30. Sage
THIRTY
SAGE
Brock
That choker won’t hide it forever. Take it off. Show the world what I did to you. What I plan to do again...
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“There’s a four-fifteen showing of that new horror movie. The one with the cult and the creepy kids.”
Jamie’s in his usual booth, laptop closed for once, chin in his hand like he’s been waiting for a gap in the nothing to pitch this.
The diner is dead. Not slow—dead. The summer tourists have truly left Hunter Harbor now that school’s back in session and the diner is feeling it.
Two customers have entered in the last hour.
A guy reading the paper who ordered one coffee and hasn’t looked up since, and a woman who came in for directions to the beach and left without buying anything.
Danny, the cook, is in the back watching something on his phone loud enough that I can hear tinny explosions through the serving window.
“Can’t,” I say, topping off his mug. “I’m here until four.”
“Later, then? There’s a seven-thirty.”
“Jamie.”
“Would your men let you out of their sight for a couple of hours so we can hang? It’s been, like, three whole weeks since our coffee date, you know. And me talking to you in here doesn’t count.”
“I don’t know,” I say, letting out a sigh as my eyes cut to the street. At first it was bubble wrap—the guys making sure I was okay after I went stab-happy on Brock. Now it’s barbed wire.
“Maybe they could come with,” Jamie suggests. “We could all sit in the back row and act like teenagers.” He grins. “I wouldn’t mind pretending to be part of the group if I can sit next to that sexy one.”
“They’re all sexy.” Heat creeps up my neck.
The positive side of having at least one of my guys watching me at all times is that my libido is in overdrive.
I can’t get enough of them. Last night was Micah, Holden, and Knox, and I’m still feeling it in muscles I didn’t know I had.
This morning was Milo in the shower, quick and laughing and soapy, his hands everywhere.
Jamie rolls his eyes. “Yes. But I’m talking about the beautiful one. The one who looks like he could be an elf in Lord of the Rings.”
“Micah?”
“Yes! He can rest his arm over the back of my chair any time.”
I laugh despite myself. “I’ll pass that along.”
“Please do. Tell him I said he has the bone structure of a Renaissance painting.” He takes a sip of his coffee. “Seriously, though. When was the last time you had some fun?”
I blush.
“That didn’t involve sex, you saucy minx!”
“We play lawn bowls on weekends. We’re dead last because we’re terrible. But it’s fun.”
He stares at me, mouth open. “Lawn bowls?”
“Yeah. It’s—”
“Do not say it’s ‘fun’ again.” He holds his hand up to stop me. “Lawn bowls is for retirees and people who are scared of fun.” He leans closer. “When was the last time you did something for you, Sage? Just you.”
I open my mouth. Close it.
“That long, huh?”
“Things have been . . . complicated.”
“I know.” His voice softens. “And I get why they’re obsessively watching you.
I do. After what happened, it makes sense that the people who love you would want to keep you close.
But, Sage...” He leans forward. “You know what doesn’t help someone who’s been through a dark patch?
Being monitored every second of every day like she’s going to shatter if no one’s holding the pieces. ”
The dark patch. I know that’s how he frames it—what I led him to believe. But it still twists my gut hearing the worst moment of my life turned into something I did to myself.
“They mean well,” I say, knowing it’s the truth. “I’m just—”
“Going insane?”
“I was going to say struggling with not feeling smothered. But insane works.”
Jamie tilts his head. “When was the last time you saw Amy? I’m betting it was that coffee date we all had together.”
I wince. “She keeps texting and I keep . . .” I trail off.
Making excuses. Dodging. Letting the friendship wither because I can’t figure out how to see her without the whole production—the escort, the route planning, someone in a parked car watching through tinted windows.
And I know she’d understand, but I just want the freedom to sit across from my friend at a café and not worry that if a waiter flirts with me a little too hard it’ll turn into a confrontation because Knox decides his smile is suspicious.
“You miss her,” he says.
“Yeah.” The word comes out small. Honest. “I do.”
“Then see her.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Why not?”
Because she’s already too involved in the shit show my life has become, and I don’t want to risk her more than I already have.
“So, you miss her and you keep blowing her off, huh?” Jamie prompts when I don’t answer.
“Not on purpose.”
“Doesn’t matter. Effect’s the same.” He says it gently, but it lands.
“Look, I know your guys mean well. But I’ve been in a place where the people around me were so scared of losing me that they forgot I was still here.
And the tighter they held on, the smaller I got until I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t tell them I couldn’t breathe because they were doing it out of love and how do you fight that? ”
I stare at him. “Yeah. That’s . . . yeah.”
“So here’s what I’m going to say, and you can tell me to fuck off if you want.
” He folds his arms on the table. “Nothing makes a person want to crawl out of their skin more than being treated like they’re made of glass.
You need girl time. You need stupid, pointless, laughing-until-you-snort time.
And I am fully qualified to provide that.
I’m basically an honorary girl. I have strong opinions about cuticle care.
I will hold your bags at Nordstrom. I can be on ‘Sage Watch’”—he makes air quotes—“for a few hours while the big scary men take a break. I promise to return you in one piece.”
“It’s really not that simple.”
“It really is.” He holds up a finger. “One evening. A movie, or the mall, or pedicures, or just sitting in a parking lot eating drive-through. Whatever you want. Call Amy. Make it a three-way.”
I glance toward the front window. Eli’s car is parked across the street in his silver sedan with the driver’s side angled toward the entrance.
He’s got papers spread across the steering wheel—kindergarten stuff, letter tracing worksheets and reading logs.
I watched him circle a smiley face on one earlier.
A man who can take a person apart without blinking, drawing smiley faces for five-year-olds who stayed inside the lines.
“I can’t just disappear on them,” I say, but I can hear it in my own voice. The want. The desire to make a decision without telling a single soul.
“I’m not saying disappear. Tell them you’re a grown-ass woman who’s going out with friends—live! They can literally sit in the parking lot of wherever we go and wait for us to come out.”
My phone buzzes in my apron and my spine straightens until I remember that I blocked that asshole. No more deadman texts for me. Fucker.
Amy
Hey stranger. Coffee? Please? I’m starting to think you’ve been kidnapped. If you HAVE been kidnapped, text me a pineapple emoji and I’ll call the police.
“Amy’s ears must be burning,” I say and show Jamie the screen.
He reads it and grins. “See? Kismet! She misses you. And I miss all three of us together. Call her!”
“Fine,” I sigh. “I’ll talk to the guys.”
“Don’t talk, Sage, my dear—tell.”
It’s then that my boss sticks his head through the kitchen window. “Sage, you can head off if you want. No point paying you to stare at the walls.”
Jamie raises both eyebrows at me. “This feels like an opportunity,” he stage-whispers.
I’m untying my apron before I’ve decided anything.
“Fuck it. Let’s go right now. Out the back door, before someone can stop us.”
Jamie blinks. “What? I mean, I love backdoor stuff but are we really going on the run?”
“No.” I laugh. “If we go out the front, Eli will see me leave and he’ll follow.”
“And we don’t want that?” Jamie looks at me, concern flashing in his eyes.
“We do. It’s just . . . You were right before—I can’t breathe. I want to feel normal. I want to be spontaneous—”
“You want to escape through the back of the diner and play hooky with your delightfully quirky bestie,” he supplies.
I laugh. “Yeah. And if we go out the back, we can be gone before he notices. And what’s the saying—better to ask forgiveness than permission?”
He nods. “Back door. Got it.”
“You’re not going to tell me that’s messed up?”
“Oh, it’s extremely messed up. But sneaking you away under their nose feels exciting and fun. Very James Bond.” He stands, slinging his backpack over one shoulder. “Go clock out. We’ll call Amy and tell her to meet us on the way.”
My hands are shaking as I duck into the kitchen. “See you Tuesday,” I say to my boss as I clock out. I pull out my phone to call Amy before I can talk myself out of it.
She picks up on the second ring. “I was about to call the police!”
“Why? I didn’t send you a pineapple.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t answer me either. You left me on read!”
“Shit. Sorry, I was at work. But hey, I got off early. Want to meet at the mall in thirty? Jamie and I are heading over.”
“Seriously? Yes. Yes! I’ll be at Nordstrom. Don’t you dare flake on me, Sage Adams.”
“I won’t.”
“If you flake, I’m showing up at your boyfriend’s house with a battering ram.”
“Understood. See you soon!”
I hang up. Jamie’s waiting by the back hallway, backpack on, keys dangling from one finger. “We good?”
“We’re good.”
He jerks his head toward the back door. “Let’s go.”
We sneak through the kitchen and past the cook. Through the service window I can see the street, the sedan, the outline of Eli’s profile bent over a worksheet. Still trusting that I’ll be here when he looks up.
The guilt hits fast—hot, sharp, right behind my ribs.
He’s not my jailer. He’s a man who’s terrified of losing me, sitting in a car for hours doing something he didn’t sign up for because the alternative is too terrible to think about.
They all are. Knox in his truck. Micah giving up shifts at the club.
Milo glued to camera feeds. Holden running plates and checking faces.
All of it love, and all of it a cage that gets smaller every week.
No one is dying today.
“Ready,” I say.
Jamie pushes the back door open. Sunlight and salt air and the greasy smell of the alley, and I’m already moving, already laughing, feet light on the cracked pavement. Jamie’s beside me, matching my pace, grinning as we cut through the side street toward his car.
“Walk faster,” I say, grabbing his arm.
“You’re giggling. I didn’t know you had that in you.”
“Shut up and hurry before I change my mind.”
“You’re not changing your mind.”
He’s right. I’m not.
We pile into his car—a beat-up Honda with empty coffee cups in the holders and an aux cord dangling from the dash—and he pulls out onto the side street, away from the front of the diner, away from the silver sedan, away from everything.
I roll the window down. Wind tangles my hair. Salt and exhaust and cut grass from someone’s yard. I close my eyes and feel my lungs fill completely, and for the first time in weeks, I feel like a person.
“Hold on tight!” Jamie turns up the radio and I lean back against the seat and we are gone.