The car door handle resisted Gage’s tug, and he had to try a few times before the mechanism unlatched and the door opened. The overhead light came on, and Bo lifted his head and blinked the sleep from his eyes. He reached for Gage, and Gage responded by unbuckling him and lifting him out of his car seat.

“Gage?” his father asked uncertainly, an arm’s length away. “I don’t understand… whose child is that?”

“Mine,” Gage replied in a small voice. He balanced Bo on his hip. “I want you to meet your grandson, Bo.”

Words failed them both. Gage searched his father’s face for emotion, trying to understand the thoughts going through his head, but all he could see was wide-eyed shock. The silence was interrupted by Bo, who cried out in frustration and tried to squirm out of Gage’s arms. Gage set him down before he got hurt and held out his hand for Bo to take, but Bo didn’t seem interested. Instead, he reached out and clung to the terrycloth of his grandfather’s bathrobe. It was all it took to break the spell. The conversation resumed.

“Bo?” Gage’s father asked, looking down at the child now glommed onto his leg. His shoulders trembled. “You have a… a son. H-How?” His expression was seated somewhere between startled and betrayed. “He’s… he’s…”

“He’s three years and seven months old. His birthday is February eleventh… my Valentine’s Day gift.” Gage ducked his head, staring at the rounded tips of his shoes. Shame broke through his composure, and the nostalgic feelings being home brought him were subdued by regret. How was he supposed to fill his family in on the last three and a half years of Bo’s life? How was he supposed to express what a beautiful soul his son was? “He likes Peppa Pig and Blue’s Clues, he doesn’t like peas, and he’s really smart. So, so smart. A lot smarter than me.”

The silence returned. Faced with its presence, Gage panicked.

What if his family wanted nothing to do with Bo? What if, by keeping his silence, he’d cut his child off from a vital source of support?

They’d already potentially lost Aaron. Gage couldn’t stand to think what would happen if Bo lost his grandparents, too.

“I… I gave birth to him in my bathtub,” Gage admitted, babbling. Thoughts skipped through his mind like beaded Double Dutch ropes smacking hot pavement, the constant, rhythmic click producing a new idea before the next struck and stole its importance away. “He was tiny. I thought… I thought that he was too tiny, but it turned out that he was okay. We were both okay.”

A shiver took up residence between Gage’s shoulders and refused to leave. He wanted better for Bo. Even if his parents couldn’t love him anymore for keeping such a big secret from them, he hoped they’d still have it in their hearts to love their grandson.

“The day he was born, it was snowing so hard, I couldn’t see outside my window,” Gage mumbled. “The whole day it was gray and snowy, and I put the heat up in the apartment and we were warm, and all day after that, we snuggled beneath the blankets and slept until Alex got there.”

“Alex?” The tone of his father’s voice was sharp, but not unkind. Regardless, Gage tensed. He didn’t want to get Alex in trouble, but it had been too difficult to filter his thoughts. “Alex knew?”

“Don’t be mad!” Gage looked up suddenly, emboldened by his panic. “Please, don’t be mad at him. I begged him not to tell. I made him promise. He didn’t want to listen to me, but I… I forced him to. He’s not guilty in this. He hated the fact that I kept it a secret.”

“Alex knew…” Gabriel murmured. His voice was distant now, as if it was lost in thought. “I don’t understand.”

“I don’t expect you to.” Gage ran his tongue over his lips nervously. How could he expect anyone to understand what he’d done? His fathers had a quiet life together. Gage didn’t know much about their history—neither of them liked to bring up the early days of their relationship—but Gage knew that after they’d met, they’d never left each other. Distance had never divided them. Neither of them would understand what it was like to miss someone who’d moved across an ocean, or the trust Gage had in Aaron’s promise from all those years ago. “I promise, I didn’t do it to hurt you. I kept it a secret from everyone. I had to.”

“Why?” His father’s voice cracked. He reached down and ran a hand carefully through Bo’s hair. Bo wheezed, and Gabriel drew his hand back, startled. He looked at Gage as if expecting an explanation, but Gage had nothing to give him. “Is he sick? I…” Awareness sharpened Gabriel’s gaze, and he met Gage’s eyes. “Who is his father?”

Was that fear in his father’s expression? Anger? Gage couldn’t tell anymore. All he knew was that the sudden intensity of his question made him want to run.

Discouraged, Gage stared at his shoes and attempted to follow the course of his laces as they zigged and zagged. He didn’t get to look for long. A finger curled beneath his chin and lifted his head back up, and Gage was forced to look into his father’s eyes. He’d inherited their color, and so had Bo.

“Who is his father?” Gabriel repeated, his tone sterner than it had been before. It was very seldom that he spoke with such fervor, and Gage knew better than to think he’d let the question go.

Bo’s next breath rattled and caught in his throat, and he started to cough.

Gabriel’s expression tightened. “It’s Aaron, isn’t it? Please, please tell me it wasn’t Aaron…”

There was a note of desperation in Gabriel’s voice that Gage couldn’t make sense of. Neither of his parents had ever spoken of the Alcrest twins negatively before, not even Caleb, who was more concerned with partying and hooking up than he was living a productive life. Gage’s alpha father, Cedric, was best friends with Aaron’s omega father, Oli, after all. It made no sense that his father would reject Aaron now—especially since he knew that Aaron and Gage had dated the summer before Gage left the family home for college.

“Aaron is his father.” Gage picked his shoulders up and stood with greater presence. “I don’t understand why that’s such a big deal. We were dating, and we’d been friends for a long time. I know that it’s not—”

“How long has he been sick like this?” It wasn’t like his father to cut someone off when they were speaking—in all things, he was gentle and delicate. The shift in behavior was inexplicable, and the frantic way he spoke only made Gage feel worse about his prior choices. He’d been expecting the news to be received emotionally, but this was taking it to the next level. “Gage! How long?”

“A year and a half.” Gage curled his fingers into the material on the insides of his pockets. “I took him to a doctor that said it was asthma, so we tried treating him and it didn’t work. I just brought him in for some tests so the specialist can figure out what’s wrong. We’re going to figure it out.”

“Oh, god,” Gabriel whispered. The force in his voice was gone, leaving nothing but fear. “No, no, no…”

“I don’t understand what’s going on!” Gage reached for Bo, who’d recovered from coughing. Bo, teary-eyed, came to Gage’s side, and Gage lifted him up again. “I know that it’s a lot to accept all at once, but… but aren’t there other things you want to know about?”

“So many things.” The starlight lit the tears in his father’s eyes. Gage didn’t understand where they were coming from, or why. “But you can tell me all of them soon, okay? We have to get in touch with Marshall.”

“Aaron’s father? Marshall Alcrest?” The situation was spinning out of control. “It’s almost three in the morning… can’t we wait? Bo’s not going anywhere. I… I don’t want to upset them, and I don’t want to upset Bo. He’s usually so shy around strangers.”

“It can’t wait.” Gabriel wiped the tears from his eyes. “Let me carry your bag inside, and let’s go sit in the kitchen while I make us some coffee. I need to call Marshall.”

“Please, please wait until morning,” Gage begged. Exhaustion dragged on his eyelids and fogged his mind. His stamina waned. Another confrontation after what had been a difficult day would break him, and Gage needed to stay strong.

“Bo is sick, Gage,” his father stressed. The fear and hurt in his eyes was unlike anything Gage had seen before. “He’s very, very sick, and if it’s already been a year and a half, I don’t feel comfortable waiting a second longer.”

“Why?” Gage was at his breaking point. He hugged Bo close to his chest, needing to feel his touch and know that his baby was still with him. “Why is it so important that we wake Marshall up? Don’t you want to get to know your grandson?”

“I do.” The sad smile on Gabriel’s face spoke of suffering that Gage had never seen before. “I want to know him so badly… but I also want to see him grow up.”

The hairs on the back of Gage’s neck stood up. “What?”

“There’s something you don’t know about the Alcrest family.” Gabriel took Gage’s bag from the roof of the car and headed for the house. Gage followed him, lost and afraid. “Something Marshall and Oli have done their best to keep quiet about.”

“Dad?” Gage asked. The same frantic terror he’d heard in his father’s voice built itself up inside of him. “What are you talking about?”

They stepped inside the house. Gabriel closed the door, his gaze averted, like he wanted to avoid the truth as badly as Gage did—but he spoke anyway, strong for his son, just like Gage was strong for Bo. “Marshall Alcrest almost died from pulmonary fibrosis close to thirty years ago. If Bo is sick, and it’s not going away…”

It’s not asthma, Dr. Wilmot’s voice repeated in his head. Her voice was accompanied by the skeptical look on Dr. Russo’s face when he’d asked if there was a family history of respiratory illness.

“No,” Gage rasped.

He tried to hold himself together, but he had no strength left to give.

His baby was sick. He hadn’t known because he’d kept the secret…

And all of it was his fault.