Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GAGE
Gage noticed that Fallon had a lot more energy now that he was this far along into carrying the baby, which was nice. They hit up the mall, and he managed to find several outfits that were more boxy and less formfitting than he normally wore.
Gage was going to miss seeing more of him, but it didn’t really matter. He had access to Fallon in ways no one else did. So what was under those heavy flannel shirts and high-waisted jeans with the elastic waists was his and his alone.
He felt possessive as they walked. Fallon was a gorgeous guy, and he turned the heads of too many people who passed by, which made Gage feel a little wild and possessive.
He’d never been like that before. Not ever.
But he found himself fighting the urge to wrap himself around Fallon to show the world that the man was his.
“I think I need food,” Fallon said as they passed the string of restaurants that lined the main parking lot.
Gage froze. “From here?”
Fallon bit his lip, then pointed. “Pizza?”
It was one of those build-your-own, wood-fire oven places. “Yes. Let me put your bags in the car, and you can go get in line.”
“Okay.” Fallon leaned in and kissed him, and then they both froze. “Oh. Oh, I’m sorr—”
“No,” Gage said. Fallon’s face immediately went red, and Gage realized his mistake. He grabbed Fallon’s hand and pulled him close. “I mean no. I mean, yes. I…fuck. I’m not ashamed to kiss you in public. But I also don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”
Fallon’s other hand danced at his side, his nervous stim, Gage noticed. “I don’t know how I feel. Kissing you kind of felt…natural.”
“Then kiss me when you want to kiss me.”
Fallon licked his lips. “We’re not boyfriends.”
Gage took a deep breath. The words hurt. They threatened to make him bleed. But he also knew that Fallon didn’t do well with ambiguous, and it was time to say something. Even if that something was going to get him rejected.
He pulled Fallon to a corner, out of the biting wind, and lifted their joined hands, pressing them to his chest. “If you wanted to be my boyfriend, I’d like that.”
Fallon blinked at him.
“I mean, I like you. I’d like to be your boyfriend. But if that’s too much, we can stick to friends. I’m here no matter what.”
Fallon swallowed. “You…but.” His free hand moved to his stomach and pressed. “This.”
“I’m aware of that,” Gage said, lifting a brow. “That’s been kind of a whole thing since we reconnected.”
Fallon rolled his eyes. “I mean,” he stressed, “this comes with it. The—the boyfriend thing. It’s more than just me.”
Gage stepped in closer, their chests bumping together. He could feel Fallon’s heart racing against the back of his hand. “I know.”
“But—”
“Fallon. Sweetheart,” he murmured, dipping his head low.
“I know. I’ve done hours of research. Like, hours.
Like, neglecting my paperwork enough to piss off my dad amount of research.
I’ve gone over every scenario in my head.
And I know what it means, okay. I know what this”—his other hand touched over Fallon’s that was still holding his stomach—“means. I choose this. And you. If you want me. But it won’t change our friendship, okay? ”
Fallon bit his lip, then let it go. It was shiny and slick with his spit. “So…we can have both? We can have everything?”
Gage met his gaze. “I’ve dated quite a bit.
I’ve been hurt. I’ve hurt people. I have a platonic soulmate and a lot of family who love the shit out of me, and I love them right back.
But I have never felt this way about anyone.
Not even close. So you don’t just get everything. You get all of me too. If you want it.”
Fallon bowed his head.
“And if you’re not ready to decide,” Gage said, “that’s fine too. I can wait. I will be as patient as you need me to be, for as long as you need it.”
“That doesn’t seem fair to you.”
“So long as I get to have this,” he said, squeezing Fallon’s hand, “that’s enough.”
“And kissing?” Fallon said. “And…and what we did before?”
Gage leaned in even more to speak directly into his ear. “I can still feel it when I sit.”
Fallon shuddered. “Maybe I don’t want pizza.”
Gage laughed and let his hand go to cup his cheek. “Yes, you do. You have to eat. But after, I’m yours. Whatever you want to do with me. Whatever you want to do to me.”
Fallon groaned, then surged up to kiss him. “I don’t normally care about genitals, but right now, I’m glad I can’t get a visible boner.”
“Oh my God,” Gage said through a laugh, then kissed him again.
When Fallon pulled back, he swallowed and met Gage’s eyes. “I want you to be my boyfriend. I want to be yours.”
Gage closed his eyes and let out a trembling breath. “Okay.”
“You sure that’s what you want?”
Gage held his jaw. “More than anything. Now, go get in line. I’ll be right back, and I’ll be all yours.”
“All mine. For keeps?” Fallon said.
Gage met his gaze. “For as long as you want me.” He took several steps back and watched Fallon start on the path toward the restaurant. He turned, jogging toward the car, and managed to make it back—only slightly out of breath from the cold—and slid up to Fallon, who was standing in the line.
“Are you good?” Gage asked, leaning in toward his ear. “Boyfriend.”
Fallon closed his eyes and hummed, smiling. “Yeah.”
“Okay, because if you need to sit—”
“Gage.” There was something in his tone. Something tense.
“I said something wrong.” Gage could tell. His ADHD sometimes had his mind all over the place, but sometimes it had him hyperaware, and this was one of those moments.
Fallon took a deep breath, then said, “I want to talk about it later.”
Gage hated waiting. He was going to be on edge and paranoid that he’d fucked up minutes after getting the best gift of his life. But before he could really start to panic, Fallon threaded their fingers together and picked up his hand, kissing his knuckles.
“Breathe. It’s nothing bad, and I’m not angry.”
“Ha. I’m obvious?”
Fallon smiled at him. “To me, yeah. It’s okay. We’re okay.”
Gage sagged against him and decided being patient wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
He managed to wait until they got in through the door of Fallon’s apartment, and he threw all the shopping bags on the couch before turning to his friend. No, his boyfriend.
“Tell me.”
Fallon rolled his eyes as he shrugged off his coat. “You should get a medal for waiting that long.”
Gage scowled. “Babe. Please.”
With a heavy sigh, Fallon walked over and set his hands on Gage’s hips.
“I think I need something else. Today made me feel better, but it also…” He trailed off, his gaze darting upward toward the ceiling in thought.
“I guess having all the pressure off me about whether or not things are going okay with the baby has also made me really aware of my current…situation.”
“Right,” Gage said, though he didn’t totally get it. But he knew Fallon would explain.
“I want all of this. With you. With the future. Having a child.” His hand fluttered beside his head in a gentle stim.
“But I think the getting-there part is going to be hard. I don’t…
I don’t want to think about this”—he gestured at his stomach—“all the time. I think outside of the house, I need to disassociate from it.”
“I get it,” Gage said quickly.
“Do you?” Fallon frowned, looking uncertain.
Gage tugged him closer. “It was like before, in our bubble, right? Before everyone knew? You don’t have to be a certain way. You don’t have to act a certain way. You don’t have to worry about what anyone else is thinking.”
Fallon breathed out heavily. “Yeah.”
“We can talk about it here. This is our safe space,” Gage said, pointing to the room they were in, then in the direction of his apartment. “And there too. It’s ours. But you can have breaks from it all the time too, okay?” He leaned in and smudged a kiss over Fallon’s jaw. “Let’s have a code word.”
Fallon hummed, his eyes closed, and he nodded. “Code word for what?”
“For the baby. Just call them…”
“Mango,” Fallon said. “The baby, in all the drawings I saw, it looked like a mango.”
Gage grinned at him, lifting his chin to kiss the absolute shit out of him. Fallon groaned and leaned into it. “I am obsessed with you and your brain.”
Fallon flushed deeply and shook his head. “It’s weird up there.”
“Yeah, but mine’s weird too. We fit, I think.”
Fallon laughed and rested his cheek against the top of Gage’s chest. “I want a bath. And a foot rub. And a nap.”
“I can do all three. Do you want to be alone for the first part?”
“No.”
Gage eased him back away from him just a few inches, then leaned in and kissed his forehead.
He let his lips linger for a while. “Go get undressed. I’ll get it started.
Then I’ll rub your feet until you fall asleep.
” He started to walk away, but Fallon caught his wrist and tugged, and he looked back.
“Can that be an always thing? Like…not just because of everything I have going on?”
Gage crowded him back against the wall and took his chin in a firm hold. “I spoil my boyfriends, sweetheart. Always. No matter what. All this—making you feel good—it’s a given. I want you to expect this treatment.”
Fallon swallowed heavily. “And you. I—I want to spoil you. I want to make you feel good.”
“You do.” Gage let him go, and this time, when he walked off, Fallon didn’t stop him.
It only took a few minutes to get the bath set up, and by the time he was swirling salts into the water, Fallon was hovering in the doorway, wearing a thick, tan terry cloth robe and nothing else.
His hair was sticking up a little, and his glasses were off, which made his eyes look a little unfocused.
Gage rose and stripped off his shirt before holding his hand out to his boyfriend and pulling him close. “You want to sit front or back?”
“Front,” Fallon said. “I might fall asleep, and you’ll keep me from drowning.”
Gage snorted. “I will always save you from drowning.” He stripped out of his pants and socks, tossing everything near the laundry basket, then slid into the water.
The garden tub was large enough for two grown men, and although the water was colder than he liked it, when Fallon dropped between his legs, it was heaven.
Closing his eyes, he let himself feel the weight of the other man as he dragged his hand up and down his chest. As he coasted fingertips over Fallon’s pecs, he could feel the scars—on the top of the skin, and a few hard bits deep under the nipples.
“Did the surgery hurt?”
Fallon snorted. “Uh, yeah. I mean, I think the recovery was easier for me than for people who have to have the bigger incisions, but the pain was pretty incredible. I was knocked out for the first few days. I had drains, and Frankie had to help me manage them because they freaked me out.”
“I’m glad you weren’t alone,” Gage said.
Fallon shrugged. “I was rarely alone growing up. Frankie could be a bit much. I didn’t like it a lot back then, but I appreciate him more for it now.
” He turned his head as Gage’s hand dipped lower—no real destination in mind.
He was just enjoying being able to touch Fallon like this, knowing the man was his.
“I thought about bottom surgery too. But this guy I knew had it done, and he had complications. It scared me.”
“I get that. I tend to fixate on shit like that and work myself up about stuff that hasn’t happened yet,” Gage murmured. “But if you ever change your mind, we can research and find the best doctor in the world and go there.”
Fallon huffed. “That would be so expensive.”
“We would make it work.” Gage kissed along the side of his head. “I know I probably sound like…a lot. Like, I have been told my whole life I’m a bit much, but—”
“You’re not,” Fallon said. “You’re not too much.”
Gage swallowed heavily. “I just want you to be happy.”
“Do you want me to, you know, get that done?”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” Gage told him, “unless it matters to you. I’m into you no matter what your body is like.”
Fallon went quiet again. “Did you know right away?”
“That I was into you?”
Fallon laughed and turned his head. “Oh my God, no. The first time you saw me, I was a shaking mess in the hallway.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter. I had an immediate crush. Not in a creepy ‘I like when guys are shaking messes’ kind of way,” Gage said quickly. “I don’t know how to explain it. God, I sound like a fucking weirdo—”
“You’re fine,” Fallon told him. He shifted a bit more onto his side. “I meant that I was trans. Did you know?”
“Oh. No. I thought you were cis. So did Lucas. Your brother mentioned it. Is that…bad?”
Fallon smiled and shook his head. “Nah, not bad. I was never fixated on passing, you know. But…I mean, it makes me feel good that someone walking by me on the street looks over and is like, oh, that guy is a fucking nerd.”
“Babe—”
“That wasn’t self-deprecating. I don’t care that I’m a nerd,” Fallon defended, grinning. “But I had a lot of therapy that helped me care less about what other people think. It was harder in the beginning. It’s easier now.”
“I should care a lot less too,” Gage said.
The weight of how much he cared often threatened to suffocate him, but he was working through it.
“I come from a big family, and they’re not like most people.
And when I’m out with Lucas, he gets stared at a lot, and it used to piss me off so much.
Our second biggest argument was because I kept mouthing off to people and fighting his battles for him. ”
Fallon raised a brow as Gage pushed fingers into his hair. “What was your first biggest fight about?”
“Fuck,” Gage whispered. He hated talking about this. “He, uh…he was in love with me. Or, well, he thought he was in love with me. He told me how he felt, and I didn’t handle it well. I was a really shitty friend and not careful with his feelings. I regret it.”
“You never liked him?”
“No,” Gage said. “What he means to me is different, and the thought of that changing scared the absolute shit out of me. We didn’t talk for a while.
I deserved the silence, and it gave me time to pull my head out of my ass and realize that I could have been way more delicate with him.
I’m better about that kind of thing now. ”
“You’re a good friend,” Fallon murmured. His voice was heavier. Sleepier.
“Come on, babe. Let’s get out and get dried off. I can rub your feet while you nap.”
“Mm. Best boyfriend,” Fallon said softly.
Gage felt his heart hammer against his ribs. “I like that word. I really like being your boyfriend.”
“I like being yours,” Fallon said.
And for that, Gage kissed him again.