25. Gage
25
GAGE
A lexei isn’t a bottom. I don’t think. I tried to get a feel for it last night on the bathroom floor, and while he loves something small in his ass and against his prostate, I don’t think he’s a full-time bottom. How did I come to this conclusion?
I have no idea. A vibe. A sixth sense. I don’t usually trust my sixth sense, so I could be completely wrong, but my gut tells me he’s more of a top. At least vers.
Either way, I don’t care what he prefers. Last night was hot as fuck and I’m… just wowed by him.
Nathan points at all the coffee mugs on the island counter. “Got the soulmate cup, did you?”
“Yep!” I beam at him and then cover my mouth because Alexei is still sleeping. He was so tired after our bathroom shenanigans, but then he got a weird bout of energy while we were journalling, and it took him forever to fall asleep. He was angry about it. Blamed me. Said journalling gets his blood pumping and his energy buzzing. My fault. “But from you, I only accept coffee in this one.” I spin the alien mug and smile at him.
He looks relieved. “He takes soulmates very seriously.”
“Don’t worry. So do I.” I sit down and accept my medication from him. “Want me to find another sponsor? Does it weird you out that I’m sleeping with your?—”
“Ah!” he cuts in. “No, it doesn’t. Yes, it does to talk about it. I’m more than happy to be your sponsor, but if you want a new one, I understand. We can figure it out as we go. Feeling okay about everything?”
I tell him about Paul and the city. About how things are still a bit strained with the twins but getting better. About the absolute relief that Alexei wasn’t breaking up with me, and then about the amazing night we had together. I spared the sexy details, but I admitted that I love him and that I got in trouble for almost saying it under a full moon.
“And now?” Nathan asks. “What comes next?”
Isn’t that the question of my life? “And now… now I try to find a routine. A balance and a life that makes me happy. I gotta start living in this new world I’m trying to stay in, so… meetings and you. Natalie and sex therapy. Hobbies and getting back to my job. Maybe buying a car again and, I don’t know, dating Alexei. I’m trying to keep it simple while also letting myself be hopeful for a manageable life. A happy one.”
One where I love a neurotic rambler but love myself, too. Because it’s been a long-ass time since I loved myself.
Nathan slides my alien mug across the island and sits down with me. “Why are you already wearing shoes? You sleep in those things?”
I look down at my slip-ons. Black and blue checkered. The ones I got for my date with Alexei because he somehow makes black and blue something more than colours. I stole them back from him. “It’s an ADHD thing. Shoes on means productivity. Shoes off means… ADHD paralysis and the inability to get anything done.” I shrug. “Learned lots of tricks over the years.” Elbows on the counter, I study Nathan. “After eight years, you still go to meetings this frequently? I’m just trying to understand what I’m in for.”
“Yes and no,” he says. “For the past few years, I’ve maybe gone once every few months. Mostly because I’m friends with Carla and it makes her feel better to see me show up sometimes. But when Kristen called about you, I figured a meeting was a good place to bump into you, and now I go for you.”
I frown.
“It’s no burden, I promise. It’s good to touch base with your sobriety, even if you think you’re doing well and don’t need it anymore. Maybe someday you’ll be a sponsor and you’ll get it.”
I huff into my mug. “I’m a long way from that.”
“You’re over a year sober, Gage.”
“Yeah, but that first year was spent in a facility that helped me stay sober. I’m only a few months sober in the real world and I’ve already almost fucked up more than once. Does it get easier?”
He nods. “It does. When life starts getting great, and you have all these things you never knew you could have, the pull of the high isn’t as tempting because you’re already high on the happiness of what you have. So, life being good is step one to recovery. Gotta enjoy it so you aren’t trying to numb it.”
Must be triply as hard for people who don’t come from or have good lives. That’s a reality check I need. I have good things in my life that some recovering people don’t.
I know addictions happen because of a whole slew of reasons, but numbing and covering feelings were my reasons. It started with ADHD and that calm feeling, and then it became an adrenaline chase, but throughout it all, I just needed to shut my real self off so that high me could shine. I think I’ve always disliked myself, and now that I’m thinking about it, I have no idea why. But I self-loathed enough to mask myself in drugs and completely cover my real personality. I think I need more therapy.
“I think you’re right about routine, though,” he says. “You work for yourself, which means you cram a bunch of work into a few hours and then do nothing. You need set hours or something. Or events. Schedules. Something to break up your day into compartments that feel more manageable than all this open space.”
I’ve been thinking that exact same thing over the past two weeks, so shyly, and with so much hesitation it’s ridiculous, I put my phone on the counter, pull up the ad, and spin it so he can look. I’m so embarrassed about it that I get up for a refill even though my coffee is three-quarters full. I haven’t even shown Alexei yet.
“You applied at the coffeehouse? As what, a barista?”
I get defensive for no reason. “I love coffee, Nathan! Why shouldn’t I make it? Don’t judge me because it’s minimum wage and I’m that big of a loser.”
“My god,” he scoffs at me. “You always this touchy?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a good idea. I like it. And Alex won’t go there because he doesn’t like their tea, so it gives you a bit of separation from him, too.” He flicks my phone back to me. “It’s a good idea.”
I ramble. “It’s only four-hour shifts three days a week, but it might be nice, you know? Like, I love coffee, so being around it might be rewarding, but it also might make me sick of it, and that’s nice to balance my coffee addiction out, even though that method does not apply to drugs. Anyway, the people who work there aren’t people I knew from before, so it’s like a good way to meet new people without the ‘hey, you’re that junkie guy who almost died a bunch of times, right?’ type conversations. And it… that place reminds me of you.” Because that’s where I told him my story after the very first meeting.
He snorts. “That’s a good thing?”
“Yeah. Because you saved me. I was determined, but I was also unsure. I have no idea where I would have walked after that meeting if you didn’t ambush me for a coffee.” I grin at him. “So, thanks for taking me there.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says dismissively, unfamiliar with gratitude. Alexei never really gave it to him, so I will. “What’re you doing today?”
Topic change. Got it. “I have a therapy appointment with Natalie this afternoon, but until then, I’m debating slinking around in the room that’s supposed to be a library, but you filled it full of tools because you disrespect books. I want to clean off those built-in shelves and see what we can do with them. I’m picturing a rolling ladder.”
His brow quirks. “You're designing my house now?”
Shit. Forgot I don’t have that right. “Um… can I put in a rolling ladder?”
He smiles, and it’s different from his usual smile. He’s happy about something, but I’m not sure what. “Clean it out and we’ll see what we can do.”
After kissing Alexei awake and bringing him herbal tea in bed, I start my walk home feeling like a new man. A soulmate. A person.
The sun is up and the birds are happy, and I can’t stop smiling because everything is getting better. I’m getting better. I’m looking forward to the day instead of dreading it, trusting myself instead of doubting myself, and more hopeful than I am daunted, so that has to mean something. It has to be a good feeling I can live in for at least a little while.
“What the heck, Frankie?!” I stop at the For Sale sign on the front lawn of the sex shop owners. “You’re moving?” I gawk at her just as her husband comes down the porch steps with a million things in his arms.
“Just across town,” she says, slamming the trunk and accidentally making her husband try to open it again with his arms full. “Bit of a last-minute decision, but when that house on Robin came up, we fell in love.”
“Oh, okay, so you’ll still come for Portuguese cookout nights?”
“Damn right. Your mom got me hooked on those custard tarts, and Benedita won’t tolerate no-shows. She’ll come drag us over if we don’t come on our own.” Frankie smiles at me. “You look happy, sweetie.”
People notice those things? She can tell? Have I looked unhappy up until now? “Yeah, I think I am happy.” I hook my thumb back toward the falling-down mansion. “Icy blue hair, snippy attitude, bit of an awkward duck. Ringing any bells? Has something to do with him.”
Her smile is gorgeous and her husband’s matches it. I barely know these people, and I slunk home as a junkie to live with my mom, and they know it, but they still like me. I’m a person. “Well, you two are adorable. Stop by the shop sometime. We’ve got a great friends and family discount.” She winks.
And since I’m feeling this incredible high of being content and happy, I skip the rest of the way home, grab the keys to the van and Slash under my arm, and look at my mom.
“Working today?”
“Off, hun. What’s up?”
“Wanna face some of our past together and put it behind us?”
She smiles, grabs a box of a hundred cookies, and races me out the door.
The back hatch of the van is open, propped up with a hockey stick, and our asses are weighing down the back end. Our feet swing, and the box of cookies is open between us. Slash is snoozing in the front seat, the captain of our ship.
My childhood home sits a hundred feet away, and I hope the new owners aren’t home because we are creeping on it hard.
“What’s it like?” I ask Mom. “To be the parent of an addict?” I munch.
“It’s terrifying,” she says. “And there are phases to it.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, at first, it’s just disappointment and anger. A lot of worry. When you find out your kid is doing drugs, it’s such a letdown. Like you tried so hard to raise them right and give them a good life, but they still turned to drugs. But that’s before you even know they’re addicted. At this point, you just think they’re experimenting, so you still hold onto some hope.”
“I’m sorry.”
She smacks me and grabs another cookie, staring at our old house. “And then it’s worse worry. Worry about everything. Where you are, what you’re doing, who you’re spending time with, if you’re dead somewhere. But also worry that I didn’t do a good enough job. That I was a lousy parent and didn’t give you what you needed to survive.”
“You did,” I promise her. “Always. Everything I ever needed. I’m the fuckup, not you.”
She smiles hesitantly. “Every time I heard sirens, I’d worry. Every time you didn’t come home and I had no idea where you were, I worried. I sat up, watching out the front window so many times, waiting to see if you were still alive enough to stumble home. And as much as it was so disappointing to get a call from another parent or a store owner about what you’d done, it was a relief, too. Because I’d get to go pick you up from the police station and know you were alive.”
Fucking hell, that’s bleak. I’m such a shit person.
“And then the fighting started. I tried to control you, make you better, get you cleaned up, but you didn’t want that, and I wasn’t the right person for the job. And it takes a long time to realize that I’m a mother, not a counsellor, and I can’t force myself to be the right person for that job. So we fought, and the fighting was so exhausting, but not near as exhausting as the worry. And I was stuck in this weird place because I knew that if I pushed you to get better, you’d leave home. So I didn’t want to push too hard, but I also didn’t trust you around the boys. They were so young, and you were reckless and dangerous.”
Oh god. My eyes water, so I eat another cookie to aid in swallowing my guilt.
“And then it happened. You flew off the handle, hated me for trying to help you, and left.”
“I never hated you. I promise. I was just so messed up that I didn’t want you to control me, but mostly, I just felt so ashamed and didn’t want you to see me like that.”
“I know, hun.” She smiles at me. “And even when you were gone, I worried. And I drank up every little detail I could get from people. Someone saw you in the city. Someone heard you were back to visit a friend. You texted Owen and the twins, called them on their birthdays, kept in touch with them, and I lived for those little bits of information. Loved it even more when you called me.”
I look at my hands, hating myself. I cut my mom out for three years. I saw her on very rare occasions, but I didn’t talk to her much, and that’s on me. Not her.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“At least you came home once since you moved out,” she says, trying to laugh it off.
But it’s not funny because it was a horrible night. I knew I was beyond fucked up, but I managed to get home somehow. Don’t even know how. But I went to my mom’s house and overdosed in her bathroom. Again. The bathroom in this house we’re both staring at. After rehab that time, I moved to the city for good and met Paul.
“Paul called me, or he was open to me calling him,” Mom says. “He gave me updates, even though I never really liked him. Something off about that one.”
“Yeah,” I snort. Didn’t see it at the time, but I see it now.
“And then you were okay for a bit. Still using, still struggling, but you started visiting and coming home and getting to know your brothers again. And it hurt so bad to see you like that, but it felt so good to have you around. Then I got conflicted again. Because the twins were getting older and I was afraid you’d try to… I don’t know, encourage them. I know better now, Gage. I know you wouldn’t have.”
I’m breaking apart at the recap from my mom’s perspective, but I need to hear it. I need to hear how I made the people who love me the most feel. Healing hurts, and that’s what I’m trying to do.
“Then we moved into the new house as a fresh start, and about that time, I was also in contact with your sponsor,” Mom says.
“Kristen?”
She nods. “Yeah, you put me down as your emergency contact, and she called me one night when you were staying at her place, trying to get away from Paul.”
Holy shit. I completely forgot about that. Paul had been trying to get me to go to some club with his work friends, and I was mostly sober at the time, sort of, and I ran to Kristen’s house and spent a few days there.
“So we kept in contact. You called a lot at that point, and our relationship was mending, but I knew you were still lying to me, so I talked to Kristen to get the real information. She didn’t shield me from it. Then you stole a coffee, got better, and I’ve never been happier to have you home. I love having you here, like this, happy but hurting, healing and recovering and doing so well.” She squeezes my hand.
“I’m so sorry for what I put you through, Mom. Holy fuck, I’m sorry. Like… I put you through hell for so long.”
She laughs. “Oh, I think hell will be a cakewalk compared to what you put me through,” she jokes. “But now I know it’s all been worth it for these moments right here.”