13. Sage
THIRTEEN
SAGE
“Welcome to the nerve center,” Milo says, and I can hear the pride in his voice, like this is the one place in the world he feels unambiguously at home.
We step inside, one by one. The cold hits me instantly. Holden grunts and crosses his arms, gooseflesh rising on his forearms before he shoves his hands into his armpits.
“You built this?” Holden walks the perimeter, scoping it out.
“Piece by piece over the past six years. The racks are enterprise-grade. Encryption is multilayered—each server runs its own isolated environment. Nothing talks to the house’s network.
There’s a separate power supply, separate internet line, the works.
” Milo drops into his chair and it spins once before he catches himself on the desk.
“The only reason I’m worried about a breach is because whoever’s texting Sage has skills.
And skill means I have to verify rather than assume. ”
He starts typing. Fast. His whole energy shifts down here—the jittery, joke-a-minute Milo is replaced by a sharper, more focused version.
Knox stands by the server racks, arms folded, staring at them like they might attack.
Micah settles into a chair near the workstation and watches Milo’s screens.
Eli leans against the wall, the split cheekbone darkening, posture careful.
Holden opens a panel on one of the racks and inspects the cabling inside.
“This is military-grade,” Holden says.
“It’s better than military-grade. The military outsources to the lowest bidder. I built this myself.”
“Where did you get—”
“You don’t want to know. And more importantly, you can’t prove anything.”
For twenty minutes, I watch Milo work. He talks while he does it—narrating for the room, half to us and half to himself.
Access logs. Traffic analysis. Encryption verification.
He checks each server one by one, hands-on, pulling drives and running diagnostic tools I’ve never heard of.
He checks our phones too—mine first, then everyone else’s.
Running scans, checking for anything that shouldn’t be there.
“Clean,” he announces each time. Then moves to the next.
I’m trying to follow what he’s doing, but the cold is winning. I rub my hands together, blow on them, tuck them under my arms. Nothing helps. My teeth are chattering, which feels dramatic.
Knox crosses the room and wraps both arms around me from behind, pulling me into his chest. The warmth is immediate, and I sink into it without thinking, my back pressed against the solid wall of him, his arms a fortress around my ribs.
“Better?” he murmurs, hunching over me so his mouth is at my ear.
“Mmm.” I turn in his arms so I’m facing him, my hands sliding under his jacket, palms flat against his stomach where the heat radiates through his shirt. He’s a furnace. He’s always a furnace. I reach up and pull him closer, press my cold nose against his neck and feel him shiver.
I kiss him there. Just below his jaw. A soft press of lips against warm skin that smells like cedar and soap and Knox. His arms tighten. I feel his pulse jump under my mouth.
He pulls back and looks down at me. Those dark, steady eyes. One hand comes up and tilts my chin, thumb tracing my lower lip, and then he kisses me. Slow. Deliberate. Knox is never in a hurry. His hand cradles the back of my head and his mouth moves against mine leisurely. I hum contentedly.
“Hey!” Milo spins in his chair, pointing at us with a USB drive. “No sexy stuff in the server room. I can’t afford to get jizz on this stuff. That is a hard rule. Nonnegotiable. Especially”—he gestures at his screens—“when I’m busy working and can’t participate.”
Knox doesn’t break the kiss. He just lifts one hand off my waist long enough to give Milo the finger, then puts it right back.
“But Milo,” Micah starts, pushing out of his chair. “It’s freezing in here.”
He comes up behind me, his chest against my back, his mouth finding the spot below my ear that makes my brain go static. His hands slide over my hips, and the sensation of being held between them—Knox’s heat from the front, Micah’s warmth from behind—is so good it’s almost cruel.
“You two are shameless,” Holden says from across the room, but his voice has that rough edge it gets when he’s watching and pretending he isn’t.
“She’s cold, Holden,” Micah says against my skin, all innocence. “We’re providing a public service.”
“Body heat is the most efficient warming method,” Knox adds. His lips brush my jaw. “Science.”
“Oh, is that what this is? Science?” Holden pushes off the server rack and walks over, slow and deliberate.
He stops in front of me, cages my chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilts my face up, and kisses me—hard and brief, a stamp of ownership that leaves my lips tingling.
Then he stays close, his mouth a breath from mine.
“If we’re going to warm her up, at least do it properly. ”
“I hate all of you,” Milo says, typing furiously. “I’m doing critical national security work over here and you’re running a group grope three feet from my encryption keys.”
“Come join us then.” My voice comes out breathless.
“I can’t. I have six more drives to scan. This is persecution. This is a hostile work environment!”
“Lodge a complaint with HR,” Knox mutters. His mouth finds my neck again.
Micah’s hand slides under the hem of my shirt, his thumb tracing circles on the bare skin of my hip. Holden’s watching me with heated eyes, one hand braced on the server rack behind Knox, close enough that I can feel the warmth coming off him.
And Eli.
Eli is against the wall. Arms folded. Jaw locked.
He hasn’t moved, hasn’t spoken, but he also hasn’t looked away.
He’s watching with the stillness of a man who’s swallowed something sharp and is trying not to let anyone see it cut.
His eyes track Knox’s mouth on my skin, Micah’s hands on my hips, Holden’s proximity.
Our eyes meet over Micah’s shoulder.
I don’t look away. Neither does he.
Then someone knocks on the basement door.
“Hi, Milo, honey?” A woman’s voice, warm and musical. “Your dads said you had some friends over. I thought maybe they’d all like to stay for lunch? We can put some meat on the grill. I’d love to meet them!”
“Oh my God! Is that your mother?” I hiss as we spring apart like teenagers caught with the door closed.
Knox steps back. Micah’s hands vanish from my hips. Holden is suddenly very interested in the server rack again. I smooth my shirt down so I don’t look like a woman who was thirty seconds away from getting railed.
Milo doesn’t even look up from his keyboard. “No thanks, Mom. We’re busy.”
“It’s no trouble! Your father’s already got the charcoal going—”
“Mom. You know you’re not allowed down here. We agreed. This is my private space.”
“I know, baby, I just thought—”
I can’t help it. I cross the room and open the door before Milo can stop me.
She’s standing on the other side, hand raised like she was about to knock again.
And she’s—beautiful. Not in the way I expected Milo’s mother to look.
She’s maybe early fifties. Dark hair threaded with silver, pulled into a loose twist, linen apron over a sundress, and she looks like she belongs on the cover of a magazine about women who have their shit together.
She sees me, and her entire face lights up.
“Oh, Milo.” Her hands come together. “Is this kitten?”
Milo is out of his chair so fast it spins into the desk. He’s behind me in three strides, one hand on the door, his body angled between his mother and the room like a goalie blocking a shot.
“Yes, Mom. This is Sage. The love of my life. Can you please go back upstairs so we can work? Okay. Thanks. Bye!”
He closes the door in her face.
I stare at him. “The love of your life?”
“Did I stutter?”
“You told your mother about me.”
“I tell my mother everything. She’s my mom.” He’s already back in his chair, typing again. “Don’t make it weird.”
I look at the others. Micah is smiling. Knox’s shoulders are shaking.
“I want to meet her,” I say, still a little off-balance. “Your mom. She seems—” Normal, I’m about to say, but Milo’s glare dares me to finish the thought. “Nice,” I say instead.
“She is nice,” he grumbles, but his cheeks are red. “Borderline intrusive. But she bakes a fuck ton of banana bread, so I put up with it.”
There’s another rap on the door, this time followed by a muffled, “We’ll be grilling until at least three, honey! Don’t work too hard at your . . . computing stuff.”
She says it like it’s a euphemism.
I love her immediately.
Milo leans back, spinning slow in his chair.
“Okay. No sign of a digital breach. If I had to guess, our mystery texter is running their operation from somewhere local, using a burner for the phone and maybe piggybacking on public networks—coffee shops, shopping centers, things like that.” He pauses.
“Which means they’re good, but they’re not in our house. So that’s something.”
“Finally, some good news,” Holden agrees.
Milo stands, stretches, cracking his knuckles. “Right. We’re done. Let’s go before my mom sets the table and we’re forced to stay.”
We file up the stairs. I’m bracing for the awkward shuffle to the front door, the polite wave, the escape to the car. But when we reach the dining room, I stop.
The table is set. Not just set—laid out.
There are ten places with what you just know is the good china.
There are cloth napkins and candles. A giant bowl of potato salad sits in the center next to a pitcher of lemonade.
Through the sliding glass door, I can see the backyard—a decent-sized lawn with a charcoal grill billowing smoke.
Three men stand around it in their matching turtlenecks.
One flips burgers. One arranges corn on the cob. One holds a beer and supervises.
Milo’s mother is nowhere in sight, but the evidence of her is everywhere—the napkins folded into little swans, the wildflowers in a jar at the center of the table, the faint smell of baking underneath the smoke.
Banana bread.
Milo stares at the table.
“Fuck. She was too fast. Guess we’re staying for lunch,” he says.
Knox is already pulling out a chair.