Chapter 13 Backseat Driver
BACKSEAT DRIVER
SAGE
It's Sunday evening, three days after I attacked Luke Sterling's mouth in the back of a limo like a woman possessed, and I'm sitting in my Honda outside my parents' Wallingford home, giving myself the world's most pathetic pep talk.
"You can do this," I tell my reflection in the rearview mirror. "It's just family game night. With your entire family. Who will definitely ask about Luke. While you sit there knowing you're a fraud who hacked his dating profile and is using him to save your inn."
My reflection doesn't look convinced.
The nearly November evening is doing that Pacific Northwest thing where it can't decide between drizzling and misting, so it's doing both, creating a fine spray that makes everything look like a watercolor painting.
Through the fogged windows, I can see my childhood home—a Seattle craftsman that my parents have maintained with the kind of devotion usually reserved for religious artifacts.
My phone buzzes with a text from Claire: WHERE ARE YOU? Mom made your favorite dip!
Of course she did.
My mother weaponizes food the way other people weaponize guilt.
Actually, she weaponizes that too.
I grab the bottle of wine I brought—the good stuff, because if I'm going to be interrogated, I'm going to be interrogated while slightly buzzed—and make my way up the familiar walkway.
The door opens before I can knock.
"Finally!" Mom pulls me into a hug that smells like garlic and judgment. "We were starting to think you'd gotten lost."
"I know how to find my childhood home, Mom."
"Do you? Because you haven't been here in two months." She ushers me inside, already fussing with my hair. "You look thin. Are you eating?"
"I'm eating."
"Cereal doesn't count as eating."
"I eat more than cereal."
"Goat food doesn't count either."
"Mom, Buttercup doesn't share her food. She's very territorial about her alfalfa."
We enter the living room, where the rest of the family has already assembled around the coffee table.
Dad's in his lucky Seahawks jersey—the one he claims helps him win at Scrabble despite zero statistical evidence.
My older sister Harper's perched on the arm of the couch like a corporate vulture, while her husband Ben sorts game pieces with the intensity of someone diffusing a bomb.
My little sister Claire is wedged between throw pillows, her pregnancy bump now prominent enough to have its own zip code, while her own husband David rubs her feet with the dedication of a man who knows happy wife equals happy life.
"She's here!" Claire announces unnecessarily. "Sage graced us with her presence!"
"I said I'd come."
"After we threatened to kidnap you," Harper points out.
"Kidnapping is such a strong word." I settle into my usual spot on the floor, muscle memory from twenty-plus years of family game nights. "I prefer 'aggressive relocation.'"
"Wine?" Dad offers, already pouring before I can answer. "You'll need it. Your mother's been preparing conversation starters."
"Frank!" Mom swats him with a dish towel. "I have not been preparing anything. I'm just naturally curious about my daughter's life."
"She made index cards," Harper stage-whispers.
"Traitor," Mom mutters.
"What's the first question?" I ask, downing half my wine in one go. "Might as well get it over with."
Mom brightens like I've given her a present. "How's that hunky billionaire of yours?”
“Aaaand there it is." I reach for the wine bottle. "Luke is fine. The inn is fine. Everything is fine."
"You said 'fine' three times," Claire observes. "That means nothing is fine."
"Or it means everything is adequately satisfactory."
"No one who's getting laid properly uses the word 'satisfactory,'" Harper says.
"Harper Elizabeth!" Mom gasps.
"What? We're all thinking it." Harper grins at me. "So? Are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Getting laid properly."
"I'm getting laid off from this conversation." I stuff a cracker in my mouth to avoid answering.
"That's a no," Claire diagnoses. "If she was, she'd have that glow."
"What glow?"
"The 'I'm having amazing sex with a billionaire' glow," she explains. "Very specific. Very enviable."
"Can we please talk about something else?" I beg. "Literally anything else. Dad, how's your model train collection?"
"Oh, it's going great!" Dad perks up. "I just got a new—"
"No one wants to hear about trains, Frank," Mom interrupts. "We want to hear about Sage's boyfriend."
"He's not my boyfriend. He's my business partner."
"Who you kiss," Harper slips in.
"Allegedly kiss."
"You literally told us you kissed him," Claire points out.
"That was... a momentary lapse in judgment."
"How many momentary lapses have there been?" Ben asks, speaking for the first time. Harper's husband usually stays out of family drama, but apparently, my love life is fascinating enough to draw him in.
"Two," I admit softly. "Maybe two and a half."
"How do you have half a kiss?" David wants to know.
"It's difficult to explain.”
"Everything with Sage is difficult to explain,” Harper says. "Remember when she tried to ‘explain’ why she was sabotaging her own love life in college?"
"I wasn't sabotaging—"
"You dated a guy who collected belly button lint."
"He was conducting a scientific study.”
"He had jars of it, Sage. Labeled jars."
The doorbell rings, saving me from further discussion of my questionable dating history.
"I'll get it!" I practically leap up, desperate for escape.
I yank open the door to find the last sight on earth I expect.
Luke Sterling. Here.
Standing on my parents' porch and looking like he's stepped out of a catalog for "Casual Billionaire Chic."
I swear, that man is never beating the Clark Kent lookalike allegations.
Decked in pair of thigh-hugging, dark jeans, a wool sweater with sleeves pushed past a set of veiny forearms, and those glasses that make him look like a sexy professor who definitely doesn't have tenure yet but all the students have crushes on anyway.
"Luke?" I blink, as if the hallucination I think I’m experiencing will disappear. "What are you—how did you know I was here?"
"Mira.” One large hand holds up a folder. "I called the inn about the unsigned paperwork for the SafeStay collab, and she told me you were at family game night.”
“She did?”
“In her defense, she is stressed from being left kid-sitting Buttercup.” His jaw works, a semi-smile spreading on his handsome face. “She may also left detailed directions and mentioned your mother makes excellent seven-layer dip."
"Of course she did." I'm going to have to have a talk with my assistant about information security. "And you drove all the way here?"
"The contracts are time-sensitive." One side of his full mouth tips up. "Also, Mira may have mentioned you've never won a game night in fifteen years. That seemed statistically improbable."
"Did she also mention I have a meddling employee who gives out personal information to anyone who asks?"
"She might have used the phrase 'Sage needs all the help she can get.'"
"I'm firing her."
"She also said you'd say that."
"Sage, who is it?" Mom calls.
"It's—"
“Sage’s, uh, friend Luke!” Claire appears behind me like a pregnant ninja. "Oh my god, Luke, perfect timing! You have to come in!"
"I don't want to intrude—"
"Nonsense!" Mom materializes with the speed of a woman who smells potential grandchildren. "Any friend of Sage's is welcome here. I'm Patricia. You must be the Luke we've heard so much about."
"Nothing weird!" I say quickly. "Just normal amount. Of hearing. About."
Luke's definitely fighting a smile now. He adjusts his glasses. "All good things, I hope."
"Oh, we've heard about the kissing," Claire coos under her breath, and I consider whether siblicide is really that bad of a crime.
"Come in, come in!" Mom's already dragging him inside. "Have you eaten? We have food. So much food."
"I really should—"
"He's staying," Harper announces from the doorway. "We need even teams for Pictionary."
And that's how Seattle’s sexiest—and most stoic—CEO ends up sitting in my parents' living room, holding a plate of my mother's famous seven-layer dip while my father explains the house rules for competitive Pictionary.
"—and no drawing letters or numbers," Dad's saying. "That's cheating. Also, Claire isn't allowed to draw anything baby-related because she makes everything look like a fetus."
"One time!" Claire protests. "I drew a basketball that looked like a fetus one time!"
"You drew a car that looked like a fetus," Harper corrects. "And a tree. And the Eiffel Tower."
"Everything looks like a fetus when you're growing one!"
Luke leans closer to me. "Is your family always like this?"
"This is them on good behavior," I whisper back. "Wait until Mom brings out the photo albums."
As if summoned by the threat, Mom appears with a suspicious-looking leather book. "Luke, you have to see baby Sage! She was the chubbiest little—"
"PICTIONARY!" I shout. "We should play Pictionary! Right now! Immediately!"
"Someone's eager to lose," Harper smirks.
"I don't always lose."
"You've literally never won," Ben points out. "In fifteen years of family game nights, you have never once won."
"That's... statistically unlikely."
"And yet true," Dad confirms. "We keep a spreadsheet."
"Of course you do." I turn to Luke. "You don't have to play. You can escape. I'll create a diversion."
"What kind of diversion?"
"I could pretend to go into labor," Claire offers.
"You're not due for two months,” David reminds her.
"Sage could set something on fire," Harper suggests. "She's good at that."
"One time. I set the kitchen on fire one time!"
"Actually," Luke says, setting down his plate with the kind of determination I’m sure he reserves for hostile takeovers, "I'd like to play."
The room goes silent.
"You would?" I squeak.
"I'm excellent at Pictionary." He pushes his sweater farther up his forearms, and I try not to stare. “I’ve been told that I have damn good spatial reasoning and good drawing techniques."