Bowen eyed him. “Please don’t name your baby mango.”
Gage rolled his eyes. “Fallon calls them Mango because they looked like a mango on the first ultrasound.”
“Okay, that’s cute.”
Gage couldn’t help a tiny grin. “He’s gonna be a fucking great dad. I hope I will be too.”
“I’m not going to dignify that with a response. But I am going to hug you.”
Gage let his uncle drag him into a squeeze so tight it stole his breath. “Thanks.”
Bowen ruffled his hair, then sat back with a sigh. “I think you’ve grown up fantastic. And I do want to set some faces on fire that belong to the people who hurt you because—” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “Not sure if I’ve ever made it clear enough, but I love you a lot, kid. If I’d known?—”
“No one knew,” Gage said quietly. He didn’t think Bowen had all the details either. But he wasn’t going to talk about them today. “I didn’t really know how to deal with it, so I didn’t for a while. But, uh…I know I was tough to deal with for a while.”
“You weren’t tough. You were in pain, and we could all see it, but no one knew how to help. And that’s not on you,” Bowen said before Gage could suck in a breath to apologize. “I’m just glad to see you looking happy again.”
Gage stared at him for a second. “I…you think I look happy?”
“Aren’t you?”
He almost laughed. And then he almost cried. The relief of that statement—so thoughtless and unimportant, and yet the most important thing he’d heard all day. “Yeah. I am. I just…didn’t realize people could tell.”
“I can tell,” Bowen told him softly.
Gage settled into the cushions next to him and rested his head against his uncle’s shoulders. “Can I stay for a bit? Fallon’s at a shoot, and I don’t think I want to be alone right now.”
“As long as you want. This place will always be open to you.”
It was one small bit of comfort, but that bit of comfort was everything he needed right then.
Fallon had been working a lot in an effort to distract himself from everything that was going on with the courts, so Gage waited until he sent a text letting him know he was on his way back to jump in his car. Fallon was forty-five minutes out on his shoot, which was plenty of time for Gage to get into the apartment and get dinner going.
He had been meal-prepping for him and Fallon for after Mango got there, so he threw a tray of homemade frozen lasagne in the oven, then worked through some of his stretches until the door opened. Fallon shuffled inside, and his gaze darted around until it found Gage on the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“Stress has me all tense,” Gage said as he rocked his hips back and forth toward and away from the floor.
Fallon swallowed. “Oh.”
It only took Gage a second to realize he was turned on. They hadn’t done much. Not for a while. Fallon hadn’t been in the mood, and frankly, Gage hadn’t been either. Stress was not great for the libido. But things were feeling calmer, and Fallon’s cheeks were all pink the way they got when he was turned on.
“Want to shower with me?”
Fallon groaned. “Yeah. Yes. I have sand in my shoes, and my pant legs are all wet from the ocean.”
“I’ll clean you up.” He jumped up and walked up to Fallon, taking him by the hips and easing him gently back against the closed door. “And then I’ll clean you up.”
Fallon swallowed heavily. “Yeah?”
Leaning in, Gage kissed along the side of Fallon’s neck where he liked the most. His body went lax in Gage’s arms, and when Gage kissed him again, he sagged forward. “Like that? You feeling needy?”
“Mm.”
“Been thinking about this?”
Fallon shuddered, then lifted his head up and went in for a kiss. Gage let Fallon do the work—let his mouth find his, let his tongue gently tip past his lips. He tasted like peppermint and chocolate from the little mints he always kept on him.
