Chapter 14
Sage
Donatello’s Pizzeria had been a staple in town since I was a little girl, and it was nice to see Opal’s face light up when we walked through the door.
Outside, the air was just cool enough that the temperature had dropped a bit, and moisture hung in the air.
I’d followed Rhodes’ truck because I didn’t want to follow him back to Castleton afterward.
The temptation earlier in the greenhouse might have had me making a move on anyone else, but on Rhodes?
That probably wasn’t in the cards, even if he was a damn colossus.
A handsome one. I had a weakness for men bigger than me, and seeing him with Opal was giving me all the feels.
They were so stinkin’ adorable, but he was still Wade’s friend and didn’t seem to be in a dating space.
However, that didn’t mean I didn’t need to eat, and I was starving. Donatello’s was a happy memory for me, so it was easy to say yes to the invite. There was no harm in grabbing a bite.
They’d renovated recently, and the whole town was happy about it. It used to be dark in here with dim lighting and sticky booths, but now they had knocked out a wall and put in some light tubes up in the ceilings, so even on grey days it was better. Not so cave-like.
They also resurfaced the hardwood floor and kept it a lighter color, and while they installed new vinyl on the booths, they were still that dark red, which seemed typical of pizza parlors everywhere.
The kind you always stuck to in your shorts and the backs of your legs.
The jukebox in the back corner still played because Donatello Magione was eighty-two and wouldn’t hear of any of that streaming crap.
The best part of Donatello’s (besides the pizza) was the way it smelled, like cheese and pepperoni that brought a particular kind of happiness you could almost breathe in to the center of your heart.
The very first time the Holts brought me here, I thought I’d burst from happiness when the first pizzas started coming to the table.
I slid into the booth across from Rhodes and felt the familiar sticky-sweet resistance of the seat even though my legs weren’t bare.
“Hey, Sage.” Betta Mangione gave me a grin as she passed us menus and handed Opal a box of crayons with a coloring sheet. “Hi there, sweetie. These are if you want to color. I brought extras if you wanted to share.” She shot me a knowing look. “Someone across from you there also likes to color.”
“Thanks.”
I had noticed that Opal was carefully polite, and it made me want to ask personal questions about the circumstances that led Rhodes to raise her alone, but I tamped down the urge. It wasn’t my business. Maybe I wanted to make it mine, but that didn’t mean anything.
Opal’s tongue pressed to the corner of her mouth as she picked crayons from the little box with focused intensity. “Daddy, look. There’s a cat.”
“I see.” His lips tilted into a smile, softening the lines of his face.
“What’s your favorite kind of pizza?” I was fairly bouncing in my seat and salivating at the thought of it.
“They’ve got the best. You're going to love the pepperoni here," I told him, pulling the laminated menu towards me even though I hadn't needed it since I was eleven years old.
I just needed somewhere to put my eyes that wasn't his face, or his arms … or hands. “I hope you’re not one of those weirdos who like deep dish.”
"Pepperoni is pepperoni,” he shrugged.
I gave him the death stare that I hope conveyed my disdain. "It is not." Setting the menu down, I pressed my palms flat to the table, leaning in slightly. “This pepperoni is special. It curls when it cooks. The grease pools right in the middle, and there are crispy edges.”
"Duly noted," he said. “We’re both pretty easy to please when it comes to pizza.”
Opal hummed happily over her crayons, and I fiddled with my own coloring page, sketching ladybugs in the corners while Rhodes watched us with an expression that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. It made me uncharacteristically nervous.
“Thanks for my plant, Sage. I’ll take good care of Chantrelle.” Rhodes’ lips quirked in a half-laugh.
When I’d given her the spider plant earlier, she’d squealed with excitement.
Apparently, she hadn’t expected me to follow through on my promise, but those sorts of things weren’t something you could break.
If you told a kid you’d do something, you’d better do it.
Spider plants were awesome. They grew fast, and you could drape them all over your bookshelves.
When I told her the plant needed a name, she’d pulled out Chantrelle like she’d had it prepped and ready to go.
“I’m sure you will. If you have any plant mom questions, let me know,” I said, seriously.
Donatello’s hummed around us, accompanied by the satisfying clatter of plates from the kitchen and a song playing on the jukebox. There was a family in the large round booth near the window, with a baby in a high chair who kept throwing its spoon and laughing hysterically each time.
"So," I started, propping my chin on my hand after Betta came to take our order—she shot me a knowing look over her notepad when Rhodes ordered two pepperoni pizzas, and I pressed my lips together to keep from saying anything. “Let’s talk layout.”
“Okay.”
It wasn't even a question the way he said it, just flat and attentive, like I had his full attention and he wasn't going to waste it on inflection.
"I think there are several things in there that are just dormant,” I said, watching his face.
He didn't react, because of course he didn't. “If they survived this long, it means the rootstock is extraordinary." I flipped my coloring page over and sketched the greenhouse’s general layout from memory. "We wouldn’t have to start from scratch with everything. Some people think it’s best just to rip it all out and start fresh. They want something new.” Biting my lip, I concentrated on the sketch.
Everything would need to be marked carefully, but I’d need to take the time on my own without Rhodes hovering to go in and check things over. It was a project, for sure.
"And you don't think that's right." The words startled me a little.
"I think starting fresh can be great,” I answered carefully, wondering if he thought I was hiding a double meaning. “Sometimes, but in this case, there is still something worth keeping.”
He was quiet for a moment, his large forearms resting on the table, and I was very carefully not noticing how his henley was pushed up to his elbow, revealing the rope of muscle in his forearm. “So that’s a general philosophy or specifically about plants?” he asked.
"Both." I drew a small circle on the placemat where the myers lemon plant had been, and another where a camellia cutting had grown into an unchecked shrub. "All of it. Same principle."
Betta appeared with our drinks, sliding a Sprite toward Opal with a little paper umbrella tucked into the ice.
She let out a sound of pure, uncomplicated delight.
Rhodes smiled then, properly, the kind that rearranged his whole face, and I looked down at the placemat so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash.
I didn't look up right away and started answering Rhodes’s pointed plant questions before losing myself in explaining root division. He was actually listening and asking the right kinds of questions, so I didn't notice the man until he was close enough that the shift in the air reached me first.
"Sage."
I glanced up from the sketch that I was absorbed in.
The man standing at the edge of our booth was maybe mid-thirties, with sandy-blond hair that needed a cut and eyes that caught the light in a way that was almost pretty.
He was wearing a Donatello’s Pizza shirt, the red polo that they made the part-time staff wear, tucked into dark jeans, and he had his hands clasped in front of him like he was about to say grace.
It took me a moment to place him. Alan, I thought?
He was one of the newer faces in town lately, but he’d come in to Wild Bloom once to buy a small cacti, paid in cash, and complimented the arrangement in the window way too long.
And Cedric had stayed in the back room the whole time, leaving me hanging.
He’d caught hell for it later since he’d basically abandoned me.
"Hey," I said, keeping my voice easy. “Alan, right?"
His face lit up, and he smiled broadly, fixing his gaze on me with an intensity that felt almost tangible. It was nearly disorienting.
"You remembered." The words came out almost reverent.
"Small town." I kept my tone light. "You working tonight?"
"Yeah, yeah, I just…”
He looked at Rhodes and Opal, and a flicker of emotion surged across his face too quickly to catch, before his eyes returned to me.
“I saw you come in and wanted to say hi. I meant to stop by the shop again. I loved those flowers in the window last week. They were beautiful. Really,” he paused, and the pause lasted a beat too long, “—really suited to you, somehow. "
The small hairs along my forearms lifted. When he’d come into the shop, he’d been friendly, but not like this. Right now, the way he was focusing on me sat so wrong that I shifted uneasily in my seat. Was he flirting?
"Thanks," I managed. "That's nice of you to say.”
Rhodes had gone very still across from me, his eyes shifting to Alan with the watchful quality that my brothers, especially Wade, often had. He’d stiffened and turned his entire body towards the other man, seeming somehow even larger and more threatening.
Opal, oblivious and perfect, held up her latest drawing. "Do you like cats?" she demanded.
Alan blinked and looked at her like he'd only just noticed she was there. "Sure," he said after a beat. “I like cats.”
"We're getting one," she informed him, with the solemn authority of a person announcing a state policy. "Probably two."
"Opal," Rhodes said, soft and even, but he didn’t look away from Alan. “We aren’t getting two. I’m not even sure we’re getting one.”
"What? We are." She began coloring determined stripes across her cat’s back. “Orange ones.”
Not able to hold back the muffled laugh at the thought of Rhodes wrangling two orange cats, I just added solemnly. “Orange cats are great.”
Everyone knew they were crazy at best, and psychotic at worst. It was just Rhodes’s luck that Opal wanted an orange one.
The silence stretched a beat too long—Alan still standing there, and me suddenly painfully aware how weird this was. Most people, after they’d said what they wanted, either shifted on their feet or showed some sign that they were about to move on, but this guy just stood there.
“I’m sorry. This is Rhodes and his daughter, Opal. They’re new to town.” I reached for my glass of water with the deliberate ease of someone who was not going to let this feel strange.
“Nice to meet you both.” Something flickered in those pale eyes, and then he smiled again, the full-face smile that felt like a lamp switched on in a room you'd thought was empty.
“Looks like you’re busy. Don't let us keep you." Rhodes’ words were clipped and unmistakable. It was obvious he was dismissing him. In a normal situation, I’d be a little pissed off that he was being rude, but this wasn’t normal. I was uncomfortable.
"Right, yeah." He straightened. "It was really good to see you, Sage." The name sat differently in his mouth than it did in other people's—careful, precise, like he'd practiced the sound of it.
He turned and walked back toward the kitchen without saying anything else.
"Friend of yours?"
“No. He’s a customer at the shop.” I pulled the placemat back toward me, smoothing it flat with my palm. There was a faint tremor in my fingers that I tamped down before it became anything—and picked up the crayon. "He's new in town, too.”
He watched me for a long moment before his gaze moved deliberately toward the kitchen. "How new?”
“A couple of months, maybe." I drew a leaf on the placemat to go with my ladybug next to the greenhouse floor plan.
His jaw flexed once, almost imperceptible, and then Betta arrived with the pizza, and Opal let out a sound of pure adoration that filled the whole booth. Just like I’d promised, the pepperoni curled exactly right, the grease pooling in the tiny copper cups.
"See?" I said, diverting the conversation. “Perfectly curled goodness.” I wanted that chill gone that our visitor had brought.
Rhodes looked at the pizza, then at me. “Mark it on the calendar. You were right," he said. “For today.” He gave me a little smirk and gentled his eyes to let me know that he was letting the conversation go about Alan.
I appreciated that he let the heavy moment pass as he served a slice to Opal and then another to me. Losing myself in pizza was easy, but I enjoyed hearing my tablemates’ sighs and moans as they bit into their slices. I had been hoping that they’d like it as much as we did.
“Best pizza ever.” Opal skipped beside me as we left the pizzeria a little later, with leftovers in a box she’d been trying to convince her father would make a great breakfast. Rhodes remained unswayed, but it sounded like she ate cereal most of the time anyway, so I wasn’t sure why it mattered.
“Maybe you’ll share with your dad?” Rhodes had been holding her hand as we went through the parking lot, where his hulking truck was parked near my van. “He looks like he eats pizza for breakfast and maybe tickles little girls.” I gave her ponytail a tug.
She giggled and danced away. “All for me.”
He made a growly noise and swooped in on her, making kissy noises on her neck before he swung her up and over his shoulders.
“Better hold onto that pizza tight—you’ll wake up, and it’ll be all gone.
” Opal made protesting noises as he opened the back door of his cab and settled her inside.
“Buckle up, Oppie. I’m just going to talk to Sage for a second. ”
“Bye, Sage!” She waved happily at me. “Thanks for coming to dinner and for my plant.”
“I had fun.” More than fun. Spending time with her (and her dad) was easy, and it felt right all the way down to my toes.
Rhodes closed the door, glancing in to ensure she was buckling herself in. My delivery van was right next to the truck, so I didn’t need him to wait. My keys were even in my hand, so why did I hesitate?