Chapter 30
DALTON
“Do you mind if I turn the TV on?” Sage asks as she sits cross-legged on the bed.
She’s wearing long pants and a baggy T-shirt, and her hair is up in a ponytail. I think she thinks that she’s completely unattractive to me, but I’ve never found her sexier.
“Of course not,” I say. “Feel free to watch whatever you want.” I look up from the chair I’m sitting in in the corner of the room. “Do you find the bed to be comfortable?”
“It’s fine,” she says, shrugging, and bites down on her lower lip. “I mean, what would you do if I said it wasn’t?”
I glance over at her. “What do you mean?”
“What if I said it was the most horrifically uncomfortable bed I’d ever been in? Would you change the mattress and get a new one, even though I’m only going to be here for such a short amount of time?”
“If that’s what you wanted, but what a terrible waste of money it would be. I’m not a billionaire, Sage, but I can afford to get a new mattress if it’s giving you a backache.” I stand up, head over to the bed, sit on the side of it, and look over at her. “Is it giving you a backache?”
“No. I didn’t say that. I was just saying, what would you do?”
“You like to argue, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.” She smiles and leans back against the headboard. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to distract you. I was going to put on The King of Queens, and I wasn’t sure if you were still working.”
“I’m okay. How are you feeling?” I ask her, knowing Brett had spoken with her.
I still haven’t spoken to him, and I feel bad that he was the one to deliver the news without me there.
“I feel like I don’t recognize my life. One”—she taps her finger—“I am living with you and staying in your bedroom. And that’s because, two, a guy I went on a couple of dates with is a sociopath. Three, I have zero prospects of billionaires to date. Four, the man I slept with recently is a liar.”
I press my lips together, but don’t say anything.
“And five, his son wants to call me Mommy, and I don’t even know how to respond to that because he’s so cute and life is so complicated and …” She sighs. “Now I sound like a crazy person.”
“What would you do if I said you didn’t sound like a crazy person? What would you do if I told you that?”
My phone beeps, and I glance down at it.
“It’s Brett.”
“You can take it. I’m not going anywhere. I mean, you won’t let me.”
“True,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I head out of the bedroom and answer the phone. “What’s up?”
“Hey. Are you alone?”
“Yes. Why? What’s going on?”
“Fuck it, Dalton. There’s an issue.”
“What?” I can feel my heart racing. “Is it Sage? Is she in trouble? Is it Parker?”
“No, it’s got nothing to do with Parker. It’s to do with Sage’s dad.”
“Oh, I know. That’s horrible. What a jackass that he—”
“It’s not Mikey.”
“Who the hell is Mikey?”
“Mikey’s the third guy, the name that was given to Sage’s mom, the one I thought might be her dad initially, but it’s not him.”
“Oh, what do you mean? So then, why did you tell her he didn’t want to speak to her? Why did you—”
“It’s Jimmy, Dalton.”
“What do you mean, it’s Jimmy? Jimmy who?”
“It’s Jimmy the Fish.”
“Jimmy the Fish. No way. What on earth? What are you saying? It can’t be. He doesn’t have kids, does he?” I pause. “Fuck. I know he used to go to New York with my dad all the time, and I knew he used to sleep around, but, fuck, Brett, what the fuck?”
“I couldn’t tell her. I spoke to Jimmy a couple of days ago.
I urged him to tell Sage the truth. He’s known for a while that she’s his.
I guess she looks a little bit like her mom did when she was younger.
And when you and I talked about looking for the dad, I guess he overheard a lot of the conversations, and he put two and two together.
He used Mikey’s name on a lot of those trips in case women came looking for him. ”
“What the—” I curse under my breath. “So, why won’t he tell her? He freaking saw her crying the other day.”
“He’s scared, Dalton. There’s a lot going on. He did a lot of bad shit—way more than you. A lot of different mob bosses would love to take him down. And if they knew he had a daughter, they would use that against him. You know this.”
“Fuck,” I say because I know it’s true.
Jimmy did a lot of bad work for my dad, but he left with me. I know he wants to be a different guy, but just because we chose a different path doesn’t mean that people aren’t still out for him.
“He’s doing it for her,” Brett says. “He said to me that he would be the most dangerous thing in her life, that he doesn’t think he’s a good enough guy, that …” Brett sighs. “Anyway, he thinks it’s better if she doesn’t know, but you and I, we have no secrets.”
“I know. So, he really won’t tell her?”
“I thought when I came in the other day, that would force his hand, that would make him want to tell her, but he didn’t.”
“So, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this information, Brett? I cannot lie to her again. I’ve done it twice already. I don’t …”
“Let’s see what happens in the next couple of days. Maybe he’ll reconsider. Maybe we can force his hand. Maybe. I don’t know, but don’t tell her just yet. Can you keep it a secret?”
I let out a deep sigh. “I guess I can. I’ve done it before.” I look to the bedroom door and think about Sage. I don’t know if she’ll ever get over this if she finds out that I knew. “This is a big thing, Brett. She deserves to know the truth.”
“But don’t you want her safe?” he says. “At the end of the day, isn’t this all about keeping her safe? Sometimes, the truth puts people in danger—you know that.”
“Yeah. Anything else I should know before I get off the phone?”
“Just that I’m sorry. I’m thinking I might go out of town for a couple of months. Things here … well, they’re getting too emotionally complicated and weird, and I don’t know that—”
“What are you talking about, Brett? What is getting emotionally weird and complicated and—”
“Nothing. I just think it might be time for me to work on some other things right now. I’ll be back in a couple of months.”
“Brett, I don’t understand what—”
“Look, I’ve got to go. I’ll speak to you later, Dalton.”
He hangs up before I can continue the conversation.
Fucking Jimmy the Fish. I want to call him, but I know whatever conversation I have with him, it has to be in person. I don’t even know how I’m going to be able to look Sage in the face, knowing what I know, but I’ll have to do it. I’ll protect her heart with my life.
I open the door and head back into the bedroom, a wide smile on my face. I don’t want her to know anything about the conversation that I just had.
She looks up from the bed. “What’s got you so happy?”
Her hair has started to come out of her ponytail and hangs by the side of her face, and I want to reach over and tuck it behind her ear, but I know that’s not my place.
“Nothing,” I say. “I think it’s time for me to go to bed.” I grin at her. “I hope you don’t mind.”
I pull off my shirt and throw it to the ground, and she swallows hard as she shifts over.
“I mean, you can take the floor.” She looks pointedly at the floor, and I laugh.
“I’m a big guy, Sage. I’m not taking the floor.”
“Well, then please make sure you stay on your side. I can build a pillow wall if you’d like, if that would make you feel more comfortable.”
I grin at her. “I know you’ll find it hard keeping your hands off of me.”
“Me find it hard keeping my hands off of you?” She picks up a pillow and throws it at me. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, then we don’t need a pillow wall. I already told you, I’m not going to touch you.”
“Okay then, good.”
“You can do whatever you want to do, and it still won’t make me touch you.”
“Well, I’m not going to do anything.” She pauses and looks at me with a secretive little smile. “So, wait a second. I could do anything I wanted to you, and you still wouldn’t touch me?”
“Not unless you asked me to.”
“Okay. You want to put money on it?”
“Why? What are you planning on doing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe something.”
I’m playing with fire. I should turn the lights off and go to bed, but I can’t resist her, and I can’t resist a little temptation or a bet. “What about fifty dollars?”
“Fifty dollars? That’s nothing. A hundred.”
“You got it.”
She grins. “So, here are the rules. I can do whatever I want to you, and you can’t touch me. You can’t do a damn thing.”
“I wouldn’t even want to do a damn thing,” I say, “no matter what you do.”
“Okay. Well, let’s see, shall we?”
“Wait,” I say. “Do I have to have my clothes on or clothes off? How far is this test going?”
“You can wear whatever you want to wear to bed. It won’t bother me, Dalton.” She gets back up and grabs the remote. “I’m just watching TV and hoping that Parker is locked up soon so I can go back to my regular life.”
“And what does your regular life look like?” I ask. “What’s so special about that, aside from not having to be with me?”
“I don’t know actually,” she says. “Maybe just a little more peace and quiet.”
And that’s all she has to say because those words are poignant. They say so much, even though they also say so little.
I pull down my pants, drop them to the ground, and then I get up on the bed.
I’m wearing black briefs, and I debate taking them off.
I’m curious to see what she would do if I were naked, but I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, no matter if she’s teasing me, no matter what she’s planning to do.
If she wants me naked, she’ll have to get me naked herself.
I see her eyes on my chest, and when I look up at her, she looks away quickly. I can’t help but smile. She’s beautiful, wonderful. I want to make her happy.
I wish Jimmy the Fish would be a stand-up guy. I wish he would be there for her, but then I don’t even know if that’s a good idea anyway. I wonder what she would think if she knew her dad was a made man in the Mafia. It’s not my place to tell her.
I lean back, grab a pillow, and turn to face her. “Whenever you want to start your little test, I’m ready.”
“I’m not going to tell you, Dalton. It may be tonight, it may be tomorrow, it may be never. I find the anticipation is the sweetest part.”