend’s racing mind.
“You will not be the villain of your story, Gage. No matter what you choose. You have a right to make sure that the people who hurt you pay for it. And you have the right to choose to walk away. But I hope you know that what happened to you was real, and it was not okay.”
Gage turned on his side, his face pressing into Lucas’s stomach.
“Sometimes it feels like…like I made it up. Or it was a bad fucking dream. And then I get this text and…fuck. I don’t know.
I don’t want to talk to my dad about it.
He and Kash get so sad. I heard him crying the first night we went away, and it was my fault. ”
“It was not your fault. He was crying because he loves you beyond all reason,” Lucas said, ferocity in his voice he couldn’t control. “I could do unspeakable things with the anger I have over what happened to you. You are the most important person in my life.”
“I think that’s Frankie now,” Gage said with a tiny laugh.
“No. He’s different. You were my first everything, Gage. My first real friend. My first kiss—even though it was garbage.” Gage laughed softly and held him tighter. “You were the first person I thought I was in love with and my first heartbreak.”
“Shit, dude.”
“No. I’m grateful for it, especially now. Falling in love with Frankie showed me that I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about back then.”
Gage sniffed. “I’m glad I could be good for something.” He lifted his head off Lucas’s lap slightly, and Lucas knew he was looking at him. “You know, for a while, I thought this whole thing was karma for hurting you.”
Lucas reared back. “Fuck you.”
“No, not…not that it was because of you,” Gage said weakly.
He fell back into Lucas’s lap. “Just that I was such a thoughtless asshole, and I handled everything so badly. I thought maybe I deserved it. I don’t think that now,” he added before Lucas could take a breath to tell him what a fucking dipshit he was.
“My therapist says that a lot of people who go through this blame themselves because the trauma of it is so overwhelming, and sometimes there’s not a reason that it happened.
Sometimes the person was just…convenient. ”
Lucas held him tighter. “I hate them so fucking much.”
“Me too. I…I think your idea is a good one. I don’t want to live with a bunch of what-ifs.”
Lucas softened his touch and carded fingers through his hair again. “Tell me how I can help.”
“There’s nothing you can do right now except be happy. Literally, your love story is saving my faith. No one has ever looked at me the way Frankie looks at you, and I want that. I am not broken, and I will have that.”
“That’s goddamn right. You are not fucking broken,” Lucas said, his voice hard.
Gage sat up slowly, then pulled Lucas into a hug. “We should go save your boyfriend before he gets corrupted by our dads and all the uncles.”
“Oh, shit. Yeah,” Lucas said.
They scrambled to their feet, but as Lucas reached in the direction of the door, Gage stopped him. “If he’s ever mean to you—”
“I know,” Lucas said.
“No, listen. I need you to know that I love you now more than I ever could have if we’d fallen in love, and I couldn’t give that up for anything in the world, okay? You are so much more to me than any fuck-ass boyfriend has ever been.”
Lucas squeezed Gage’s hand. “I know exactly what you mean.” He loved Frankie wildly and differently than he would ever love Gage. Not less important, but Gage would always live in a space beside his heart.
That didn’t scare him, because he knew Frankie understood. And that was what made the whole thing so perfect.
They didn’t say much on the drive home. Elodie was dead to the world, having all the energy run out of her trying to keep up with the other kids, and while everyone was good with Frankie, the tension had been high.
Lucas knew his dad had pulled Frankie aside at some point, but he didn’t think the talk had gone wrong or weird. Frankie stayed close when he got back from his too-long bathroom break and didn’t hesitate to kiss him on the cheek in front of everyone.
It was kind. Soft. Careful.
Lucas was still reeling from Gage’s situation, but he allowed it to flow to the back of his mind as he undressed and crawled into Frankie’s bed.
He didn’t ask anymore. The space felt like it was partly his, the feeling even stronger when Frankie walked into the room and let out a happy sigh to find him there.
“Don’t move,” Frankie said.
Lucas heard clothes hitting the floor, then the light switch going off. The bed dipped with Frankie’s weight, and then his naked body—warm and easy—slid up and curled around Lucas.
They were chest-to-chest, their breath finding a matching rhythm, and then Frankie leaned in and took a kiss that made Lucas’s toes curl just the way he said he liked.
“I’m madly in love with you. And your family is wonderful,” Frankie murmured when he pulled back.
Lucas settled against his chest and drew lines around the knobs of his spine. “My dad wasn’t mean?”
“He was…nervous. But he’s so fucking proud to be your dad. And he…” Frankie went quiet for a beat. “He asked if he could have a place in Elodie’s life.”
“He wants to be a granddad,” Lucas said quietly.
Frankie sighed. “I want that for her. It feels so fast. Scary fast. But I don’t want to slow down.”
Lucas clung tighter. “Me either.”
A long pulse of silence passed over them, and then Frankie said, “We’re going to need a second adoption party.”
“What? Why?”
“For after I marry you. When you’re ready, I want it to be official between you and her.”
“Oh,” Lucas breathed out. “You—you’re that sure? About me?”
Frankie pulled back a bit more and traced a touch over Lucas’s mouth. “My heart’s beating in your chest now, Lucas. It’s yours to take care of. I don’t want it back.”
Lucas allowed himself to feel the weight of those words. And then he smiled against Frankie’s finger. “My poet.”
He heard Frankie’s smile in his voice when he said back, “My princess.”