36. Sage
THIRTY-SIX
SAGE
“Mac!” I scream after him as he runs off. I can’t move fast enough. I’m pulled towards him like a magnet, my body demanding I follow. June’s hand grabs onto my wrist, and I fucking growl at her. The first time in my life I hate the woman. Hating that she’s stopping me from following him.
“Let go!” I demand, yanking my wrist free. She’s so small and frail, I yank so hard she stumbles forward a step. Any other time, I’d feel guilty, but not now. Not when Mac needs me.
“Give him time, Sage,” she pleads, but I can’t fucking do that.
I’ve never been able to not help him. Never could just stand by when he hurt.
Even when we were kids, I would do anything and everything I could to help him.
Would steal, do dumb shit, burn the world down for him, just so he would smile.
I can’t just stand here and hope he’s ok.
“No.” I take off, following the path Mac took. My work boots slam into the ground, untied laces slapping against my leg. June yells something behind me, but I can’t hear it. It wouldn’t have stopped me, anyways. Mac is breaking, and I need to put him back together again.
Fuck the trailer. Fuck Karen. Fuck homelessness. I can live with nothing as long as I have Mac. As long as he is ok and by my side.
The entire race to find Mac, I’m hit with déjà vu.
Memories of the last time we ran away from one of his parents play out before me.
Super imposed onto the present. Last time, Mac was behind me, trying to catch up.
Dave screaming out his threats behind us.
Seems like a sick circle. A repeat of the past, like we are stuck in a loop.
Forever damned to be racing from his parents’ choices.
We were only seventeen then, and it doesn’t feel like much has changed.
Not really. We are still running away together, still as lost and messed up.
The world was just as bleak as it is now.
Mom was drinking again; Dave was high and ready to kill us for a dumbass prank.
But we had each other. And that felt like enough.
I call out his name when I finally spot him. He’s still running, even after he’s reached the fire pit by the dock, racing towards the lake. He doesn’t stop, just runs right down the old wooden dock. It sways and wobbles under his heavy steps. Then he’s diving into the water, disappearing.
I follow. Stopping at the edge and looking down at the water. Frantically searching for him, but it’s too dirty to see. Ripples skim the surface from his dive. I rip my shirt off and toe off my boots, kicking them away. I dive in after him.
Coming back up, I look around, manic and terrified. I need to find him. I need to touch him and tell him it’s ok, even though that’s a lie. But I won’t let it be a lie, I’ll fix everything.
Finally, when I’m about to completely lose my mind, he pops back up, gasping for air. His hair is dark and molded to his head, tears camouflaged by the water.
“Mac!” I call out, swimming towards him.
He’s only a few yards away, and I close the distance as fast as I can.
I’m scared he’ll go under again, swim out deeper, disappear altogether.
But he doesn’t. He stays where he is, doggy paddling to keep his head above the water.
The lake has a drop off just past the dock.
Dropping down to about fifteen feet. My jeans weigh down my legs, making my movements slower than I want them to be.
I grab onto him, fingers digging into his hips under the surface. Relief floods me with the contact. He holds onto me, pulling me into him. Our heads go under the water when we aren’t treading enough. Dingy lake water fills my mouth in the process, but we both don’t seem to care.
We move backwards towards the beach, Mac pulling me towards the edge of the drop off where we can stand. Water laps at our chests. My feet dig into the soft sand. Neither of us are letting go, making it more complicated. My bare chest is pressed against the shirt molded to his skin.
“Mac. Don’t run from me, baby,” I tell him, my voice a soft whisper over the ringing in my ears.
He remains silent. Just staring at me with sad eyes and a down-turned mouth.
“Baby?” I pull him in closer, his arms circling around me tightly.
I don’t know what to say; I’m shit with words.
Hence the theft and pointless shit I’d pull to cheer him up.
Mac always seems to know what to say when I’m breaking, but I can never find the right words.
But then the right words slap me in the face. I don’t know if it will help at all, don’t know if he even wants to hear them, but I need to say it. I need him to know how deeply I care.
“Mac,” I pull back and look into his eyes, “I…” Fuck! Why is this so hard? I’ve told him I love him before. Usually just a love ya, bro, or that’s why I love you. But this is worlds apart from that.
“I love you,” I gust out the words in a single breath. He looks at me with his sad, heavy eyes for a second. Letting the words settle before his lips slowly, so fucking slowly, tip up.
“You love me?” he asks like a goddamn asshole. His smile grows from a small gesture to a grin. All teeth and joy. It would look manic on anyone else.
“Yeah, I love you, asshole.” Before I can even finish the last word, his mouth is on mine. His lips are soft yet demanding as he steals my air and my sanity.
“I love you, too, Sage. So fucking much it’s insane,” he says against my mouth before nipping my bottom lip. The water is cool against my heated skin, all my warmth coming from Mac. Fuck the sun, Mac is brighter. All consuming. My entire world circling around the asshole.
I feel his hard length against my own, but neither of us move to address it. We just continue to kiss. The rushed attack he started morphs into something more. My heart hammers against his chest so hard I know he can feel it. I can feel his beat just as fast.
“We’ll be ok,” he says, to himself or to me I don’t know. Like always, we have shit we need to talk about. But instead, we choose to ignore it. We choose to just steal this time together instead.
Some things never change. Although the way we ignore our problems definitely has shifted. Being in love with my best friend never freaked me out. Probably should have, but he has always been my world. Always been there for me, with me. This feels as natural as my anger.
“Fuck, Sage.” His lips leave mine, and he drops his forehead against mine with a thud, tattling my thoughts even more. Our heavy sighs meet in the space between.
“We are so fucked,” he mumbles, his head shaking against mine.
“Yup.”
“But we’ll be ok?” he asks quietly.
“Yup. We always figure it out. Helps that you’re a fucking cat; you always land on your feet.” A choked sob-laugh erupts from his mouth.
“Yeah.” He pulls away, wiping at his eyes angrily with his hand. “Sorry I ran.”
“It’s ok. Next time just let me run with you.” I wipe at my own eyes.
“Bet.” He laughs. He tugs me back to him with the collar of my shirt. The lake water sloshes between us. “So you love me, huh?” He smirks, and I can’t find any annoyance with his arrogance. But I fake it pretty damn well. I slap his hands away.
“Fuck you, asshole.” He laughs, deep and real, and my heart beats harder at the sound.
I shove him back, and he falls back into the water.
Landing on his ass in the sand, head ducking under the water for a second before he pops back up.
A smile so bright crosses his face, it really does rival the sun.
He yanks my ankle, pulling my leg out from under me until I’m under the water with him.
“Fuck you!” I splutter out the words with the lake water.
But I laugh, lunging at him. We splash and fight in the water.
Shoving and pushing. Forcing the other’s head into the lake.
Playing like we used to. Biting out insults as we laugh and slap at each other.
For a few minutes, everything is good. Great even. Just us in the lake, fucking around. All the shit we need to figure out shoved out of our heads.
This is the life I want. Just this.
By the time we are walking out of the lake, I’m breathless. Panting large breaths of air. Filled with more joy than I have any right to. I drop my ass in the sand, and Mac falls down beside me. His clothes are more of a second skin the way they cling to him.
He leans back on his elbows and drops his head backwards. The long expanse of his throat is bared towards the sun. His chest rises and falls as quickly as mine.
We stay silent for a while, just catching our breath and sitting in the sand. I’ll regret the sand later, but for now, I’m right where I want to be.
“Ok, so we gotta find somewhere to live. The apartment is too small for the both of us,” he states into the silence, tipping his head down to look at me. By the look on his face, I know he’s about to say something that will piss me off. His shit-eating grin lights up his whole face.
“Your undying love for me won’t make that apartment any bigger.” Yup. This asshole is gonna mock the shit out of me. But the anger doesn’t come from his teasing. I feel relief. I feel lighter. Like telling him how I felt took some of the pressure off. Not sure how that fucking works, but it does.
I smack his stomach nonetheless. He gusts out the air in his lungs, crunching forward, blocking his stomach with folded arms. Choked laughter follows. “Dick,” he stammers before lunging off the sand and onto me. I fall backwards under his weight, his hard, muscular body pinning me into the sand.
Damn, this feels good, having his entire body perfectly aligned with mine.
Feeling every hard, defined line of him.
I could do without all the clothes between us, and definitely delete the sand.
He looks down at me with hooded eyes, licking lake water that drips down from his hair.
My hands run up and down his sides, needing to touch him more.
Hating the clothes even more for blocking me.
“Thank you, Sage,” he says so sincerely, my heart skips.
“For what?” I didn’t do shit. Not like he did yesterday. Taking charge and finding us somewhere to live. Comforting me and making everything hurt just a little bit less. By comparison, I’ve done nothing. I only sucked his dick and told him something I needed to say ages ago.
“Everything. I fucking love you.” He peppers my face with kisses. My cheeks, my jaw, my neck. “I’ve been in love with you since I was seventeen,” he confesses. I freeze. My hands stop; my heart stops. What?
“What?” He stops, too, his lips pausing on my jaw, my stubble tickling his lips.
“I…” He sits back, straddling my hips, knees digging into the sand. His perfect ass presses down onto my cock. My head spins. My thoughts trip. Torn between wanting him to talk and wanting to do something about my hard cock pressing into his ass.
I hate the look he’s giving me. Like he’s afraid.
Afraid of what? While his confession confuses the shit out of me, I’m not mad.
If anything, I wish he had made a move. Would have told me.
Wish we hadn’t wasted so many years not doing this.
Not being together like this. Maybe then he wouldn’t have left. Maybe then I would have gone with him.
“You’ve been in love with me since you were seventeen?” I repeat like a dumbass. He runs his hand through his wet hair, looking over me back towards the park. “Look at me, asshole,” I demand. He does, slowly, reluctantly.
“Uh…yeah. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you I was gay. Um…I thought you’d figure it out?” he asks me like I have the fucking answer. I wondered why he didn’t tell me. Why he kept pretending he was looking at girls, why he kept this from me.
The last puzzle piece falls into place, displaying a full picture.
God, I was so goddamn stupid. So many memories painting me as a fool.
The way he’d avert his eyes, the way he’d stammer whenever I’d touch him.
A simple arm over his shoulder made him blush.
He stopped trying to wrestle with me. If we did, he’d jerk away quickly whenever we got too close.
Making up reasons he couldn’t do certain things.
Whenever he’d sleep over, he’d rush out in the morning. I always thought it was the cuddling we’d wake up doing as a result of the small bed. I thought he just felt weird wrapped up in another man’s arms.
I never thought hard about it. About why I loved it so much.
About why I hated him rushing out the door.
How I’d miss him next to me when he didn’t come over.
He was my best friend, I didn’t know it was weird.
It was just us, just Sage and Mac being Sage and Mac.
But now I’m questioning shit I should have questioned when he came back.
Why I’ve always reacted to him the way I do. Why him leaving me broke me in half.
“Please say something,” he says nervously, rubbing his thighs with shaking hands.
“I’m an idiot.”
“Yes, but say something else. Please, this silence is torture.” What could I say? That I’m starting to think I’ve been in love with him that long, too? That the love I’ve always had for him wasn’t as platonic as I thought?
“Fuck, Mac, I think you broke my brain.” I lean forward, wrapping my arms around his middle and pressing my head onto his shoulder.
The storm his confession caused eases back like the tides.
Does it matter? Any of it? We can’t go back.
We can’t change anything. We are where we are now, and I fucking love it.
“You freaking out now?” he asks, finally moving to return the hug. I laugh half-heartedly. He’s been anxiously waiting for me to lose it over the fact that he’s a dude. But it’s never been about that for me. It’s always been him.
“No, you asshole. I’m pissed we wasted so much time not doing this.” I kiss him, feeling that euphoria that everything is ok again.