10. Gage
10
GAGE
I ’m trying to be chill, but I’m failing at it.
For starters, focusing on a task when someone specifically told me to focus on it is pretty much a no-go. ADHD doesn’t like being told what to do, so I’m fucking around with a design that has nothing to do with my business just to make it look like I’m working on something.
Secondly, I’m mentally cataloguing all my feelings and thoughts. Natalie told me to be aware the next time Alexei turned me on, so I’m being aware. I’m hiding a hard dick by keeping the crotch of my jeans stretched wide. But I’m not rubbing. I’m not pursuing. I’m not jacking off in front of him or running to the bathroom to blow a load. I’m just fucking dandy in my aroused state. Not rushed. Not agitated. It feels good to be turned on after so long of… nothing. I almost don’t want to come because I want the feeling to stick around.
I’m starting to second-guess my status as a sex addict. I got that slapped on my file for good reason, but the reasons have changed. Or I have. High me is a sex addict. Sober me is still trying to figure it out.
“Gage?” Alexei calls, pausing his clicking from the end of my bed.
“Yeah?”
“I can see your screen’s reflection on the surface of the lamp.”
I look beside me. There’s a really shiny metal lamp with a flat-ass surface, like Mom thought it was cool, but not cool enough to put in a public part of the house, so it ended up here. It’s glowing white with the background of my almost blank ProCreate screen.
“Stickers,” I lie. “You told me to work on sticker packs.”
“That one says, ‘fried meats are our friends.’” His blue eyes blink at me, and fuck me, now my concealable boner is turning into an unconcealable one. Blink some more, Alexei. It’s fucking adorable.
“New line I’m working on.” I smirk at him. “Wanna buy one?”
“I would never condone something so sinister.”
I’m printing ten of them and sticking them all over his things. Decided.
“I suck at focusing. It’s just the way my head works. I’ll get a random bout of inspiration, matched with high motivation and energy, fixate on it, and make a buttload of things all at once. Then I’ll crash and burn and never look at them again because my executive function won’t function anymore.” I shrug. “Still want me to flirt with you?”
“This isn’t flirting?”
I love this. I love the feeling of being cozy in my bedroom at my mom’s house, not feeling at all uncomfortable about having a friend over in my room like I’m a teenager again. I’ve been living in a ‘home to meetings to Alexei’s house’ bubble for the past few weeks, and sooner or later, I’m going to have to start facing my past.
“I think building this friendship with you is making me confident,” I tell him.
“Tell me more about how I make you feel good.” He leans against the wall. I’m at the head of the bed and he’s somewhere near the end, our legs and feet skimming in the middle. I’m flirting but trying not to. I’m being subtle about it, but Alexei is smart and ridiculously observant. He knows. Wonder if he’ll take ten percent off my non-flirting tax?
“I was scared to come back here. I wanted to be around my family and face the town, but… honestly, it terrifies me. And then I found you. My first sober friend, and you’re difficult as fuck, but you’ve made everything so… simple. Being around you feels good. Like I’ve established some sort of stasis, and now I’m ready to get rocked a bit by facing my past.”
Alexei tilts the screen down, eyes connecting to mine without making it weird. “So, you’re saying I’m basically like a silky but sturdy foundation?”
“That. Yes. I love when you read my mind. What am I thinking now?”
“About meat.”
“Which meat?” I ask.
“Is this you not flirting?”
I laugh. “I was thinking about fried meats, just so we’re clear. I’m going to get you to eat a sausage someday.”
“You’re making this worse.” He groans.
To save the moment and protect us from more unwanted boners, I ask, “Wanna help me face my past?”
He mouths the word yes without saying it. “What’s that entail?”
“We could start by going to that diner you walked out of.”
“Alright. But now this feels transactional, so I’m going to ask you for a favour, too.”
“Fair.”
“Let’s cancel our former deal about asking intrusive questions and focus on this new deal. I bought a car three months ago.”
“Your dad is a mechanic. Please do not ask me to fix it, or you won’t think I’m as cool as I’m pretending to be.” I beg him with my eyes.
“I want you to teach me how to drive it. Confidently.”
Oh . “You don’t have your licence?”
“I do. And insurance. And Triple A. But right when I bought it, I witnessed a terrible accident, and now I get nervous driving in the city. I’m fine in town. Fine on the smaller roads. A bit nervous on the highway. But very nervous when there’s traffic and… lights and pedestrians and impatient drivers and big trucks and garbage trucks and people who drive with their dogs in the car and?—”
“Those heathens who eat burritos while driving, right?”
“Yes! The goddamn audacity. No responsibility. There are children on the road!” He’s heated, and holy shit, it’s cute. He huffs. “Do we have a deal?”
I nod, liking this. “One driving lesson for every part of my past we face. Shake on it?”
He looks at my proffered hand. “Is there fine print?”
“You can back out whenever you want. This deal has no limit and no deadline. And some things I can face myself. Or try to. My past is not your responsibility, but you’re a strong friend to have around while doing it.”
He takes a whole minute to think about it before nodding. “Okay.” He takes my hand.
Thwack!
There goes my heart again.
He squeezes, but not too tight, and my fingers roam, sweeping across his skin. He has a few callouses from mansion renos, and his nail polish is still a bit chipped, but I watch as his fingers move between mine, the symbols on his knuckles confusing me nicely. We aren’t shaking anymore. We’re fiddling.
I fucking love fiddling.
“This is better than my fidget spinners,” I say.
“You can play with—” His eyes meet mine. “Not flirting.”
“Definitely not.”
“Would never.”
God, I never had all these heart-thwacking sparkly moments with Paul. Or anyone. Alexei makes me feel alight. Humming with currents of electricity. Lit up like a fucking heart monitor. Loud and beeping and obvious as fuck.
Haven’t even thought about a cigarette in hours.
Bad, Gage. Do not replace one addiction with an Alexei addiction.
Marian knows what’s up. Quilting night comes with tea, tea biscuits, a fruit platter with awesome cream cheese and marshmallow dip, and a bowl of raisins. Never been a raisins guy, but something about the quilting vibe has me plucking them out of the bowl.
“Now, Marian, why can’t I get this stitch right?” I show her my tile—which is apparently what all the individual parts of the quilt are called. “I think I’m swooping when I should be looping.”
She studies it. I don’t know her age, but if I had to guess, I’d put her somewhere in her seventies. She’s wearing copper-coloured pleather pants and a cardigan, and it doesn’t get any cooler than that. Her reading glasses are the drugstore kind, but they’re cat-eye and dangle on a beaded chain around her neck while she squints at my work without them.
“Ah, you’ve got a double loop and swoop issue. Don’t worry. We can smooth it all out when we move to the sewing machines.”
I’m just hand-sewing frilly things on a tile. After that, we sew all the tiles together. Cool beans. And to keep up with my hobby, Marian has already set me up with a to-go box of five thousand other square patches and frilly things to sew on before the next quilting night. The other ladies are working the sewing machines, but I have to learn the basics first.
“Gotcha. So more of a swoop and loop?”
“More of a swoop and loop.” She shows me.
I pop a raisin into my mouth. “Okay, I’ve got it.” She doesn’t leave until I show her I do, in fact, got it.
“So, sweetheart, what’s this buzz I hear about you and the Kopacek boy?” Pearl asks.
“He’s cute, right?” I gossip, throwing more raisins into my mouth.
“I’m making this quilt for him,” Nancy says. She holds it up. Baby blue and black.
“So him.” I wish I had thought of that. “No deal. We’re friends. He’s kinda like my first real friend ever. Well, since I was a kid. Trust me, ladies, you did not want to know me in my teen years.”
“We’ve heard the stories,” Marian says.
My heart sinks as shame washes over me, but then Pearl pipes up.
“Like that one about how he saved the Millers’ cat from the roof of the church.” She chuckles.
“Or the one about how he bought all the KitKat bars in the whole town because his mother had a craving with the twins.”
“How about that one about him staying up all night just to be at the library as soon as it opened so he could be the first one to get the new Stephen King book for his grandfather?”
“Or when he put on a whole ceremony to celebrate the twins graduating kindergarten.” Marian shrieks out a laugh. “And bought Owen his first box of condoms!”
They all laugh and talk around me like I’m not even here. Meanwhile, I’m just having a mental breakdown because… people know good stories about me? Here? Some of those are even from my bad teen years. I’m on the verge of tears, wondering why the hell these lovely ladies are so nice when I’ve literally put my mom through hell and back, and they’re supposed to be her friends.
It’s all weighing on me very heavily because… I’m more than just a junkie. I have a past that isn’t all about drugs and sex and crimes. I’m known for funny and kind things as well as bad things, and I never fucking realized that until this very moment.
I’m more than an addict.
Holy shit.
“Oh, hun,” Pearl says. “Have some more tea.”
“Yes, please.” I try not to cry into my quilt tiles, shoving biscuits, raisins, and fruit dip in my mouth to swallow down the relieved sobs.