- PIP -
I could still feel him on my lips, on my skin, and inside me, but when I reached for him, there was only cold emptiness. The last thing I expected was to wake up alone.
I rolled over to find a piece of paper on the pillow next to me. Where I wanted to read “Went to get breakfast” or “Had some shit to do. Be back later” I actually read:
Left my car keys on your kitchen bench so you can drive to work on Monday.
I have to go home to the US for a while.
Just know this has nothing to with us, but we may have to put a pin in whatever this is because I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.
I don’t regret it.
Love, Gage.
It had nothing to do with us? Was he kidding me? What kind of lame-ass excuse was that, and what was I supposed to think? The same night we not only cross that friendship line, but go so far past it we can’t even see it anymore, he bails out on me and leaves? To the other side of the world, no less.
I screwed up the piece of paper and threw it across the room.
Fuck that. And fuck Gage Tanner.
***
Three months. Three. Fucking. Months.
I shut down another pointless Google search trying to find out updates on Gage, but it’d literally been like he fell off the face of the planet. All social media was shutdown. I’d even resorted to searching for deaths in Virginia. He could’ve been dead for all I knew. Tony said he wasn’t getting regular updates either, but I’d had nothing. At all.
I called and messaged Gage when he left, but all I got in response was a Facebook message saying his phone didn’t have international roaming enabled so it didn’t work, he was dealing with a family crisis, and that he’d get in contact when he could. Then he shut his Facebook account down so I couldn’t even reply.
That didn’t stop my obsession in trying to find him.
There was a knock on my office door, and a tall, sexy man appeared. “Ready to put my baby in your belly?”
“You make it sound so romantic,” I purred.
He grinned. “I’d offer to do it the old-fashioned way, but I don’t have sex with women anymore.”
“Way to smash the fantasy, Garrett.”
In reality, we were headed for the lawyer’s office to sign the surrogate contract. The actual baby-making part was a month off.
When Gage disappeared from my life, I told myself not to waste another seven years on a man who wouldn’t let me in. He claimed me and then abandoned me. So a few weeks after the fact, I messaged Garrett and Blair and told them I was one hundred percent in. I wasn’t putting my life on hold for that douche-nozzle.
Garrett cocked his head. “Are you sure you want to do this? Blair and I were surprised you wanted to after what happened with Gage—”
“I was ready to do this before Gage left. This isn’t a midlife crisis or quarter-life crisis or searching for emotional redemption from a broken heart. I want to do this for you guys more than anything. It also gives me something else to focus on other than him.”
He sat in the chair opposite my desk and leant forward with his elbows on his knees. Garrett and Gage were similar in stature and the move threw me. Garrett’s muscles weren’t as impressive as Gage’s but pretty damn close. Tears threatened until I told myself to stop it.
“What if I told you the real reason Gage left?”
My face lit up until I realised what that meant. Gage was in contact with Garrett. “You spoke to him? All Tony would say is he’s taken a leave of absence because his dad is sick.”
“I had to email him about a few of his accounts. His dad’s not just sick, Pip. He’s got stage four pancreatic cancer. There’s nothing they can do for him. He asked me not to tell you, but if he has anything to do with your decision to go ahead with the surrogacy—”
My heart broke for Gage, while my brain wanted to scream at him. “Why couldn’t he tell me that?” As soon as I asked the question, I knew the answer. My shoulders sagged. “He wanted to deal with it on his own.” He wanted to do everything on his own. “He was there when my mother died. I don’t understand why he’s shutting me out. I would’ve gone with him. I could’ve—”
Garrett pointed to me. “And that there is the reason he didn’t want me to tell you. Do you notice he never talks about his time in the US? The most I’ve gotten out of him was the story of his parents. That was years ago, and I think the only reason he told me was because I was struggling with coming out. I don’t know anything of his upbringing, other than he lived in a small town with two dads and he got into fights a lot over that fact. He never talks about his time with the army or about the girl who got him arrested when he was eighteen. You and I are his best friends, and yet, we don’t know much about him apart from who he is now. There’s no doubt in my mind he didn’t tell you because you’d be on the first plane over there, even if it meant knocking on every door in Virginia to find him.”
I sat there, completely defeated.
“You know I’m right.”
“Yeah, I do,” I mumbled. “God, I can’t obsess over him any longer, or I think I may go insane. And not metaphorically insane where your friends go ‘You so cray’ … but full on, psychiatric ward insane. I need to stop thinking about him. I’ve been doing it for three months.” Seven years, actually. “At what point does it make me sad beyond redemption?”
Garrett leant forward in his seat. “I know you guys don’t know much about Blair’s and my relationship because we kept it secret for so long, but I was always the one running away. It had nothing to do with Blair but with my own issues. So, as someone who kept shutting out the person he loved, I can say Gage cutting you off has nothing to do with you. And if you’re not ready to do the surrogacy—”
I held up my hand. “I’m more than ready. Let’s go sign a contract to make a baby.”
“Now who’s the romantic one?”
I was lying, of course. To Garrett and myself. While I was completely ready to do this surrogacy thing, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to wallow and obsess over Gage until I heard from him or he came back. It wouldn’t stop me from blaming myself for crossing a line we always promised not to cross.
Maybe he would’ve let me in had we not effectively shut each other out by sleeping together.
I didn’t want everyone else to see a man had brought me to my knees. Not literally because I was never on my knees. We didn’t get to that position the night we had together. Dammit, now I’m reliving it all over again. I forced myself to shove the image of him on top of me out of my head. Every thrust, every touch—our night haunted me, and it ruined me a little more each time I remembered what it was like to have everything I’d fantasised about.
I’d always been independent. I had a career I was thriving in, I owned my own townhouse, and I’d never needed a man. I needed Gage like I needed oxygen.
Then I’d remember he left me. Obviously, he didn’t need me as much as I needed him.