Chapter Seven #2
“I don’t think there was enough information available to support that conclusion.”
“Oh,” she says. “There really was.” She studies me for another second before wandering toward the buckets lined along the wall. “What did you do?”
I scowl. “What? Nothing!”
“What are you planning to do?”
“Also nothing.”
She laughs quietly, looking me up and down. “I like you.”
I tilt my head to the side. “So I’ve noticed.”
She wiggles her brows. “Oh, I bet you have.” She starts sorting through flowers with the same care Millie used to plate pastries that morning, setting stems aside and putting others back without a second thought.
“Apology flowers?”
“No.”
“Birthday?”
“Also no.”
“Congratulations?”
I huff out a breath. “No.”
She glances over her shoulder. “Just because?”
Grumbling under my breath at the twenty questions, I crane my neck to the side. “Sage missed Millie’s bakery opening.”
Recognition settles across her face. “You all went?”
“Yeah.”
“And so naturally… you’re taking Sage flowers?”
“Yeah, ’cause she feels bad for missing the opening.”
A huge grin crosses her face like she’s just become over-excited. “You’re adorable.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “I don’t believe that’s accurate.”
“It really is.” She finishes wrapping the bouquet and slides it across the counter.
White, cream, and soft green. Nothing loud. Nothing trying too hard.
I glance down and nod. “They suit her.”
She shrugs like it’s nothing. “They do.”
I pay while Penny watches me with entirely too much amusement. “I’m going to tell Millie.” I look up. “And Millie…” she continues cheerfully, “… will spill to Marley, who will definitely be excited to tell Victoria.”
“I suspected as much.”
She continues, “Victoria will tell Ro.”
“Probably.”
“And by dinner every woman attached to this club will know you bought Sage flowers.”
I pick up the bouquet, suddenly feeling as though this is a terrible mistake.
“I’ve made a tactical error coming here, haven’t I?”
She jumps up on her toes, smiling so fucking wide I suddenly feel like I want to puke. “You absolutely have.” She grins. “I’m still not sorry.”
I raise the flowers in my way of saying thank you, say nothing, and turn, walking out with Penny giggling like a fucking schoolgirl behind me.
Fuck my life!
By the time I reach Sage’s apartment, the afternoon has settled into that familiar Vegas heat that clings to the concrete long after the sun has started dropping toward the skyline.
The flowers rest against my forearm while I knock.
Movement carries through the apartment before the lock clicks and the door opens, then Sage fills the doorway.
She shouldn’t have this much presence. She’s barely five-foot-nothing, all stubbornness and opinions packed into a body that looks like a strong gust of wind should be enough to knock her sideways. But she’s strong enough to withstand anything.
Her hair falls in loose blonde waves around her shoulders, like she’s spent the afternoon chasing the sun instead of sitting behind a desk. Her skin still carries that warm, sun-kissed glow that makes me wonder if she’s ever had a bad day at the beach. Then she looks at me.
Those eyes…
Christ.
Somewhere along the line, I’d convinced myself it was the arguments that got under my skin. The way she’d stand in my den and refuse to back down. The way she’d challenge me just enough to make me want to prove her wrong.
I was lying to myself.
It was always her eyes.
She looks at me like she’s been trying to figure me out from the moment we met. As if she sees something worth waiting for behind walls I’ve spent years making sure nobody got through.
I don’t know when that started mattering.
I just know it does.
The smile that spreads across her face the second she sees me finishes the job.
Fuck me.
Then her eyes find the flowers, and the smile slips into something else. Surprise.
She wasn’t expecting this.
“You went to the opening?” is the first thing she says.
Not ‘Hello.’
Not ‘What are you doing here?’
Or even ‘You bought me flowers.’
Just ‘You went to the opening.’
“You wanted someone to be there for her, so I went. So did all the other guys. It was kind of a shit show. I think Deek bought every fucking thing Millie had in the store. The guy is a pig.”
“They’re beautiful.”
I shrug because they’re just flowers to me. “Penny picked them.”
She grins cockily. “I know.”
I jerk my head back in confusion. “How?”
Her smile widens. “Ro called.”
I stare at her. “I bought those twelve minutes ago.”
“Honey, by the time you paid, half the club already knew.” She shrugs like that explains everything. “Penny called Millie, Millie called Marley, Marley spoke to Victoria, Victoria cornered Ro in the clubhouse, and Ro called me.”
I do the math. “That’s… disturbingly efficient.”
“Welcome to girl world. We’re nothing if not heavily reliant on gossip when it comes to the club and the people in it.”
“That’s less a world and more an intelligence agency.”
She laughs, hugging the flowers a little closer. “You’re just jealous because your brothers still communicate by yelling across a parking lot.”
I smirk. “It’s worked well for us so far.”
“Mm-hmm.” She steps back from the doorway. “You’d better come in.”
I dip my head at her and step through the doorway.
The apartment looks exactly the way it always does.
Laptop open, files spread across the dining table, and a coffee mug that’s been forgotten halfway through.
Nothing staged. Nothing for anyone else’s benefit.
She fills a glass jar at the sink and settles the flowers inside, then steps back to admire them.
Her phone buzzes from the kitchen. She doesn’t even glance toward it. That’s unusual. Since I’ve known her, she’s answered every call or text as though someone needed her.
This time she keeps looking at the flowers.
“So,” she says without turning around. “Tell me everything.”
I lean against the kitchen bench. “Deek ordered enough food to bankrupt a small country.”
“Sounds about right.” She smiles.
“Bear stole one of his sausage rolls.”
“Also sounds right.”
“Liam discovered kouign-amann.”
She turns. “Bless you.”
My lips turn up just slightly. “It’s a pastry.”
“It sounds like a bacterial infection.”
I fight back my laugh. I don’t know what it is about Sage’s humor, but she always manages to make me want to laugh. “I don’t think Millie is selling those.”
“You sure? She’d make a killing. I hear bacterial infections can be quite lethal… see what I did there?” she says, grinning at me like she’s just told the funniest joke.
I shake my head. “Just the pastries, as far as I am aware.”
She scowls. “Damn! Thought Millie was totally the type to be a closet killer. Free botulism with your brownies, salmonella in your sandwich… the full catering package.”
“You’re trying real hard to get taken off the Christmas card list.”
She widens her eyes playfully. “I prefer Halloween anyway!” She grins, grabs a coffee with that beautiful smile of hers, then holds up another. “Coffee?” When I shake my head, she gestures for me to join her at the table. I can’t help smiling back as I take the seat opposite her.
This fucking woman!
“So, tell me more about today,” she says, lifting her mug to her lips.
I tell her about Millie, the line out the door, Anchor pretending he hadn’t been worried, and how the bakery slowly filled until there wasn’t an empty chair left. I don’t tell her that half the club probably only went because she’d asked.
By the time I finish, something in her shoulders has eased.
The tension she’d been carrying when she opened the door has loosened enough that she finally leans against the table instead of holding herself upright by force of habit.
“I hate that I missed it.”
I wince. “I know.”
She slumps her shoulders. “I kept checking the time all morning.”
“I know.”
She looks across at the flowers again. “They’re going to make Penny unbearable.”
“They already have.”
She laughs, soft enough that it barely carries past the kitchen. “Thank you.”
She isn’t thanking me for the flowers. They’re just proof. She’s thanking me for remembering, for understanding.
“You would’ve done the same.”
She looks at me over the top of the bouquet. “No, I would’ve texted Millie and told myself that counted.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Not even close.”
I huff out a quiet laugh. “Good to know.”
“Now you do.”
The conversation fades without feeling unfinished.
Sage brushes her fingertips over one of the stems, nudging it a fraction before looking back down at the bouquet.
Penny didn’t leave anything to fix. And Sage isn’t fixing it. She’s just looking for another excuse to touch them.
I don’t point it out.
Some things don’t need to be said out loud.
She’s happy I bought her flowers, and I’m happy I made her happy.
Fuck!