3. Gage
3
GAGE
I have a sponsor. An eight-years-sober sponsor. When we left the coffee shop, he drove me home, met my mom, took the Adderall from her, and exchanged numbers with me. I guess my morning routine will have to include meeting Nathan, which probably isn’t a bad thing.
“I like him,” Mom says, starting the kettle even though it’s almost midnight.
I sit at the kitchen table with her, waiting for it to boil. “Do you know him? From around town?”
“Yeah. He’s the mechanic who fixes the van all the time, and he lives in that falling-down mansion at the end of the road,” she says. “I just pretended I didn’t know him so you could ask me and I could be honest about it.”
“So lie, tell the truth, and then be done with it?” I laugh. “So backwards.”
Mom reaches for my hand, and I notice her nails are smudged black and her arm hair is all burnt off. Forge night, I guess. “Honey, you haven’t lived here since you were seventeen. Talking and visiting is one thing, but it’s been a long time since we shared a home. I am so happy you’re here, but I’m also nervous. I’m gonna make some mistakes.”
I shake my head at her, squeezing her hand. “My sobriety isn’t your responsibility. You can’t make mistakes. You’re my mom, and I know you love me despite all the shit I’ve put you through, and that’s the only thing I could have ever asked. It’s more than I can ask. So stop worrying about making mistakes. This is on me.”
“I know. But I’m always going to be in your corner.” She smiles, showing me those laugh lines. “And we can drink tea in the middle of the night whenever you want because I love tea, and I’m always buzzing a bit after the forge.”
“So only Monday nights,” I joke. “Got it.”
“All nights!” she shouts, and then covers her mouth. “Shit. Your brothers are sleeping.”
I haven’t seen the twins yet. They’re seventeen, and I’ve missed a huge portion of their lives. We talk a lot, and I visit whenever I’m healthy enough, but I’ve been a terrible brother to them. And to be honest, I’m hella nervous about living with them. What if I do something that hurts them? What if I get fucked up and scare them? I don’t want to make mistakes around them, and my only goal—other than my sobriety—is proving to them that I’m someone they can rely on.
There’s a quick knock on the door, and I raise a brow at my mom. “Late-night booty call?”
She scoffs. “I’m making tea. I called your brother.”
Then arms wrap around me from behind and happiness fills my body, and I stand to hug my other brother.
“Fuck, I missed you.” Owen hugs me tight, and I swear my eyes get watery. He pulls back, cupping my cheeks, smiling right in my face. “You have no fucking idea how happy I am that you’re here, man.”
Owen is two years younger than me, which means he saw me at my worst in high school. It also means he’s had to grow up with my bad reputation. He spent a lot of time hating and loving me at the same time, but he’s been my rock over this past year in rehab. I’ve been through the amends phase of the twelve-step program with him too many times, and this time, we hashed that shit out when he came to visit me in rehab, and he made me promise I’d let it go once I got here. So, I hug him again and don’t even try to hide the few tears that slip down my cheeks.
Before Mom can even boil the kettle, Cole and Nick—our parents had a thing for four-letter names—are awake, and it’s a family reunion over tea in the middle of the night.
I love it.
Nathan’s hands aren’t what they should be for his age. While he opens my bottle of Adderall, they shake and tremble, making the pills rattle around something fierce.
“Sorry. Nerve damage,” he says, finally shaking a pill free onto the reception desk of his mechanic shop. “Spent a lot of years as a heroin addict.” He laughs like it’s a joke, but it’s just something addicts do. We downplay all our terrible decisions like it will somehow make our current selves feel better.
I dry swallow the pill—old habits die hard—and give him an understanding look. “Thanks. So, this is your place?”
The garage is small, only three bays, but they’re all full. Two mechanics work in two of them, and one sits waiting for Nathan to get back to it. It’s on the outskirts of downtown, and he seems to take a lot of pride in it.
“Yeah. When I was first getting sober, I had this old car from my dad to fix up. Guess I made it my hobby. I had two years of mechanic school under my belt, so I just needed to put in the hours and get the licence.” He shrugs. “Here we are.” He looks behind me and smiles at someone. “Hey.”
I turn, seeing a young guy looking completely out of place. He’s fucking with my head because I can’t immediately read him. Dresses goth, but he’s got platinum blond hair that’s slightly tinted a pale blue, his septum is pierced, and his face is scowling. Bright and dark together, and moody about something, it would seem. He looks like that Lucky Blue model I creep on sometimes, but more rockstar-esque. Edgy and tough, but a bit awkward and unreadable.
“Hi. Here.” He sets a keyring on the desk and turns around to walk away.
“Hang on,” Nathan calls after him. “Thought you might want to meet Gage.”
The guy turns back around to face me, and I damn near wither under his assessing eye-fuck, and by the time he’s done, his face still gives nothing away. He’s shorter than me by a smidge, and our body types are mostly the same, but he’s the one looking down on me, and for whatever reason, my skin prickles and I sweat. Jeez, he’s moody and authoritative just standing there.
“Gage, this is Alexei. My son.”
Oh. Jesus. That catches me off guard. “What? I thought you were like forty?” And this Alexei guy is definitely somewhere in his twenties.
“I was the downfall to his druggie teen years,” Alexei says, full of attitude.
“That’s not true,” Nathan tells him like he’s said it a hundred times. “I was sixteen when Alex was born. I’m forty-two. I thought it might be nice to… have someone.” He motions between the two of us, but I think he’s talking more about Alexei having someone than me.
“Hey. I’m Gage Rossum.” I hold out my hand.
Alexei looks at it and eventually narrows his eyes before shaking it. His knuckles are tattooed with a bunch of symbols I don’t recognize, and the very top of his hand says ‘right’ in bold font. When I take a peek at his left hand, it also says ‘right.’
“Alexei Kopacek.” His voice is bored, but deep.
Nathan’s last name is Thompson, so I lift a brow. “His mother’s last name.” Nathan looks awkward around Alexei, so he shoves his hands in his pockets and asks, “Have you eaten today?”
“Oh my god, Dad,” Alexei groans, covering his face. “Would you stop?” Alexei looks right at me through his fingers, nails painted light blue. “He’s trying to make you ask me out to breakfast.”
I don’t hate the idea, and it might be nice to have a new friend who isn’t tied to my old life here, so I laugh and say, “I could eat.”
Nathan smiles, and it looks way more relieved than it should. “Great. Because I gotta get back to work. You’ll call me if anything is… off, yeah?”
“Sure.”
“And I’m reaching out to Kristen for whoever else she had in mind for you for… the other stuff.” The sex addiction.
“Thanks.” I face Alexei. “Ready?”
He doesn’t answer, but he turns and walks out the door. Nathan gives me a smile that loosely translates to ‘good luck,’ and then I follow the blue-blond into the morning sun. Again, he throws me off because of his clothing choice—black sweatpants paired with a black hoodie with a black and white rainbow on the front, making him appear lazy and darkly casual. But his hair appears even more blue-hued in the sun, and his bare feet are in a pair of slides that show off his toenails, painted the same shade of blue as his hair and fingernails. Like… lazy punk? Is that a fashion choice?
The fast pace he walks doesn’t match his lethargic attitude, and I honestly can’t tell if he wants to be near me or not. My ADHD makes me an overthinker extraordinaire, and now I’m wondering if he’s doing me a favour or if I’m doing him one. Maybe neither of us are, and we’re just doing the favour for Nathan.
I barely pay attention to the sidewalk, forget to notice anyone walking by us, and follow him straight inside a divey little diner I definitely remember from high school. Yeah, got fucked up in that back booth, and Cassie Greensby sucked my dick while rolling. Pretty sure I also got kicked out, found more drugs, and ended up getting arrested and spending the night in the drunk tank while my mom was called out of bed to come get me. She had the flu at the time, too.
Memories. Not so fun.
“Nope.” Alexei startles me, turning right back around and leaving the diner.
“What?” I follow.
He doesn’t answer. We walk down a few more blocks, me following his fast pace, and while my mind reels with what’s going on, he pulls open another door and I almost smack into it.
“This place,” he says. “Been here before?”
I look at the sign. Breakfast Junkie. “No. Seems fitting.” I walk inside, barely catching Alexei’s hint of a smile.
The place is small and cozy, lined with booths made of worn wood with tall backs for privacy. The middle of the restaurant doesn’t have any tables for eating, but holds display cases for baked goods, takeaway meals, and homemade crafts.
Alexei picks a booth along the window, sliding into the bench seat all the way to the window wall. Before I even sit down, a waitress smiles as she drops off menus and asks if we want coffee. I say yes, and Alexei asks for hot water with lemon. Ew.
“So, breakfast isn’t what you’re a junkie for then?” he boldly asks. When I just stare at him, he lets out a slow breath. “Sorry. My dad is… he’s never been a sponsor before, and I hate you a little bit for reminding him of all his darker days, and I’m just stressed and hating on you. That’s all.”
I push my hat up my forehead and rest my arms on the table. “That’s all?”
“Please don’t bring drugs around my dad.”
Oh. I lean back, hiding my hands for some reason. He doesn’t trust me around his dad. That’s what this is about, and now that I understand that, I’m hating on myself a bit, too. No one ever trusts an addict.
“I won’t.”
“Except you just did.” Alexei blinks at me. “I saw him handing you a pill. What was it? Oxy? Percs? Pain?—”
“Adderall. It’s doctor prescribed for ADHD, and he’s offered to distribute it to me. Should I not leave that burden on him?”
“Oh,” Alexei mutters. “No. Adderall is fine. He won’t take that. He likes a downer instead of an upper.”
“He’s eight years sober,” I remind him.
“Yes. And for seventeen years of my life, he wasn’t.”
“You hate him for that?”
“I worry about him for that.”
I pull the brim of my hat back down, hiding in plain sight. “I won’t fuck that up for him. For you.” Feeling shitty isn’t anything new to me, but right now it’s hitting hard. I thought I was doing good by moving home, going to meetings, and getting a sponsor, but once again, me being selfish, I didn’t stop to think about how that might feel to my sponsor’s kid. A kid who probably had to see his dad all fucked up for most of his life. “Do you want me to find someone else?”
Alexei huffs. “No. My dad is the best man for the job. I’m just being protective, and I suck at being protective, so while I’ve got the guts to do it, I’m going to try to threaten you a little. Don’t worry. It won’t last.” His pale blue eyes meet mine, and I can see the bravery in them, but I can also see something like shyness.
“Be protective all you like, Alexei. I’m not—” I shut up when the server brings our drinks, giving us both a glass of ice water as well. She sets a bowl of creamers on the table, asks if I’d like a dairy-free option—hell no—and then leaves again when we realize we haven’t even looked at the menu.
“You’re not what?” Alexei asks, picking up his menu.
The truth will hold me accountable for keeping my declarations, but I say it anyway. “I’m not going back to rehab. I’m not messing up my sobriety anymore. I’m done. I can’t do it again, so this is me being bound and determined to be better. I don’t want to drag myself down, so I’ll make sure I don’t drag your dad down, too.” The pressure is on now. I regret saying it as soon as I’m finished. With big words come big actions, and now I’m doubting my ability to follow my statements up with real-life choices. Fuck.
It hits especially hard when Alexei takes his sweet-ass time scrutinizing me, looking for lies, checking to see how committed I am to what I said. I hope he sees my desire to stick to that wishy-washy plan, and not the self-doubt currently eating me alive. I pause with a creamer above my mug, watching him watch me.
“Alright,” he eventually says, and the rest of my cream drips into my coffee. “I’m still gonna hate on you for the rest of breakfast, if that’s okay? I’ve already committed.”
A laugh bursts out of me, and I pull my hat lower when the whole restaurant looks our way. “Fair enough. Maybe if I buy you breakfast as some sort of consolation, we can be friends after I pay the bill?”
“You paying the bill signifies a power imbalance that my neurotic mind won’t tolerate. You pay for yours and I’ll pay for mine, and then we can try to be friends after.”
I nod to accept that. Maybe his mind is as busy as mine.
Alexei orders one poached egg, potatoes with no salt or spices, a side of fruit instead of meat, refuses the toast, and asks for more lemon water. When he gets his meal, he doesn’t immediately dig in, as if he’s taking account of everything before he consumes it. He doesn’t use salt or pepper, refuses ketchup, and doesn’t eat the yolk of his egg.
I just consumed a hungry man’s special with all the meats, three eggs, toast, seasoned home fries, a pancake with way too much butter and syrup, and about four coffees. And I ate it all ten minutes faster than he ate his. And I haven’t even had a sip of my water.
I take a sip. Alexei smiles, but he hides it in his hoodie.