26. Alexei
26
ALEXEI
I took Gage to the restoration shop, and now I’m vibrating with excitement and rambling about making old things new again, and he’s saying that my driving is amazing and not at all timid anymore, and we’re having two conversations at the same time, and I love it. Everything about it. That he can keep multiple conversations running effortlessly. That we’re together. That he’s interested in my newfound love for old things. That he’s smiling and healthy-ish and happy-ish. That he’s mine and he believes in soulmates now.
“Gage?” I say, pausing all running conversations. My hands sit loosely on the steering wheel, and my back is comfortable because my car has excellent lumbar support and heated seats.
“Alexei?” He looks at me with a genuine smile on his face. Because I think he’s happy to be around me, and he’s still feeling the good vibes from his interview at the coffee shop this morning.
“I think now is a good time to talk about our living situation,” I tell him.
He snorts. “Oh? I’m not allowed to tell you how I feel about you yet, but we can talk about living together?”
“That’s a ways away. You need to live with your family for a bit longer. I’m more interested in the town. Are you staying in Port Baylon? Do you have plans to go back to the city? Are you leaving? Because I can’t leave my dad. Actually, I can, but I don’t want to, but I don’t want you to leave either. But I understand if you want to get out of the town you came back to face. Even though it will break me. But… what’s up with your plans? Tell me so I can stop overthinking it all.”
He’s fiddling with a pack of cigarettes, but he won’t light one in my car. He looks out the front window at the big city surrounding us. “Why do you wanna stay near your dad?” he asks instead of answering me.
“Because I lived through a lot of shitty years with him, and now I get the good years. I want to be here for them.”
He smiles at the windshield. “That’s how I feel about being near my family. They lived through a lot of shitty years with me, and now I get to have the good years. I want to stay. I like living in town again.” He slides his hand over, massaging my thigh. “I mean, it seems like a great town to have our soulmateship in, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed,” I agree, so fucking happy it isn’t even funny. I try so hard to hide my smile that my facial expression must be weird because Gage laughs at me. “What?” I bark.
“So conflicted, complicated,” he teases. “You’re allowed to look happy.”
“I’m trying to appear cool and collected. I told you that I’m very aware of how I react to things, and this is me trying to pretend I still have some control over how you make me feel.” I glance at him. “Is it working?”
“Not even a little bit.” He squeezes my thigh, hand running a bit too high. “You’re not a bottom, are you?”
The question takes me off guard and my hand slips down the steering wheel. “What? What makes you say that?” I turn onto the road that leads out of the city, the traffic finally ebbing.
“Just a hunch,” he says. “Gonna answer me?”
“I thought you liked the mystery of not knowing?”
“I do.” He nods. “But after all these appointments with Natalie and getting a real hang for my journal and how I feel when I’m turned on, I’m ready to fucking fuck.”
“Fucking fuck,” I repeat, breathless.
“And maybe it’ll be hot to just go into it with no idea what’s going to happen. Whose cock will go where. Like a total ‘acting on instinct’ experience.”
“Like a test to see how well we can read each other?” I ask. Because I love tests, and I like to think I can read Gage really well. I already know what positions we’ll take.
“Yeah, sure. To test our instincts about each other.” He rubs my leg. “And no matter which way it goes, I just fucking want you, Alexei. I don’t even care if we don’t fuck right away. I wanna touch you and have you. Taste you and be with you. God, that night in the bathroom?” He groans low in his throat and adjusts himself. “So hot.”
It was hot, and I apparently love nipple play. “So, you don’t even care if we have sex?”
“We’ve had sex. Just not penetrative sex. And yes, I do care, and I want it really bad, but… this slow getting-to-know-each-other phase has been amazing. I’ve never had it with anyone before and it feels special. Is that lame?”
“No, it’s goddamn romantic. Penetration is just one… thing. There’s no rush.”
He smiles, leaning over to plant a kiss on my jaw. “Thank you for going slow with me, Alexei.”
Slow is my jam, even though I basically fell for him when I had a hard time hating him through breakfast. Guess I’m more of an instant-lust but long-drawn-out romance type. I’m glad we’ve been going slow. I’m glad I’ve been invited to some of his therapy appointments. I’m glad I got to hear about the causes of sexual addictions and where some of them stem from.
Natalie mentioned that a whopping eighty percent of sex-addicted people are also survivors of sexual abuse, and my eyes had snapped to Gage at that point. I mean, I didn’t expect him to tell me, but he did. He said no. He said nothing like that had happened to him that he is aware of, but he can’t even remember all the times he’s had sex.
So Natalie said he fell into a different category. The one that means he had a lot of sex to cope with depression, negative feelings, and shame. That he had a lot of sex in order to feel something through his haze. Something good, but even just something at all. That it was fuelled and mostly propelled by drug use, especially drugs that increased his sex drive, and that he should be proud of how far he has come. He’s not compulsive anymore. He’s not covering all his feelings with drugs and sex. He’s managing, coping, and processing years of numbness, and he’s doing amazing at it. And we know what behaviour to watch for if he ever regresses. He’s mindful, and respectful, and taking himself seriously.
So, because of all that, I also love that we’ve been going slow. Slow is safe, but it’s also sexy. And I know that when Gage feels one hundred percent ready, we’ll get there. I will wait forever and enjoy every moment leading up to it.
To simplify Gage is impossible, but he’s given me a newfound respect for how minds work.
Gage has a neurodivergent mind, so he spent a lot of his childhood and early teen years feeling out of sorts and overwhelmed. Doing cocaine calmed him down, and he self-medicated to repeat that feeling. Self-medicating turned into drug abuse, and by the time he was addicted, he had no idea how to process himself or his feelings, which led to chasing good feelings through sex and continually numbing bad feelings through drugs. He got caught in a cycle that never had a happy point, so he kept searching and failing. I can’t even fathom how hard that must have been for him.
My favourite thing he says now is that he feels settled. Whenever he says it, oh my god, I swoon. Because I’m so happy for him. It must be such an incredible feeling to feel settled when his whole life has been unsettled.
As an added bonus, being with Gage has given me a whole new understanding of my dad. He was an addict for a different reason than Gage, but the outcome of addiction was the same. I resented him from such a young age that I didn’t fully understand his struggles, and now that I’m looking at it from a new vantage point, our father-son relationship has done a lot of mending. I’m going to give him the new mug soon.
“Any other parts of your past you wanna face today?” I ask him when we’re getting close to Port Baylon. As much as I wanna head home and get to work on old things, I’m content to wait and spend more time with Gage.
“Actually, remember that guy we ran into outside the diner?”
“Yeah.”
“Wanna pop over to his place with me?” he asks, looking at me, hand still on my thigh. “He roundabout expressed an interest in getting sober, and his wife, Becky, is pregnant. She’s also a drug user and a heavy drinker. So… I dunno. Maybe we could just check in on them?”
The overprotective part of me wants to keep Gage away from situations that might be hard for him, but the boyfriend in me wants to support him and his progress. Gage is strong. He can handle it. And he’s smart enough to ask me to go with him so he has a buffer. I know Brian didn’t like me when he met me outside the diner, but maybe he won’t care now that he has at least a small spark of interest in getting some support.
“Sure. Just us? My dad will probably come if we call him.”
Gage squeezes my thigh. “Let’s tell him we’re going, just so he knows. Then he can kinda be on standby if we need some help.”
There’s that sexy self-awareness again. So goddamn swoony.
After knocking on the door for a solid fifteen minutes, Brian finally pulls it open. He squints at the daylight, shields his eyes, and shakes from head to toe. There are purple circles around his sunken eyes, and I swear he’s lost half his weight since the last time I saw him, which isn’t much to begin with. The amount of sweat coating him sends me right back to my childhood and my dad’s sweaty, spasming body on the bathroom floor. He stinks. The house stinks, wafting to us through the open front door.
“Oh, uh, we aren’t really… we’re sick.”
I’m about to yell at him for trying to attempt this level of detox all on his own, but I clamp my lips and squeeze Gage’s hand instead.
“You need help,” Gage says, taking charge. “You can’t do this alone. You need medical assistance, Brian.” He pushes his way inside, dragging me with him.
“I can’t afford help!” Brian shouts, but his voice is weak and strained. And it’s a poor excuse because there’s always money for drugs but never for therapy.
Don’t judge, Alexei.
“I can,” Gage tells him. “Where’s Becky?”
“Please, don’t go in there. She doesn’t want to be seen like that. Not by you.”
“I’ve been like that eight times, Brian,” Gage says, trying to reason with him. “She’s pregnant, man. She needs help.”
“I’m helping her.”
“You’re in no state to help her. You need help, too.”
Brian holds onto the back of the couch for balance, looking like he’s going to sway right over. He looks at me, trying to remember where he’s seen me before. When he notices Gage holding my hand, I brace for a few opinionated comments, but they never come.
“You can check on her. You seem… like you know what you’re doing,” Brian says to me.
I’m flattered because I do know what I’m doing, but I’m not comfortable leaving Gage alone yet. “Are there drugs in this house?”
“Uh, not in the house, no.”
I look at Gage. He smiles at me. “I’m feeling good, Alexei. Leave the door open and I’ll make sure you can see me.”
I trust him. I drop his hand and walk over to where Brian is pointing. I wedge the door open to a bedroom off the living room and cringe at the smell. Sweat, vomit, more sweat, just general musk and dirtiness, and unwashed sheets.
“Becky?” I call.
She cries from the other side of the bed. With one more glance at Gage, I leave the door open and walk around to where she’s curled into the fetal position on the floor. The curtains are closed, but they aren’t blackout ones, so there’s still enough light to see her clearly.
And holy hell, does it ever bring more flashbacks of my mom and dad when I was a kid.
“Hi, Becky. I’m Alexei.” I’ve never even met her before. I’ve seen her around town, but we don’t know each other at all. “I’m here with Gage. Tell me what you need.” I crouch down next to her, and when I reach out to brush her stringy hair off her face, she latches onto my wrist so hard I wince.
“Coke,” she says. “Meth. Anything. Just… something to make this stop!”
She’s wet her pants, and if the stain on her butt is anything to go by, she’s shit herself a bit, too. She’s in full-on withdrawal, and nothing about what she’s going through right now will be pleasant. Sickness, sweats, chills, a gnawing clench in every part of her body, mental stress, physical weakness, hallucinations, and a desire to just die... all while she’s pregnant. Absolutely horrific for her.
“How long since you last used?” I ask, taking her other hand and trying to get her into a sitting position. She slouches, crumpled in half from pain, but she manages.
She’s sobbing, an emotional wreck, but I’m already proud of her. “Don’t know. Days,” she chatters. “Don’t make me go to a hospital. They’ll take the baby.” Her bloodshot eyes meet mine. “Please. Help me.”
I’m going to help her, but not with coke or meth. “I will.” I sit down next to her. “Gage? Can I call my dad?”
Brian says no, but Gage says yes. Eventually, he talks Brian into allowing it. I press my phone to my ear and listen to it ring, knowing my dad will come because he’s reliable. Holy shit, he’s so fucking reliable.
“Alex?” he answers.
“Still have that number for the home-visit doctor?” I ask.
“Yeah. What’s happening? Are you okay? Gage?”
“Two of Gage’s friends are going through some terrible detoxes, and they need help. One of them is pregnant and afraid to go to the hospital.”
Dad doesn’t say anything for a while, but I can hear him breathing. Becky is breathing louder, still crying next to me, latching onto my wrist like I’m single-handedly keeping her alive. I’m not. She’s doing that all on her own, and I know it doesn’t feel like it for her yet, but that’s already something incredible to be proud of.
“Found it,” Dad says. “I’ll call him now and come over. See when he can come. Uh, he’s not cheap.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I say. Because I already know Gage is going to pay for this. This is his chance to help someone like he’s been helped, and he isn’t going to pass it up. There’s no point in reminding him that there’s a good chance Becky and Brian might relapse because Gage will find it worthwhile anyway. He relapsed eight times and never gave up on himself, so he’s not going to give up on them either. Not until they tell him to.
“Help is coming,” I tell Becky. “Someone who will make this a bit easier for you. It’s still going to be hard, though.”
She looks at me, rubbing small circles on her crunched-up belly. “I know,” is all she says.
I look at Gage through the open door. Instead of looking tempted or unsure, he looks at me with confidence. This is a reality check for him. He never again wants to look like Becky and Brian do right now. Because this has been him, and he’s stronger for it.
God, I love him.