Gage sagged against him and decided being patient wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
He managed to wait until they got in through the door of Fallon’s apartment, and he threw all the shopping bags on the couch before turning to his friend. No, his boyfriend.
“Tell me.”
Fallon rolled his eyes as he shrugged off his coat. “You should get a medal for waiting that long.”
Gage scowled. “Babe. Please.”
With a heavy sigh, Fallon walked over and set his hands on Gage’s hips. “I think I need something else. Today made me feel better, but it also…” He trailed off, his gaze darting upward toward the ceiling in thought. “I guess having all the pressure off me about whether or not things are going okay with the baby has also made me really aware of my current…situation.”
“Right,” Gage said, though he didn’t totally get it. But he knew Fallon would explain.
“I want all of this. With you. With the future. Having a child.” His hand fluttered beside his head in a gentle stim. “But I think the getting-there part is going to be hard. I don’t…I don’t want to think about this”—he gestured at his stomach—“all the time. I think outside of the house, I need to disassociate from it.”
“I get it,” Gage said quickly.
“Do you?” Fallon frowned, looking uncertain.
Gage tugged him closer. “It was like before, in our bubble, right? Before everyone knew? You don’t have to be a certain way. You don’t have to act a certain way. You don’t have to worry about what anyone else is thinking.”
Fallon breathed out heavily. “Yeah.”
“We can talk about it here. This is our safe space,” Gage said, pointing to the room they were in, then in the direction of his apartment. “And there too. It’s ours. But you can have breaks from it all the time too, okay?” He leaned in and smudged a kiss over Fallon’s jaw. “Let’s have a code word.”
Fallon hummed, his eyes closed, and he nodded. “Code word for what?”
“For the baby. Just call them…”
“Mango,” Fallon said. “The baby, in all the drawings I saw, it looked like a mango.”
Gage grinned at him, lifting his chin to kiss the absolute shit out of him. Fallon groaned and leaned into it. “I am obsessed with you and your brain.”
Fallon flushed deeply and shook his head. “It’s weird up there.”
“Yeah, but mine’s weird too. We fit, I think.”
Fallon laughed and rested his cheek against the top of Gage’s chest. “I want a bath. And a foot rub. And a nap.”
“I can do all three. Do you want to be alone for the first part?”
“No.”
Gage eased him back away from him just a few inches, then leaned in and kissed his forehead. He let his lips linger for a while. “Go get undressed. I’ll get it started. Then I’ll rub your feet until you fall asleep.” He started to walk away, but Fallon caught his wrist and tugged, and he looked back.
“Can that be an always thing? Like…not just because of everything I have going on?”
Gage crowded him back against the wall and took his chin in a firm hold. “I spoil my boyfriends, sweetheart. Always. No matter what. All this—making you feel good—it’s a given. I want you to expect this treatment.”
Fallon swallowed heavily. “And you. I—I want to spoil you. I want to make you feel good.”
“You do.” Gage let him go, and this time, when he walked off, Fallon didn’t stop him.
It only took a few minutes to get the bath set up, and by the time he was swirling salts into the water, Fallon was hovering in the doorway, wearing a thick, tan terry cloth robe and nothing else. His hair was sticking up a little, and his glasses were off, which made his eyes look a little unfocused.
Gage rose and stripped off his shirt before holding his hand out to his boyfriend and pulling him close. “You want to sit front or back?”
“Front,” Fallon said. “I might fall asleep, and you’ll keep me from drowning.”
