62. Sage
SIXTY-TWO
SAGE
Iwake up on two mattresses pushed together on a bedroom floor, which at this point in my life is less a situation and more a lifestyle.
Milo is between us. Facing me, his breath shallow and warm against my collarbone, his body curled inward like he’s trying to protect his center.
Micah is behind him, chest to Milo’s back, one arm slung over his ribs—the same position he held all night, anchoring Milo between us and refusing to let go even in sleep.
At some point Micah’s hand found mine across Milo’s hip, our fingers loosely tangled, keeping the circuit closed.
It’s so Micah it makes my chest hurt.
The sunlight coming through the window is peach, almost syrupy, and it softens everything—the sharp angles of Milo’s face, the chaos of bedding, Micah’s sleep-mussed curls. The air smells like skin and bedding and the burnt-sugar memory of last night.
Outside, the world is carrying on. A dog barks. A garbage truck clatters somewhere down the block. But in here it’s just breath and thrum and the slow, animal warmth of us, pressed together like spoons in a drawer nobody bothered to organize.
I watch Milo’s eyes beneath their lids. His REM twitches are frenetic, urgent, like someone rewinding movie reels too fast. His lashes are still wet in places—probably from a bad dream, or just the leftovers from the world he burned to the ground last night.
I wonder if, in his dreams, he’s haunted or if he’s at peace. Knowing Milo, it’s never simple.
He looks so young asleep. I have to resist the urge to lift my hand and brush the hair off his forehead, or run my fingertips over his stubbled chin.
Without the jokes and the energy and the relentless, dazzling noise of being Milo, what’s left is just a man.
A tired, beautiful man who killed fourteen men last night because he loves me, then broke apart in my arms because the cost of loving me that hard finally exceeded what his mind could handle.
I don’t move. I simply watch him breathe and match my rhythm to his, the way he’s matched his to mine a hundred times—in cars, in beds, on couches, in the quiet spaces between the chaos where Milo becomes something softer than the world expects him to be.
His eyes open.
Not all at once.
First a flutter. Then a squint against the light. Then the slow, confused blink of a man trying to locate himself in time and space.
“Hey,” I whisper.
He focuses on me. It takes a second. Then his face twists before it settles. Tentative. Uncertain. Milo is never uncertain.
“Hey, kitten,” he murmurs. His voice is wrecked. Sandpaper and gravel and the ragged edges of a throat that screamed itself raw.
“How do you feel?” It comes out as a rasp of my own—my throat is twelve hours past a hand around it—and I watch him hear it. His eyes drop to my neck and stay there a beat too long.
“Like I was hit by a truck, digested by the truck, and then the truck reversed over me for good measure.” He swallows. “Was my mom here?”
“She was.”
He groans a little and swallows. “Did she drug me?”
“She did. Put a needle in your neck. Freaked us all the fuck out.”
“Okay. So that did happen.” He closes his eyes again. Opens them. “Did I scare you, kitten?”
The question is small. Careful. Loaded with every insecurity Milo keeps locked behind the comedy and the chaos—the fear that one day, the people who love him will see the version of him that crashes and can’t function, and decide it’s all too much.
I take his face in my hands. Both palms against his cheeks, fingers in his hair, foreheads almost touching.
“You could never scare me, Milo. Not ever.” I brush my thumb across his cheekbone. “But I was scared for you.”
He frowns.
“I didn’t know what to do or how to help you.” I swallow. “I’m glad Gloria came and knew what to do. And I’m glad you’re safe.”
“So you’re not afraid of me? Even after—”
“Not ever.”
I kiss him. Gentle. No heat or urgency. Just my mouth on his, soft and slow, tasting the staleness of sleep and, underneath it, Milo.
The man who puts trackers in boots and sings Queen while he cooks and wins stuffed penguins at carnivals and would burn the world to ash if it meant I’d be safe in the morning.
He kisses me back. Barely. The faintest pressure, his lips moving against mine like he’s relearning how. But it’s there.
It feels like a door opening.
Micah shifts behind Milo. His arm tightens around his waist and he leans forward, pressing his lips to Milo’s bare shoulder. A single, unhurried kiss, placed with deliberate care.
Milo’s eyes fly open.
“Oh,” he says. “I’m getting kisses from everyone.” He looks from me to Micah and back again, and something sparks behind the exhaustion—not the full Milo wattage, but a flicker. A pilot light reigniting. “In case either of you is wondering, my dick is down there.”
Micah laughs. Real and warm. He props himself up on one elbow and looks at Milo with the steady, fond gaze that makes people trust him with their worst moments.
“You know, we were worried we were going to lose you last night,” Micah says. “But if you’re well enough to make a dick joke, I’ll totally suck it for you.”
Milo stares at Micah. His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. His brain obviously buffering—the loading wheel spinning behind his eyes as he tries to process whether this is a joke, a sincere offer, or some new category of human interaction that his operating system doesn’t have a folder for.
“I’m sorry,” Milo says slowly. “Did you just offer to—”
“I did.”
“To my—”
“Yes.”
“With your—”
“Milo.”
“I need a minute.” He holds up one finger.
Stares at the ceiling. Then he looks at Micah again, tilting his head the way he does when he’s evaluating a new piece of data.
“Okay. So. Here’s the thing. I’ve always identified as aggressively, enthusiastically, almost competitively heterosexual.
Like, if straight was a sport, I’d be in the Olympics. ”
“Noted,” Micah says.
“But.” Milo pauses. Looks down at the blanket covering his lower half. Looks back at Micah. “There was a twitch down there when you said that. A definite twitch. Which I’m going to need to unpack at some point, possibly with a therapist, but also possibly with your mouth.”
I bury my face in the pillow to keep from laughing so hard I choke.
“So maybe I’m kinda gay now,” Milo says, like he’s announcing a minor schedule change. “Or bi. Or Micah-sexual. Is that a thing? Can I be Micah-sexual? I feel like that’s the most accurate descriptor for whatever’s happening to my penis.”
“You can be whatever you want,” Micah says, grinning.
“What I want is breakfast,” Milo says. “Because I’m starving and I’m sure my mom left instructions that if I don’t eat before doing anything else, she’ll come back and burn the house down or something.”
“Protein,” I say. “She said you need to eat protein.”
Milo pouts. “Damn. She was that specific? I really wanted pancakes and like, a butt-ton of syrup.”
“How about we do bacon and eggs with a side of pancake and a butt-ton of syrup?” Micah suggests.
Milo turns to face him and smiles. “Yes, Micah! That’s perfect. No wonder my dick likes you.”
“Sexuality is a spectrum,” I say. “You could be straight for everything except Micah giving blow jobs. I think that’s actually very woke.”
Milo beams. “Thank you, kitten. I always knew you’d be supportive about my alternative lifestyle choices.”
Micah laughs and entwines his fingers with mine across Milo’s stomach.
For a second, the three of us lie there in the honeyed morning, a tangle of arms and legs and the easy relief of being together.
“Okay. Can we please go eat before my blood sugar tanks and I start weeping uncontrollably again?” Milo asks. “Not that I don’t love a good cry, but I feel like I got most of it out of my system last night.”
Micah stands and holds out a hand. Milo takes it.
Gets pulled to his feet. Sways for a second, then steadies.
When I get up to help Milo wobble off the mattresses and onto solid ground, I realize that you can watch someone you love fall apart completely, hold them through the worst of it, and wake up the next morning making dick jokes on a bedroom floor.
That the falling apart and the putting back together aren’t separate events.
They’re the same event, experienced from different angles, and the only thing that matters is that you’re there for both.
“Come on,” I say, taking Milo’s other hand. “Eggs. Bacon. Pancakes. And, on special request, a butt-ton of syrup.”
Milo and Micah shuffle out of the bedroom, Milo clinging to Micah’s arm like he’s forgotten how to walk by himself and has decided to make it everyone’s business. I stagger after them, tripping over the edge of a blanket, and nearly collide with Knox in the hallway.
“Morning, Fury.”
He tilts his head down and I immediately wrap my arms around his neck, holding him tight. He picks me up off the floor and I wrap myself around him koala style.
“You good?” He pulls back far enough to read me.
I shake my head. “I don’t know what I am anymore. But I know I’m glad for you.”
“Same,” he says, leaning in to kiss me. His lips are soft and firm on mine, and the world becomes incredibly narrow.
He doesn’t let go when I pull back, just keeps me cradled in his arms, breathing me in like he needs to be sure I’m real.
Only then, when I uncoil, does he set me down gently. “Don’t like almost losing you, Fury.”
I place both hands on either side of his face. “I’m right here. And it’s over now, right? They’re all gone.”
He doesn’t answer. He just presses his lips to my forehead, and for a second, I feel the last twenty-four hours contract to a single pinpoint of warmth.
“Not all. Only the ones who came last night,” he says.
The correction makes my stomach feel tight.
“How many accounts are left?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
Knox’s jaw tightens. “There were thirty-seven active accounts in the local yard. Twelve answered Tyler’s invitation.”
“And Tyler makes thirteen.”
He nods.
Twenty-four local accounts left.
Plus the two men who came as guests.
“And that’s only this yard,” he says.
I think about Milo—his hands red to the wrists, his fever-bright eyes, the way he kept saying I fixed it like he was trying to convince himself more than anyone.
Fourteen men in four minutes because some part of him believed that if he could kill enough of them, the threat would finally stop coming for me.
“Hey.” Knox tilts my chin up with one massive finger. “None of that. Not right now.”
“None of what?”
“That look. The one where you’re calculating how much blood needs to spill before you can breathe easy.” His thumb traces my jawline, rough and warm. “There’s time for that. Right now, there’s breakfast.”
I force a nod. He’s right. I know he’s right. But the knowledge sits in my stomach frozen, heavy and sharp-edged, waiting to thaw.