Monty hummed, rubbing his chin. “And the other person?—”
“We didn’t…” Gage started, then flushed.
Monty’s gaze snapped to him.
“It wasn’t, ah…God, this is so weird saying this to you.” Gage ran a hand down his face and turned to Fallon. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
Fallon’s brows furrowed. He didn’t understand why Gage was bothered. This was all just facts and science. “Gage didn’t ejaculate inside me. Charlie did.”
Gage looked like he wanted to crawl under the floorboards, and in any other circumstances, Fallon might have understood why, but his brain was too full to worry about social situations like that.
Gage cleared his throat. “Uh. What he said.”
Monty hummed and looked back down at the paper. “Considering you two had penetrative intercourse, that might be cause to delay the paternity test until the birth of the child, but considering there was sexual contact between you and Mr. Scott, he has the right to know if the child is his.”
“Even after everything he did?” Gage demanded. He sounded angry now. “After he hurt Lucas?”
Monty sucked in a breath and stiffened. His voice came out a low growl. “This is the one who punched my son?”
Fallon blinked. “Your son? Lucas? Are you the shitty dad who left him?”
Monty coughed. “Ah, no. No, I’m married to his father, so he is my son. And I didn’t realize…” He trailed off, and his face settled into something more neutral. Resting his folded hands on the desk, he met Fallon’s gaze. “As much as I would love to tell you that the crimes he committed make him automatically unfit to be a parent, that’s not how the courts work. You’ll have a very good case for stuff like supervised visitation, and you can most definitely get a child support case on him…”
“No, I…I don’t want anything,” Fallon said. His voice was tight and raspy. Pressing a hand to his stomach, he felt Mango squirming. “Not from him.”
“What can we do?” Gage asked.
Monty looked down at the paper again and then back up, gaze darting between both Fallon and Gage. “There are options, but I’m not sure any of them are the solution you’re looking for.”
Gage snorted. “Like what? Getting married?”
The look on Monty’s face said everything.
Fallon laughed before he could stop himself. “I’m not going to marry Gage.” He turned to look at him, feeling a sudden wave of hysteria. “I’m not trapping you in a marriage with me and…and a baby because?—”
“Fallon,” Gage said softly.
Shit. He was yelling. His hands started to shake, and he could feel a meltdown coming on. The wall of ice he’d surrounded himself with before coming into the office was cracking. His chin wobbled, and there was a scream stuck in the back of his throat.
Gage looked over at Monty. “Is there a place he and I can go to?—”
“Stay here,” Monty said. “I’ll shut the door, okay?”
He was gone before Fallon could muster the words to protest. Fuck, he hated falling apart in public. He hated doing all this in front of strangers. Even if Monty was Lucas’s dad, Fallon didn’t know him. He wasn’t safe. This wasn’t home.
Before he was really aware of it, Gage had him on the floor, pressed in a hug between his legs. Fallon allowed himself to sink into the impossibly tight grip, letting it steal his breath so he no longer wanted to smash his head into the wall until the inside pain was eclipsed by outside pain.
“I can’t,” he gasped after what felt like forever. “I can’t. I can’t…”
“I know.” Gage started rocking from side to side as Fallon shook apart. “I know. This is too fucking much, and you don’t deserve it.”
“I do.”
“Fall—”
“Th-the first thing Frankie ever taught me was…” He gasped for air again, but for now, his meltdown was averted. It would probably happen later when he felt safe. When he was home. But he no longer felt like he was going to tear his own skin off. He took another, deeper breath. “Frankie taught me actions have consequences. For my mom and dad. For him. For Fen. For me. I made a bad decision. I have to own it.”
Gage tilted his head down and buried his nose in Fallon’s hair. “I understand what you’re saying, but you don’t need to pay some massive cosmic price because some sociopathic asshole knew your vulnerable spots and used them to get you to drop your guard for a night. He doesn’t want this baby, Fallon. You know he doesn’t.”
