- GAGE -
I threw my suit jacket on her couch and headed for her kitchen. “I know you can’t drink right now, but I’m stealing some of that disgusting peach schnapps you always have.”
“Okay.” Her voice was quiet.
I slammed down a glass of schnapps, realising it was going to do jack shit to untie the knot in my stomach. How could I explain to the person I wanted to spend my life with that an entire town thought I was a monster?
I took the couch opposite where she’d sat, and my leg bounced as I thought of what to say. I’d practiced this speech so many times over the years, trying to get it right, but there was no way for it to come out with finesse. “I told you about the girl I dated when I was eighteen and was charged with statutory rape because she was sixteen.”
“Yeah, that’s basically all you’ve told me about it.” Hard to miss her bitterness.
“Lucy and I started … I guess you could call it dating. Really, it was feeling each other up behind the school. I was seventeen when it started. She was fifteen.” I cringed. Back then the age difference wasn’t important. Sitting here right now, I couldn’t fathom a fifteen-year-old doing the type of stuff Lucy and I got up to. I knew it was common, but it seemed so young to me.
“You’ve seen what it’s like for people who are stupidly in love. They’re usually stupid,” I said.
She laughed. “Yeah, just have to look at Reece’s love life to see how being in love can make you do stupid things.”
“It didn’t take long before we were having sex, and Lucy and I were together for a full year before we were caught, so when everyone found out, I was already eighteen.”
“Why was it a secret apart from her being younger than you? Like, everyone knows teens have sex. It’s just a fact.”
“We had to keep it a secret because of my dads. I was the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks with sinful parents. You think people suck now? Try growing up in the nineties with gay dads.”
Pip grunted. “People suck. How’d you get caught?”
Here we go. I couldn’t look her in the eye as I said, “She got pregnant.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yup. Her dad was a deacon at the church, and her mother was the epitome of a fifties housewife. Traditional views, strong religious beliefs … another reason we kept quiet about it.”
“You … you’re a dad?”
I shook my head. “We were so fucking dumb. We thought we could get married, have a family, and force our relationship on her parents. I guess they thought the only way to get rid of me was to fuck up my life permanently. They … they had me arrested for rape.”
Pip looked confused. “Statutory rape, right?”
“No. That’s the only thing they could charge me with in the end. They originally went after me for rape, but Lucy refused to press charges. She was the ‘victim,’ so it was in her hands. No matter how many times she said we were together and in love and spouting all that bullshit we believed, they thought she was just ‘too scared’ to tell the truth. Because we both admitted to having consensual sex, they reduced the charge to statutory rape—a class four felony which involves prison time, a fine, or both. They also wanted me to register as a sex offender. So goodbye college or getting a reputable job. My life was fucked.”
“Wait, are you trying to tell me you’re on some sex offender list or that you have a kid out there somewhere? I thought they didn’t allow sex offenders in the military.”
“They don’t.”
“Then how—”
I reached over and put my hand on her thigh. “This is a really long story. If you keep interrupting, it’s going to take all night.”
Pip animated zipping her lips shut.
“I was lucky with the judge who was assigned to the case. One bit of good luck in a bucket of shit. He believed me when we said we’d been together for a year. He reduced my charge again. There was a close-in-age exemption in the law that applied to fifteen- to seventeen-year-olds. Ironically, it’s known as the Romeo and Juliet law.”
“What happened with the baby?” she asked and then slammed her mouth shut, because she’d already broken her silence.
I winced. I hadn’t thought about the kid in a long time. “She … they …” Tears threatened my eyes, but I blinked them back. “There were two reasons her parents went after me for rape. In the eyes of their church, it was the only way they could …” I swallowed hard. “It was the only way they’d be forgiven for an abortion.”
Pip gasped.
“I was too busy dealing with the court case to stop it. I didn’t even know they were fucking doing it.”
“What about Lucy? Why didn’t she stop it?”
I asked that question so many times. We were going to be a family. We were freaked out when those two lines on the pregnancy test appeared, but we were also excited. Then Lucy threw it all away.
“Lucy said her parents threatened to kick her out if she didn’t go through with it.” I wasn’t sure if my voice was loud enough to be heard properly. “She said she wasn’t ready, we were too young, and we had forever to have kids. We had no money or ways to support ourselves. I told her my dads would’ve taken us in, but—”
“She aborted your baby and didn’t tell you before she was going to do it?” Pip’s incredulous tone made me fall for her a little more.
“I forgave her,” I whispered. “I was with her for another four years after that.”
“What happened to break you guys up?”
“We had to come up with a way to save money for the life we wanted. I would’ve called Uncle Tony and asked to come to Australia back then, but with her being a minor, it was impossible to get visas. College wouldn’t make me money in the short term, so—”
“You joined the military.”
I nodded. “It was a good thing that I was hardly home after that. When my charges were dropped to a misdemeanour, the rumours around town got worse. Lucy’s parents told the entire town I raped Lucy. But I kept telling myself I could put up with the hate, the abuse in the streets, and having to paint over the garage door every time it was spray painted with the word rapist. It would all become worth it when Lucy would give me her mischievous smile and a promise of the future we wanted.”
Again, I was a fucking idiot.
“What did Lucy do when everyone was accusing you of it?” Pip asked.
That was the thing I hated the most. “Because we had to go back to pretending we weren’t together, she didn’t do anything. She didn’t confirm the rumours, but she never denied them, except to the police when I was arrested.”
“Isn’t that just as bad as saying they were true? She should’ve supported you. She should’ve—”
“Told you. Stupid, stupid, stupidly in love. We thought it was best for some reason. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense now.”
Pip rubbed her stomach as if feeling sick, but I didn’t know if it was my story or a symptom of pregnancy. My own stomach churned.
She’s pregnant. With my friend’s baby.
I forced myself to take short and shallow breaths to get me through the rest of the story, because I was nowhere near finished. “For four years, I did my job. I trained, I got deployed, I saw people lose their lives, and I served my country. Every time I’d have leave, I’d go home to a town who still hated me, because my girl was counting on me. She was waiting for me. I lived for the times I got to go home, even though I knew the scrutiny I’d face when I was there.”
Her skin paled. “I don’t know if I want to know the rest.”
“Are you okay? You look sick.”
“I … It’s weird to think of you loving someone like that.” Her voice was quiet and just about broke my heart.
“I’m trying to let you know why I was so hurt. Lucy and I had so much going against us, but we were determined. We honestly believed we would beat the odds and tell our kids how everything was against us and we still made it. I don’t know if we were young and dumb or if what we had was the real deal with too many obstacles to overcome, but when we broke up, it wrecked me. She broke me.”
“How?”
“I should’ve told you this years ago, but I haven’t had the guts.”
She reached for my hand. “What happened to come between you two? If an angry town full of lies didn’t do the trick …”
Shit, I hadn’t thought about this in so much detail in a long time. I couldn’t without losing it. “I had less than a year left before my enlistment was up, but the messages had stopped. The phone calls went unanswered. I was deployed, so it was rare I got a chance to communicate with home. I think deep down I knew something was wrong, but I kept hope that our timing sucked and that was why I couldn’t get a hold of her. I missed talking to my dads a lot of the time too. Although, I should’ve definitely known something was up when I’d ask them about her and they’d say they hadn’t seen her either.”
Her eyes softened and sympathy poured out of them. “Gage—”
“I came back to find out she was pregnant again,” I blurted.
Pip’s eyes widened, and I assumed she jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“It was a long, long deployment, Pip. Nine months to be exact. She was only a few months along.”
“Oh, fuck. Whose baby was it?”
“You know how you have Blair, Spence, Hunter, Cole, and Reece?”
She nodded.
“Growing up, I had one friend. We bonded because we were both outcasts. I got picked on for having two dads, he got picked on for having a whore of a mother. I mean, she was an actual prostitute. That’s how she kept Jason fed and clothed. Jason often stayed at my place, because at home he had to stay in his room when his mother had ‘friends’ over.”
“I don’t like where this is going.”
“We were like brothers,” I said. “We were inseparable. Everyone has their best friend from when they were kids.”
Pip’s eyes softened with worry. “Please don’t tell me—”
“I guess when I told him to take care of my girlfriend while I was gone, he took it literally.”
Looking back now, I realised I practically pushed them together. He stole my life from beneath me. My everything. He took it. And what was worse, he took it so easily.
“I went through getting arrested, a criminal charge on my record, having an entire town hate me, losing my child, and then went to a fucking warzone for her. Then she fucking cheats on me? I don’t even think it’s the cheating that pisses me off. I mean, it does, but it’s more the fact I gave up everything for her. I let people call me a fucking rapist, just so I could be with her.” I breathed hard, trying to calm down. It’d been eight years, but I was still so fucking angry.
“She didn’t deserve you. Neither did your best …” Realisation crossed her face. “This is why you hate this surrogacy thing, isn’t it?”
“You have to understand that after what happened with Lucy and Jason, I didn’t want to trust anyone ever again. I didn’t want to be consumed by blind love that put me through so much. To willingly put everything on the line for one person only to have them turn around and crush you … I didn’t want to fall again. But … Fuck, Pip. I’ve been miserable without you. I fell for you when I didn’t want to, and I still fought it. Sitting back and watching you carry my best friend’s baby is going to kill me. I know it’s not yours, and I know we aren’t technically together, so I have no say, but—”
Tears pooled in Pip’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, Gage. So, so sorry.”
“If I could go back and do these last six months differently I would, but when I go home, I’m stressed, and angry, and I fucking hate it there. I’m still seen as the rapist who got away with it.”
“Still?”
“Small towns never forget. Although, they somehow managed to forget Jason was as white trash as I was. They all celebrated his and Lucy’s wedding and their baby and the fact she was rid of me.”
Pip screwed up her face. “Why do your dads still live there?”
I let out a humourless laugh. “Don’t get me started. I should’ve let you in six months ago, but I didn’t want to bring you down, and I certainly didn’t want you to offer to hop a plane and come witness all that hate yourself. I wouldn’t have had the strength to tell you no.”
“You could’ve told me all this.”
I shook my head. “Not over email or messages. I needed to do this face to face. And I’m going to be totally selfish here and ask you for a massive favour.”
“Anything.”
“Dad’s deteriorating fast, and I almost didn’t make it home this weekend, but Odie forced me on the plane.”
“Why did you come?” There was something in her voice—insecurity and sadness—and I wanted nothing more than to reassure her that my decision in leaving her had nothing to do with her. She was the reason I came back. She was my whole damn world, and I needed her. I couldn’t live without her anymore, and there was no way I’d survive Dad’s death without her support.
“Dad doesn’t have long left. A few weeks, maybe? It’s a miracle he’s made it this far. His original prognosis said he shouldn’t still be with us. I don’t … I can’t … I don’t want you to come to Westbumfuck, but I don’t think I can get through Dad’s death without you. I … I need you. I didn’t realise how much until I couldn’t have you anymore.”
“It took you six months to realise that? Because I gotta tell you, it took me an hour before I realised what I’d lost.”
“No. I knew it the minute I walked out of your townhouse that I was fucking everything up, but like I’d done for the last seven years, I reminded myself why I don’t get close to people. I thought I was strong and I could handle this on my own, like I have everything else.”
“Gage—”
“Come home with me? I’ve already cleared the time off with Tony. I can’t … I just—” I hated I was inviting her into my hell. I didn’t want to bring it down.
“I … umm … I have to check with Garrett and Blair. I’m not sure about the rules. I probably can’t take their baby overseas. I had to sign a buttload of legal crap.”
I wanted to punch something. “Is that the official legal definition? Buttload of legal crap?” The joke was to cover up the irrational anger sitting in my chest.
“I didn’t mean to put this on you on top of what you’ve already been through.”
I let out a humourless laugh. “I’m the only one to blame, right? I fucked up here. You didn’t know what you were doing because I never told you. Plus, it’s not like we were together or are together … even though I want to be.”
Her mouth opened as if she was going to say something, but nothing came out.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t put that on you right now.” I grabbed my phone.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Calling Garrett.”
He answered right away. “Called to apologise for punching my boyfriend?” There was a lot of background noise, and I assumed they were still at the wedding reception. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I thought I heard slight amusement in his tone.
I reminded my mouth to play nice. If they were going to let Pip go on this trip, she wasn’t the only one I had to grovel to. “I’m sorry I punched out Blair, but when I left for the States, I thought Pip and I were in agreement the surrogacy thing wasn’t going to happen.”
“Leaving without a word for six months kinda made that agreement null and void,” she pointed out.
“Sounds like you have a whole night of grovelling ahead of you, brother,” Garrett said. “I’m currently nursing Blair’s black eye. What’s up?”
“I need Pip to come to Virginia with me, but she said she needed to ask you guys first.”
Silence. Shit.
“Garrett?”
“For how long? She has appointments here.”
“A few weeks? Maybe a month. My dad—”
“Hold on a sec.” There was scuffling around, and I assumed he put his phone to his chest to muffle their voices. It took a few minutes, but when he came back on the line he said, “Six weeks is the most we can give you. We need her back for the first sonogram.”
I was silent for a beat too long.
“Gage? Did you hear me?”
“Well, now I feel like an ass.”
“What, you think we’d say no? Wow, great to know what you really think of us.”
“I thought you’d put up a little fight. I was ready to plead my case.”
“Uh, pretty safe for us to assume this wasn’t a big elaborate rouse for Pip to get pregnant with our child and then have you and her escape to the States. You may not be the most open person, but I know you wouldn’t do that. Your dad is sick, dude. We’re not heartless. Just take good care of her while you’re over there.”
“I won’t let her out of my sight.”
“Good. I guess we’ll see you guys in six weeks. Give your dads a hug from us. And I’m sorry you’re going through this.”
“Thanks, Garrett,” I croaked. I ended the call and turned to Pip. “Go pack.”
“There’s more to the story, isn’t there?”
Ah, fuck. “What makes you say that?”
“After finding out Lucy was cheating on you, you refused to ever have another relationship—or sex—again. Something’s not adding up. I could understand you not wanting to date after the way Lucy treated you. But, the sex thing. Why did you go eight years without sex?”
I rubbed my temples. “Maybe you should be a bloody detective.” I paused to think of the right way how to word what I needed to say. “Like I said, I had a few months left in the army after I found out about Lucy.”
“And?”
“For four years, I kept my head down and did my job. I never went out with my squad or got caught up in their single life bullshit, right? My unit was full of your typical military guy. Girl in every city, tag chasers throwing themselves at them. After Lucy, I was in a bad place. My squad took me out one night while we were on leave.”
She cringed. “I think I can guess what happened. So, what, did you have anonymous hook-ups for a few months, hit your sex quota, and give it up?”
I laughed. “No. Honestly? The one and only time I had sex with someone other than Lucy, I … umm … had equipment failure.”
She tried to stifle a giggle.
“Hey!” I tried to protest but started laughing too.
“I wouldn’t laugh if you still had that problem, but pretty sure we established six months ago you don’t have an issue in that department.”
“I was still so angry. Angry at Lucy. Angry at Jason. And then after the one night I did go out with my squad, it ends like that. Stupidly, I confided in one of the guys about everything—even confessed about the arrest and the rape rumours. Next thing I knew, the entire squad was aware of my past.”
“What? What an asshole. You confided in him, and he told everyone?”
I nodded. “And then they began looking at me differently. Maybe I was paranoid, but it felt that way. They looked at me like everyone in my hometown looked at me. They were always complaining how I never talked to them or went out with them, so they didn’t know me the way you know me, so maybe they thought I was the type of guy to do that.”
“Talk about guilty until proven innocent.”
I shrugged. “The military is a lot like high school. Most of the soldiers I know are bigger gossip queens than women.”
Pip pursed her lips. “I feel like I should be offended on behalf of all women.”
“Probably, but I’m too tired and jetlagged to care about being PC right now.”
“And then you came to Australia and stuck to your no sex rule. Why?”
I stared at her sapphire eyes, as I said the thing I should have said to her years ago when I knew I loved her. “None of them would’ve compared to you.”
Pip sucked in a sharp breath. She sat silently and refused to look at me. The thumping in my ear was either my heart or the ticking of her intricate clock that hung on her wall. I laid it all out there for her, and she couldn’t even bring herself to respond. Even a grunt of acknowledgement would’ve been reassuring at this point.
“You fucked up, Gage. When you left and for the past seven years where you didn’t let me in.”
I take it back. I want silence again.
“I know.” I sank to my knees, crawling my way in front of her. “I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone. More than Lucy, who, at one point, I thought was going to be my wife and the mother of my kids. More than my squad who I trusted to have my back in a warzone. You put up with me for seven years and never once pushed for me to man up and tell you about this side of me. A part of me never wanted to tell you because I was worried you’d look at me like they look at me.”
“I’d never do that. I might not know everything about your life, but I know who you are deep down, Gage Lucas Tanner. You’re sweet, and protective, and you make me laugh. You enable my randomness and when you truly let go, you’re the funnest person I know.”
“I—”
“But you broke me when you left. Our night together wasn’t worth losing years of friendship.”
“We didn’t lose anything. I’m here. I want you. Pip … I need you. Leaving had nothing to do with us. I went about it the wrong way, but I don’t think straight when it comes to Virginia. When I got the phone call, I wanted to wake you up, I wanted you to come home with me, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“Can you honestly tell me you haven’t been freaking out about what happened between us?”
I didn’t know how we switched to getting into this now. This was a whole separate conversation, and jetlag was kicking my ass. She deserved an answer, though. She was the one thing I was certain of, and she needed to know that. “Something inside me snapped that night. I couldn’t keep pretending I didn’t have feelings for you. The surrogacy might’ve triggered it, but it was more than that. It made me realise that one day someone would take you away from me. One day, you’d meet a guy who wouldn’t find me intimidating and—”
“Wait, what?”
“Please, all those losers you dated were easy to scare off. Most of the time, I didn’t even do anything other than tell them if they hurt you I’d break them.”
“The reason most of the guys I dated never made it past date three is you?”
“Uh …” Yeah, probably not the thing I should’ve said.
“I don’t know whether to be pissed off or turned on right now.”
“Then let me help you. You feel very turned on.” I kissed her knee and ran my hand across her thigh. “You feel owned.” My lips trailed up her leg. “Because you know you’re mine.”
She squirmed from the contact, and I could tell she was two seconds away from spreading her legs for me, but she hesitated.
“Gage?”
“Yeah?” I murmured against her skin.
She gripped my hair and pulled my head away which was inching closer and closer to the point of no return. “What would’ve happened if the surrogacy wasn’t brought up that night?”
I pulled away, resting back on my heels. “Huh?”
“You basically told me that you’ve scared off all my dates, but you had no intention of having me yourself. You wanted me to be alone all that time? Are you only going after me now because you realise if you don’t you’ll eventually lose me to another guy? Meaning, it’s not so much me you want, you just don’t want me to leave you. You don’t want me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either.”
I rubbed my eyes with the ball of my palms. It was going to take more than words and a roll in the sack to come back from what I did to her.
Her gentle hand cupped the side of my face. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to start something when you’re going through so much. Like you said—”
“I’ve been denying myself of you because I believed sex and relationships always turned to shit. I was scared of losing you. I was scared of you hurting me. It’s taken me way too long to get to this place, but now I’m here, I’m all in, and I’m ready for everything. I understand that’s probably crazy to you. You didn’t have some switch flip like I did. But—”
Her fingers went to my mouth to stop me from talking. “I never had a switch flip because I’ve wanted you since the day I met you.”
I kissed her fingers and then moved my lips to her palm and then wrist. I needed this. I needed her.
She pulled away. “Gage … I can’t. I’ll come to Virginia with you, and I will be there for you, but I can’t be with you in that way unless you’re in it for real this time. With your dad being sick, and everything else going on with your hometown, you’re not in the right state of mind to be able to commit to anything. I can wait. I’ve been waiting for seven years.”
I’d commit to her in a heartbeat, but my action held consequences, and mine lost me her trust. I was in a shit headspace, true, but I knew what she and I could have was worth proving to her that I was all in.
My shoulders sagged, and my eyes closed tight. “I understand.”
“I’m not saying no. Just not right now. We’ll take things slow.”
Whatever she was willing to give me, I’d take. “Can I stay with you tonight? Not sex. Just sleep. I … I need you.”
“I’ll give you anything you want.” Her hand cradled my scruffy cheek. “But I have to protect my heart for a while.”
She brought her forehead to mine. We’d get through the next few weeks the way we always did—pretending we didn’t have feelings for each other. After that, I wasn’t going to let her off the hook so easily.