Gage starts the car, and I light a cigarette, rolling down the window so I can blow smoke out as we drive.
“Do you mind making one more stop?” he asks, glancing over at me.
“No, that’s fine,” I tell him. “Another informant?”
He shakes his head. “No, this is more of a... personal stop.”
That sparks my curiosity.
“Sure,” I say, trying to pay attention as he drives to where we’re going.
I recognize the slum as soon as we pull up to it. It’s the first place I ever went with Gage, unless being dragged into the guys’ basement while I was knocked out counts. Back when we were looking for information about Ivan, when I started to wonder more about Gage than I wanted to.
I remember Meredith, the old woman who seemed to know a little bit of everything, and who greeted Gage like he was family. I also remember that she basically is family to him, since Gage told me all about how she was there for him when he didn’t have anyone else after his mom died, leaving him with his piece of shit father.
It makes me even more curious about why we’re here, and I follow Gage up the stairs to Meredith’s floor. He knocks, and she calls out for him to come in, so we step inside.
The place looks about the same as last time, dimly lit and rundown, but cozy in a way. Meredith is in her chair, and she smiles crookedly when Gage gets close enough for her to be certain it’s him.
“Ah. I thought it was you,” she says, beckoning him forward. “You finally remembered I exist?”
“As if I could forget,” Gage replies. His tone is flippant, but there’s fondness underneath it that I can hear now that I know what I’m listening for.
Meredith reaches out and takes his hand, squeezing it before letting him go. “Who have you brought?” she asks, turning in my direction.
“River,” Gage says, drawing me forward. “You remember her from last time we were here?”
She smiles. “The girl asking about Ivan. I remember. You still following this knucklehead around?”
Gage snorts, and I can’t help but smile. “It looks like it,” I tell her. “He’s not so bad.”
“No, he’s not. He’s a good man when it comes down to it. Just gets in a lot of trouble.”
“I get in a lot of trouble too,” I say. “So it works out.”
She laughs at that, and Gage smiles. It’s a softer smile than his usual one, sweeter, and it’s so clear to see how much he cares for this woman.
“Who do you need dirt on today?” Meredith asks, giving her attention back to Gage.
“No business today, Mer,” he replies. “Happy Birthday.”
As he speaks, he pulls out a large wad of cash wrapped in a band and passes it over to her.
She takes it in her wrinkled hands and feels it, thumbing through the bills without looking at them, since she’s mostly blind from what I remember. Then she sighs and glances back up in his direction, smiling a little.
“You don’t have to do this every year, you know. I’m not starving up here.”
“I gotta look out for my best girl,” Gage says, stepping back a little like he thinks she’s going to try to hand the money back. “You know that.”
Just watching them together makes my chest ache a little. It’s a side of him that no one sees often, a side that doesn’t come out often.
There’s none of that simmering anger or disdain that he usually has reason to wear, and instead he’s smiling and teasing and open. I like this side of him just as much as his harsh, gruff side. Then again, they’re all part of the same side, in a way. He’s so gruff and controlling and dominant because he loves so fucking fiercely.
He’s constantly trying to protect what he loves, and the people in his heart are prone to trouble, just like he is.
“If you’re going to go around being this generous to old women, then you at least have to stay for dinner,” Meredith is saying. “Those are the rules.”
Gage glances at me, and I can tell from the look on his face that he’s ready to gently decline. Either because he thinks I’m not up for it so soon after... everything, or that we have to keep working on our plans to take down Julian.
It would probably be easier to leave, but I don’t want to do that. Instead, I smile at him and then look to Meredith. “We’d love to stay for dinner.”
There’s something about being in this woman’s home that’s soothing to me. It feels like family, in a weird way, even though I hardly know Meredith. But it comforts me. Watching Gage interact with her, seeing how familiar they are with each other, it soothes something rough and ragged inside me, and I need that right now.
“Good,” Meredith says. “Good, good. Let me get something going then.”
“Let me help you,” Gage says, coming to her side as she starts to lift herself up and out of the chair.
She waves him away though, getting up easily enough and holding on to the chair as she moves toward the small kitchen.
“I’ve got it,” she says. “What do you think I do while you’re off conquering the world? Sit in that chair and lounge around all day? I can manage dinner, Gage.”
There’s no bitterness in her tone, just fond teasing, and Gage smiles as he shakes his head and watches her make her way to the kitchen.
He’s ready to help her if she needs it, but she manages fine, moving around confidently, opening the fridge and the cabinets as she puts dinner together.
Soon the little apartment is filled with the scent of chicken and vegetables, simple and reheated from a grocery store container.
But it doesn’t really matter that the meal is simple. We sit down at the table with our plates and big plastic cups of diet coke, and it feels like a family meal.
“These used to be Gage’s favorite,” Meredith says, lifting her cup. It’s bright green, and whatever design used to be on it is now faded and chipping away after years of washing. “He’d sit on the floor in front of the TV with a big cup in his hands and drink sodas all day. Ended up bouncing off the walls half the time from the sugar, but it always made him happy.”
“That sounds adorable,” I say, shooting Gage a teasing smile. He rolls his eyes and takes a bite of chicken, but he doesn’t look embarrassed at all.
“Meredith always had soda,” he says. “I didn’t get that a lot as a kid.”
I remember what he told me about his childhood, and how he would come here when things were really bad at home. It’s a nice image, the thought of a young Gage, sitting in front of the TV having a treat to get away from how shitty his family life was. At least he had that.
“He was always nice to have around,” Meredith continues. “He’d go to the store for me and come back with bags and bags of stuff. I had to remind him a few times that people couldn’t live off cheese puffs and coke, but he was a big help, you know? I was already too old to go up and down the stairs with those big bags by then.”
“Too old or too lazy?” Gage teases, giving her that fond smile all over again. He doesn’t seem embarrassed that she’s telling these stories about him at all, and it’s nice that he doesn’t mind me knowing.