67. Sage
SIXTY-SEVEN
SAGE
Today’s diner shift feels like an out-of-body experience.
I’m standing behind the counter, slinging coffee and sending through orders, but none of it feels real.
My body is here, muscle memory moving through the day, but the rest of me is somewhere else—a thousand miles inside my own head, cycling through piecemeal memories from last night.
I’ve been smiling about it since I woke up this morning and we all crammed around the table eating Milo’s ridiculously shaped pancakes. I need to stop before someone decides I’ve lost my marbles.
The morning rush comes and goes—families on vacation, college kids slouched and hungover because summer break is just one big party—I refill coffees, run plates, take an order from the table of construction workers who come in every morning and tip exactly fifteen percent regardless of service quality.
The soreness fades into background noise once I’m moving, and I’m grateful for that.
Micah stays at the counter while I work, nursing a mug of coffee and reading something on his phone. I drift over when I get a minute.
“You don’t have to stay,” I say.
“I know.” He doesn’t look up.
“Seriously, Micah. Go do something with your day. Sleep. You were up half the night.”
“So were you.” He sets the phone down and looks at me. “I’m finishing my coffee.”
“It probably went cold twenty minutes ago.”
He looks at the cup. Then he signals for a refill. I laugh and pour it for him, shaking my head.
“Thank you, baby girl,” he whispers, letting his eyes rake over me as he picks it up. I shiver, heat pooling low in my belly. I have to look away before I do something stupid like lean across the counter and kiss him. He smirks like he knows exactly what I’m thinking and goes back to his phone.
The bell above the door jangles and Jamie breezes in. He makes a beeline to the counter, his bag hitting the stool before he sits on it with an exhale like he’s just barely made it. He peels off his jacket and settles in.
“Coffee, Sage. Stat! It’s been a morning.”
Then he stops.
He looks at Micah and his jaw drops open. “Do you know him?” he whispers as I pour his urgent coffee.
I can’t help my grin. “I do.”
“Oh my God. He’s so . . .” He pauses like he doesn’t know how to describe Micah’s look. “He could be a model. That face should be on billboards and in magazines.”
“I don’t think that’s his style. But I do agree, the man looks like he was photoshopped.”
Jamie’s eyes widen as he nods. “Mhmhm!”
We’re talking quietly, but when I glance at Micah, he thankfully gives no indication he just heard Jamie gushing over him—or me for that matter.
“He’s very—” Jamie tilts his head. “Is androgynous the right word? Like, beautiful in a way that makes you unsure which direction you’re attracted from?”
“Please don’t say that to him.”
“Obviously I’m not going to.” He leans over the counter. “Is he one of yours?”
I open my mouth. Close it. But the smile spreads anyway.
Jamie’s eyes go wide.
“Oh my God,” he breathes. “He is.”
“Can I get you some pie today?”
“You can. And then you need to come back here immediately because I feel like there is information I’ve been denied.” He leans back on his stool, watching Micah with open delight. “Also he’s got a wonderful reading face. Like a professor. I’m obsessed.”
I set the coffee pot back in its cradle before I cut a slice of pie. When I come back to the counter, Micah is standing, wallet out, and he catches my eye and tips his head toward the door.
“I need to head out. But Knox will be here soon, okay? You won’t be alone long.”
I nod, and he puts a twenty on the counter. “For your trouble.”
“Micah. That’s too much.”
He gives me another wink. “See you tonight, baby girl.”
When he’s gone, I let out a dreamy sigh and realize I need to get it together.
Jamie lets out a low whistle. “That man is so hot for you, it’s not even remotely subtle. I love this for you, Sage.”
“It’s not—” I start, but there’s no way to finish the sentence that isn’t a lie.
“Oh, it is. And you look so happy about it I want to bottle the energy and sell it. But I have to ask . . .” I set his pie in front of him as he looks around the diner conspiratorially.
“The others—are they cool? Do they know about each other? Because I don’t want to be a bad friend and accidentally say the wrong thing if this is a secret. ”
“It’s not a secret. They know about each other.”
Jamie’s relief is immediate and visible. Then he frowns. “Wait. Is it just three? Or did I see you with another one?” His eyes lift to the ceiling as he tries to count interactions on his fingers.
I try not to smile but fail.
“No.” His jaw drops again. “No! There are more? How many?”
“You have to promise not to judge me.”
“Oh my God. Sage. I promise.” He does the sign of the cross then holds his hands together in prayer. “This is a judgment-free zone.”
Biting my lip to keep from laughing, I lift my hand and hold up five fingers.
He stares at them, then at me, then back at my hand. He sets his coffee down very carefully, as though afraid he’s going to spill it in all the excitement.
“Sage. That is . . . That’s not just a love life. That’s a love octopus. Are you a succubus?”
I laugh despite myself. “It’s not like that. They’re just . . . all really good guys. Or, well, good to me. It’s complicated but it works.”
He makes a little delighted sound and pats my hand. “You. Are. An. Inspiration.” Then he lowers his voice to a whisper and grins. “Do you see them one at a time? Or is this, like . . . a group thing?”
“Both. Sometimes.”
“Both. Sometimes?” He sits back. Runs a hand through his hair. Looks at me with an expression that cycles through shock, disbelief, and something that settles firmly into admiration. “Sage. Honey. I need you to know that I mean this with my entire chest—you are an icon.”
I laugh, the tight knot in my chest loosening. “I don’t know about that. It’s complicated.”
“It sounds complicated. It also sounds like the most unhinged and incredible thing I’ve ever heard, and I went to art school.” He grabs his coffee. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave anything out. Start from the beginning.”
“I can’t tell you everything. Some of it is—” I search for the word. “Private. To them.”
“That’s fair. Tell me what you can.”
So I do, in pieces, in the gaps between customers.
I tell him we met on the beach—leaving out the events, of course—and how they circled in gradually, each one distinct, each one impossible to refuse.
I tell him about Holden’s bad-decisions energy and Knox being a teddy bear.
About Milo’s chaos and Micah’s steadiness and Eli, who makes everything harder than it needs to be because he’s built that way and possibly doesn’t know how to stop.
Jamie listens. He asks good questions. He doesn’t make a single face I feel like I have to apologize for.
When I finish, he grins and points at me. “You’re in love.”
“I think I am.”
“You are.” He taps the counter for emphasis.
“Don’t qualify it. You’re in love with multiple men.
Own it.” He leans back, satisfied. “This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in months—years.
I feel like I’m in a novel.” He waves a hand.
“Your secret love life is safe. I’m just going to need ongoing updates. Regularly.”
The bell jangles.
I look up and Knox fills the doorway, because Knox always fills whatever doorway he’s in, and Jamie goes still the way people do when they register that the person they’re looking at requires recalibrating their entire sense of scale.
Knox’s eyes find mine and he raises his chin in acknowledgment. Then he looks at Jamie, who is making absolutely no effort to look anywhere else.
Jamie turns to me very slowly and whispers, “You can take that?”
I press my lips together.
He waggles his eyebrows so hard I think he might injure something. Then he drains his coffee, pulls on his jacket, and stands. “Right. I’ve got errands.” He points at me. “Tomorrow. Details. Don’t make me beg.”
“No promises!”
“We’ll negotiate.” He slings his bag over his shoulder and pauses on his way past Knox, looking up—and up—with the expression of a man who is filing something away for future appreciation. “Lovely to see you.”
“You too,” Knox says, in the voice that contains entire landscapes.
Jamie looks back at me one more time, mouths something I’m choosing to interpret as incredible, and walks out into the sunshine.
Knox eats the pie Jamie forgot and waits until I finish my shift.
It’s warm outside, the kind of afternoon that smells like the ocean and cut grass, and I fall into step beside him naturally, our bodies close.
Half a block down, he steers me into the ice cream place on the corner without a word and comes out two minutes later with a cone for me—one scoop, chocolate, which I did not tell him was my favorite but apparently he knew anyway—and nothing for himself.
“You’re not getting one?”
“No.”
“That’s sad.”
“I don’t like ice cream.”
I stop walking. “I’m sorry. You don’t—how?”
He looks at me. “It’s cold.”
“It’s supposed to be cold. That’s the point.”
“I don’t like cold food.”
I stare at him for a moment, recalibrating. “Knox. I feel like I’m learning something important about you.”
“You’re also dripping.”
I catch the cone before disaster and we keep walking.
The afternoon is easy, the kind of day that makes this town look like a postcard, and I’m halfway through the ice cream and telling Knox about an art school anecdote Jamie told me—a disaster involving a kiln and an ill-advised performance piece—when I notice Knox watching me with concern.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, licking my ice cream and peering up at him.
“You’re limping.”
“I’m okay. Just a little tender.”
He doesn’t say anything more. Just stops on the sidewalk and hooks his arm behind my knees and I’m up before I’ve finished the protest.
“Knox—”