Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
GAGE
“Dude.”
Gage looked up at Sutton from where he was staring a little too hard at his toes, the clippers depressed halfway. “What?”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were raised by dumpster cats. You’re clipping your toenails in our lounge room?”
“Fuck off.” He clipped the nail and watched it sail a few feet away to where the rest of them were. They’d almost entirely landed in a small pile on the floor beside the coffee table. “It’s not like y’all eat off the floor.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I’ve smelled your fucking locker, Sutt.” Gage clipped his last nail, then shoved his clippers back into his toiletries bag and got up, sweeping his clippings up with a paper towel and tossing them into the bin. “You don’t have room to talk. I think your balls are literally growing cheese.”
“I sweat a lot at the rink, fuck face.”
Gage rolled his eyes. Sutton was on a beer hockey team. It was the one vice he hadn’t been able to give up after moving from Toronto, but sadly, their little town didn’t have much in the way of the knife-shoes sport.
“I thought that was frozen water. How are you sweating?”
Sutton brushed a lock of curly blond hair off his forehead, then stuck out his foot when Gage walked by, tripping him into the couch. He grinned, looking annoyingly boyish with his dimples and slightly gapped front teeth. “You’d know if you ever got off your ass and exercised.”
“I run, dipshit.” Gage flipped him off as he rolled over and stretched out on the couch, his newly clipped bare toes digging into the armrest. He closed his eyes and tried not to feel tired enough to sleep, but he was. Things were better—especially now that he and Fallon were talking again.
And more than that. Cuddling. And sharing meals. And basically treating both apartments like they were communal property. It was getting domestic, which was the reason for him losing sleep. He didn’t know what they were to each other.
Or what Fallon wanted.
Friends, yes. Friends was great. Friends was everything.
But this felt like more.
“You’re quiet today, bruh.”
Gage pulled a face as he rolled onto his side and stared at the TV. Sutton had put on some show about vampires who were being followed by a documentary crew. Gage wasn’t great about keeping up with TV, so he had no idea what the fuck it was.
“I mean, tell me to fuck off, but—”
“Fuck off,” Gage said.
Sutton let out a small sigh. “I’m being serious. You seem a little off, and I’m just worried.”
Gage bit back another sarcastic remark because it wasn’t fair. He and Sutton weren’t best friends, but they were close at work, almost always on the same shift. And he was one of the few people who believed Gage had gotten hired on his own merit and not because of his dad.
Which, in all fairness, it was both. He’d done well in training and passed all of his certification exams, but it helped having Adele as his dad.
He didn’t mind a little nepotism coming his way after everything he’d been through.
But he also wasn’t going to share all of his life with people he wasn’t close to.
Especially since he hadn’t told anyone else about what Fallon was going through.
Keeping this secret from his work was easy. Keeping it from family was hard. Keeping it from Lucas was almost impossible.
It felt like he had a ball of magma sitting in his stomach, burning him from the inside out. He had no idea what to even do with it other than swallow it down and pray no one hated him by the time the secret was out and it was all over.
“Sorry. It’s been a weird couple of weeks.” He rubbed at his face. His eye was finally healing, and it was still bruised but no longer swollen. He rolled his head over to look at Sutton, desperate to change the subject. “When are you getting married?”
Sutton grimaced. “October. It’s hell on Earth. Never get married.”
Gage shrugged. “Never say never, man. But, uh…you guys planning kids or…?”
“She wants a couple,” Sutton told him, waving his hand dismissively. “I have six little brothers, so I’m used to shitty diapers and 3:00 a.m. scream fests. I don’t want that many kids, but I wouldn’t mind one or two.”
Gage nodded. He hadn’t had siblings, and he was nearly an adult by the time his uncles all started getting married and bringing little ones around. But he loved them. He knew he wanted that for himself. But babies felt like such a big fucking decision.
And once again, he started thinking about Fallon and his impossible choice.
“Did you knock up your girlfriend?” Sutton asked.
Gage startled, then turned narrow eyes on him. “I don’t have a girlfriend, so no. And that’s kind of a shitty question to ask someone.”
Sutton held up his hands. “Well, it was your random question, m’dude. And once again, you’re being weird.”
Gage stood up and flipped him off. His temper was still on a hair trigger, and he didn’t want to burn all of his friendship bridges just as they were starting to be repaired.
Slipping into his dad’s empty office, he closed the door, then dug his phone out of his pocket and pulled up his therapist’s contact.
Gage: Do you have time for an emergency session?
Evan: I just had a cancellation for today. Three o’clock work?
Gage: I’ll make it work.
His thumb swiped open his contacts, and he tapped his dad’s name, counting the rings before he picked up.
“Hey, kid. Everything good?”
“Can I get special treatment today?” Gage asked.
“Listen—”
“For therapy.”
Adele was silent for a beat. “Yeah. An hour, right?”
“Ninety minutes for drive time,” Gage told him. “I’m having a bad day.”
“Can I help?”
“Nope. But therapy can. Love you.”
“Love you too—”
Gage hung up before Adele could ask any more questions.
He’d apologize for that later, when he wasn’t so in his head.
There was too much going on all at once, and he just needed some damn guidance.
And while he’d promised to keep Fallon’s secret from everyone else, he had a feeling his therapist didn’t count.
Evan was in his late forties—kind of a hot nerd dad vibe with his sweater vest, wire-framed glasses, and sculpted biceps. Gage had a twenty-minute crush on him, but it faded the more he started talking about everything he’d been through.
He understood how people could fall in love with their therapists, but something in his brain refused to let him fall for the guy who knew all the darkest and most shredded parts of himself. Which was a blessing because he had enough shit going on.
“Come on in,” Evan said, holding the door for him. He worked out of his home, in the in-law apartments that rested against his back fence. The apartment was cold, and the heater never blew strong enough, but the couch was so comfortable, sometimes Gage had a hard time not falling asleep.
“Thanks for this.”
Evan nodded and sat down, pushing his glasses up his nose. “On a scale of one to ten…”
“Negative five,” Gage said quickly. It was a system they’d come up with when Gage first started working everything out. His suicidal ideations had been getting stronger the more he ran from everything, and he’d started to scare himself. “It’s not really about all that.”
Evan clicked his gold pen and hummed. He never actually wrote anything down. He’d once told Gage the pen clicking was a more socially acceptable stim that kept him focused. But he also had quieter fidgets for people who couldn’t deal with the pen sounds.
Gage took a breath. “So…remember a few months ago when I told you about the guy I hooked up with?”
Evan nodded. “Lucas’s soon-to-be brother-in-law.”
“And that he ghosted me.”
Evan wrinkled his nose. He didn’t like when his patients used that term. He told Gage once it was because most of the time, when people went silent, it was for a reason. And not because they wanted to ice someone out.
But he didn’t argue this time.
“So the other day, I found out he’s my new neighbor.”
Evan’s brows rose. “Oh?”
“Yeah. I saw someone had moved in, so I went over to meet them and…yeah.” He paused, then gestured at his eye. “That’s how I got this.”
Evan’s eyes flared wide. “Are you worried about him being violent?”
Gage burst into laughter. “Sorry, but oh my God, no. No, I kind of…broke in?”
“Explain,” Evan said, clicking his pen several times.
Gage’s cheeks burned. “I thought someone was stealing my neighbor’s stuff. I knocked on the door, but no one answered, and all the lights were off. Then I saw a flashlight, and yeah.” He flopped his arms at his sides. “Turns out it was him, and his power had gone out.”
Evan licked his lips. “I see.”
“He was defending himself. Trust me, it wasn’t violence.”
“I believe you.” He set his pen down and leaned toward Gage. “So. It was your friend.”
Gage felt his throat go tight at the word, but it was the only one he was allowed to use. They cuddled a lot and had shared a bed several times in the last couple of weeks, but nothing more. Even if it felt like more.
“He’s going through something. I want to talk about it, except I’m not allowed to say anything to friends or family. But the secret’s heavy.”
Evan nodded. “Are you comfortable sharing with me?”
“Yeah, just…” He let out a small puff of air. “So, he’s trans. Did I tell you that?”
Evan shook his head. “Not a detail you shared from last time. Is that relevant?”
“Yeah.” Gage’s fingers twisted in his lap, and then he leaned forward and grabbed one of the NeeDoh cubes from the table. He liked them best. They were stiff and difficult to manipulate, so it kept his hands very occupied. “Do you…I mean, you know about trans people, right?”
Evan let out a small laugh. “Yes, Gage. I know about trans people.”
“I just mean…more than from a textbook.”
Evan’s face softened. “My brother’s trans. He came out when I was fifteen, so most of what I know personally is from him.”
“Oh. Well.” That was a relief. He felt a bit safer now. “So the thing is—the guy that he was dating. The one who hit him and then hit Lucas?”
“Yes.”