11. Sage
11
SAGE
T he following week and a half passed in relative peace and quiet post-slicing hand incident. Oh, and she had seen Leo naked and that opened a can of crazy in her brain. She couldn’t look at him without picturing all of him.
Sage slept horribly and her streaming was the only thing keeping her motivated (and the whole intense sense of impending doom and failing at the competition). She spent a lot of time catnapping on the couch in front of the fireplace with Squash before an inevitable—and now predictable bad dream would yank her from her sleep.
Overall. Things were fine.
This was why she nearly had a heart attack when she stomped down the stairs early one morning to find Leo in her kitchen, ransacking the cupboards.
She grabbed the nearest weapon and screeched like a banshee, which was a very normal reaction for someone to have after finding an unexpected pest in their home .
“What are you doing?” she asked in her best banshee wail. She held up the umbrella (the aforementioned weapon) and shook it. “I could have killed you!”
“If you managed to stab me with that thing then I deserve the slow and painful death. However, you have toothpicks for arms. I’m sure I could stop you. Or any other intruder.”
Sage was working to calm her racing heart. “So, you admit it?” she seethed, stomping past him, and loudly slamming every cabinet door he’d left open.
“Admit what?” Leo asked.
“That you’re an intruder.”
“Nope.” He hopped up on the counter like he owned the place. And he had her cookies— her cookies —in his hand, munching away on them. “I just came in to give you a little surprise since you decided to also give me a little surprise.”
“Those are mine.” She snatched the sleeve from him to find that he had generously left her two Thin Mints. She stuffed them in her mouth.
“And what surprise did I graciously bestow upon you?” She began her morning ritual of making tea.
“That little calendar surprise.”
Sage froze. So, he had noticed. Well, shoot. She supposed it was a small comfort seeing that he still checked in on her instead of spending his days golfing away. Okay, so she checked his location occasionally. She was curious about what he did all day.
Leo made a show of wagging a finger at her like she was some naughty kid. “Didn’t think I’d notice, did you? ”
“I guess,” Sage mumbled. “But it’s not really a big deal.”
Leo stood and made a beeline for her secret stash of cookies. How on earth did he find them? They were hidden in the backup teapot. She snatched them away before he had a chance to open them.
“Are you ever full?”
The mountain shrugged. “This is research. You can tell a lot about a person based on what they keep in their kitchen.”
“And what have you deduced?” Sage wished she would take back the jab as soon as the words exited her mouth because Leo turned to her with a strange look in his eye, the look of someone solving a problem.
“You have a sweet tooth, obviously, but you are a seasonal girlie.”
“Girlie?”
Leo physically shuddered. “Been spending too much time with Tess. Anyway, you hoard the seasonal snacks. Peppermint from Christmas. I even see some Pumpkin remains from October hidden away. I bet if I look hard I’d find some pumpkin spice latte mix or syrup or something.”
Sage rolled her eyes and poured the boiling water into her tea, mentally making a note to find a better hiding spot for the pumpkin-spiced muffin mix and apple cinnamon syrup.
“Anyway, what do you want?” she asked.
“Unsubtle change of subject. I wasn’t done yet.” Leo grabbed a granola bar from the pantry and tore it open, resuming his post on the kitchen counter. “You like convenience food, but that doesn’t always mean unhealthy. You like your frozen orange chicken and fried rice and those god-awful pizza rolls but you also like a prepackaged salad or a fresh one-pot meal. Easy. But you also hate driving in the snow and have tried meal delivery services but you never liked those.”
“How on earth could you tell all that?”
Leo shrugged. “Elementary. So why am I here? Ah yes, that little calendar update. I’m going with you.”
“No.”
“Not a request.”
“I’ll give you this whole package of Thin Mints if you don’t go.”
“Ah, negotiations. I like it. I accept.” He grabbed the sleeve of thin mints she was holding and tore into them, shoving two into his mouth. “I can’t believe you still have these. Don’t they only sell them once a year? Oh, and I’m still going with you.”
“You just said you accepted!” Sage snatched the cookies back and tossed a few in her mouth.
“Accepted the cookies, dear Subject. Don’t negotiate with a terrorist.”
“Should have known,” Sage said. Well, the package was open, may as well finish them before they got stale. She dipped one in her tea and ignored Leo’s horrified look. “Look, it’s just a New Year’s party. No big deal.”
“New Year’s was two weeks ago.”
Sage shrugged. “Time is different in the online world I guess.” In reality, there were too many scheduling conflicts for everyone with the whole new year and family obligations so The West Coast Streamer Showcase decided to host their annual meet and greet on January 18 th . To tie it in they had 18 different gaming-related companies showcasing their goodies and sponsored players (Sage and LilyTech included).
“Time is not a thing for you gaming type I guess.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sage was not in the mood for this. She was actually looking forward to the event. She was finally going to meet some of the other gamers LilyTech sponsored, take some photos (which would get Jared off her back about curating content), and check out some new gear. There was an absolutely gaudy and unnecessary clicky purple keyboard about to hit the market and she needed it.
Leo went back to scouring the cupboards, clearly looking for something. “I just mean that you gaming folks have no regard for the hours of the world. You stream late, sleep in, you put last-minute things on the calendar. The rest of the world doesn’t work like that and somehow there are enough delinquents out there to watch you and perpetuate this way of living.” He closed the cupboard loudly. “Do you have any coffee in this place?”
“First you insult my line of work?—”
“I did no such thing?—”
“Then you demand coffee?”
Leo shrugged. “A man can hope. How’s the hand?”
She was no longer wearing a bandage, the stitches had fallen out, and the bright scar was fading. “It’s fine.” She refused to look at him in case another flash of all of him decided to assault her mind. “And I refuse to have that bitter bean live in my house.”
“You’re like a bitter bean. ”
Sage threw up her hands. “I actually work hard, okay? Sure, the hours are weird but I think this disdain you have for my job stems from the fact that you don’t actually like what you do and you are jealous that I actually found something I love to do and I get paid to do it.”
“You’re right on one count. I don’t love this particular job. However, I do find great satisfaction in protecting people."
"You want to be needed, admit it.”
Leo pursed his lips and turned away, scouring the fridge. “All I need right now is coffee. And an itinerary.”
“Unsubtle change of subject but I am equally excited to get out of this conversation,” You rude and pompous person. “So, I will send you the schedule of events. Luckily this one is in Portland so it’ll just be a long day but nothing overnight.”
“Those come later,” Leo said, resuming the search of the fridge and now on his phone, presumably making additions to the calendar. “Like the big LilyTech conference in L.A.”
“Right.” She was also getting excited about that. The competition was looming overhead and she didn’t feel totally prepared, but the grief was getting easier to deal with every day, and actually seeing people seemed to help. She had coffee with Tavy just the other day (she had texted Leo for that event and he deemed it safe enough to go alone) and Sage felt, dare she say, better? She felt more human. Less of a toad sitting on a log watching the world go by (while wrapped in a blanket). Life was starting to have some color again. And it was nice .
And she wasn’t sure if the man in front of her added hues of blue or more shades of gray.