Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

Xavier

The following week came and went in the blink of an eye and soon, our trip out to Baton Rouge was upon us.

Since telling Gage the good news right after my call with Kate, he’d been blowing up my phone with all of the local hot spots and attractions to take Dexter to after our tour of the campus. I found it all incredibly endearing how supportive he was about all of this, considering we probably wouldn’t be seeing much of each other during most of the day.

I supposed it worked out in the end, considering the trip was a little on the short notice side of things and I hadn’t given him enough of a head’s up for him to be taking off time from the station. Still, he’d at least be home at a decent hour after work, which would give us plenty of down time to spend with each other after Dexter went to bed.

As much as I hated having to sneak behind my kid’s back in order to spend time with my boyfriend, I’d take what I could get.

Waking Dexter up once we landed and were all clear to de-board, I grabbed our things from the carry-on overhead and ushered him down the aisle, sticking close to him as we left the plane.

“You sleep okay?” I asked.

His answering yawn was all the information I needed to know.

Chuckling, I led us down the loading bridge, dragging my suitcase behind me while keeping his duffle slung over my shoulder.

I was glad he’d slept on the plane. Getting to the airport bright and early this morning, while not exactly a struggle, had definitely been quite the trek for my kid. According to Kate, who’d been waiting outside with him when I’d pulled up, she’d caught him up in the middle of the night on his laptop, knee deep in some research that she hadn’t been able to weasel out of him.

Fortunately, once we were safely tucked in my car and on the way to the airport, Dexter had shoved a hastily written itinerary at me with all of the sights he’d wanted to see while we were in Baton Rouge after our campus tour.

I’d gone over it on the plane, noting that most of them were ones that Gage had suggested, too. It made me happy that Dexter was looking forward to spending time with me, even if he didn’t exactly know how to say it out loud.

These small moments that he was giving me were showing me that I wasn’t the only one wanting to fix this. It was my job to, there was no question about that. Dexter meeting me halfway was nice, though.

Getting through the rest of the airport was easy enough. Since we didn’t have any bags to check before leaving on our flight, we breezed through the rest of the terminals and made our way toward the main entrance.

“So…” Dexter said as we stepped onto the escalator that led down to the main part of the airport’s lobby. “Your friend from training is picking us up… right?”

Turning to look at my son where he stood two steps above me, I nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t gotten a chance to check my phone to let him know we’re here. But he said he didn’t live too far from here.”

“Yeah… I don’t know that you’re going to need to do that.”

Instantly, my brows were furrowing. “Why do you say that?”

If Dexter wasn’t comfortable riding in a car with Gage back to his place, then we’d figure something else out. I fucking loathed rideshares with a burning passion, but if it made my kid more comfortable, then whatever.

Looking at him, though, he didn’t seem put off by the idea. In fact, he was wearing a rather bemused expression, his gaze focused away from me as he looked over my head at something.

“I think he’s already here.”

Whipping around, my gaze darted to the couple in front of us, and then past them to where the main lobby had travelers coming and going. In the midst of the flurry of people, a lone man stood in the middle with a crudely decorated sign that was being held up, the words, ‘ Welcome to Baton Rouge!’ in scrolling font.

As soon as he spotted us—or rather me— he lifted the sign high above his head and waved it at us, that familiar, blinding grin practically splitting his face in half.

Oh, Gage.

“He always that peppy?” Dexter asked.

Snorting, I nudged my elbow backward into his side. Yep.”

I paused at the bottom of the escalator while Dexter stepped off right behind me. He kept himself close to me as we made our way through the bustling crowds and over to where Gage stood.

He lowered his sign just in time to avoid a couple cutting between us, narrowly catching him in the shoulder and checking him backward. As weird as it was to be back in Baton Rouge after so many months of being gone, it was nice to know that the people out here where just as oblivious as they were back in Cali.

“Hey.” Gage’s arms came up from his sides, the knee-jerk reaction to reach out and hug me short circuiting at the last moment when his gaze darted to the side, catching sight of Dexter coming up next to me. He shifted fluidly into shoving his arm in my son’s direction, holding out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Dexter. Your dad’s told me a lot about you.”

Politely, my son took Gage’s hand and shook it, throwing me an eyebrow raise while saying, “Really?”

“Yup.” Gage flashed him another blinding smile. “All good things. Don’t worry.”

Dexter dropped his hand back to his side, narrowing his eyes curiously while his gaze flitted between us.

Fuck, I hoped we weren’t being obvious with all of this. The last thing I needed Dexter to pick up on was our god awful budding sexual tension that literally never seemed to go away no matter what we did.

Thankfully, Gage was always the master of distraction and cleared his throat to ask, “Flight go okay?”

“Yeah. No turbulence.” Readjusting Dexter’s bag on my shoulder, I nodded toward the entrance of the airport. “How is it out there?”

Gage laughed. “Oh, you’re going to hate it.”

Damn it…

“Why?” Dexter asked. “We’re used to the heat in the winter time.”

“Humidity’s a bitch here, kid,” I said, nudging him. “We’re in swamp territory.”

“Hey! It’s not as bad as the summer,” Gage argued. “It’s only seventy percent right now.”

Dexter’s mouth dropped open while I let out a soft curse under my breath. See, this was the thing about coming down to the south. While the heat wasn’t bad, it was the humidity that made it feel like you were walking through a damn sauna.

I could deal with hundred-degree heat and no humidity. But put me in the mid-seventies with a humidity of eighty percent? I was fucking done for.

“Ew…” Dexter muttered.

“See? I’m not the only one,” I said.

Gage folded up his sign and waved it at both of us. “Come on, you two complainers. I’ve got the AC running in the car. Valet’s holding it for me right outside.”

Now, that’s what I was talking about.

I fought the urge to reach over and slap Gage’s ass when he turned and walked in front of us. All right, maybe this whole ‘keeping our hands to ourselves’ thing was going to be a lot harder than I imagined.