Chapter 20 - Gage
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Gage
The fort was a cave of pillows and blankets, the projector spilling The Mighty Ducks across the wall in front of us in the game room.
Henry was perched cross-legged, knees brushing mine, a half-empty bowl of popcorn between us.
He kept poking at the pieces like they were clues in a mystery, but I didn’t care. He was quiet enough.
“I’m glad you weren’t sleepy either,” he said, not taking his eyes off the movie.
I chuckled. He’d burst into my room like a tornado, insisting he wasn’t tired and wanted to play helicopters. Maybe it was exhaustion, maybe it was clinical insanity, but I hadn’t pawned him off on Dawson the way I usually did. I’d brought him down here to build a pillow fort and watch a movie.
“I was a lot like you when I was a kid,” I said. “I loved a good pillow fort.”
His face dropped. Eyes off the screen. Suddenly the little balls of fluff on the blanket were way more interesting.
“What’s up?” I asked, trying to sound casual, but my gut told me this wasn’t going to be pretty.
“Other kids aren’t like me. Not really.”
And there it was.
A pang stole across my chest. I knew that feeling all too well. Feeling like you weren’t enough. Like you were alone even with people around. Misunderstood, mostly.
“That’s why we have to stick together,” I said. His eyes lifted, and he studied me with a curious look. “I grew up in an orphanage.”
“You did?” Henry looked like I’d just told him I could fly.
I nodded. “And I wasn’t one of the lucky ones, either. I spent years watching my friends get adopted while I…”
He scooted closer, popcorn shoved aside for the time being. “I for sure would want to adopt a star hockey player. That would be so cool.”
“I wasn’t always a star hockey player.” I laughed, the tension in my shoulders loosening. “I was… just a kid. That’s all.”
Henry’s grin spread, satisfied, and he returned to the movie, more engaged now. I went back to the screen too, but my mind wasn’t on the slapstick goals and impossible shots.
I was thinking about Dawson, the way he’d brought Henry into this house without even asking Boone or me.
The way he’d set the kid up for disappointment.
I knew the kind of slow-burning devastation that dashed hopes could create.
I knew how it chipped away at you until there was nothing but anger left.
A kid thought they were getting a family, that someone was finally going to love them, only to get sent back to the orphanage.
I wouldn’t have wished that on my worst enemy.
And the time Henry was spending with us now only made things worse, because the kid was growing on me, goddammit.
Making me soft. I felt it. It was there whenever he was around, zooming through the house with his helicopters, or doing cannonballs in the pool.
I especially felt my guard dropping more and more when it came to Carissa.
“Did you have nightmares too?” Henry tilted his head, breaking my thoughts.
I lowered myself onto the pillows, and smoothed his hair over his forehead. “All the time. But they went away. Eventually.”
He listened, quiet. The movie played on, but I could feel him holding onto my words.
“I know it’s hard, kid,” I said, voice thick with emotion he couldn’t begin to understand. Not yet. “I’ve been there. But it doesn’t stay that way. I’m your proof.”
He threw his arms around me then, warm and small, unexpected. My body stiffened for a heartbeat. Then I hugged him back.
Just then, voices lit up outside the fort. The others had discovered our hiding spot.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I told you they’d be down here.”
I caught Henry’s eye and he pressed a finger to his lips, giggling softly.
Boone’s head popped into the fort. “Mighty Ducks without me? How dare you?”
Before I could answer, he shuffled in, elbows brushing pillows, settling beside Henry like he owned the space. He grabbed a handful of popcorn, spilling a load over the sides of the bowl.
“Make yourself at home,” I muttered.
Dawson and Carissa pushed in behind him, and Henry’s grin spread wide, practically vibrating with excitement.
The fort became a snug tangle of limbs, blankets, and pillows.
I was pressed to the side, Carissa slipping in between me and Dawson, her shoulder nudging mine, her thigh brushing against me in a way that made me clench my jaw.
I cleared my throat, angling my torso, trying not to press too hard against her, but there was no avoiding the closeness.
Boone leaned back, a smug grin on his face. “Dawson freaked out. You should’ve seen him.”
“I wasn’t freaking out,” Dawson said quickly. “Just confused when I went to say goodnight to Henry and he wasn’t in his bed.”
“You were about to slap his picture on a milk carton.”
Laughter rippled through the fort, and my annoyance with them dissolved. As much as I liked having the quiet moment with Henry, this was fun too.
Boone lifted an arm, and Henry rested his head against the broad expanse of his chest. The kid looked so at home it made my heart ache.
“I love this part,” Boone murmured.
“Me too,” Henry said, barely audible.
When he thought nobody was looking, Boone sent a kernel of popcorn sailing over his shoulder. It shot dangerously close to Carissa, but I swatted it out of the way before it could hit her.
She flashed me a smile that made my chest thrum. “My hero.”
The tension in my crotch coiled even tighter.
We settled into the movie, the room quiet except for the movie.
But there was nothing quiet about how I felt.
Every small movement from Carissa—a hand adjusting a pillow, fingers brushing over her hair, the subtle touch of her arm when she reached for more popcorn—sent a jolt through me.
I kept telling myself she wasn’t mine to want, that Boone and Dawson already had her attention, and that I had no right to think about what it would feel like to be closer.
There was that, and the certainty that she wouldn’t want to add yet another situationship to her schedule.
I didn’t move. I just sat there, awareness keyed in on every detail of her proximity, every heartbeat that seemed to echo mine.
Soon, Dawson was snoring softly against the pillow, Boone’s arm draped over Henry as the boy drifted to sleep too. After a few more minutes, their breathing evened out into steady, rhythmic patterns.
Carissa leaned closer, hiking a thumb in Boone’s direction. “Does he always snore like this?”
“No. Most nights it’s worse.”
Her eyes sparkled in the dim glow of the projector, and we laughed quietly, careful not to disturb anyone else.
“How’re you doing?” I asked, letting the moment settle between us. It felt like the first time we were really talking since that night in the kitchen.
She glanced around at the sleeping bodies, her shoulders rising and falling in a soft shrug. “Right now? Pretty cozy.”
The space between us shrank without either of us moving, just the fort, the whispering, and our faces. Her breath ghosted across my cheek. She tilted her chin, lips parted in a slow, deliberate inhale, and I could feel how close we were, how obvious it was that I should lean in.
But I didn’t.
I… couldn’t.