Page 32 of Winning You
“Yeah,” Lucas breathed. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell his dad that either. “So what are you going to do? Does your dad know about the paternity thing?”
“Not yet. I’m going to tell him tomorrow. I want him to drive me to go take it. I think if I try to go alone, I’ll have a panic attack.”
“And what happens after? Like…if you find out it’s positive or a match or whatever?”
Gage was quiet for a long time. He pulled away slightly, but he took Lucas’s hands and began to squeeze them like they were a stress ball. “I don’t know. I used to think I wanted to be a dad. Then I thought maybe a fun uncle would be cooler. I didn’t ask for any of this, and I’m not sure I could look at that baby and…and not think of what happened.”
Lucas let out a trembling breath. “I get it.”
“Does that make me a monster? To blame some kid who didn’t ask for any of this?”
“Fuck no,” Lucas said. He took one of his hands back and laid it on Gage’s cheek. His skin was wet and clammy. He was crying. Jesus, he wanted to commit actual murder. Vicious, gory, painful murder.
“Would it make me a total freak if I did want to be part of the baby’s life?”
“Also no. Dude, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer to this question.”
Gage laughed thickly. “Mm. That’s what my therapist said. But I don’t know. None of this feels real.”
“You know that whatever you decide, literally everyone will be here for you.” Lucas reached up to pet Gage’s hair. It was soft, a little greasy from the sweat he’d probably worked up on his shift. Lucas let his fingers sift through it gently, the motion soothing to the both of them. “Can I say something? You might not like it.”
Gage snorted. “I appreciate you checking in, but I owe you a while of letting you be blunt without it getting to me.”
Lucas sighed and decided not to correct him on that bullshit. Instead, he laid his cheek against the top of Gage’s head. “I think if you choose to be a dad, you’ll be a really amazing one. And I think if you choose not to, your life will be very full and, someday, really happy.”
Gage said nothing for a while. He lay still in Lucas’s arms. “I don’t want to fuck up. Everyone in the family—they’re all happy now, but it took them forever to get that way. When Boden came back from getting blown up and dumped, he was…different. He used to be this super-fun uncle, and all I wanted to do was spend time with him. Then love kicked him right in the balls, and for a while, I thought maybe he was just going to live like some human burrito in our basement.”
Lucas couldn’t help a small laugh. “That’s the weirdest metaphor I have ever heard, but yeah. I mean, I get it. Look at my dad. He was married to a jackass, he was kind of a crap dad for a lot of years and wallowed in guilt for so fucking long. I remember when Dallas came to visit right before the divorce was final. I wanted to run away and go live with him because I couldn’t take the way it felt in my house. But then, of course, he was dealing with his own shit.”
“I don’t want to wait until I’m in my forties for my happily ever after,” Gage whispered.
Lucas held him tighter. “Me either. Being a virgin forever feels like the worst thing in the world.”
“You won’t be. People our age suck, but people won’t be twenty-two forever.”
Lucas immediately thought about Frankie. He didn’t know how old he was, but he was definitely not twenty-two. Thought it was laughable to think that he’d be interested in Lucas for anything real.
“Did I say something wrong?” Gage asked.
“No.” Lucas hummed softly to himself. “So. Do we eat? Or do we wallow? Feels weird to talk about all of that, then have pizza.”
Gage burst into laughter, rolling Lucas onto his back and shoving his head into his stomach. “I’m starving. Let me cope how I cope.”
Lucas grinned, setting his hand to the side of Gage’s neck. “Alright. Let’s feed you, growing boy. Need to get them firefighter muscles big and strong so someone you like wants to touch your butt.”
“Gross.”
Lucas grinned as he sat up. “Ah, you love my honesty.”
There was a pause—a heavy silence—and then Gage said, “It feels weird to agree, but I do. I want to be wanted again.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Lucas vowed, and goddamn, he meant it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FRANKIE
By the timehe got done with his last appointment of the day, which was a bar that didn’t open until nine at night, and then got all his paperwork and reports filed, it was past ten. He paused by Lucas’s door and debated about knocking, but then he remembered that he was spending his evening with Gage, and he wasn’t about to interrupt that.
