Chapter 18

CHAPTER 18

Xavier

To both my and Gage’s surprise, the boys got along swimmingly.

Over dinner, there was a bit of a tense debate over who was the first allowed to cut the pre-made turkey Gage had bought and heated up from the store. But once Dexter had won the impromptu rock, paper, scissors battle he’d been roped into, everything settled into a comfortable rhythm, as if we’d been doing this kind of tradition for years.

I enjoyed seeing my son bonding with kids around his age. With both Asher and Greyson out of the house and out living their lives, it gave Dexter a good insight into what was to come once he was officially graduated and old enough to do the same.

Getting ready for that transition in life made me nauseous, despite Gage’s numerous hand squeezes under the table every time Dexter talked about going to some far away school that would be at least a plane ride away.

I had to settle with myself that it was okay that my son was going to be spreading his wings and flying from the nest soon. All parents had to deal with it eventually. Hell, Gage was already through the thick of it and barely surviving. If we didn’t have each other, we’d be sunk by now.

That part comforted me, at least. We had each other to lean on while our hearts were out traveling the world without us.

“All right, clean up time,” Gage sang out as he got up from his chair.

The twins were on their feet instantly, collecting everyone’s finished plates and stacking them to take into the kitchen to wash. Dexter and I followed suit, grabbing the leftover food to bring into the kitchen for Gage to wrap up and save for tomorrow.

“Thank you,” Gage whispered in my ear as I passed the plate of half-eaten turkey to him. I knew he was thanking me for more than helping him clean up.

My heart squeezed in my chest, the sincerity for whatever he was referring to quite obvious in the way his eyes twinkled as he smiled at me. Too bad we weren’t alone or else I’d back him right up into that counter and have my wicked way with him.

“You into video games, Dexter?” Greyson asked, scraping off one of the plates into the garbage next to the sink.

“I play sometimes. I don’t have a lot of friends that are into the kind I like,” he said, passing another plate over.

“What are you into?” Asher asked.

“You know those simulator games that are realistic where you do mundane tasks that you’d otherwise hate to do in the real world?”

Greyson kicked his twin in the shin. “Dude, you have to show him that farming simulator one you have.”

Asher nodded quickly. “You’re going to love it. You get to farm crops from a field.”

How the hell was that a fun video game idea?

Honestly, I’d never understand the younger generation. Half of the shit they found entertaining baffled me.

Dexter turned to me with those big doe-eyes of his, silently pleading for me to let him go hang out with the older boys.

How could I possibly say no to a look like that?

I snagged the stack of plates from him. “Just remember, we’ve got the rest of your itinerary tomorrow.”

“I’ll set an alarm,” he said, and then followed the twins out of the kitchen, abandoning Gage and I to the rest of clean-up duty.

Gage snorted. “You sucker.”

“I know.” Setting the plates down on the counter, I brushed my hands on the towel next to the sink before cupping his face with my hands and bringing him in for a kiss. “Would you believe me if I told you I did that for this?”

He smiled. “You sucker .”

“Only for you.” I kissed him again, this time deepening it.

Delightfully dangerous of us to be doing this with our kids mere feet from us in the room next door. At the same time, I had no self-control when Gage was around me. He could simply breathe in my direction and I was popping a boner that acted like a fucking compass pointing right at him.

I’m sure there would be a point in time when this enhanced tension between us would die down and we’d eventually fall into a comfortable rhythm of being old and gray together.

Until that time came around, though, I was riding this out for as long as possible. Call me selfish for leaning into my rabid desire for this man. It was more likely that I was on the ‘crazy’ side of the spectrum than anything else.

Gage moaned softly against my mouth, turning us so that he had his back resting against the counter. His hands came up to rest on my chest, pushing gently until we parted from our kiss. His face was flushed in that beautiful way it always was after a heated kiss, which only made me want to kiss him that much more.

“Xavier…” His pupils were blown as he looked at me. “I have a question for you.”

“If it’s ‘can you fuck me against this counter’ the answer is yes.”

He laughed, slapping my chest. “Nice try. We’ll get caught for sure. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to have to deal with the aftermath of the boys walking in on that.”

“True.” More than likely they’d avoid the kitchen, and us, like the plague. But his point remained the same. I also didn’t want to irreversibly scar my kid. “What’s up?”

“So... there’s this holiday party going on at the station.”

I waited for him to finish. When he didn’t, I said, “Okay? You have to go help out after this or something?”

“No, no. Nothing like that.” He rubbed my chest. “I was thinking that, since you and Dexter are here, you could both come to it? It’s not for another week, but I heard Dexter saying he doesn’t start school again until after New Years.”

“I’d love to…” His eyes lit up instantly, which made me feel bad for immediately saying afterward. “But I have to bring Dex back home to his mom for Christmas.”

“Oh...”

I squeezed his sides. “Maybe next year.”

“You can’t come back or anything? I don’t mind paying for a plane ticket for you.”

“That’s sweet, Gage. But you should be spending the holiday with your family.”

He mumbled something under his breath while pulling away from me.

“What was that?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Confusion rattled in my brain, much like it had when he’d pulled away from me earlier when he’d come home for lunch.

What was going on?

I’d never seen him act this way. I’d blame it on his brothers being here, but he hadn’t even known they’d been on their way during lunch.

This wasn’t like Gage. He was usually the talker and I was the listener. He never shied away from expressing himself or his feelings, but right now this felt like pulling teeth from him.

“Hey…” I grabbed onto his arm. “Talk to me.”

“It’s fine. I get it.”

“Get what?” I asked.

“It’s just a stupid party. My coworkers were all bugging me about bringing you.”

Shit.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could. Kate’s going to want Dex there for Christmas and she’ll probably let me have him right after, so I don’t want to miss that.”

“I get it, Xavier. You don’t need to explain things to me like I’m a child.”

His arm slipped from my grip.

I silently watched him as he grabbed one of the plates and scraped off the food remnants before dunking it in the pre-filled sink. His movements were methodical and robotic, like he’d put himself on autopilot without even thinking about it.

My stomach hurt with how hard the knot in it was clenching. We’d never really had a situation where we weren’t seeing eye-to-eye outside of a work thing. We’d disagreed plenty while he’d been training with me, but outside of that, we were usually on the same page.

Me being sober had made our communications skills even better.

So what the fuck was this, then?

“Gage,” I said slowly. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know what you mean.” He dunked another plate, tossing the fork into the sink with a quick flick of his wrist.

“What did I say?”

He sighed at me. “Nothing, Xavier. Drop it.”

How the hell was I supposed to drop it when there was obviously a gigantic cloud of tension looming over us?

We never did this—we weren’t like this. Ever since this afternoon, we’d been in this weird spot that I had no fucking clue how we even got into in the first place.

If I did, I would’ve fixed it by now.

“Baby,” I tried again, reaching for him.

He dodged me, moving around to the other side of the trash to toss the last of the plate scrapings into it. “It’s fine. Just forget about it.”

“I can’t when you’re upset with me.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. Unless I’m fucking blind and there’s a third person in this kitchen right now.” I furrowed my brows, setting my lips into a thin line.

He lifted his gaze up from the trash to give me a look. “Funny.”

There had to be more to this than just the party. There was no way he’d be getting this upset that I couldn’t come to a work function.

Disappointed?

Sure.

But upset?

No way.

Gage was way more levelheaded than that.

He was the one to get me to actually get in touch with my own emotions and begin to untangle the absolute fucking mess that was my trauma. He convinced me to take my sobriety seriously because it was either that or lose my kid.

Gage wasn’t the kind of guy to let his emotions run rampant and wild. He was one of the most regulated people I knew.

A little anxious at times?

Who wasn’t these days?

We had stressful jobs that were constantly putting us in life or death situations.

Anxiety kind of came with the territory.

This was something way bigger than that. It had to be, or else I was going fucking crazy.

Clearly, he wasn’t up to talking about it, no matter how many times I could try weaseling it out of him.

But was this the kind of situation that I let drop and forget about it?

Or did I give him the space he needed to figure out his own emotions before he could actually talk to me about them?

I wasn’t sure. Not without asking him, but that was obviously out of the question. Right now, the best that I could offer was a listening ear when he was ready. Until then, I was going to have to suck it up and wait it out until he came to me.

Whenever the fuck that happened.

Bridging the distance between us, I wrapped my arms around him from behind and pressed a soft kiss to his neck. “Come find me later, okay?”

So we can talk.

He nodded silently, working overtime at scrubbing the plate in his hands.

With a sigh, I dropped my arms and stepped away, giving him the space he clearly needed to decompress from this. My heart was heavy as I left the kitchen, and him, behind.

In the living room, the boys were crowded around the giant TV, all of them sitting on the floor and craning their necks up while some kind of video game was playing. I stood behind the couch and watched for a second, trying to distract myself from going back in and begging Gage to talk to me.

“Nice. See that pasture where all the wheat is? Mow over it so you can start making barrels to sell at the market,” Asher was saying, pointing to the screen.

“Got it,” Dexter replied. The tractor on the screen slowly puttered over to a different colored field with a very realistic sounding engine.

“Nice. It’s double drops,” Greyson said. “That’ll be perfect when you sell your first few barrels. You can buy a longer attachment so you can farm larger areas.”

Shaking my head, I stepped away from the living room and headed down the hall to my bedroom, or rather, one of the twin’s. Packing all my things up and zipping my bag, I carried it into Gage’s room to set it down on his bed.

Following Dexter’s suggestion of bunking with Gage was a smarter idea than forcing him to share a bed with me. After all, I’d be sneaking off to see him anyway after what just happened. Might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Heading back to the other room, I quickly changed the sheets on the bed and fluffed up the pillows nice and neat until I was satisfied with what I was leaving behind.

I swung the door shut behind me before making my way back to Gage’s room. I had a hunch that he was going to avoid me for as long as possible. Which meant that I was either going to have to drag him to bed, or he was going to pretend like everything was fine and try to go to sleep in order to avoid this conversation.

Both options had me feeling nauseous.

Lifting my bag up from the bed, I let it fall to the floor at my feet and kicked it to press flush against the wall out of the way of the main walkway. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket, and Kate’s name flashed across my screen.

Have Dexter call me, please, was all her text said.

Groaning, I let my body fall back onto the bed, bouncing slightly from the sudden weight fluctuation. If Kate was going to demand Dexter to come home a day early, I was going to actually lose it.

No, scratch that.

The more likely scenario was that I would be calling her up and demanding to know why the hell she was cutting our three-day weekend short when I’d been asking for very little from her from the beginning.

Lifting my phone up closer to my face, I typed out a quick ‘sure’ and sent it on its way.

I let myself wallow for a total of five entire minutes before forcing myself up from the bed and heading out of the bedroom to go find Dexter.