Chapter 15 Casual
Casual
“Oh my god, you slept with him, didn’t you?!”
Sage hits the volume button on her phone as Emerson’s voice comes screeching through the speaker. “Say it louder, Em, I don’t think the entire island heard you.”
“My entire office certainly did,” Margot chimes in.
Sage buries her face in her hands and groans. “Margot, for the love of god, put headphones in. Why are you even at work? It’s Black Friday.”
“Tell that to Bart. No rest in real estate,” Margot mutters. “Also, I was kidding. I’m in a conference room with the door closed. Besides, I read a study that said constantly wearing headphones can hinder your ability to make connections and find solutions. They’re bad for your brain.”
“This conversation is bad for my brain,” Sage gripes.
“You know what’s good for your brain?” Emerson interjects. “Sex. Which you had with Theo. Let’s get back to the point of this call, shall we?”
“The point of this call was to hear how your Thanksgivings went, actually.”
Margot sighs dramatically. “It was fine. Emerson made her famous punch and her neighbors got so drunk they almost burnt the turkey. Everyone loved my autumn salad.”
“Ordinary holiday, then,” Sage remarks.
“Yep. We’re going to the club tomorrow. Ten bucks Emerson spends the whole time whining about how no one can hold a candle to Taylor.”
“Well, they can’t,” Emerson grumbles.
“She drunk texted her last night,” Margot adds.
“Emersonnnnn,” Sage whines.
“See, wouldn’t you rather be talking about Theo now?” Emerson says. “Spill. Is the sex good?”
Sage’s face heats, and she whips her head around the cottage. It’s empty—she knows it’s empty, because despite the grief she just gave Margot about working, she’s been sitting here for over an hour trying to write, alone, but still.
“I’m not answering that when Margot has me on speakerphone in her office.”
“Ooooh, it’s really good, then,” Emerson croons. “Theo Sharpe. Who would have thought?”
“Let’s not broadcast his name, yeah?” Sage says a little tightly.
“Oh right,” Emerson retorts sheepishly. “We can call him TS. Or Sharpey?”
“Or just Theo,” Sage offers, unable to help her amused smile.
“So. Is it … casual?” Margot asks, her voice careful.
Sage stills, her grin going from light and easy to fixed and frozen in the span of a heartbeat. “I mean,” she says, running her thumb over a spot on the counter, “we didn’t exactly break down the Ts and Cs. But we both know what this is.”
She had woken up this morning warm and sated and wrapped in Theo’s arms, and he had looked at her like he remembered exactly what sounds he had made her make and was willing to give it another go.
But they hadn’t. He had a meeting with a estate agent he had to get to, and with the roads safe enough to drive, he didn’t have an excuse to cancel.
So he’d left, and they hadn’t talked about it, and it’s fine.
Sage has done Casual enough to know there doesn’t have to be a whole conversation about it.
A long, pointed silence follows, and Sage feels that space between her shoulder blades cinch.
“You sure about that?” Emerson asks softly, as if she knows Sage has found herself staring off into the distance several times today thinking about how for all that she’s done Casual, there’s never been Casual with someone like Theo.
It makes her skin itch a bit. Makes her want to take back the things she shared on the floor and tuck them back beneath that armor she dons to keep the softest parts of her safe.
“Yes,” she answers. “I’m sure. He doesn’t even know how long he’s here for, and even if he did, I’m only here until the twenty-second.”
Her chest tightens as she realizes that’s a month away. It only gets worse when she adds, “This doesn’t change anything in the long run.”
“Sex changes everything, babes,” Margot sighs. “But hey, who doesn’t love a good holiday fling?”
“I wish I was having a holiday fling,” Emerson adds grumpily.
Margot snorts. “How do you expect to have a fling while you’re still hung up on Sage’s publicist?”
Emerson is quiet for a long moment. “I guess I would need the fling to be with Taylor,” she finally says.
Sage grins as her friends continue to bicker, her heart twisting with homesickness. She’s not ready to leave yet, but …
“I miss you two,” she says, interrupting them.
“We miss you!” Margot says earnestly.
“Yeah, but probably not as much as Theo misses that hot bod of yours. It’s been what, twelve whole hours since he’s—”
“And on that note,” Sage interjects, “I have to go continue writing. It was so good catching up with you, love you both, bye!”
She hangs up to the sound of her friends laughing, her own lingering smile filling her with warmth. She loves how she can feel their presence wrap around her, even from five thousand miles away.
ICE Theo Sharpe
Nov 24 12:30 PM
ICE Theo Sharpe
Don’t think I’ve forgotten about At Eternity’s Gate.
And here I’d thought I got a homework pass.
ICE Theo Sharpe
A snow day is no excuse to miss an assignment.
But professor, the power was out!
Surely you can make an exception, sir?
ICE Theo Sharpe
Fucking hell, Collins.
What?
ICE Theo Sharpe
Nothing.
ICE Theo Sharpe
Just trying to squash whatever just happened in my brain when you called me “sir” before I have to hop on Zoom with my agent.
ICE Theo Sharpe
Not to abuse a metaphor but I’m happy to hold office hours tomorrow. Come watch it then?
Should I wear my schoolgirl skirt?
ICE Theo Sharpe
Stop before I embarrass myself.
Nov 24 3:45 PM
ICE Theo Sharpe
Do you actually have one?
No.
Though I did go through a bit of a dark academia aesthetic for a while.
ICE Theo Sharpe
Jesus Fucking Christ.
ICE Theo Sharpe
3 PM? I don’t want to tempt fate and try dinner.
ICE Theo Sharpe
But I’ll have crisps.
ICE Theo Sharpe
Practically a dinner in your books, anyway, eh?
Just for that I’m calling them chips all afternoon.
ICE Theo Sharpe
Uncultured swine.
ICE Theo Sharpe
See you tomorrow.
There’s a small chip of paint missing from Theo’s front door. Sage knows this because she’s been staring at it for the last three minutes. She should knock.
Obviously.
She’s working up to it.
She’s just feeling preemptively awkward and nervous because the last time she saw Theo she saw a lot of Theo.
She cuts off her line of thinking before it can commandeer her better sense and convince her to do something irrational, like back him into a wall as soon as he opens the door before she even says hello. She’s not a total sex-crazed heathen.
Yet.
The wind whips across the croft, and Sage rocks back on her heels, her hands digging further into her jacket pockets to fight off the cold.
So she should probably just … knock.
She gives herself another long inhale before she stretches her fist toward the door. She doesn’t make it halfway before it swings open and reveals a confused Theo.
“Is the doorbell broken?” he asks, ducking his head through the frame to stare at the black-plated button Sage hadn’t even noticed was there. He presses it, his mouth twisting when chimes echo throughout the house.
Sage coughs.
Theo raises a brow.
“There’s a chip on your door,” she finally says, forcing her face into mock solemnity as she glances at it. “You know, in case you want to paint over it before you take pictures for the listing?”
He rolls his eyes, but there’s a fondness in the tilt of his lips as he tugs her inside. “Good thing you took time to thoroughly inspect it. The estate agent missed that entirely.”
“How’d that go?”
He shrugs as he takes her coat and hat. “He wasn’t my cup of tea.” The words come easily enough, but there’s a tightness to them that has Sage nudging him with her shoulder.
“No?”
“Nope.”
Sages rolls her lips inward.
“Because of one missed paint chip?” she hedges gently. “Tough crowd.”
“Oh yes,” Theo says mockingly as he leads the way into the living room. “I’m notoriously difficult to please. Just ask Ok! magazine.”
So they’re not talking about the house, then. That’s fine. “What’d you do?” she asks as she follows after him.
“Returned a dish at a restaurant because it had walnuts. I’m allergic.”
Sage clucks her tongue. “Celebrities these days. So self-absorbed, worrying about things like anaphylactic shock.”
Theo tosses a grin over his shoulder, and it’s so easy, so natural, that Sage wonders why she was worried about this in the first place. He ducks into the kitchen and returns with a bottle of red wine and two glasses. “I was thinking red to go with the crisps.”
“I don’t think you have enough flavors,” she muses as she picks up one of the five different-colored chip bags spread out on the table.
“I noticed you only had one flavor in your cupboards,” Theo says by way of explanation. “You have to have the full experience.”
Her nose scrunches. “Marmite? Seriously?”
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” he says loftily as he plucks the bag out of her hand and gets started on opening the wine.
“I’m suddenly concerned you’re trying to kill me.” Sage sinks into the cushions and smiles her thanks as Theo hands her a glass. “Death by wretched crisp flavor,” she says in a poor imitation of his accent.
“Trust me,” he murmurs as he settles next to her, his arm pressed snug against hers, lips pulling into a slow smirk.
“Of all the plans I have of what to do with you, that certainly isn’t one of them.
” His eyes dip to her mouth for the briefest of moments before he drags his gaze to the TV, where the opening scene of the movie is paused. “Ready?”
There’s a hint of his soap and cologne in the air, and it takes all her self-control to not lean into it, to not burrow into the warmth of his side where it’s pressed steadily against hers. To not say, “Forget the movie entirely.”
So no, she is certainly not ready. But she’s never shied away from a challenge.
“Go for it.”