29. Gage
29
GAGE
A fter a lengthy video appointment with Natalie about our first attempt at sex, I feel better about how it all went down. Especially because she made me admit that if Alexei hadn’t stopped and switched gears, I would have let it continue, even if I felt uncomfortable the whole time. She says it’s the sign of a great partner, and that it should make me feel very comfortable to express myself from now on. If Alexei can take me seriously, I should be able to take myself seriously, too. Progress isn’t linear, and I need to remember that. It’s okay! I’m okay. We’re okay. So, I’m moving on to work on the library.
I don’t know why I want to bring the former glory of this library back to life. I’m not even a book guy, but this room and all its shelves and windows have been calling to me since I first got the full tour of the mansion. The Beast gives Belle a library, and maybe I’m feeling a little beasty, and Alexei is a little beauty, and it’ll make me feel more loveable if I bring this place back to life. Alexei will tell me I don’t need to build a library to be loveable, so I’ll just do it with my own secret intentions.
I smile at the cleared and dusted shelves, hands on my hips, to admire the effort it took to clean this room out. When I look around, I see parts of me. Like, I don’t even live here and have barely done anything to the space, but I see myself in the shelves and the gleaming windows. I see myself sitting in here, getting work done on my iPad, inspired by the room it will become, with a rolling ladder and everything.
“Told you,” Alexei says, making me jump when he walks in like a ghost.
I place my hand on my thwacking heart. “God, complicated! I was perving on this room in peace. I didn’t know you were perving on me.” I smile at him, and I love how his septum piercing scrunches when he smiles back. “What’d you tell me?”
“That fixing up old mansions is a good hobby. You’re getting invested. I can tell.” He looks around, judging my cleaning job. “Okay, hear me out. What if I restored that ancient old coffee table tucked away in the basement? It’d look awesome here with a nice rug and some reading chairs. Tell me I’m right.”
He is right. About all of it. About the coffee table and chairs and about me getting invested in the house. I’m going to have to get a little less invested in it because it’s not mine and it’s going to hurt to leave this place someday. “I’ll help you dig it out tonight.” I grab his hand, palms together without our fingers linked. “Tomorrow is Sunday,” I remind him.
“Our day,” he says, looking at me with his warm, icy blue eyes. “Are you being dubious again?”
One year, four months, and one week sober. Yes, I’m dubious because that’s a big fucking deal! I think I'm in a mental state to celebrate it now, but I kind of like his idea to measure progress in projects instead of time. So, this library will be a good project to measure by, but mostly, Sundays are a good goal. Every time I make it to a Sunday, our day, I get to celebrate the day we allotted just for each other.
“Only a little dubious because I want to do something special for you.”
“Yes,” he says, not needing to hear more detail. “Do that. Because I’m special.”
I laugh. “Eat fried meats special?”
“Too special for that.”
I want to tell him I love him. I checked, and it’s not a full moon, so the lunar calendar says it’s allowed. Now I need to pick a more romantic place because Alexei told me the street isn’t romantic enough. And although I know we’ll be tempting our ruin on the former Lord’s Day with all sorts of sexiness as we build to my comfort levels, I don’t want to blurt it while he’s turning me needy with arousal. No. My love confession has to come at the most perfect moment, just like our first kiss—one befitting a pair of soulmates who finally found each other.
When he blinks at me to draw attention to his eyes, I pretend not to notice he’s wearing the mascara he’s blatantly trying to make obvious. “You look nice today,” I tell him instead.
“I know. What about me looks nice?”
“Hmm.” I sweep my eyes over his body. “The blues with your blacks, for sure.”
“That all?” he asks, flattered and pissed off at once.
“Your hair looks sexy. I love it when you redo it. So, do you have to bleach it and then add the tint?”
“Yes,” he snips. “What else?”
I lick his septum piercing. “This is my favourite one. The black one.”
Alexei narrows his eyes at me, caught between enjoying the compliments and being frustrated that I haven’t mentioned his lashes. “I’m very detail-oriented, Gage. I thought you were, too. I’m so let down right now.” He purses his lips and presses them to mine, angrily non-kissing me before he spins to leave the library.
“Hey, complicated?”
He stops but doesn’t turn around.
“Fucking love the mascara. Love you without it, too.”
He won’t look at me, but I know he’s glaring at the wall. And blushing. And trying not to smile. “Go work on your sticker packs, Gage. And don’t bother me in my workshop.”
“Oh? So you get to do your hobby but I’m not allowed to? I have to work?”
“Yes.”
Hypocrite. I almost shout that I love him as he walks out, but I bite the words back and return to planning my big love confession. A more romantic setting, eh? Hmmm…
Midnight tea comes with awkwardness and feelings tonight. Earl Grey because it’s our favourite, and ain’t nobody wanna be grumpy about Oolong when we’re trying to have a hard conversation.
“We’re sorry,” Nick says for the tenth time. “If we’d known you were going to come home that night…”
I shake my head at him, my eyes wet. “If I wasn’t who I am, you wouldn’t be feeling so guilty right now. It’s on me.”
“No, the heck it isn’t, hun,” Mom butts in, coming to sit at the table with the sixth teapot because we go through this shit like it’s holy water. “Drugs are not allowed in my house. You all know that. So, respect it.” She looks at the four of us sternly, even though she doesn’t have the best stern face. It’s more… suspiciously troubled. “That’s not to say I want you out there experimenting with drugs in an unsafe place, but please, boys. Haven’t we lived through this enough?”
My heart sinks, but I know she has every right to say that. “I’m sorry.”
“Let’s stop being sorry!” Mom shouts, tilting her tea enough to spill it. “Let’s just do better.”
Cole is usually the loudmouth, but he’s barely said anything tonight. He’s apologized, but mostly, he’s drinking tea in silence and listening to everything we’re saying. “Cole? You okay?”
“No,” he admits, looking at the wooden grain of the kitchen table. “Because I get it.”
“Get what?” Owen asks.
“Addiction. I get why you’d wanna chase that feeling.”
Fucking… fuck. I respect that he gets it, but I’m worried that he gets it. I hope it scared him into avoiding drugs, but if he’s anything like me, the fear won’t register over the complete desire to feel that again.
“I never really got it before,” Cole goes on. “Why you’d throw your whole life away for nothing but a high. Because half the time when I saw you, it didn’t look fun, so it never made sense to me.”
“It’s not fun. Not after the initial fun phase,” I admit. “After that, you just get stuck in a loop of never being able to replicate that feeling. It’s bullshit, Cole. Don’t be like me. Honestly, it’s a life of feeling sick and panicked and sweaty and out of control. It’s not fun, and it’s damn near impossible to kick the habit.”
“But you did,” Owen says. “And it was hell for you.”
I nod because it certainly is hell. Not just the detoxes, but all of it. The incessant need to get more, the fear and panic of getting caught, the worry that I wouldn’t be able to find what I needed, and the guilt and shame of being such a letdown.
“What’re you thinking, honey?” Mom asks Cole. “Safe space.”
Nick nudges Cole with his shoulder to be supportive, and Cole clears his throat. “I wanna be like you,” he tells me, looking right at me. “This you. Not the druggie you. Help me.”
I reach across the table and take his hand. “Always. Trust me, man, I get the hype of experimenting. And for most people, they can do just that. Experiment and never have anything bad come from it. But some of us just aren’t cut out for that, and I wish I knew that beforehand. I still would have done it because I didn’t grow up watching it ruin someone’s life, but you did. So I’m here to remind you how fucking pathetic I’ve been.”
“Not pathetic,” Mom says. “Just off track. We’re all here. For each other.”
When the eighth teapot comes around and someone is always peeing, we’re laughing about it and talking about hobbies and other ways to feel good. We’re talking about therapy and quilting and the forge.
“Okay, it’s settled.” Mom stands, holding her bladder. “We’re doing a family forging night. I’m signing you all up.”
“Sign Alexei up, too.” I smile.
Climbing up to my attic room, I don’t even try to sleep because I know I’ll have to pee again soon. Instead, I run my hands over the perfect piece of wood. The one I’m going to burn Alexei’s workshop sign on. I’ve practiced on other pieces of wood, but this one is the winner, and I’m nervous about making the first mark on it. I have a very romantic plan for this particular piece of wood, and I’m grinning about it in the privacy of my room. I’ve also been quilting something for Alexei, and I know he’s going to love it simply because I made it.
I’ve had some big realizations over the past few months. Like what it means to be a person, how strong I actually am, and how happiness is happier when it’s something I can appreciate with a clear mind. I’ve learned other ways to balance my ADHD, that it’s not pathetic to go to meetings with Nathan, even if I’m just using them as a social event some nights, and that friendships come in all shapes and sizes. I love the ladies from quilting night, and Benedita, my Portuguese neighbour who is so much more than Portuguese, is going to teach me to make those custard tarts so I can surprise Mom. Since being home, I’ve realized that she and her husband are more of a support network for my mom. They give her a sense of community and familial love, helping out with the twins, keeping an eye on them while Mom is at work, and sharing yard tasks that are sometimes too much for my mom. They’re family, and I’m learning that I not only have an awesome immediate family, but an incredible extended one, too.
I have things to look forward to and live for. I have a fucking soulmate! Like, how cool is that? The old me would have never taken the time to get to know Alexei, and that’s such a shame because his personality is so epic. Druggie me would have been confused by him, not had the patience to learn or tolerate his judgements, and pushed him aside as someone not worth the effort of my one-track mind. Getting to know him has been one of the biggest perks of my sobriety. Because he’s not boring, and he’s not like anyone else, and it feels like such a monumental gift to actually know him.
God, I’m so in love.
I’m gonna ask Natalie if that’s an impulsive choice, but… I don’t think it is. It feels real and right. Like it’s not a choice, just a fact.
Alexei is my person.