16. Alexei
16
ALEXEI
T he wooden door swings open on unapologetically obnoxious hinges. It’s loud and squeaky, screaming at us to announce permission to enter the old room.
And when I get a peek inside, my knees wobble, my heart ticks up in speed, and a lot of warm and tingly pressure fills my head. My eyes burn. I’m gripping the sleeve of Gage’s hoodie for… I don’t know, balance or something, and my shaky legs are taking slow single steps into the room. I’m blinking at all the lights set up, glowing warm and romantic in the cavernous stone room.
Gage trembles next to me. “I’ve never done a grand romantic gesture before,” he starts while I look at everything. “But I wanted to… and you seem like the kind of guy who enjoys setting up his own space, so I mostly just cleared it out and cleaned it up and brought your new things down so you could… do it yourself. I’ll help. If you want help. Or you can be independent as fuck about it and I’ll just cheer you on from the door. I don’t know, Alexei. I just know that after all your messages today, and then talking to your dad about how excited you were, you might… like this space.” He pauses, breath shaking. “I know I monopolize so much attention with my recovery, and I want you to know you’re just as important. Fucking fuck, did I presume too much with this room?”
“Shut up, Gage.” I drop his sleeve and walk into the room. “God, you suck at the slow part of slow-moving boyfriend. This is… monumentally fast, considering I just decided to get obsessed with old things today.” I look at him. “I like your hustle.”
He smiles shyly. “Yeah?”
So much yeah. There are workbenches and shelves made of wood and stone and metal. There are lanterns all over the place, lighting up the parts of the room that used to have spider webs and bats. All my new tools are set out on one of the benches, waiting for me to find them homes in my new workshop for my new hobby. The stone floor is swept and washed, the old stools from the storage room are sitting in front of the workbench, and there's a new pegboard lining the wall, waiting for me to fill it with things.
“What’s this?” I touch a book on the bench.
“Oh, I, uh, got that. For you. Today.”
Okay, so his nervousness is just as sexy as his self-awareness. “From where?”
“I faced another part of my past. I went to my high school,” he admits. “I, uh, asked the old shop teacher if he had any books on antique restoration, and he gave me that. And… and I apologized for being a fuckup in his class and stealing so many tools. And then I picked the twins up and took them for a drive down memory lane where I told them stories I was ashamed of.”
“And you did all that around making this room in the past eight hours?”
“I hyperfixate on things and go hard. Yes.” He steps inside. “And up there, in that blank space, I… started making something else. It’s not done yet.” He points to a spot above an arched walkway, the perfect place for a sign. “Here.” He hands me his phone.
On his screen is the start of a logo. Or a sign. It says ‘Alexei’s Old Things,’ with one of those ‘new’ kind of stickers used by storefront marketing whenever a new product comes in, placed at an angle atop the word ‘old.’
“Obviously we can change the words and you can call it whatever you want, but I thought it’d be fun to have your own little shop. I’m… I’m gonna burn it into wood and hang it there. If you like it. I ordered a soldering tool and need to practice first.”
I love it. I love it so much that I’m tongue-tied again. I love it more than I’ve ever loved anything, and I don’t know if that’s because I finally have a boyfriend who is my soulmate, or if it’s because Gage is encouraging a hobby I haven’t even started yet, or if it’s because he does such nice things while being completely nervous and unsure about them. Maybe it’s because he worked together with my dad to accomplish it.
I’m not typically someone who shows emotion in the form of tears, but Gage blurs as I stare at him. His phone screen locks in my hand, and I’m still staring at him, wetness dripping down my cheeks without me doing anything about it.
“Oh, Alexei,” he says, pulling me in for another hug. “Are you okay?”
I lean against him, happy and nostalgic and feeling all the things deeply. “Other than my dad, no one really does nice things for me. I don’t really have anyone close in my life. This is… you just… damn you for making me unable to blurt my neurotic rambly things!”
He chuckles, pulling back to look at me. His thumbs don’t even try to swipe my tears, and I like that he’s comfortable with them. “I wanna do all the nice things for you,” he says, and then he changes the mood entirely when he adds, “and all the dirty things.” He bites his lip.
My tears dry up and my breath hitches. “You flip moods on a dime.”
“You flip conversation topics on a dime,” he retorts. “Okay, so you like it?”
“I more than like it.”
“Good! Hang tight. I… just wait here!” He runs away, skipping through the basement and up the stairs. I hear him mutter things to my dad, and I hear my dad ask if I like the workshop. It only makes me smile more because they’re in cahoots.
I already feel completely buzzed about this room. I know my interest in old things is brand new, but maybe it’s been building ever since Dad and I moved into this house and started fixing it up. I’ve never felt pride in something like I feel for this house.
When Gage signals his return by tripping down the stairs and swearing a whole bunch of times, I smile to myself and sit on the stool, looking around my new space. Despite how damp and shadowed it is, it’s awfully homey. I’m comfortable here, locked away in a basement to experiment with my newfound interests without prying eyes.
I think I love Gage for doing this. I love my dad for helping him.
Gage’s fedora is skewed when he comes back carrying a real old-fashioned picnic basket and a bottle of… wine?
“It’s kombucha,” he says right away. “Healthy. No alcohol. Junkie safe. Alexei approved.”
His dark brown eyes are still shy, but there’s pride in them. He’s proud of what he’s done for me and of himself for finding a way to celebrate a birthday that doesn’t include a party. I don’t like that he refers to himself as a junkie, but I’ve come to learn that a lot of substance abusers do that. Maybe it’s an awareness thing, or maybe awareness hurts and it’s their way of hating on themselves just a bit.
“I love kombucha,” I tell him, hand on the book he got me from the high school.
“I figured.” He laughs. “Wait until you see what other healthy shit I got. Not a fried meat in sight.” He sets the basket down on the workbench. “I know you already had lunch with your dad, so I went the snack route, because who can complain about snacks, right?”
My shrimp cocktail is a birthday tradition. The only time of year I let myself eat it, because even though shrimp isn’t the most unhealthy food there is, I like it so much that I’d overindulge. It’s sitting on the top of the basket when he opens it. Along with cut-up veggies and hummus, a tray of strategically arranged grainy crackers and dips, a bunch of things that look like he just grabbed them from the vegan section of the grocery store thinking they were healthy, and a single cupcake in a plastic container.
Gage sets it all on the workbench, dragging another stool over to sit with me. “Wanna eat snacks and put tools away?” he asks, straightening his fedora.
When I smile, all my breath comes out of my nose. I nod. “Yes, please.”
So, we do. Gage puts on film scores because his mind can’t tune out lyrics and have a conversation simultaneously, and I’m dandy with that because I love film scores. When I start naming them and all the composers and movies they come from, I fall a little harder for Gage when he knows the ones I don’t. Soulmates!
We peck at snacks and find new homes for tools, and when Gage finds another lantern on a shelf, we take it out into the basement and start finding things I can work on. Make new. Fix up. Learn how to restore. And I realize I’m rambling, talking his ear off about what the man at the shop told me, probably over-explaining something Gage doesn’t give a shit about, but he never complains. He talks back, asks me more questions, and offers ideas.
How is he so imperfect and perfect together?
Somehow, hours pass. Like, a lot of hours. My dad came down to check on us, indulging in a few snacks before saying he was going to bed and taking the leftover shrimp with him. And now it’s two in the morning, and I had no idea because there are no windows down here, and time doesn’t exist when Gage is around.
“Is your mom worrying about you?” I ask once I realize the time.
“No. She knows where I am.” He smiles at me. “Did you have a good birthday?”
“I believe in monogamy,” I blurt instead. “Since you asked me to be your slow-moving boyfriend, you should know that.” I’m fishing again. Gage knows it.
He grins. “Yeah? Meaning you’re mine and only mine?”
“More like you’re mine and only mine. I’m going to need you to tell me your stance on monogamy or I’ll fret about it forever.”
Gage stands between my long legs. I’m on a stool and he’s upright, putting him a bit above me, but I enjoy being under his watchful eyes. “Monogamy is such a societal standard,” he teases. “So not you.”
“It’s one hundred percent me when it comes to you.”
“Just me?” he asks, hands moving up my thighs.
I’ve never had a boyfriend or been in a relationship before, so I nod because it’s not a lie. Just him. He’s the only one I’ve wanted to be monogamous with. “Yes.”
“My monogamous, neurotic, slow-moving boyfriend. I like it. I believe in monogamy, too.” His hands are moving higher again, and his lips are brushing my cheek without kissing. “We haven’t even discovered if we’re compatible in bed yet. Maybe we’re both bottoms. Both tops.” He dips his face beneath my black scarf and plants a light kiss on my pulse point.
Oh. My. God.
I’m tilting my head towards him instead of away. I want to expose my whole neck to him, but I also want to feel his dark hair against my cheek. “Maybe. Or maybe we’re both sides. Both vers. Both nervous.”
“Are you nervous, Alexei?” His voice is a scratchy whisper, and shit, it’s making my dick hard. When his hands travel higher at the same time as his tongue hits my neck, I shiver all over.
“No. Are you?” I’m lying. I’m so fucking nervous it isn’t even funny. But I’m excited, too. Turned on. Extremely aroused and lost in Gage’s build-up.
“A little,” he admits, planting one more kiss on my neck. He pulls back to look me in the eye. “Do you trust me to do sexy things?”
I trust him, his therapist, and us together, so I nod. But… what sexy things?! What are we about to do when we’ve never even kissed? I want him to kiss me, and I’m dying to kiss him, but refraining is essential until he understands what it means to kiss me. I want intimacy, and until he knows he wants it too, we’ll skirt around it, tease and taunt it, build it up until it’s impossible not to kiss any longer.
Luckily, I am a master of restraint.
“I don’t want to come,” Gage whispers against my cheek. “I don’t want any of this to be focused on my orgasm. But I want to make you come.” His hand rubs the hard outline in my pants and my breath shudders out of me. “Can I?”
His hair tickles my temple and his caressing hand turns me into a pliable substance, ready to be manipulated and morphed into whatever he wants to turn me into. I’m clay, and this is a pottery class.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
And when I think he’s going to reach into my pants or drop to his knees, he puts his face right against mine instead. Foreheads together, hair mingling, breaths joining. His hand rubs and his lips tease, touching mine without kissing. And I realize that this is awareness and restraint for him. He’s taunting a kiss, not to tease me, but to tease himself. To learn what it means to be intimate with me, like trying before buying. And now I’m the one testing my restraint because I want to kiss him. The same way my hips are slightly lifting against his hand, I want to lean forward, press my mouth to his, and feel his tongue against mine. And that’s the mindfuck. That’s Gage Rossum. That’s why he’s my soulmate. Because he can rub my cock with enthusiasm but drive me wild with a non-kiss.
His fingers pull my waistband away, dipping into my pants to brush my cock lightly. “You have no fucking idea how badly I want to kiss you right now,” he says, voice abrasive and barely restrained. “But I don’t want you to doubt me. So when I do, when I finally kiss you, it won’t be because of sex or temptation. It’ll be because you know I can handle your intimacy. That you trust me to handle it.”
I’m so fucking gone for this guy it’s ridiculous. “You?—”
My words get cut off by a choke of surprise and delight when his fingers wrap around the length of me and his thumb swipes over the tip. The cool basement air hits my bare skin next. I tilt my forehead against his, watching his hand slide up and down the length of me languidly. I’m not even embarrassed by the swell of precum that flushes my tip and makes me shiny. I like the way I look in his hand. I like the way his hand looks wrapped around me. A fit that complements as much as contrasts. Perfect.
“Might get hot in that scarf,” is what Gage whispers against my ear before sinking to his knees and not even hesitating for a second to run his tongue up the underside of my dick, tonguing the V under the head.
The unstable stool rattles and I grip the edges of it.
He tugs my pants to just below my ass, and I’m delusional or unaware because I don’t even feel the cool metal of the stool against my bare skin. He’s making me sweat, and I’m already hot in the scarf, but on principle, I leave it on and let him burn me alive. I’m watching him with eager eyes, and I don’t really know if that’s socially acceptable behaviour during a blowjob, but I can’t stop, and Gage doesn’t seem put off by it. He looks at me, too. His eyes, deep and brown and sexy, are on mine, and when he grins slyly, I sink down the stool.
His lips wrap around me. I tremble. He lowers his mouth down the length of my cock. I pant. He pulls up and runs the tip of his tongue over the slit and circles it around the flushed head. I moan. Out loud.
It spurs Gage on and makes me aware of sounds. And now I’m getting my dick sucked to Ramin Djawadi’s epic score from Game of Thrones about a Lannister always paying his debts. The melancholic mood of the song doesn’t fit the sexy atmosphere, but I don’t think I’d change a thing about this moment because it’s all being written into my history as the first perfect hands-on sexual experience with my soulmate.
The stool is still shaking, and I know it’s from me. My legs are trembling and my hands are quaking. The whole vibe of this experience is explosive, and I love it.
When I slip down the stool a little more, my toes just hitting the floor, Gage steadies me with his hands on my hips. His smirk comes back before he lets his open lips run over the tip of my cock and down the side length. When he gets to the base, he buries his whole face against my balls, sucking them lightly into his mouth.
“Shrimp,” I blurt. “Fried meats. Old things becoming new again. Spiders. Web design.” My face is red and my scarf is killing me.
Gage laughs, making my balls pop out of his mouth. “You can try to avoid coming all you want, Alexei. The end result will still be the same.”
“I fucking know that,” I snip at him. “I’m trying to drag it out. At least until the song changes.” I don’t know if I should check in with him or not, but I don’t because I don’t want him to think it’s what I’m thinking about. “Jesus,” I groan when he sucks me back down.
The stool shakes so hard that Gage pulls me off of it. Still on his knees, he steers me to the side of it and presses my lower back to the workbench. “Grip,” he demands.
My hands hold the workbench, my tattooed knuckles turning white under pressure. I don’t feel any steadier on my feet, but it doesn’t matter because Gage is keeping me upright while threatening to bring me to my knees.
He sucks. He licks. He fucking looks up at me. He shows me desire in his eyes and comfort in his movements. He keeps a hand on the front of my hip to steady me, but the other wraps around the base of my cock, stroking in time with his mouth.
“Gage,” I call, unsure if I want him to hear the complete arousal in my voice or the utter desperation I’m trying to hold back.
He pulls his mouth away, fingers circling the head of my cock and gently pulsing. “I want it, Alexei. Give it to me.”
The song changes, giving me permission to come. Now Alexandre Desplat and the London Symphony Orchestra are aiding Gage in bringing me to liberation with melodies from The Imitation Game, and holy fuck. I’m gonna lose it.
I watch Gage. I watch him use his hands and mouth in perfect synchronization. I watch him keep his hands on me, preventing them from touching himself. I watch his sweatpants grow strained and his fedora fall to the floor, passing his sunset hoodie in a blur of orange and black. And I feel. I feel the constriction of his throat when he gags and the eagerness with which he consumes me. And I last the whole song, because as soon as The Hunger Game s’ whistle fills the room, I’m done for.
“Ah, fuck,” I pant out in choppy breaths. “Fuck. Gage.”
He pulls back slightly, my cock throbbing inside his mouth. The orgasm hits hard enough to make my eyes close, my fingers tighten on the bench, and my knees lock. When I look down at him, he’s looking up at me, drinking me down and enjoying it as if it were his own orgasm. My stomach clenches with the last spurt, and then I’m exhaling so hard I tremble even more.
“Oh my god,” I wheeze.
And then I just… fall. Straight down onto my ass. Gage tries to catch me, but my dick popping out of his mouth and my Bambi legs completely failing brings me down hard. He grabs me enough to pull me against him, my shoulder leaning against his chest.
“I’m useless right now,” I tell him, catching my breath. “I’m… you’re…”
“Yeah,” he agrees, kissing my hair and sinking down to his ass. I see him lick his lips, but I’m too afraid to look at them in case I kiss them. “Happy birthday, Alexei.”
It’s not my birthday anymore, and social protocol wants me to tell him that. Instead, I follow the former rules and thank him. His dick twitches under my forearm on his lap.
“Can… can I?” I ask.
“You can, but not right now. I… it seems stupid, but I want to prove to myself that I can refrain.”
“It’s not stupid,” I tell him, getting the energy to sit up and look at him. My dick’s just flopping outta my pants, not at all looking cute, so I tuck it back in and meet his eyes. “Uh, wow.”
“Speechless?” He laughs. “Wow is right.”
I smile wide because I can’t help it. “You know, I have a bed upstairs.”
“Shit, really?” he teases.
“Do you wanna sleep in it with me?”
Gage smiles, and my heart grows four sizes. “I’m not the best sleeper. But if you can handle that, I’d love to sleep in it with you.”
I snort. “I just ran three marathons, so I’m gonna be dead to the world in five minutes. Take me there.”