53. Sage
FIFTY-THREE
SAGE
“Ihope there aren’t any stray dogs around,” I say as we head toward my apartment building. “We smell like sausages and minced pork.”
Milo lifts his hand to his face and inhales deeply. “Mm. Meat.”
Micah shakes his head.
I need a shower. We all do. Even after changing out of the white coats and scrubbing at Hank’s industrial sink, the scent clings—fat, cold metal, and blood.
I don’t care. I’m buzzing. My arms ache from the work and my fingers are stiff and there’s a bruise forming on my palm from where I leaned on the knife too hard. But I feel alive.
Milo is still recounting the intestine incident as we climb the stairs, each version more dramatic than the last.
“It was barely a nick,” he says. “If that intestine didn’t want to be punctured, it should’ve been thicker.”
“That’s victim-blaming a pig organ,” Micah says behind me.
I laugh so hard I have to stop on the landing, bent over with my hands on my knees. Milo watches me like making me laugh is the best thing he’s done all day.
“You good?” he asks, grinning.
“No.” I wipe my eyes. “I spent my Saturday learning how to dismember a pig from a man who may or may not think we’re serial killers. I’m unhinged.”
“I love that you’re unhinged.” Milo steps closer. “Makes me feel closer to you.” He’s on the step below me, which puts us almost eye to eye, and his hand comes up to brush a strand of hair off my face—slow, deliberate, his fingers trailing along my jaw.
“You had fun today,” he states.
“I did.”
“You’re good with a knife.”
“I’m okay with a knife.”
“You’re sexy with a knife,” he murmurs.
The words hit somewhere low and bright. I should probably be horrified by that. Instead, I fist a hand in his shirt and drag him down to me.
He kisses me rough, pressing me against the stairwell wall. One hand rests on my jaw and the other grips my hip, and he tastes like the gas station coffee we grabbed on the way back and that dizzying thing that’s just him. He makes a sound against my mouth that vibrates all the way down to my toes.
He breaks away first, gasping. “Micah, be honest. Did you or did you not think our girl looked super fucking hot butchering that pig?”
I expect Micah to roll his eyes, but instead he shrugs. “I thought she looked confident,” he says. “And yeah, that’s pretty hot.”
I’m still pressed to the wall, Milo’s arms on either side of me, and suddenly I’m aware of both of them in this narrow stairwell—Milo close enough to steal my breath, Micah a few steps away watching my face like he can read every dirty thought I’m trying not to have.
Their attention knots my nerves together until my skin goes hot, then cold, then hot again.
“I need a shower,” I say, voice not as steady as I want.
Milo pulls back just enough to flash me a wicked smile. “We should conserve water.”
“I don’t know if we’d all fit.”
Milo lifts a brow and turns to Micah. “Did you hear that? Our girl said all.”
Micah’s eyes burn into mine as Milo kisses me again—quick, hard—then grabs my hand and pulls me up the remaining steps.
“Hold onto kitten for me,” Milo says, passing my hand to Micah while he digs in his pockets for the keys.
Our fingers lock together, and we laugh because Milo is ridiculous, and honestly, because we’ve been laughing together all day. But then I notice a faint smear of something on his face and I reach for it.
“You missed a spot,” I say. He watches my face as I drag my thumb along his jaw to wipe it away. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t blink, just stands there with a half-shy, half-starved look.
The silence stretches.
Milo gets the key into the door but he pauses and leans against the jamb, watching us with unfiltered heat.
Micah’s hand finds the back of my neck. He is so gentle about it, so deliberate, that I almost shiver.
“You want this, baby girl?” he whispers.
I nod.
He waits, forehead tipping to mine. “Say it.”
“I want you to kiss me, Micah.” He doesn’t hesitate.
Lips on mine—soft at first, then growing fierce as I grab the front of his jacket and pull him toward me.
He shifts closer, all hips and hands and tongue, kissing like he’s been dying for this all day.
Maybe forever. A noise escapes him—a soft, almost wounded whimper that makes me feel like a living secret.
I don’t know what to do with the way he’s holding me, how the world tilts sideways every time I taste the heat and sorrow on his tongue. There’s no room for hesitation but all the time in the world for the kind of wanting that means both of us are going to come apart before we even get inside.
“Wow,” Milo says, a little awed, a little jealous, and a lot turned on. He opens the apartment door and gestures us inside. “After you, my lovely deviants.”
Micah and I tumble past the threshold together, still fused at the mouth as Milo swings the door shut behind us. Then he crowds me from behind, hands on my hips, pinning me to Micah, who’s still kissing me like the world will end if he doesn’t steal every last breath from my lungs.
Milo’s arms wrap around my waist and he buries his face in my shoulder, biting down through my shirt hard enough to make me yelp—half arousal, half surprise. His hands slip under my T-shirt, up my sides, deft and greedy, the heat of them stabbing straight to my core.
I’m pressed between both of them, Milo at my back and Micah in front of me, and the way Micah devours my mouth, slow and savoring, makes every cell in my body clamor for more.
“Milo,” I gasp, arching back into him even as I fist Micah’s jacket tighter, “I want you—”
Someone clears their throat.
Loudly.
I freeze. Micah freezes. Milo keeps trying to take my shirt off until I nudge him with my elbow.
Then he freezes too.
As one, we turn our heads to find two people sitting on the living room couch.
Amy.
And Tyler.
Tyler’s jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscle twitching from across the room. He’s staring at Micah’s hands on my waist, then at Milo still clutching the side of my shirt.
I can watch the math happening behind his eyes. Two guys. One girl. Hands everywhere.
“This is fucked,” he mutters. He stands, shakes his head, and disappears down the hall toward Amy’s room. He slams the door behind him.
The silence that follows is suffocating.
Amy stands slowly. She’s in sweats and one of Tyler’s hoodies, her hair piled on top of her head, and she looks tired. She glances toward the hallway, then sighs and turns to face me.
“I felt bad about taking off on you last Sunday,” she says. “I wanted to stay here tonight, so I talked him into it.”
The tiny pause before “talked” tells me it wasn’t as easy as she wants it to sound.
A small, rueful smile. “Surprise.”
“Amy, I—”
“Don’t.” She holds up a hand. “You don’t owe me an explanation.” Her eyes move to Milo, who gives a little wave. “Hey, Milo.”
“Hey, roomie.” Milo smooths my shirt back down to my hips and tries to look casual.
“And you are . . .?” She looks at Micah.
“Micah.” He’s stepped back from me, his hands at his sides, but he doesn’t look embarrassed. He gives Amy a polite nod. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Amy’s gaze makes the full circuit—Micah, Milo, the wreckage of my shirt, the fact that thirty seconds ago there were four hands on me—and I watch her do the math between the version I gave her over coffee and the version currently catching its breath in her living room.
I brace for the judgment, the careful change of subject.
Instead she huffs a quiet laugh, more to herself than to me. Her eyes flick toward the hallway, then back to my face, taking a second to rearrange what she just walked in on.
“I guess you were serious when you said they all knew about each other.”
“Shit, Amy. I can explain.”
She shakes her head, and the smile that breaks through is real. “You don’t need to. I’m glad you’re bringing them around. You look . . . good, Sage. Happy.”
The word lands somewhere soft and unguarded, and I have to blink hard to keep my composure. “Thanks, Aims.”
I glance at Milo and Micah. “Can you guys give us a minute?”
“Sure. We’ll wait in your room, baby girl.”
Milo gives my hand a squeeze as he passes. Micah catches my eye and nods once, and then they disappear down the hallway. I hear my bedroom door click shut, and now it’s just me and Amy and the low hum of the fridge.
“Tea?” I ask, because I have no idea how to start this conversation.
“Wine?”
I laugh. “Perfect.”
I pull the open bottle from the fridge while she grabs the glasses. For a second, with her leaning against the counter and me fighting the cork, it almost feels normal.
“So,” she says.
“So.”
“I’m happy for you. Honestly. I meant it last week when I said I was proud of you.” She chews her lip. “But I am sorry about Tyler. He’s being . . .” She trails off, searching for the word.
“Intense?”
“That’s generous.” She exhales through her nose. “Brock left a voice message for his parents during the week.”
My hand tightens around the bottle. For half a second, I forget how to pour.
Amy doesn’t notice. “I thought knowing he made contact would help, but Tyler’s been even worse. I don’t know what to do.”
I focus on pouring the wine so she doesn’t see my face. I’m reeling. I know the Hangmen are into some pretty heavy shit. But how did they get Brock to make a phone call from the dead?
“I’m sorry, Amy.”
“Don’t be, it’s his thing to get over.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know. This”—she gestures vaguely toward her bedroom—“is a lot. And I keep telling myself he’s stressed—he misses his friend, work, whatever’s eating him. I’ve been telling myself that for weeks now.”
She exhales. “But the fight I had to have with him just to get him to agree to tonight . . .”
“What did he say?”
Her mouth twists. “That I was picking you over him. That if I needed space from him, maybe that said everything about us. Then he asked if I was planning to spend the night telling you all our private business.”
She looks down at her glass. “I’m getting tired of the sound of my own excuses.”
I hand her the glass and she takes a long, deep drink.
I want to tell her that her boyfriend’s instincts are right, that Brock didn’t leave town.
But then I also want to point out that the man she’s sharing a bed with is more invested in a rapist’s whereabouts than in making her feel comfortable in their relationship.
I can’t do either of those things. So I just say, “I wish it was different for you. And if you want, you can stay in my room tonight. Or I can sleep on the couch. Or we can make a plan for tomorrow. Whatever feels easiest.”
Also, your boyfriend’s a judgmental prick.
“Thanks.” She takes a sip. “I don’t know. I’m starting to think Tyler and I might not be—” She stops herself. Shakes her head. “Sorry. That’s not your problem.”
“Amy, you can talk to me.”
“I know. I just . . .” She sets the glass down and crosses her arms. “He’s not who I thought he was. Or maybe he is, and I just didn’t want to see it.” She forces a smile. “But enough about me and my questionable taste in men. At least one of us has figured out the dating thing.”
There it is. The door closing gently before I can put my foot in it. I recognize the move because I’ve used it a hundred times.
I’m about to respond when the front door opens and Knox walks in—massive and unhurried, scanning the room by habit.
I stop breathing.
Knox takes in the scene in about half a second—me in the kitchen, Amy at the counter, two glasses—and gives me a barely perceptible nod before moving toward the hallway. Business as usual for Knox, except nothing about the room has gone unread.
“What the actual fuck, Sage?” Amy whispers as her eyes track the giant of a man.
Then they drift back to the door just as Eli appears.
I stiffen.
He’s here.
Amy makes a sound.
“Eli?” she says. “What are you doing here?”
I glance between them.
Oh, fuck.