Chapter Twelve #3
I hear it before Sage does, and my head snaps toward the hallway.
“Fuck, Pipe—” The rest of her name never leaves my mouth.
I push off the sofa so fast I nearly catch my boot on the coffee table, straightening my shirt on instinct while reaching down to snatch my cut off the sofa.
My pulse is still trying to beat its way out of my chest as I drag leather over one shoulder, every part of me suddenly remembering exactly where we are.
Sage blinks up at me, still dazed from the kiss.
Then her head snaps toward the stairs, clearly hearing the footsteps.
Understanding flashes across her face, followed almost immediately by a quiet laugh.
Just loud enough to tell me she’s thoroughly enjoying the fact that, for once, I’m the one who’s been caught off guard.
“You okay there?” she murmurs, trying and failing to hide her smile.
“I was,” I say, subtly rearranging my cock in my jeans.
She laughs again, softer this time, tugging the hem of her shirt back into place before running both hands through her hair in a half-hearted attempt to make it look like I hadn’t just spent the last several minutes kissing the life out of her.
It doesn’t work.
She still looks thoroughly kissed.
The smile she gives me this time is smaller, then she stands and turns toward the kitchen.
“I’ll make coffee,” she says, clearing her throat as she reaches for the pot, probably for something to do with her hands, and because if she keeps looking at me, we’re both going to forget someone is walking downstairs.
I drag a hand over the back of my neck, take one unnecessary breath, then another, and force myself back into the chair I’d abandoned ten minutes ago.
The laptop is still open where I’d left it, spreadsheets waiting patiently for my attention like the last ten minutes never happened. My heartbeat disagrees.
Piper wanders into the kitchen a second later wearing oversized sleep shorts and one of Sage’s old college hoodies, her hair pointing in three different directions.
She heads straight for the refrigerator with all the determination of someone operating entirely on autopilot. She doesn’t even look at us.
I watch her open the refrigerator, stare into it, close it again, and open it a second time. “I swear…” she mumbles, still half asleep, “… I was looking for something.”
Sage’s shoulders shake as she tries not to laugh while filling the coffee pot, and I keep my eyes on the spreadsheet. It’s safer that way. Much, much safer.
Piper pours herself a glass of water and leans against the counter, signing to me slower than usual. She hasn’t been awake long enough for her hands to catch up with her brain yet.
Sage laughs and signs something back. I catch about half of it, my ASL still new enough that I have to work for it, something about the television and someone named Colin from Accounts and a show Piper is convinced Sage hasn’t been keeping up with.
Piper glances my way and signs slower, giving me the chance to follow. ‘You’re here late.’
I sign back. ‘Working.’
She gives me a look that suggests she doesn’t believe that for a second, then shrugs and heads back toward the stairs with her water glass, throwing one more sign over her shoulder that I don’t catch fast enough, and Sage doesn’t bother translating.
The apartment goes quiet again.
I focus back on my laptop and go back to the spreadsheet as if nothing happened.
Sage sits back down across from me with her coffee, and we work for another hour in the same silence we had before, except it isn’t the same at all.
Every time I glance up, she’s already looking somewhere else.
Every time she glances up, so am I. When I finally close the laptop, it’s well past two in the morning.
Neither of us comments that, somewhere over the last hour, the reports stopped getting much attention.
Sage gathers the papers into something that vaguely resembles a pile while I slide the laptop into my backpack, and by the time I’ve slung it over one shoulder, she’s already walking me to the front door and opens it.
I stop on the mat and turn back toward her.
She smiles.
I smile back.
Then… nothing.
The apartment suddenly feels very quiet.
“So,” she says, rocking back on her heels.
“So…”
Neither of us moves.
She takes a small step closer, her eyes holding mine long enough that I start wondering if I’ve forgotten something.
“You okay?” I ask.
A tiny smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah.”
Another second passes, then she rises onto her toes just a little.
I frown. “What?”
She blinks. “What?”
“I thought…” I have absolutely no idea what I thought.
Her cheeks begin to turn pink. “No, it’s…” She laughs once under her breath, shaking her head. “Never mind.” She reaches for the door.
Halfway there, my brain finally catches up. She is trying to kiss me goodbye.
“Oh, fuck!” I step forward at the same moment she gives up and turns back toward the door. The side of her forehead bumps lightly into my shoulder, and I stop so abruptly I almost lose my balance.
She blinks up at me.
I look down at her.
For one painfully long second, neither of us says anything.
She’s close enough that I can still feel the warmth of her from the kiss we’d shared hours ago, close enough that all she’d have to do is lean forward again and we’d probably make the same mistake twice.
“Well…”
“Yeah.” She bites the inside of her cheek, her lips twitching despite every obvious attempt to keep a straight face, and I realize she’s fighting a losing battle with her own amusement.
“That was…” I let the words hang there because there isn’t a sentence in the English language that’s going to rescue whatever just happened.
Sage presses her lips together, fighting a smile that she’s clearly losing. “I know.” She glances down at the floor between us, gives her head the smallest shake, then looks back up at me.
I point vaguely between us. “So, we’re just…”
She folds her arms, studying me for a second like she’s weighing up exactly how honest she wants to be. “Terrible at this?”
I scratch the back of my neck. “I wasn’t going to say it.”
“You absolutely were,” she says it so matter-of-factly, I don’t even bother pretending to defend myself.
“Maybe.”
One eyebrow climbs, slowly. “Definitely.”
Before I know it, I’m laughing, too, rubbing a hand across the back of my neck because apparently, I’ve forgotten how to leave an apartment like a functioning adult. “I swear…” I mutter, shaking my head, “… I’ve handled hostage negotiations with less confusion than saying goodnight to you.”
She laughs even harder. “That’s genuinely concerning.”
“You have no idea.”
She grins, one shoulder resting against the doorframe while her hand stays curled around the handle.
Her hair is still a little messy from where we’d been tangled together on the sofa, and I have to work a lot harder than I should to keep my eyes on hers instead of wondering what it’d feel like to tuck the loose strand behind her ear again.
“And yet…”
“And yet, apparently saying goodnight is where my entire skill set gives up.” The smile she’s trying to suppress only grows. “I was trying to be subtle.”
“You were?” Her eyebrows lift. “Ghost…” She lets my name hang there for a second, looking at me as if she’s genuinely trying to work out how I function. “I leaned toward you.”
“I noticed.”
“A full minute later!”
I shrug. “I was processing.”
Her laugh bounces around the little apartment, warm enough that I feel it before my brain catches up with it. “No, Ghost.”
“I was!”
“You were buffering.”
I stare at her. “Buffering?”
She nods, completely serious. “I could practically hear the spinning wheel.”
I open my mouth, come up with absolutely fucking nothing, and feel the heat hit my face anyway. “That’s unfair.”
“It’s completely accurate.”
“I’ve infiltrated secure government servers—”
“And yet…” She pushes off the doorframe, taking one slow step closer until she’s standing well inside my personal space again. “A woman leaning in for a kiss completely defeated you.”
The smell of her shampoo catches me again—clean, floral—and it’s becoming impossible to separate it from her.
I consider arguing. Unfortunately, the available evidence overwhelmingly supports her position. “I had a moment, okay?”
“You had several.”
“They happened very close together.”
Her grin widens another fraction. “I practically handed you an engraved invitation.”
“Fuck! I know.”
Her grin widens as she takes another step closer. “You RSVP’d after the event.”
I close my eyes for exactly one second. When I open them, she’s still smiling at me and standing too close, still looking entirely too pleased with herself.
“Are you finished?”
“Not even remotely.”
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it, and it is enough to surprise both of us.
She notices.
Of course, she notices.