“Mm.” Fallon closed his eyes. How was he sleepy again after lounging in bed all fucking day? God, he hated this.
“I like that.”
“Me too.” Fallon yawned. “Can I nap? I don’t think I can stay awake.”
“For as long as you want. I’m not going anywhere this time.”
He wanted to say more. Maybe thank you? Or ask why? But his brain was too tired to care. So instead, he watched the color bursts behind his eyelids until darkness took over and he drifted back to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GAGE
“Dude.”
Gage looked up at Sutton from where he was staring a little too hard at his toes, the clippers depressed halfway. “What?”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were raised by dumpster cats. You’re clipping your toenails in our lounge room?”
“Fuck off.” He clipped the nail and watched it sail a few feet away to where the rest of them were. They’d almost entirely landed in a small pile on the floor beside the coffee table. “It’s not like y’all eat off the floor.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I’ve smelled your fucking locker, Sutt.” Gage clipped his last nail, then shoved his clippers back into his toiletries bag and got up, sweeping his clippings up with a paper towel and tossing them into the bin. “You don’t have room to talk. I think your balls are literally growing cheese.”
“I sweat a lot at the rink, fuck face.”
Gage rolled his eyes. Sutton was on a beer hockey team. It was the one vice he hadn’t been able to give up after moving from Toronto, but sadly, their little town didn’t have much in the way of the knife-shoes sport.
“I thought that was frozen water. How are you sweating?”
Sutton brushed a lock of curly blond hair off his forehead, then stuck out his foot when Gage walked by, tripping him into the couch. He grinned, looking annoyingly boyish with his dimples and slightly gapped front teeth. “You’d know if you ever got off your ass and exercised.”
“I run, dipshit.” Gage flipped him off as he rolled over and stretched out on the couch, his newly clipped bare toes digging into the armrest. He closed his eyes and tried not to feel tired enough to sleep, but he was. Things were better—especially now that he and Fallon were talking again.
And more than that. Cuddling. And sharing meals. And basically treating both apartments like they were communal property. It was getting domestic, which was the reason for him losing sleep. He didn’t know what they were to each other.
Or what Fallon wanted.
Friends, yes. Friends was great. Friends was everything.
But this felt like more.
“You’re quiet today, bruh.”
Gage pulled a face as he rolled onto his side and stared at the TV. Sutton had put on some show about vampires who were being followed by a documentary crew. Gage wasn’t great about keeping up with TV, so he had no idea what the fuck it was.
“I mean, tell me to fuck off, but?—”
“Fuck off,” Gage said.
Sutton let out a small sigh. “I’m being serious. You seem a little off, and I’m just worried.”
Gage bit back another sarcastic remark because it wasn’t fair. He and Sutton weren’t best friends, but they were close at work, almost always on the same shift. And he was one of the few people who believed Gage had gotten hired on his own merit and not because of his dad.
Which, in all fairness, it was both. He’d done well in training and passed all of his certification exams, but it helped havingAdele as his dad. He didn’t mind a little nepotism coming his way after everything he’d been through. But he also wasn’t going to share all of his life with people he wasn’t close to.
Especially since he hadn’t told anyone else about what Fallon was going through.
