15. Gage
Gage
P ain was the first thing I registered when consciousness dragged me out of sleep. Sharp, insistent pain radiating from my shoulder down through my ribs, settling into a familiar ache in my leg that I hadn't felt since those first brutal days in the hospital.
I tried to roll over and immediately regretted it. The movement sent fire shooting through my collarbone, and my leg responded with the kind of deep, throbbing protest that meant swelling had returned with a vengeance.
"Fuck," I breathed into my pillow, the word muffled but emphatic.
Two days. It had been two days since my breakdown at the house, since I'd attacked that wall like it was every mistake I'd ever made and every piece of guilt I'd carried for eleven years.
Two days since Billie had found me crying in the ruins of what used to be a kitchen, since I'd finally said the words I should have said the moment I came home.
Since she'd held my hand while I fell apart and asked if we could try being friends again.
I'd thought the physical pain was worth it for the emotional breakthrough. Now, lying in bed at seven in the morning and barely able to move without wincing, I was starting to question that logic.
The cottage was quiet around me, just the sound of birds outside the window and the distant activity of the ranch starting its day.
Booker and Reece would be up, probably dealing with morning chores and breakfast routines.
Normal people doing normal things while I lay here like an invalid again, brought down by my own stupidity.
I managed to sit up on the edge of the bed, taking inventory of the damage.
My left leg was noticeably more swollen than it had been in weeks.
The cast felt tight, uncomfortable in a way that meant fluid retention and inflammation just like Billie had warned me.
My shoulder was locked up, range of motion reduced to what felt like half of what I'd achieved over the past month of therapy.
Therapy with Billie. Whose hands had been so gentle when she'd worked through the knots in my back, whose voice had been so encouraging when I'd managed another few degrees of movement.
Who was going to take one look at me today and know I'd undone weeks of careful progress in a few hours of emotional demolition.
The thought of disappointing her was worse than the physical pain.
I made it to the kitchen through sheer determination and spite, but by the time I'd managed to get coffee brewing, I was sweating from the effort. Standing at the counter, gripping the edge to keep steady, I had to admit the truth I'd been avoiding.
I'd fucked up. Badly.
The sound of voices outside interrupted my self-recrimination—Booker's low rumble and Reece's lighter tone, the easy back-and-forth of two people who'd learned to navigate life together.
I could hear Val barking in the distance, probably chasing something in the pasture, and the familiar sounds of ranch morning routines.
A knock at the door made me turn too quickly, and I nearly lost my balance, catching myself on the counter with a grunt of pain.
"Gage?" Booker's voice carried through the door. "You awake?"
"Yeah, come in."
He stepped inside and took one look at me leaning heavily on the kitchen counter and his expression shifted from casual concern to focused assessment.
In moments like this, I remembered that Booker had spent years trying to stop his brothers from hurting themselves too badly when we were kids.
He knew what we looked like when we'd fucked up and were hurting from it.
"How bad?" he asked simply.
"Bad enough that I feel like an idiot."
Reece appeared in the doorway behind him, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her hands dusty from whatever morning chores she'd been handling. She took one look at me and moved immediately to the refrigerator, pulling out ice packs like she'd been expecting this conversation.
"Scale of one to ten?" Booker asked, moving into the kitchen with the easy confidence of someone who'd dealt with crises before.
"Seven. Maybe eight."
His jaw tightened, and I caught the look that passed between him and Reece.
It was the kind of wordless communication that came from really knowing someone, from being partners in more than just the romantic sense.
"That's up from what? A three a few days ago?" Booker said.
"More like a two."
"Jesus, Gage." He ran a hand through his hair, and I could see him fighting the urge to lecture me about overdoing it. "What were you thinking?"
Reece moved to the counter beside me, wrapping one of the ice packs in a kitchen towel. "Here," she said quietly, her voice gentle but practical. "For your shoulder. And don't say you don't need it. I can see the swelling from here."
I accepted the ice pack gratefully, the cold immediately providing some relief from the heated throbbing currently radiating through the joint. "I wasn't thinking. That's the problem. I was feeling instead of thinking, and my body's making me pay for it now."
Booker poured three cups of coffee while Reece prepared another ice pack for my leg, the two of them moving around each other in the kitchen with the kind of unconscious synchronization that spoke of deep intimacy and shared daily routines.
I watched them work together. Booker automatically making Reece's coffee the way she liked it, Reece adjusting the height of the chair she brought over for me without being asked.
It made something twist in my chest that was part longing, part envy, part desperate hope.
This was what love looked like when it had time to develop, when two people chose each other every day and built a life together from shared decisions and mutual care. This was what I'd thought Billie and I might have someday, back when we were teenagers and believed in forever.
This was what I wanted with her now, if I could ever get past my own fear and self-sabotage long enough to deserve it.
"Want to talk about what happened at the house?" Booker asked, settling into the chair across the table from me while Reece took the seat beside him. "Because Billie seemed pretty shaken up after she dropped you off."
The mention of her name sent something complicated through my chest. What she must think of me now.
"We talked. Really talked, for the first time since I've been back. I apologized for leaving, for not telling her the truth, for letting her think I didn't care enough to explain."
"And?" Reece prompted gently.
"And she said we could try being friends again."
I watched another one of those silent communications pass between Booker and Reece, the kind where entire conversations happened in glances and micro-expressions.
They'd probably discussed this already, had probably seen what I was too scared to hope for and too afraid to assume.
It was moving past endearing and starting to get annoying now.
"But you want more than friendship," Booker said. It wasn't a question.
There was no point in denying it, especially not when I was sitting in their kitchen being cared for by two people who understood what it meant to fight for love and win.
"I want everything with her that I was too scared and stupid to fight for when we were kids.
But I'm terrified that wanting it is going to make me screw it up again. "
Reece reached across the table and touched my hand briefly, the kind of gentle contact that offered comfort without demanding anything in return. "What makes you think you'd screw it up?"
"Because I'm good at hurting people. Because every time things start to feel real and permanent and worth fighting for, I find ways to sabotage them. Because I've spent eleven years proving I'm not reliable or trustworthy or capable of staying when things get difficult."
"Or," Booker said, his voice matter-of-fact in a way that cut through my self-pity, "because you care too much and don't know how to handle it. Because you'd rather hurt yourself than risk hurting someone else."
I looked between the two of them. Booker with his steady certainty, Reece with her gentle understanding.
And I realized they were seeing something I couldn't see about myself.
Something that maybe Billie had seen too, sitting in that dusty house while I fell apart and told her the truth about why I'd left.
"So instead you decided to take a sledgehammer to a wall?" Reece asked, and there was something almost fond in her exasperation.
"It was a crowbar actually. And it seemed like a good idea at the time."
Booker snorted, but there was affection underneath the sound. "You always were too hard on yourself. Even when we were kids, you'd rather hurt yourself than risk disappointing anyone else."
"Maybe because I'm good at disappointing people."
"Or maybe because you set impossible standards for yourself and then use your failure to meet them as evidence that you don't deserve the things you want most." Reece's observation was delivered with the kind of gentle directness that made it impossible to argue with. "Sound familiar?"
It was clarity in a brutally honest way and surprising considering we didn't know each other that well. Was I really that easy to read? Or was it that this whole situation was far simpler than I wanted to believe?
Before I could respond, Val came bounding through the kitchen door that had been left ajar, her fluffy coat dusty from whatever adventure she'd been on in the pasture.
She spotted me immediately and padded over, resting her chin on my knee with the kind of unconditional affection that only dogs seemed capable of.
"She's been looking for you," Reece said, scratching behind the dog's ears. "Every morning since you moved to the cottage, she checks the main house first, then comes looking for you here."
I stroked Val's head, finding comfort in her simple, uncomplicated presence. "Smart girl."