by Bethany-Kris
The words still broke his heart, though.
And now I’m gone.
Gage didn’t even know what to think. Clearly she’d taken his words the wrong way, but what was he to do, now? It was already too late, she was exactly what she said—gone.
There wasn’t much time to consider her words, either, because his cell phone started to ring. Gage fumbled with the stupid device in his pocket until he answered the call, pressing the phone to his ear before checking the caller ID.
“Yeah?”
“Gage?” a familiar voice asked.
“This is my number, Ty. You fucking called it.” Usually he wasn’t so short, but obviously this wasn’t his day. “What do you want?”
Ty was another volunteer at the teen center in Saint John. They weren’t particularly close, but Ty was usually the one who called Gage if he was out of town by request of someone else for whatever reason.
“Jesus, bite my head off.”
“Sorry,” Gage mumbled, though he wasn’t. “What’s up?”
“So, we’ve got an issue down here.”
Figures, he thought sarcastically. He’d mentioned the day before he would probably be done with the mural today, so it wasn’t a surprise someone was calling to see when he would be back to work. “Oh, yeah?”
“Jordy got himself in some trouble,” Ty stated frankly. “He got caught tagging up some government building last night. I figured you’d want to know.”
Gage’s mind all but shut down.
Really not his fucking day.
Jordy was a sixteen, almost seventeen-year-old boy Gage took on to mentor. The kid’s home life was absolute crap with an absentee father and an addict mother. When Gage met Jordy for the first time, the one thing he noticed about the kid was his eyes were clear and sober, but he had spray paint stains on his jeans.
That he could work with. So he did.
“What’s it looking like?” Gage dared to ask.
“His mother hasn’t even showed up to get him out of the jail. I think they’re going to send a social worker over there, see what she’s up to. If she’s cracked out of it, they’re probably going to send him to a foster home until his court date. Or something. Listen, I’m sorry. I know I said I’d look after him while you were gone.”
Gage sighed, rubbing his head where a throbbing was beginning to form. “No, it’s my fault. He’s had a rough couple of months at home, and I up and left without giving him much notice.”
After all, Gage was the only real cornerstone Jordy counted on daily.
“Anyway,” Ty continued, “… The social worker mentioned he might be able to stay with you, because of your reputation, given his age and your closeness to the kid. But they’d like to speak with you face to face. Soon, preferably.”
Gage wanted a minute to think, and be angry over Summer. He didn’t have that time to spare, now. “Let them know I’ll be there in the morning for them to see me.”
Ty hung up the phone with an agreement to call the social worker. Cussing again, Gage turned on the truck, put it in drive, and spun out of the motel’s parking lot. In minutes, he was at Dean’s. Again, he was reminding of how sickeningly small this fucking town was and how badly he wanted to leave, soon preferably.
Minutes later, when Gage still hadn’t gotten out of his truck, still staring at the sketchpad he’d tossed back to the floor, his best friend came out to meet him. His daughter was hanging off his hip. Gage rolled down his window, though he found he wasn’t in any fucking mood to chat.
“Where’s that girl of yours?” Dean asked.
Gage choked out a bitter laugh, refusing to meet his friend’s stare. Summer wasn’t his girl. “Gone.”
“What, I thought—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Gage interrupted smoothly. “I don’t have time to have a fucking pity party over it, anyway.”
Dean frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean? I thought you liked this girl, Gage.”
Hell, he more than liked her. Gage had fallen in love with Summer like the way he fell in love with his art. It was the sort of thing you had to be careful with at first, but once the initial strokes were made to the canvas, something amazing was already starting to take form. It was undeniable, absolutely impossible to ignore, and an addiction he needed to feed.
“I do,” Gage admitted sadly. “But something came up in Saint John. And like I said, she’s gone.”
That was that. Just gone.
Wasn’t it?
Chapter Thirteen
“Since when do you scowl?”
Summer shot her mother with a dirty look. “I’m not scowling.”
“Yes, you are. If you keep it up, your pretty face is going to freeze that way, Summer.”
Resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at her mother like a toddler, Summer turned back to look out at the view from their front porch. She’d only arrived home two days earlier after a three day drive from New Brunswick to Saskatchewan. Already, Summer was missing something in her heart, she could feel it.
Gage.
Summer refused to acknowledge it.
“Did you meet Tim’s girlfriend?”
Summer snorted under her breath. “Went out for coffee with them yesterday.”
“And?”
“He was right, I hate her.”
Summer’s mother laughed lightly, reaching over to tap her daughter’s knee with the newspaper like she was a misbehaving toy dog. “Stop it. I think she’s his one, Summer.”
“Probably. I didn’t say she wasn’t absolutely perfect for Tim, just that I didn’t like her. Then again, I’ve never liked any of his girlfriends, so that’s not a surprise.”
“He’s never liked a whole lot of your guys, either,” her mother replied.
“I haven’t had that damn many, Mom.” Summer sighed, leaning back in swinging bench. “Besides, nobody is going to be good enough for Tim.”
Heck, she had to set some kind of precedence for her brother’s women.
“So …” her mother drawled, trailing off with a glance in Summer’s direction.
She knew this conversation was coming. There was nothing quite like a mother who could read her only daughter like an open book. They always did have a close relationship, no matter what Summer was dealing with. It was one of the many things she appreciated about her mother. If she needed to chat without judgement, she could go straight to her mom and have that female companion.
“Tim said you weren’t coming home until Thanksgiving.”
Summer shrugged. “I decided to come early. I missed it here. What, are you telling me you want me to go again?”
“Summer,” her mother said, almost scolding. “You know I want you here. Always. I hate having to worry about you constantly when you’re not.”
Guilt compounded in Summer’s chest. “I know, I know. I’m just—”
“A free spirit.” A familiar smile lit up her mother’s face. “What kind of a parent would I be to discourage you from doing something that makes you happy? Not a very good one, I think. I just wish you’d find someone who shares that gentle soul of yours. Someone who could understand, or make you feel settled.”
Summer chewed nervously on the inside of her cheek. “You’re a great mom. Always were, even if you worry too much.”
Obviously her deflection didn’t work, because her mother was staring straight at her now, eyes narrowing. “Summer?”
“What?”
“Why did you come home so early, sweetheart?” her mother asked.
Something tore away another chunk of her heart. “Just the right time, I suppose.”
“Ah, no. I don’t think so .You do realize ever since you understood what a lie was, you pick your nails when you do it, right?”
Damn it. She hid her clenched fists at her sides to keep from doing just that.
Summer did scowl that time. “Leave it alone. It’s nothing.”
“Tim said you met a guy.”
“Tim has a big mouth he need
s to have sewed shut,” Summer muttered. “I was just joking with him, trying to rile his big brother instincts up. That’s all.”
Her mother hummed a disagreeing sound. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh,” Summer drawled sarcastically. “And why’s that?”
“Because of this …”
Summer’s mother opened her newspaper to toss a piece of white sketchpad paper to the bench beside her. Air caught painfully harsh in Summer’s throat, threatening to choke her with the emotions that were suddenly lunging up from her chest and heart.
The picture staring back up at Summer was the one Gage had been drawing of her the morning she left. While there wasn’t anything pornographic about her pose, it certainly didn’t leave anything to the imagination as to where she was, or how little she wore.
That black smudge where she’d knocked the pad from his hand while he was still drawing her was there, too. It was the only thing that marred the picture. Even that didn’t take away from it.
It was a beautiful sketch, though. One she couldn’t let go of.
Summer sincerely hoped over everything, Gage wasn’t angry with her for taking that.
“You’re in a bed, sweetheart,” her mother said softly. “And naked, though you can’t see anything. Thank God. I don’t think it’s hard to tell what was happening before this … Gage … started drawing you.”
Of course, he’d signed his name bold and black at the bottom.
That man—God, that idiot man who Summer was so damned positive she loved. But that wasn’t possible, was it? You couldn’t really love someone you didn’t know. Summer wasn’t all too sure, now.
Stupid her, too. She might as well just add that in.
Summer swallowed the lump, forcing herself to speak. “You had no business going through my stuff.”
“I know, but I didn’t have a choice. The way you were sulking didn’t leave me with much to go on and it wasn’t like you’d talk to me.”
“Like hell you didn’t!” Anger welled like a poison, fast and deadly. “I’m an adult. I don’t need my mother snooping through my life like I’m some rebellious teenager.”
“Summer, stop. I only wanted to understand. I think I do, now”
There was a sadness in her mother’s gaze that broke Summer’s worn out heart. “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine, really. I’m fine.”
“You know, I’d believe that if I didn’t know my daughter so well. If I wasn’t aware she only had a few boyfriends growing up, none that were serious. That she never felt the need to ask me for birth control because she was smart, and knew she wasn’t ready. So if some guy—”
“Gage,” Summer interrupted shortly.
Another knowing smile crossed her mother’s lips. “Okay, Gage it is. If Gage had such an effect on my intelligent, responsible daughter enough that she felt he was good enough to see her like this … for him to have her like this in such a personal, private way, then maybe it’s not nothing. And she’s probably not fine.”
Summer hated her emotions had to go and betray her calm exterior by way of tears.
“He’s got some talent,” her mother added quieter. “It’s a beautiful depiction, though I wish you had some clothes on.”
“Graffiti, actually,” Summer said distantly. “That’s what he likes best.”
“And apparently you.”
“Apparently not,” Summer retorted, though there wasn’t a strength in her tone. “He was just waiting for me to leave, anyway.”
“Was that what he said to you?”
No.
Summer didn’t want to admit that out loud, though. Just like she didn’t want to tell her mother how goddamned badly it hurt to drive away from a tiny town that meant practically nothing at all. Or that every mile she put between her and a man she knew less than a week broke her heart and soul to pieces.
She’d driven until her car was out of gas. Cried that entire first day. Fought her inner desires every mile with a tenderness between her thighs as a reminder of exactly what she’d done and didn’t.
Like telling Gage she wanted him, loved him.
Clearly she was one of those people who fell in love fast and swift like a moving river.
“Summer, did he say that to you?” her mother asked again.
“Might as well have,” she answered. “It’s not important. I made a stupid choice.”
“Funny, you don’t sound like you think that.” Sighing, her mother sat beside her on the bench, moving the sketch to Summer’s lap without a second glance. “Don’t you think it’s a little bit ironic, Summer?”
“Hmm?”
“Ironic,” her mother repeated, laughing quietly. “You’re always running to find nothing. Instead of finding something on the way to another nothing, it found you. What did it do when it found you, sweetheart?”
Summer didn’t think of it that way at all. “I learned something I wasn’t expecting to.”
“What’s that?”
“Sometimes home isn’t a place.”
“No,” her mother agreed in a whisper. “Sometimes it’s a person.”
Summer let the tears fall, not bothering to wipe away the wetness. Crying was good, healthy. She’d been holding back for a long while.
“I didn’t give him the chance to ask me to stay,” Summer confessed, almost wishing she could take back the words the moment they left her lips.
“We’re all entitled to one or two mistakes. It’s how you fix them and what you learn from them that makes the difference.”
Summer hoped so.
Chapter Fourteen
“How’s he doing?”
“Huh?” Gage looked up from the equipment he was putting away. “What?”
Ty sighed, cocking a brow. “What’s up with you? You’re acting like you’re in outer space or some shit.”
Gage rolled his eyes, not in the mood to discuss his personal life. “What do you want?”
“An update on Jordy, if it’s not too much to ask.”
Ouch.
Since Jordy was arrested, the center’s policy was that he couldn’t return. A lot of the people at the center had been asking about him over the last little while and Gage was the only one with answers.
“He’s doing okay,” Gage said, finishing up his work. “Back at school, getting his work done, not missing curfew, and he doesn’t have an attitude when I ask him to do something. You can’t ask for much more from a sixteen-year-old boy with his kind of issues.”
“What about his girlfriend?”
Yeah, that was a problem. “I think he knows she’s bad influence, but what can you do. She’s not allowed in the apartment when I’m not there. I made sure he’s aware to be safe if they do anything, because the last thing he needs is her knocked up. So far, he’s followed the rules. Jordy is smart, he’ll figure out her shit eventually. I’m not going to push him on getting rid of her, or he’ll just push me away. That’s not what I’m looking to do here.”
“True,” Ty agreed.
It probably helped that Jordy trusted Gage and found similarities between the two. Even so, Gage hadn’t exactly expected to be the custodial guardian over someone at just twenty-two. He didn’t regret taking Jordy home, though. The kid had a lot he needed to handle, but the outlook was decent, especially with Gage at his side.
“What about you?” Ty asked. “If it’s too much—”
“Jordy isn’t my problem,” Gage interrupted coolly. “He’s a great kid. Mind your business.”
Ty tossed his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, just worried.”
“Don’t bother.”
“All right. Hey, I can finish up if you want to leave.”
Gage nodded, thankful. “Jordy’s curfew is in an hour and a half, so I should get going. Make sure he doesn’t bend the rules when I’m not home.”
Ty smirked. “Good luck, man.”
Gage took his time driving home, enjoying the rush of the city in the late hours. It was nothing like home that was for sure
. His drives were also the only time he could actually think, or trust himself to. Things like Summer, and how he still couldn’t get her out of his head or heart, never mind the fact that he kept waking up in the night, sweating, hard as a rock, and positive he could taste her sex on his tongue.
Jordy didn’t need to know Gage had personal issues going on, he had enough to think about without adding to it. It was something he needed to deal with himself.
It still fucking ached, though. Just like it had the morning she left.
Gage didn’t even have the patience to sit down and sketch a new idea out, let alone pick up a can of spray paint at the center and do something for the boys. The reasons behind his lack of desire was simple, the only thing he wanted to create was gone. The muse had left.
That was just about the worst thing that could happen to an artist, Gage thought.
If this was what it felt like to lose love, he didn’t ever want to find it again.
Of course, it didn’t much matter. Gage didn’t have any more to give—Summer took it.
Gage barely noticed the familiar route he took to get to his apartment. Everything had been like that lately, as if he was simply functioning, not living. Jordy was the one thing keeping him occupied. Locking his truck, Gage slung his backpack over his shoulder, kept his head down, and walked towards his apartment building.
At the front door, where the front steps led up to a locked entrance, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty stopped Gage in his tracks. She sat there on the stoop dressed in one of her cotton dresses, chin in her hands and nothing at her side but a backpack like his. Almost as if she’d simply stopped for a rest or something.
“You’re a long way from home, country boy,” Summer said quietly.
Gage was sure his heart leaped into his throat. “This is home for me.”
How’d she know where he lived in the city, anyway? She hadn’t asked him before. Summer didn’t give him the chance to ask.
“I visited with your dad this morning. I think he believes I’m crazy.”
Gage felt his lips twitch with a smirk. “You are. A little.”
Even though he didn’t want to feel it, the anger simmered below the surface.
