76. Sage
SEVENTY-SIX
SAGE
“Wait. Wait, kitten. Don’t go yet,” Milo says, grabbing my arm to stop me from going to the door. “Let’s watch for a moment. Your friend is about to pee his pants.”
He hits the screen feed on the tablet mounted beside the kitchen and the front step pops into view in grainy, over-saturated color.
For the first time since Tyler, none of them is coming with me or following in another car. The compromise took two hours to negotiate: the outing is in public, the choker stays on, my location stays live, I check in every hour, Jamie drives, and I’m home before sundown.
Knox fills most of the screen.
He’s standing just inside the threshold with the door cracked open only far enough to make one thing very clear: Jamie is not getting invited in.
Knox has one hand braced on the edge of the door, his shoulders squared, his face shut down in that way of his that reads as more threatening than an actual snarl.
Jamie is on the porch trying very hard to look casual.
He’s failing beautifully.
“H-hi,” Jamie says. His voice cracks on the single syllable.
He clears his throat. “I’m here to pick up Sage.
For the margaritas. Which I mentioned? Earlier?
In a text?” He holds up his phone like it’s evidence in his own defense.
“See? There’s the text. I said I’d be here at one-thirty. It’s one-thirty. I’m punctual.”
Knox doesn’t move.
“I’m also the designated driver,” Jamie continues, the words tumbling out faster now, like speed will somehow outrun the six-foot-seven wall of silence in front of him. “So no drinking for me. Totally sober. Clear-headed. Very responsible—”
“I need to go and rescue him,” I say to Milo, who’s practically giddy watching this play out. “I’ll see you when I get home.”
Milo puts a hand on my waist, spins me around.
For a second I think he’s going to say something cutting or make a last joke at Jamie’s expense, but instead he kisses me.
Full on. His mouth is sweet and unexpectedly gentle, and I melt into it, arms around his neck, the press of him warm and familiar in all the best ways.
He pulls back, grinning. “You’ll miss me while you’re gone,” he says, and nuzzles my cheek, “and when you get back, we can play naked games in the new bed.”
“You finished the frame?”
He makes a show of whispering, even though no one else is in the kitchen.
“I finished it.” He looks very, very proud. “The mattresses are officially off the floor. Full platform underneath. I did, like, ninety percent of the assembly myself, and the only time Holden helped was when I dropped the Allen wrench behind the radiator.”
“You made fuck pit 2.0.”
He gives me a look, eyes wide. “I made fuck pit 2.0.”
I laugh. “You’re a visionary, Milo.”
He bows. “I know.”
I give him one quick last kiss and head for the hallway.
“Sage.”
Eli’s on the stairs. Halfway down, one hand on the railing, like he stopped mid-step when he heard me. He’s in a soft gray T-shirt and his hair is doing that thing where it falls into his eyes because he hasn’t pushed it back.
“Hey.” I stop, bag half on my shoulder. “I’m heading out. Jamie’s here.”
“I know.” He comes down the last few steps to stand in front of me. Close enough that I can smell his soap and the faint trace of coffee and him. “I was hoping we could make some time to talk. Soon. Just us.”
He’s careful with the words. Deliberate. Like he’s been rehearsing the sentence in his head and still isn’t sure he’s earned the right to say it.
“Talk?” I repeat.
“Yeah.” His jaw works. “There are things I need to say to you that I should have said a long time ago.”
I look at him. At the amber eyes that held mine in an ambulance while my throat was in shreds.
At the mouth that told me I was easy and fun and not worth what he’d led me to believe.
At the hands that discipline me and comfort me and kill for me.
At the man who can split himself into tenderness and cruelty so cleanly it makes everyone around him bleed on the seam.
My throat tightens. “Bad things?”
He reels back. “What? No. Never. Sorry, don’t be worried. This is a good talk.”
The lump evaporates. “Oh thank God. Okay, when I get back?”
“How about tomorrow? I have a feeling you’ll be shit-faced tonight.”
I chuckle. “Sounds good.”
Because he’s Eli and can’t help himself, he leans in and kisses me, his fingers brushing my wrist before he lets me go. I struggle not to turn around and jump into his arms and wrap my legs around his body.
Instead, I tear myself away and hurry toward the door, checking myself in the hall mirror as I hear Jamie saying, “And I once drove my roommate home from a party without hitting a single—”
“Jamie!” I appear behind Knox, grabbing my jacket off the hook. “He knows you’re good. I told them.”
“You told them what, specifically? Because his face says you told him I’m here to steal you and sell you on the black market.”
“That’s just his face.”
“His face says he’s about to commit a war crime, Sage. I’m worried he’s a beautiful, incredibly handsome, obscenely terrifying war criminal.”
Knox’s mouth twitches. It’s barely perceptible—a micro-movement that most people would miss. But I’ve been reading Knox’s face for months, and that twitch is the equivalent of a belly laugh.
“She comes home safe,” Knox orders.
Jamie nods frantically. “Absolutely. One hundred percent. I will guard her with my life. I know CPR. I have a clean driving record. I ate a full meal before I came, so I won’t be distracted by hunger. I—”
Knox reaches past Jamie, hooks his hand around the back of my neck, and pulls me in.
The kiss is slow, deliberate, and approximately ten times more dramatic than the situation requires.
His other hand slides down my back and grabs my ass—a full, possessive handful that makes Jamie squeak.
He releases me with a light tap that sends me stumbling forward onto the porch.
“Have fun, Fury.” The door closes behind me.
Jamie stands on the porch, mouth open, keys dangling from one hand.
“Holy shit,” he says. “I’m both petrified and I have a boner. Do you think I’m safe to drive?”
“You’ll manage.”
“I might not. I might need a minute.” He fans himself with his phone. “Does he do that every time you leave the house?”
“Only when there’s an audience.”
“I feel so seen. And so threatened. And highly aroused. These emotions shouldn’t coexist but here we are.” He gestures toward his car. “Shall we? Amy’s already texted me four times. She said she’s wearing her good earrings, which means she’s ready to party.”
We drive. The windows are down and the radio is playing a playlist Jamie calls “Margarita Energy,” which is mostly Lizzo and Doja Cat and one Taylor Swift song he refuses to skip.
“‘Cruel Summer’ is a cultural artifact and I won’t apologize.”
I roll my eyes at his drama.
The Mexican place is downtown, bright and loud, decorated for the holiday with orange lights strung across the patio and fake cobwebs stretched between the railings.
Paper bats hang over the bar, half the staff are wearing vampire capes, and the bottomless policy is being taken very seriously.
Amy is already there—sitting at a table on the patio, her favorite sparkly earrings on, and a margarita the size of her head already half-demolished.
“You started without us!” Jamie says, outraged.
“I’ve been here for twenty minutes. I’m a fast drinker and a slow texter. Sit down.”
Jamie looks around at the costumes and decorations. “We should’ve dressed up. It’s Halloween. We’re failing spectacularly at festive friendship.”
Amy lifts her margarita. “I spent six weeks recovering from a spray tan explosion. I’m good.”
“Same. I live with five men who could clear a haunted house by walking into it. The world is dark enough.”
Jamie considers that. “Fine. But next year we’re doing a group costume. Something pink.”
We sit. We drink. We eat chips and salsa and Jamie orders something called the Mega Burrito Challenge that turns out to be the size of a football and comes with a waiver. Amy and I split nachos and drink margaritas that taste like vacations and poor decisions.
For two hours we’re just three friends at a table in the sunshine, laughing about nothing.
“Oh, I needed this,” Amy says, tilting her head back as she munches on tortilla chips and sways to the upbeat music.
“Same,” I say, reaching out and giving her hands a squeeze. She smiles at me, and I smile back so hard it almost hurts.
Sunlight warms the backs of my shoulders.
Salt air drifts up from the bay, mixing with grilled meat and lime, tequila and fryer oil.
Amy’s cheeks are pink, Jamie’s halfway through his monster burrito and making increasingly theatrical noises about the rapidly disintegrating integrity of the tortilla.
It feels so stupidly, beautifully normal that I almost don’t trust it.
Jamie lifts his soda glass and points it at Amy. “To surviving spray tan booth explosions and still looking hot.”
Amy clinks her glass to his. “That’s beautiful. We should embroider that on a pillow.”
“I’ll get Milo on that.” I tap mine against both of theirs. “To bottomless coping mechanisms.”
“Now that,” Jamie says, “is my kind of healing plan.”
We drink.
The margarita is cold and tart and just sweet enough to trick me into having another one, which is how I end up laughing so hard at Jamie’s burrito commentary that I snort tequila through my nose and nearly die on the patio.
“I’m serious,” he says, one hand to his chest as he checks something on his phone. “This thing has layers. Emotional layers. It’s not a meal, it’s a character arc.”
“It’s beans in a blanket,” Amy says.
“It’s art.” He types out a quick message and sets his phone face down on the table.
“New boyfriend?” I ask, waggling my brows.
Jamie rolls his eyes. “I wish. No, I’m just dealing with some leftover school stuff.” He nudges me with his foot. “Not all of us can be so lucky as you, Miss Queen of the Dicks.”