Saving Us (The Billionaire Brothers of NY Duology #1)

12. Gage

CHAPTER 12

Gage

T he sun was streaming through the window, warming my face. I should have remembered to pull the curtains closed before climbing into bed last night.

Climbing into bed.

I suddenly remembered why I didn’t think about the curtains. My eyes popped open, but I made sure to keep my body frozen and I listened, really listened, for any other sounds in the room. Sure enough, I heard the soft breathing of someone still in bed with me.

Turning to my left, I saw the naked body of Chelsea.

She was still here.

Why the fuck did I let her stay the night? Having a one-night stand was one thing but letting her sleep over was too much. I shouldn’t have given in to her almost begging and going on about not wanting to take an Uber at three in the morning.

But I continually surprised myself by proving I indeed was not a monster and agreed with her. I was fully aware no female should be sent into a stranger’s car, alone, in the middle of the night. But I also knew I didn’t want her here when I woke up.

Yet, here we were. It was always awkward figuring out the easiest way to send them off. And it being a Sunday would make it even harder. Thankfully, I did have some work to do, so there was that.

Jumping out of bed without a glance in her direction, I locked myself in the bathroom and started running the shower.

This really sucked because I loved my Sunday mornings, especially when the weather was as nice as today. My coffee tasted better in the yard or up on the roof, not sure why, but it did. Staring at my reflection, it made me wonder why I allowed myself to get into this mess.

And then I heard the timid knock.

“Gage?”

My head slumped between my shoulders in defeat as my hands rested against the vanity. Moving to the door, I unlocked and opened it, but held it against my body, a shield that would hopefully protect me.

“Hey, I just wanted to say goodbye before I left.” She was fully dressed, purse in hand. And her weak smile told me she read the room and knew where I stood.

Yet why did that make me feel like an asshole?

“Oh, one sec, let me shut off the water, I’ll walk you down.”

As we exited my room, the small talk started.

“You have a lovely home, it’s just you in this big place?”

“Uh, yep, just me.” Insinuating that I could possibly be cheating on someone wasn’t going to get her a second invitation, not that it was going to happen anyway. We made it to the bottom of the staircase which led into the foyer, and I turned toward her before opening the door. “It was nice meeting you, Chelsea.”

She tried to hide the disappointment, but it slipped through. “Yeah, it was a great night.” Her heels clicked on the tiles as she started making her exit, but then she stopped and turned around. “Ya know, both Amanda and Chase warned me that you’d be closed off, told me you’ve had a rough year.”

I did not like where this was going.

“I’m not looking for anything serious, so if you want to get together sometime, give me a call. We could just, I don’t know, hang out.”

My head fell softly against the door as I continued to hold it in my hands. She was pretty. And nice. I should want to see her again.

But I didn’t.

“Yeah,” I told her. “I’ll call you sometime.”

But she knew. Her small wave as she walked out to her waiting car was a goodbye. And I was okay with that.

Closing the door with a click, I locked it up and headed for the kitchen. My shower would have to wait until after coffee.

As I waited for the cup to fill, I took out my phone and shot Jared a text.

Me - Hey man wanna hang today tell Delia it’s my turn with you

He lived with his girlfriend, so finding time with him wasn’t always simple. But Delia was a cool girl and gave us our guy time when we needed it. I finished making my coffee and walked toward the back slider, making my way into my sanctuary of a yard. It wasn’t the biggest, but it was exactly what I needed to feel like I was escaping from the city. It had a small patch of grass, a tree, and when the weather warmed up, it would be filled with pot after pot of vegetables and flowers. Just as I was sitting on the small couch on the paver patio, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

Jared - Yankee game and some beers later?

Me - Yeah, in or out?

Jared - Let’s stay at your place

Me - See you at 1

Perfect. I had just enough time to get my work done. Then the rest of the day we’d be hanging out like old times.

“This is awesome, Gage. When did you put it in?” Jared asked.

He was referring to the outdoor tv on my patio. Thankfully, it was warm enough for us to watch the game outside.

“Last summer, right before I left for brU. But I didn’t have much time to use it before leaving, and I can’t be out here in the winter. I was torn between putting it out here or on the rooftop deck to use with the hot tub.”

Jared and I had gotten settled on the patio couch with our beers, plus a pizza and some wings I had delivered.

“I think you made the right call, makes more sense out here. You’ll use it more being able to just come right out back instead of having to walk all the way upstairs for it.”

I nodded in agreement. It was the reasoning I had for why it should be out here as well, even when Rebecca wanted it on the rooftop. I was glad I went with my gut.

“How have things been for ya lately, man?” he asked. “I know she’s been across the pond since the divorce finalized, so that has to help a little.” He threw his feet up on one of the soft ottomans as he took a chug of his beer. “We haven’t seen much of each other outside the office since you’ve returned.”

My mouth was full of a couple bites of pizza, and I took my time chewing and swallowing since I wasn’t looking forward to talking about my ex-wife. But to be completely honest, it was probably why I invited him today.

“Yeah, well, I think it’s good she transferred permanently. It made the most sense.” Leaning forward, elbows perched on my knees, I put my beer on the table. Jared would not have a clue what I meant by that. Rubbing my hands across my face, I prepared myself for the telling of the story. “I mean, you heard the rumors, you filed all the papers, so you knew she was cheating, right?”

He nodded. He remained relaxed against the back of the couch, but he could tell I was stressed and remained quiet.

“Well, yeah, she cheated. But all that time she spent in London, she, uh…” I almost couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud. “She was basically living with another guy over there.”

Jared bolted upright.

“Holy shit.” Jared’s words were a hushed whisper as he sat in disbelief.

The three of us were friends since college down at Blue Ridge University. Jared and I were freshman roommates and eventually frat brothers. Jared met Rebecca in their pre-law classes and introduced us.

And she and I were inseparable from that day onward.

Really, the three of us were.

But Rebecca and I just had a lot of sex.

All the time.

Our college years together as a couple were among my favorite years of my life. They were idyllic.

It was part of why I thought heading back there for graduate school might help me. It was always a place that I associated with good thoughts and memories.

“Yeah, and the worst of it is that she started seeing him about a month after she got to London. So, yeah, most of my marriage was a sham.”

Rebecca and I got married six months out of college. We figured why wait; we felt we were meant for one another. We were going to be working together in my father’s company, so we went against both our families’ guidance and married at twenty-two years old.

When my father sent her to London on assignment, he thought he was doing us a favor. He felt that a bit of time apart since we lived and worked together would be good for our relationship.

But then she started requesting to be there more and more, longer and longer.

“ The job is more complicated than we expected .”

An impromptu visit brought it all to light.

“Fuck, Gage, I’m sorry, man. That really sucks,” Jared said. “That pisses me off that she did that to you.”

I laughed. “Yeah, you and me both.”

We fell back against the couch and watched the game in companionable silence for a bit, Jared still processing my news.

It wasn’t easy for guys to sit around and shoot the shit about their love lives.

So, I decided I wasn’t going to anymore.

“Want another beer?” I asked as I walked in toward the kitchen.

He got up and followed me. “I’m assuming you heading back down to brU had something to do with wanting to, what, get away or something? We never really talked about that. You kind of just up and left. I came into the office one day and Chase told me you were taking the year off to go back to school.”

We popped the tops off our bottles and leaned against the kitchen island. I figured he was going to bring this up, and the guilt I felt over it overwhelmed me. But I was spiraling down a dark hole back then and needed to do something.

“Yeah, sorry about that, man. I didn’t mean to just leave. And I’m sorry there wasn’t really any communication while I was down there.” Leaning against the marble, I stared at the floor in front of me, too ashamed to look at my best friend.

“Hey, no worries, I get it. Once I put two and two together, knowing what was going on with you and Rebecca, I figured it was a soul-searching kind of thing.”

Looking up, I found his eyes on me, studying me.

“What? What’s that look for?” I asked him.

He started laughing quietly.

“You went back to brU.” He shook his head at me and took a long chug of his beer. “Don’t you realize that it’s every guy’s dream to be able to go back to college? To actually go back and live there? Shit, you relived the best thing we had going, Gage!” He rushed around the island toward me. “C’mon, tell me about it. You had to go to parties, I’m sure, right? And did you, ya know, hook up with anyone?” He punched me in the arm with a wide smile on his face.

My plan to not talk about the rest of it wasn’t panning out.

“Well, it was kinda cool being back down there, but you can never go back . Ya know what I mean?” My tone was more serious than he anticipated. He was hoping for recounts of frat girls and tailgates.

And I guess I could just give him what he wanted.

But there was too much of me that stayed behind at brU to be excited about telling him my tales.

“Where did you live? Were you in the same complex we lived in?” Jared asked.

We both laughed, thinking back to our senior year. We lived together with two other frat brothers. And, well, we had fun.

“No,” I told him. “And thank God, that was a shit hole. I was in the place over off Prices Road, those townhouses. They’re pretty nice for college kids.”

Heading back out to the yard, Jared followed, but kept up with the questions.

“So, are the girls still as hot down there?”

Jared made a name for himself at brU. He and Delia didn’t meet until he moved up here to New York. His bachelor years spent at college were…notorious. If anyone could be accused of being a manwhore, it would have been him. But the girls loved him, undeterred by the sheer volume of other girls he’d hooked up with.

“I guess.”

“Whoa,” he almost yelled. “What do you mean, ‘you guess’?”

Suddenly, the paper on my beer bottle became the focus of my attention. I almost had it off all in one piece, which was a huge accomplishment, and I hoped Jared would let me be and work on my current project.

“Dude, what happened down there?” he asked.

My head snapped up and I looked at him, trying to hide my surprise at his revelation. But I failed. He saw it.

“That’s why you came back to work early, I’m assuming.”

Throwing my head back in defeat, I knew I was destined to tell him everything.

“Dude, are we really doing this?” I asked, looking up at the ceiling for an answer. I walked back out to the patio, sitting on the couch again.

Jared sat back against the couch as well. “That’s on you, man.”

But we both knew I needed to get it out.

“Yeah, I needed to leave there. I, uh, met someone there. But it was the wrong time for her and me. She was on a break from her boyfriend.” I stopped to regroup, pulling out her picture on my phone. Handing it to Jared, he let out a whistle.

“Damn, she’s fuckin’ hot.”

I closed my phone before I saw her face staring back at me again. Too many nights had been spent looking into those green eyes.

“Yeah, she is. And we said it would just be sex, but…”

Jared barked a laugh out loud.

“What?” I asked, a bit annoyed with him finding humor in this.

He didn’t answer me right away but started shaking his head as if in disbelief. “Dude, you should know as well as I do, you’re not built that way. You don’t do ‘just sex.’ It’s never been your thing. Even that girl before Rebecca, what was her name?”

“Sara.”

“Yes! Sara. And you were convinced freshman year, the first girl you hooked up with, was ‘the one.’ I’m sorry, man, but you should’ve known better.”

Thinking back, I didn’t remember it quite like that, but Jared did have a better memory than I did.

“Well, I’ll have you know I had ‘just sex’ last night. Didn’t even take the girl’s number.”

Slamming my bottle on the table in a show of triumph, I looked to Jared for his reaction. It wasn’t what I expected. Instead of a conspiratorial shit grin, his eyes were turned down and his mouth a grim straight line.

“You’re not getting what I mean, Gage.” He placed his bottle on the table next to mine and appeared to be thinking very seriously about his next words. “Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, any of it. First, you’re a good-looking guy. I’d go so far to say, a hell of a lot better looking than me. Women are always checking you out.” He paused, rubbing his hands on his knees a bit.

Yeah, he seemed to be nervous.

“All things considered, you should have notches in every bedpost and up and down your door frame, but that’s not you, man. Never has been, and I don’t think it ever will be.”

Clearing his throat, I got the impression things were going to get even deeper.

“I’m no professional, but don’t ya think it has something to do with, I don’t know, your mom, maybe taking off on you guys so young? And her cheating on your dad. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the way you are is bad. I should have been more like you in college.”

Our collective laugh and his self-deprecation lightened the mood. But he wasn’t finished.

“How did last night make you feel?”

Fuck.

He was going for the jugular. And he knew what he was doing. Instead of answering him, I jumped from my seat.

“I need another beer, you?” I asked. My pace to the kitchen was quick, but he caught up to me.

“Hey, how ‘bout we head out to a bar or something? Let’s get out of here, change of scenery,” he offered. “Delia is out to dinner with friends, I actually have all night.”

It would be good to go out, just hang out at a bar. Hadn’t done that in ages with all the time I’d been devoting to work. And maybe in a public place he’d lay off the inquisition.

Though, to be honest, I knew it was why I asked him here.

As I started cleaning up the pizza box and bottles from the kitchen counter, I stopped and looked his way. “You’ll get a kick out of this,” I said. “The girl I met at brU? The one I was hoping would take my mind off, well, everything. Her name was Becca.”

Jared froze mid-step and his head snapped in my direction. “You’re fucking kidding.”

Shaking my head, we both shared a laugh.

“You were fucking a Becca to forget about Rebecca?” he asked, the humor not lost in his words.

“Yeah, she never quite understood why I called her Becca, not Rebecca . Thank fuck her name was just Becca.”

“Only your luck, dude, seriously. Only you,” he laughed.

He went back to cleaning up the food so we could head out. But I was stuck on the question he had asked me but I refused to answer. Keeping my back to him, too afraid to make eye contact, I finally decided to answer it.

“Last night made me feel like shit.”

Yeah, we were freshman roommates. And yeah, we joined the same frat. We were forced into so many social situations during college that it was inevitable we’d be friends. But there were many other reasons he remained my best friend now, years since college.

And this was an example of one of them.

“Yep, and that’s why we’re getting out of here. Let’s go get drunk.”