Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
LUCAS
When Lucas got into the car, Gage was oddly quiet. He did his usual little huffs and sighs, tapping on the steering wheel so Lucas would know he hadn’t fallen asleep while driving, but he didn’t say much.
“Am I getting the silent treatment, or are you trying to figure out a way to tell me you still don’t want to talk?”
Gage let out another small sigh. “I want to talk. I’m probably going to cry though, and you fucking know how much I hate crying. It always gives me a headache.”
Lucas’s stomach twisted. He’d known whatever Gage went through was bad, but he hadn’t realized it was this bad.
Maybe he should have. Christ, he could be the worst friend sometimes.
His brain didn’t process things the same way other people’s did, and while he’d been living his whole life blind and did have his own system for understanding the world around him, there were moments sight would have been helpful.
He didn’t fully understand how, but he knew damn well that he would have been able to see that Gage was suffering where he couldn’t necessarily hear it or feel it.
“Let’s order pizza,” Lucas said quietly.
“Way ahead of you. I went to that Greek place over by Dallas and Kylen’s. I got hummus and pita, and fried zucchini with tzatziki, and a large pizza with olives.”
“You’re my favorite human being in the whole world,” Lucas said. And he meant that. He was yet again developing an annoying-as-fuck, pointless, inappropriate crush on the damn health inspector who was haunting his steps, but that didn’t change the fact that Gage was his person.
“I know,” Gage said, and with those words, Lucas knew he was smiling. So that was, at least, something.
The drive back to Lucas’s place was short, and together they managed to get all of Lucas’s crap, plus all the food in through the front doors and down the hall. He paused at his door, straining his ears, and he could hear the faint sound of kiddie show music playing.
“What is that?” Gage asked.
“Toddler a few doors down.” He didn’t want to explain to an edgy Gage that Frankie lived next to him. “She’s nice. Cute. Mostly quiet.”
Gage hummed, but he sounded very disinterested in talking about some random kid, which Lucas was grateful for.
He unlocked the door and let Gage set everything up in the kitchen while he went to start his usual routine of a shower, sweats, and putting his hair up so the wet tendrils didn’t touch his neck.
Hot water rushed over his back as he stood under the spray, and he let out a long, heavy sigh as he thought back to his lunch with Frankie. The man was…different. Easily bossed around but stronger than most people Lucas knew.
His voice—rich and honey-thick and husky—lingered in Lucas’s mind. Just like the way his hand had felt when Lucas had taken it. His grip was strong but careful, his knuckles thick with just a faint bit of coarse hair across the top.
He wished he’d been able to feel the shape of his nails and the lines in his palm, but that would have been going too far. This was already starting to be a bit too much.
He ignored his erection as he finished washing up, and he let the cold air chill his naked skin until it flagged. By the time he was dressed and making his way to the kitchen, he felt a bit more like himself, just a little sexually repressed.
Which was nothing new.
“Where are you?” he asked, listening for Gage.
“Living room. I made a nest in front of the couch.”
Lucas let his toes drag slightly across the floor until they touched what he immediately knew was Gage’s favorite blanket. They’d gone with Gage’s dad to Costco to stock the station with snacks and microwave meals, and Gage had all but buried himself in a bin filled with cooling comforters.
Lucas bought one and surprised Gage with it the next time he stumbled through Lucas’s front door, drunk and feeling sorry for himself.
“Right here,” Gage said, tapping Lucas on the hand. “The food’s on my other side, so you won’t step in it.”
He dropped to his knees and crawled forward into the nest of pillows Gage had stolen off his bed and the couch. He settled comfortably, his head tipped back, then removed his prosthetics and set them on the side table, letting his eyelids rest closed.
He had a feeling that was the relief people talked about when they waxed poetic about removing their bras or binders.
“So,” Gage said.
“Look, I know I’ve been hounding you about what happened,” Lucas interrupted. He felt in the space between them until he found Gage’s hand, and he curled their fingers together. “I know for a fact something bad happened because you changed.”
“Did I?” Gage’s voice was soft and a little rough.
“I know what cruelty and trauma does to a person,” Lucas reminded him. “You noticed immediately after Oliver got under my skin.”
Gage scoffed angrily. “Fuck that guy.”
“He’s not what we’re talking about right now. I’m just saying I know. And you know. But if it really is too much to talk about…”
“I’ve been seeing a therapist,” Gage blurted.
Lucas’s jaw shut quickly, and then he licked his lips. “Oh. That’s…I mean, I’m glad. Therapy is good.”
“It was fucking terrible at first. Then it got better. Sometimes it’s worse. Today was…not the best.”
Lucas turned on his side and pressed Gage’s hand to his chest, right over his heart. He had no idea if Gage could feel it, but he knew his friend had always liked this. “You don’t have to tell me, you know.”
“I know. I’ve been talking about it with my therapist, and I’m ready.
It’s just…finding the right words.” Gage went quiet for a beat, and Lucas could hear the way his breath was trembling.
“I met a guy right before I came home. His name was Jonny. Tall, cute. If I hadn’t had my bi awakening already, he definitely would have given me one. ”
Lucas said nothing. He stroked a touch over the tops of Gage’s knuckles.
“He had a roommate. Sara. She was…nice, I guess. Really involved with his social life. I don’t know.
Jonny was intense, so I didn’t think too much about it.
He was…you know how you read in books a really intense scene where they stare into each other’s eyes and kind of…
fall in love without even really knowing each other? ”
Lucas had. He had no reference for that at all. Not just because he couldn’t see, but because he’d never had a moment like that. He nodded anyway.
“It was like that. We could talk for hours about nothing, and it felt like he was my whole world for the night. But it wasn’t all great.
The sex was pretty bad,” Gage went on. “He would just go and go for hours, and he didn’t seem to give a shit when I was tired or sore. It…it made me feel bad. Used.”
“I will kill him,” Lucas growled. “I will literally take a rusted old, broken spoon and cut his stomach from one end to the other, then—”
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” Gage whispered.
Lucas fell quiet, but the rage in his body made him feel like he was a volcano about to erupt. But he also knew Gage didn’t need that from him.
“The third night we had sex, he told me he loved me.”
“Did you say it back?” Lucas felt a weird pulse of envy. Not because he wanted Gage to love him like that. Not anymore. But the fact that it was happening to everyone around him except him was a big, bitter pill to swallow.
“No. I thanked him. I said I liked him, but I wasn’t ready to go that far.
He got a little weird after that, but I figured his feelings were hurt.
” Gage fell silent again, and when he swallowed, Lucas could hear it clicking in the back of his throat.
“He invited Sara to come hang out a few nights later. She brought stuff to make boozy ice cream floats.”
“Gross.”
Gage laughed. “I know. I thought about you. I almost called you. I needed to talk about my feelings, but I felt so…I felt like I didn’t have the right to complain to you about my love life after I was such a shit when you confessed your feelings to me.”
“We are so past that,” Lucas told him, holding his hand tighter. “And you do love me in an even better way than I’d wanted back then.”
“Yeah, I know,” Gage said on the edge of a sigh.
He took another moment before he went on.
“I got about a third of the way into the drink she made, and then…well. Fuck,” he whispered.
“I only have bits and pieces of my memory. I woke up on the floor of my dorm, half-naked, with my feet up on the bed. My roommate wasn’t in.
I felt…weird. Like the whole world was spinning sideways. I threw up for hours.”
Lucas felt bitter bile rising into the back of his throat. His mouth tasted like metal. He listened to the way Gage spoke—his voice that was always kind of soft and tender and reminded him of the taste of turmeric. It was different now. Acidic. Like too much lemon juice.
“Were you drugged?” he forced himself to ask.
“I think so. I never went in to get tested. I…I don’t know. I feel like shit about it now, but I think I was scared of the answer. I was scared that Jonny did it because he was pissed at me for handling yet another love confession like a total tool.”
“Dude. You don’t know someone for what, two weeks, and tell them you’re in love. Or…maybe you do, but you don’t have a right to expect them to say it back. I’m a sad, sorry-ass virgin who has never had a boyfriend, and even I know that.”
“You’re none of those things.”
“My dick begs to differ.”
“Fine.” He felt Gage roll toward him and scoot closer.
“You’re one of those things. But I know you’re right.
I was just in my head. You and I were kind of weird with each other when I left, and I felt like I was fucking everything up.
So I just laid in my bed and puked my guts out.
When I took a shower that night, I, um…I—” His voice cracked.