Page 83 of Pick Me
“Yeah, but what happens when it’s time for you to go back to Boston?” Gage whispered.
I turned around finally. “I’m not leaving until I’ve finished sorting out the books,” I said firmly. “I would never do that. And when it’s time to go… well, if Drew wants to do the books again, I’ll train him how to do it right, because I’ve got a whole system now. Or if he doesn’t want to, I’ll hire someone else. I’m not going to screw my family over, Gage.”
Gage rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Obvs.In a million years, I would never think that. I meant, what happens toyou?”
“I… go back to work?” I replied, wondering what the trick to the question was. “I tell my family the truth, and they’ll be pissed at me initially, but Drew and my brotherswillget over it. I know they will.” I thought about it for a second. “Em’s gonna make me adopt a herd of rhinos or endow a scholarship or ten first, but eventually she will, too. Because they’ll see that I did it for the right reasons.” I set my jaw to hide my nervous swallow. “Do you?”
Gage sat very carefully on the edge of the sofa cushion. “I’m not mad that you lied to them, Knox. Hell, most of my family tells lies more often than they change their underwear, and I’m no saint myself. I probably would have done the same thing.” He took a deep breath. “But I’m upset that you liedto me. I know we’re keeping our relationship a secret from everyone, but I let myself believe that the dishonesty stayedoutsidethe truth bubble we’d created, and inside the truth bubble, we were being honest with each other. That we meant something to each other, as friends if nothing else.”
“Gage,” I said softly, coming to sit on the coffee table across from him and picking up his hand.
“And I’m seriously fucking upset that you’re not putting your health before your job,” he went on. “Does Dr. Travers know you’re planning to go back? Is he on board? What other changes are you going to make to compensate for the stress you’ll be under? Because you can’t just go back to the life you led and expect the same thing not to happen again. That’s the definition of insanity.”
“Baby—” I shook my head. The idea that he was worried about me was a sweet ache deep in my chest.
“No. Don’t do that. Don’t give me playful sex face. Don’t be all ‘Gage, baby.’”He stood up and stalked to the kitchen. “You’re an idiot, and you’re willfully sabotaging your mental health.”
“You can’t talk about a truth bubble and not have me think you’re adorable. Besides which, I’m doing better,” I insisted. “I promise. It’s not like my time in Vermont has been entirely stress-free, you know. I helped deliver a calf, which I’ve never done before. Aiden went missing, and I was seriously fucking upset, but I’ve been able to hold it together. I’m talking to Dr. Travers regularly. I’m truly okay.”
“Great! Good! But have you considered that you’re doing betterbecauseyou’re here? Because you have a support network that encourages you to put yourself and your mental health first, and your life is less stressful, so you have an emotional reserve? That you’re finally sleeping through the night now because you’re getting lots of fresh air and activity and not working sixteen-hour days? And that all that will go away if you move back to the city?”
I blinked. I… hadn’t. Not really.
“Why are you fighting so hard to go back to a job that’s killing you when you could stay here and be happy? Why does being happy scare you so damn much?”
“Pfft. This again? I’m telling you, it doesn’t. And my job… it’s who Iam, Gage.”
Gage made an inarticulate noise of frustration and glared up at the ceiling. “Dear Precious Angel Baby Jesus, maker of warm puppies and extra-slippery lube, why in your infinite wisdom did you make me attracted to the world’s most stubborn, infuriating human? Why must he insist and insist and fuckinginsistthat he’s right until I’m ready to brain him, and then just like that—” He snapped his fingers. “—he arrives at the correct answer and pretends like he knew it all along?”
Gage stood under the kitchen light and glared at me. Fighting with me, fightingforme. He was the most glorious thing I’d ever seen.
“And you know what’s worse than all that?” he demanded, glaring at me with his hands on his lean hips, his golden-brown hair all askew like some sort of modern sculpture. “You know what the most fucked-up part of my attraction to you is?I think it’s cute! It isnotcute. What’s the matter with me?”
Relief flowed through me, soothing all the rough places that had appeared since he’d walked out of his interview back in Boston.
“Okay, first of all.” I stood up and moved toward him, letting the gravity of him tow me in. “I do admit when I’m wrong.”
“Oh yeah? Like when?” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Like when I thought I could keep my hands off you. Fight this attraction between us.Sowrong. See how I’m admitting it?” I took a step closer.
His eyes widened, and he put up his hand to ward me off. “No way. Stop right there. Don’t do that either.”
“Do what?” Despite the seriousness of the conversation, I wanted to laugh. Only Gage could make me feel so many things at one damn time.
“You know exactly what.” He made a waving motion in my direction. “That up-and-down eye-fuck thing. Stop it. We haven’t finished talking.”
“What eye-fuck thing?Thiseye-fuck thing?” I let every damn thing I wanted from him show in my eyes.
“You’re awful,” he said with no heat.
“What if I did something else instead?” I kissed him softly and traced the outline of his cock through his jeans. “Would that be awful?”
His breathing hitched. “So awful,” he moaned, his hands sliding up to twine around my neck. He gave a deep sigh of capitulation. “Be awful some more.”
That was all the permission I needed. I pushed him back another step so he was braced against the counter and kissed him deeply. I pulled his shirt over his head, just so I could see his gorgeous golden skin on display, then sank to my knees right there on the kitchen floor, pulling his jeans down so I could nuzzle him through his briefs and inhale the heady, musky scent of him.
He was only half erect, but it was a goddamn thrill the way he hardened almost instantly when I put my mouth on him through the cotton, tracing the veins and ridges of him with my tongue.
