by Bethany-Kris
Ouch.
“Listen,” Summer began, still unsure of what to say.
Gage sighed heavily. “I get it. After that, I wouldn’t want to be bothering with me, either.”
“Uh, no, that’s not what I was going to say,” she said smoothly, ignoring the surprised look in Gage’s eyes. “I was going to say you were young and stupid, so I can see the attraction you must have felt rebelling. Hell, the first thing I did when I was able was run. I’m not any different, just doing my thing in a different way from yours.”
“I pissed a lot of people off,” Gage said offhandedly.
“Probably. All kids do.”
Summer leaned over in her seat just enough to grab his white-knuckle fist off the steering wheel. He only needed one to drive, after all. Besides, she liked the feel of his hand in hers, but she wasn’t about to admit that out loud.
Gage didn’t protest as she weaved their fingers together silently, laying their connected hands on her thigh. The sweep of his thumb to her pebbling skin and the curve of his mouth turning upwards into a smirk that was quickly becoming her favorite thing to see said he was happy about it, though.
“Where to now, country boy?”
Gage shrugged. “Thought you might like to see one of those back roads.”
“Oh, really?”
“That’s where the fun begins,” he repeated.
“So no more freaking out,” Summer added, turning to look out at the passing highway.
“I promise nothing.”
Despite his joking tone, Summer knew that was more true for her than he really understood.
Chapter Seven
“All right, get out,” Gage ordered.
Summer turned in his direction with wide eyes. “What?”
“Come on, sweetheart. Out, now. I want to show you something.”
Gage had been tracking the time carefully, or watching it, for that matter. The sky was beginning to darken, so he wanted Summer to see something before it was too dark. Being a graffiti artist who previously worked on whatever flat surface he could find had its odd benefits … like knowing the train schedules.
CN railroads were rampant in New Brunswick and right above Grand Falls, they had a station port where trains would stop, load up, or the engineers could sleep for the night if needed. More than once, Gage had taken advantage of that by leaving a tag on a train car. After all, you couldn’t be a real graffiti artist if you’d never marked up a train.
Jumping out of the truck, Gage let the door slam closed, meeting Summer at the front of the truck. Fifteen feet from the railroad tracks sat a giant boulder big enough for a group of people to sit on comfortably. Gage directed her to the rock, sitting down first. While there was a whole great deal of space for her to sit on her own, Summer did exactly what he wanted her to and perched up on his lap.
Gage could already feel the rumbling under his feet. “Maybe two minutes away,” he said.
“Huh?”
“The train. It’s about two minutes away. They stick on a pretty tight schedule around here. Usually a few pass through here daily.”
“Do I want to know how you know that?” Summer asked, laughing.
Gage wasn’t ashamed of telling her the truth, so he did just that. “This was the best place we could actually sit first thing in the morning without the sun glaring on the piece. We’d get a nice shot of it rolling by on the train while we lit up some cigarettes and celebrated. Stupid, yeah, but we had fun doing it.”
“Boys,” Summer teased.
In the distance, the train’s whistle blew.
“Trains are like a rite of passage or some nonsense,” Gage continued, wrapping an arm around her waist. Fuck, he liked the curve of her body and how well it fit in his hold. “I did a few little things, but nothing particularly expressive or difficult. Mostly just my initials or the typical graffiti words splashed in color.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Didn’t have quite the nerve for the effort it would take. Oddly, it wasn’t the rush I liked. Some guys get that, the adrenaline from nearly getting caught, or seeing their piece causing distress because of where it is. That’s not what I was tagging for. But uh, well, I wanted to see if I could do something worthy of some of the pieces I’d seen roll in or go viral on the internet.”
Summer turned to look at him, her cheek dangerously close to his mouth. Gage took the chance to press a soft kiss to her skin, loving the way her eyes fluttered closed and she melted a little more into his lap.
“Did you do something worthy?” Summer asked.
Gage nodded, remembering the piece like it was the morning after. “Took me six hours. My parents had no idea I was sneaking out. A couple of friends went up to the CN station with me and kept an eye out for trouble.”
“What was it?”
“Kind of like a colorful abstract, but really huge,” Gage tried to explain. “It covered almost half of a train car. It was just as much about the size as the intricate design. It was a pretty big piece for me only being sixteen. There was no way you could miss it. At the bottom, it was the first time I ever signed my name to something. Usually I’d just put my initials, but I wanted my name on that. Flat black, sharp lines … Gage. Real simple.”
Summer’s brow furrowed in the cutest way. “Why is it taking so long for the mural at the school? It’s not that big, Gage.”
“More thought and effort,” he said. “I don’t want it to be just something to look at. I make one choice, then go back and change it. Artist at heart, Summer.”
Finally, the train was close enough to see through the forest surrounding them. Both stayed quiet as it rolled on by, the noise of the train echoing throughout the area as the whistle blew over and over. While it passed, Gage couldn’t help but watch for the pieces of graffiti, old and new, that covered a few of the cars.
Some were faded, years old. Others were washed out, probably having been noticed before the paint was dry and someone tossed a bucket of water on it to ruin the colors. Like he’d told Summer, there were a lot of words, names, and the usual graffiti. But, there were a few pieces that were big, too, and clearly had a great deal of effort and thought put into the designs. Gage liked them the most.
“Recognize any?” Summer asked when the last of the train went by minutes later.
“Nope. Cars get switched around at their destinations. They go on to somewhere new. It’s highly unlikely to see the same piece twice.”
Summer tilted her head to the side, poking his leg. “You know what that means, right?”
“What?”
“I bet your work has been seen all over Canada.”
Gage smiled, knowing that already. Unfortunately, her point had its downfalls, too. “Sometimes that’s not a good thing, Summer.”
“I bet it was awesome to think about back then, though.”
Yeah, it was. Gage didn’t want to get into that right then. Some things were better left unsaid and not thought about. He was more than happy with the work he was doing now. Going back to illegal graffiti wasn’t in his future plans. At any point.
“That’s not me, not now,” Gage said quietly.
Summer shifted in his lap, turning to face his frown with her own tender smile. “I think it’d be okay for me even if it was, you know?”
Gage wasn’t entirely sure how to take that. “Would it?”
“I think so,” she repeated in her unwavering conviction.
Why was his throat so goddamn tight all of the sudden?
“Summer, you …”
“Me, what?”
“You’re only passing through, girl. Said it yourself. Let’s not tangle us up in things that can’t exist.”
“What if I wasn’t, Gage?” Summer asked.
Gage’s gaze flicked between hers, searching for some indecision or deceit in her eyes. He didn’t find any. Oddly, that didn’t help. “I don’t want to hold onto someone who doesn’t want to be held, Summer.”
“Why can’t it j
ust be however it is?”
Because it didn’t work that way for Gage. It never had.
His heart was already tangled up in whatever this was, too.
Bad on him.
Hating the way sadness had colored up her usual bright and sweet face, Gage sighed. He didn’t want that at all. A subject change was needed immediately.
“Listen, I didn’t mean it like that.”
Summer cleared her throat, looking away and shrugging. “You’re leaving town in a couple of days, anyway, right?”
What did that have to do with anything?
“I have a few things needing attention back in Saint John,” Gage confirmed. “Plus I volunteer for the teen center, and they’ll want me back as soon as possible.”
Funny, though, how Gage hadn’t been considering his new home and commitments at all. They’d taken a back seat to his hometown, the mural, and the pretty girl he knew barely a thing, about still sitting in his lap.
“Do you think you’ll stay for a while?” Gage asked. “Or has nothing in Plaster Rock gained your attention enough to keep you around?”
Summer smiled, but it didn’t ring true. “Something did, yeah. I guess we’ll see how it goes.”
“And what was that?”
Instead of answering, Summer looked around. “What next, Gage?”
“Huh?”
Clearly she was done with the conversation. Gage wasn’t about to push her to talk and risk the chance of pissing her off.
“You still haven’t showed me those back roads, country boy.”
Just like that, her easygoing demeanor was back.
“I haven’t, that’s true. Come on, sweetheart, we’ve got a party to go to.”
Summer dropped her feet to the ground, moving from his lap. “A party? It’s Tuesday, Gage.”
“People don’t care about that here,” Gage dismissed with a wave. “As long as you show up to work in the morning sober, everybody’s happy. And it’s not so much a party as a get-together. A birthday thing for a friend of a friend.”
“Well, then, we shouldn’t be late.”
Gage chuckled. “That’s the best part. You can’t ever be late.”
Chapter Eight
Summer rested back on the tailgate of Gage’s pickup, watching as more dry wood was added to the bonfire. Flames licked higher, skipping a pretty dance of flickers into the dark sky. The people all varied in their positions, some sitting on the grass on blankets, others sitting in lawn chairs, and a few, like Gage and Summer, sitting on tailgates. A few tents were set up here and there, giving Summer the indication some must have been spending the night.
Gage had been right. The fun did start where the pavement ended around here. Music was blaring from someone’s sound system. Laughter and drinks were shared. No one seemed to mind a bit when they showed up, simply made room for Gage to back his truck up and opened up a cooler of beer for them to take from. Not being a big drinker herself, Summer didn’t take the offer, but Gage was nursing a bottle, the same one he’d been drinking for a half hour.
“Farm country,” Gage said from her side.
“Hmm?” Summer was so enjoying the scenery of the lake and the quiet happiness of the people around her that she’d kind of gotten lost to it. “What was that?”
“We’re farm country around here. Nothing but fields for miles sometimes.”
“Sometimes that’s just what a person needs,” Summer replied. On more than one occasion, she’d purposely sought out areas where it was simpler than the hustle and bustle of faster living. Just for the peace, the quiet, and the people. “I wouldn’t have minded growing up in a place like this.”
“Was it like this?”
Summer shrugged. “Kind of, but actually, it was more busy. More people. Either way, I still felt stuck.”
Gage tossed her a look from the side she couldn’t decipher. “Why’s that?”
“Nobody did anything,” Summer said honestly. “They just … stayed. Or if they did go for a while, they always came back. My whole family never did anything but grow up, get married, have kids, wash, and repeat. Like three freaking generations worth of my family. I didn’t want to be like that.”
“Makes sense.”
“Does it?”
Gage’s lips quirked up into a smile that he hid with a tip of his beer bottle to his mouth. After taking a drink, he said, “Sure. For you. It doesn’t have to work for everybody else so long as it works for you, Summer.”
Just the way his reassurance seemed to affirm her choices without judgement, Summer knew she was in trouble. In fact, she’d known she was in trouble when, only a day after meeting Gage, she couldn’t not go see him paint again. Or how she’d found it so damned easy to kiss him.
Summer wanted to do that again. Soon, preferably.
Oh, yeah. Trouble.
“Hey, Gage?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” she whispered softly.
“Hell, for what?” Gage asked, looking sideways at her with those green eyes of his that seemed to pin her in place with just a glance. “I only speak the truth, Summer.”
“I know, and that’s exactly why.”
Gage slung his arm over her shoulder, urging her closer into his side and embrace. Silently, Summer revelled in his closeness, the way she fit beside him, and how nobody around seemed to blink at the newcomer with their old friend. His musky, masculine scent invaded all her senses. She was also aware of her own body’s reaction to Gage—acutely so. Like her nipples pebbling beneath soft cotton, the warmth spreading in her chest, or the ache beginning to build between her thighs.
Sure, Summer had felt similar things before, not quite with this intensity, but she never acted on them. Not fully. That wasn’t to say she was completely innocent, because she wasn’t. However, things had never quite progressed to a point where Summer felt comfortable enough to actually have sex.
Gage made her want to. It was just as much frightening as it was enticing.
Something cold pressed to Summer’s thigh, jerking her from her thoughts. Yelping loudly, surprised at the touch, she quickly realized Gage had accidentally set his beer down next to his own leg. Because they were so close, the perspiring bottle bumped her as well.
With a low laugh and an apology, Gage swept his hand over her bare thigh, wiping away the bit of moisture the bottle left behind on Summer’s skin. All the while, he rested the beer bottle on the rail of the truck’s box. Still, his hand was on her thigh, thumb sweeping away the wetness. Summer felt nothing left over from the cold bottle, but there was a simmering burn starting to tingle through her nerve endings from his touch.
She didn’t even realize she was holding her breath until Gage murmured, “Breathe, Summer.”
Earlier, she’d been so brazen. Making the first move to kiss him, unafraid and confident. Now, she was just … nervous. That and overwhelmed. Nobody ever had that kind of power over Summer before. She wasn’t sure why Gage did.
“You’re beautiful, you know?” Gage asked quietly.
Summer blinked, her air catching again. Unexpected words like that would get him everywhere. “I’m kind of crazy, though.”
Gage shrugged. “Who isn’t? I’m fanatical when it comes to my graffiti. Half of the time, I’m not thinking of much else. If that doesn’t make me crazy, I don’t know what would.”
“Not crazy,” Summer replied. “An artist.”
“Artists are crazy. Insane. Completely obsessive. Prideful to a painful point. Easily disappointed. Emotional. Want me to keep going?”
“So what’s my excuse?”
Gage’s lips quirked up into that infamous smirk of his. “Nothing, but it makes you a hell of a lot more interesting.”
“That’s what you call it, interesting?” Summer laughed.
“Unique. Exceptional. Fascinating. Mysterious. Beautiful, crazily so.” Summer found herself chewing on her bottom lip, unsure of what to say. Gage didn’t give her the chance to figure it out. “Don’t
do that.”
“Do what?”
“Bite your lip. It just …”
“What?” Summer asked again, caught in his gaze.
“Makes me want to kiss the fuck out of you,” Gage said, a throaty undertone creeping into his voice. “Just, yeah. That’s what it does to me.”
“Oh,” Summer breathed.
“And that,” Gage added lower. “Like you don’t know, Summer. You act like you don’t even know the effect you have on a guy, how gorgeous you look, or when you walk, you kind of sway with a natural grace. And it doesn’t bother you a bit not to know it, either. It drives me crazy. Crazy that you don’t know.”
“Gage …”
No matter how hard she tried, Summer couldn’t form a sentence, let alone a thought. There hadn’t been a single person who ever caught Summer quite like Gage did, never mind making her feel breathless and spun.
Finally, something came to her. “Those are awfully pretty words.”
“And the truth,” Gage said, cocking a brow in challenge. “You know what I love, though?”
Love. Now, that was a scary word.
Some people believed in love at first sight, and others didn’t. Some even thought a person could just know when they met that one person in the world who was meant only for them. Summer had met enough people during her travels to know both things were true. Love could hit at the most unexpected times, and there were situations where it needed to be worked for.
Either way, hearing it tumble from Gage’s mouth so easily was frightening.
And entirely thrilling.
Summer didn’t let it deter her from asking, “What’s that?”
“That you don’t care,” Gage answered, grinning. “That you do what you want and you enjoy it. You don’t make excuses about it, either. You’re strong, independent, and confident.”
“Not always.”
“But you are,” he repeated. “In a lot of ways. Things like that are what someone like me needs—loves. I know it sounds stupid or—”
“No.” Summer shook her head, not wanting him to feel like that was how she thought or felt concerning his words. Especially if he was opening up a part of him that might usually be closed off. “Not at all.”