“I don’tdoanything for you, Gage. You do everything! You figured out all my study tips! You made that spreadsheet thing with my assignments! You got us assigned to this dorm together, and you look out for me when we go to parties, and you showed me how to figure out that stupid rock climbing harness when I kept getting tangled in it, and you always buy me chocolate, and you talked me into finally watching Game of Thrones, and you bought me that tracker thing so I’d stop losing my keys, and you punched Marty Liu in the face for me in sixth grade when he laughed at my Lilo & Stitch lunchbox, and you reminded me to buy my mom a birthday card back in October—and to actuallymailit on time, too—and you… you tracked down my missing sock. That time. In the laundry room. When I thought it was gone forever.”
“Breathe, baby,” Gage said, grinning at me. Which was probably good advice. He slid his hands up my thighs. “Marty Liu was a dick, and those are your lucky socks. ’Course I wasn’t going to let one of them get eaten by the machine.”
That’s right:of coursehe wasn’t. Because he took care of me, all the time, no matter what, while I just… just…
I sniffled.
“Hey now,” Gage said, crunching up and grabbing my face. He wiped my cheeks. “You’re fuckingcrying? Noah. I… what just happened here? Do younotwant me to do things for you?”
“I do,” I admitted, because I was the one of us who put the “co” in codependent. “But it’s different now that we’re not friends anymore—”
“What?” he snapped, cutting me off with a sharp look.
My face instantly flamed with shame. I hadn’t… hadn’t meant it likethat.
“I mean, we’re notjustfriends, right?” I said, the words almost getting tangled up on my tongue as I rushed to get them out so I could fix it and explain and… and mostly, so I could wipe out the flare of hurt that I could see clear as day underneath the intense stare he now had locked on me.
I’dhurtGage?
I’d never meant to do that. I’d never want to. Notever.
“Ofcoursewe’re friends,” I added quickly, because it was the truest thing in the history of all truisms. I swallowed, then tentatively added, “But we’re also, um, I just meant, we’re… aren’t we also… more?”
“Well, yeah,” Gage said, the hurt look finally fading, thank God, even though he was still looking at me like I’d gone crazy. “Didn’t we just recap this? You’re mine, baby.”
Right. “His.” Le sigh.
No, I mean… I mean yay?
Wait…totallyyay.Definitelyyay. I loved being his.
But, at the same time…
“Sometimes I just worry that maybeI’mthe codependent one and you’re theindependent one,” I admitted. “And if you don’t actually need me the way I need you…”
Oshit. My eyes were stinging, burning with the hot prickling feel of impending tears again.
I blinked like a crazy person to try and contain them, and Gage wrapped a hand around the back of my neck, staring at me hard. “I need you, Noah.”
I nodded automatically, then shook my head. “Sure, but, G, it’s not like I’m—”
“Noah,” he interrupted. “Ineedyou. I told you that way back when you were whining—”
“I don’t whine,” I cut in, maybe… possibly…slightlywhining.
He smiled, the slow and sexy one he gave me all the time now. “You totally whine. It’s fucking adorable and sometimes it’s also fucking hot, but stay focused here, babe, because this is important. Last spring, you were whining about your parents insisting you had to go to college, remember? And I told you to quit bitching about it, suck it up, and come already, because I needed you here with me.”
Hehadsaid that, and I’d been relieved, but I’d also… well, I guess I’d also assumed he was just saying it to make me feel better.
“And I still do, Noe,” Gage went on, releasing my neck so he could rub those big hands of his up and down my arms. “That hasn’t changed and that’s not evergoingto change. I’m always going to need you with me, baby. You’re my… my… you’re the other half of me.”
I swallowed hard. I felt that way, too. But that was different, because Iactuallyneeded him, whereas he… well, that was the whole problem.
“But what do you need mefor?” I blurted.
Gage’s brow furrowed for a second, then smoothed back out. “Remember the second day we met?”
“Um,” I said, thrown off my game because… what? “You mean thefirstday we met? Back in first grade? When Trevor Wilkins tripped me and you knocked him down and then took me to the nurse to get a bandage for my knee?”
