Chapter Fourteen Sage
Chapter Fourteen
Sage
After the blow job last night and morning sex that ended with a somewhat unsavory conversation, the last stop on my thank-you tour is breakfast. Maybe I can make him a soft, buttery croissant—hot, flaky, maybe a bit moist, and yeah, definitely leaving some crumbs.
Wait. Am I comparing sex to a pastry?
I blush at my own internal thought.
Travis can butter my biscuit any day.
Don’t get me wrong, if Travis wants to make me blow my back out every day while I’m in Lake Lure—or for the rest of my life, for that matter—he can. But these acts are the only thing I can really give him to thank him for stepping in and helping me out.
Travis’s kitchen is stocked. His fridge is filled with a myriad of fresh meats, vegetables, fruits—just about any healthy stuff you can imagine. To absolutely nobody’s surprise, it’s meticulously organized. In such a way that I actually have trouble finding things.
“Come on, he’s got to have tomatoes here somewhere,” I say to myself, shaking my head at the organizational system while I dig through a crisper drawer of vegetables.
“You won’t find any fruits in the vegetable drawer,” Travis says over my shoulder.
“Please don’t tell me you’re one of those guys?” I close the fridge and look at him with feigned exasperation. Travis looks confused as he puts on a pot of coffee. “You know, one of the tomatoes are fruits because it has seeds people.”
“Is that why you think tomatoes are fruit?” Travis raises an eyebrow and leans against the counter while he waits for me to answer.
I just shrug. “Everything in the fridge is classified by what it is. There are larger subsections: meat, dairy, fruits, and vegetables. Each of those has their own subsections, to be more specific.”
Travis pushes himself away from the counter and walks over to the fridge, opening it to point to everything as he explains. I watch, genuinely intrigued by whatever process this is.
“Tomatoes are fruits because they grow from the flower of a tomato plant—”
“And they have seeds,” I interrupt, standing my ground that it is a characteristic of a fruit.
“In my house, you’ll find them with the berries,” Travis continues, not paying my comment any attention.
He opens a drawer in the fridge filled with your typical berries: raspberry, strawberry, blueberry, etc.
Right next to them, where they undoubtedly should not belong by any normal person’s standards, are tomatoes.
I know he has his reasoning, and I’m not one to argue, so I leave it at that. I smile and walk toward him, reaching into the berry bin and grabbing a few tomatoes. “I hope you worked up an appetite this morning, because I’m making shakshuka.”
“What’s the caloric content of that?” Travis stares at me with genuine curiosity that I almost think is a joke.
“I’m not entirely sure,” I say. “But it can’t be much. It’s mostly water-dense vegetables and eggs.”
I can see that Travis wants to say something else, but he thinks better of it and goes to the counter and picks up his phone. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s googling the average calories in shakshuka.
“Do you like to cook?” I ask, chopping the tomatoes on a cutting board while I glance at him eagerly.
He doesn’t say anything right away. I clear my throat, and he looks away from his phone and nods.
“I bet you’re really into healthy eating and all that stuff, aren’t you?
It’s funny how most rich people are like that, right? ”
He looks at me and nods, not being forthcoming with the conversation at all.
“Do you have a favorite meal?”
“Eating to me is a necessity, not something I particularly enjoy.” The coffee maker beeps, and he jumps to his feet to pour himself a cup of black coffee.
“If only I could be like that.” I laugh, throwing together the rest of the ingredients for the shakshuka and putting them in a pan to sauté. “It would make life so much easier, wouldn’t it? I could just eat healthy all the time, and I’d never have two a.m. cravings for McDonald’s.”
Travis leans against the counter and sips his coffee, nodding as I speak.
Ever since I’ve known him, which admittedly has been only a week, he hasn’t been that much of a yapper.
Compared to me, anybody seems like the strong silent type.
I love to talk; I practically haven’t stopped since I said my first word.
I’ve never been one to appreciate a moment of silence either.
But right now, as I watch Travis looking like a sexy snack, I can’t help but imagine him shirtless.
With my mind clouded, I reach for the paprika, taking a whiff of the spice. I realize too late it must have been cayenne pepper I grabbed, because the next thing I know, I’m thrown into a coughing fit.
My eyes are watering by the time I’m done, and Travis is watching me like I’m crazy.
“Spice of love, baby,” I manage to rasp out, making Travis only shake his head at me.
It takes another few seconds before I’m back to normal.
Then I do what I do best. Talk. “Well, I love to cook. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed.
Food was pretty bland back in the compound.
That’s the real reason I left.” I laugh and stir the onions and garlic in the pan, looking at him as if I’m holding for applause.
“So I started taking over meals in my household. I did everything I could to spice up the bland, boring meals we were always eating. I found a real love for the craft while I was doing that. It was especially cool because everything was farm to table. It’s a fully self-sustaining commune. ”
Travis perks up at that, setting his mug of coffee down on the counter and staring at me. “The commune has animals there you raise for consumption?”
I nod, focusing on the next step of the cooking process. “Oh yeah. Granted, most of the residents are vegetarian or vegan, but they didn’t want to be restrictive on types of diets. The founders of the compound cared more about the practices of the meat industry than the act of eating meat, anyway.”
Travis nods again. I can tell he’s losing some interest in my story, and I feel almost desperate to get it back. Having him hanging on my words is a dream come true, and even if he’s a little shy, I’m savoring every moment of this conversation.
“In the homeschooling program the commune enrolled us in, they have rotations with the animals,” I say.
He perks up again, and I feel my heart jitter.
“It was one of my favorites. We got to work in the barns and see the whole process of raising these cattle. There was a time I wanted to be a farmer too. It was nice. It felt like they were pets for a time.”
“I was never allowed to have pets growing up,” Travis says. Finally! I want to drop to my knees and thank the Lord above that Travis is finally sharing something with me. “My sister was for a while, then I killed her hamster, and our parents never let her get another.”
Okay. Not exactly what I was imagining we’d be talking about, but I guess I’ll take it.
“Oh god, your sister must still hate you for that.” I laugh and brush it off, not wanting to make him feel weird about admitting to that.
“She’s dead too.” His voice is cold and monotone as he says it. I feel a chill run up my spine, and I can’t shake it off. Travis is still leaning against the counter, his face completely stoic as he sips his coffee once again.
I never thought I would say this about Travis, but that was a bit of a red flag. I suppose everybody has some of them. Lord knows I’m not perfect. But the way he so bluntly and emotionlessly said that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Did you ever get to see any of the animals being butchered?” Travis gives only a brief moment of pause between these statements.
My throat goes dry at the question, and I shake my head without saying a word. Why would he ask me something like that? I just told him how much I loved those animals, how they were like pets, and that’s what he chose to ask?
That’s two major red flags standing up at exactly the same time.
“You seem really interested in that.” I laugh nervously, trying to shrug it off as best as I can. “Honestly, it’s giving off serial killer vibes.”
I force a laugh and nudge him on the shoulder, expecting him to break character and join in the laughter. For him to tell me it was just a joke, and he was yanking my chain to see how I’d react. But he doesn’t do any of that.
Instead, he just stares at me and sips his coffee while I turn off the stove burner and prepare the next step of the recipe.
I can’t ignore the crawling sensation all over my body.
All my life, I’ve heard countless stories of people who have been in the presence of danger and haven’t trusted their gut instinct quick enough.
But that can’t be what’s happening right now.
I slept in his bed last night. He has had ample opportunity to do something to hurt me, and he hasn’t. I might just be overreacting.
My phone dings on the counter, and I jump, nearly dropping the steaming pan of vegetables on the floor. Travis watches as I set it down on the counter and grab it to look at whatever it is. I’m desperate for a distraction.
My heart stops when I see who the notification is from. DarkHours99. If I can’t have you, nobody can.
There’s nothing else. Only a message he sent yesterday that I haven’t responded to. I feel a chill creeping over me again, and I know I must look as pale as a ghost. This message is undoubtedly a threat. Before, I could have been reading into things too much, but I know for damn sure I’m not now.
“What is it?” Travis says. He walks toward me and grabs the phone out of my hand, looking down at the message for himself. He lets out a slow exhale before running his fingers through his hair.
“This is serious now, isn’t it?” I gulp as I try to grapple with the severity of that message. “Maybe I should just go to the police. They have resources to find him, and they can stop him wherever he is.”
Travis shakes his head and sets the phone down on the counter, forcing a calm look on his face. “You don’t have to worry about him.”
For the first time, I can see the subtext in his words. There’s a hidden meaning in what he’s saying that is all too clear. Does he mean that he could hurt him? Is Travis a dangerous man?
There’s a chance I have inadvertently come to the worst person for help in this situation. Sure, I’ve googled him and scoured every corner of the internet to learn everything I can about the reclusive man standing before me. That doesn’t mean I know him.
If he could hurt a stranger, does that mean he could hurt me? I look down at my hands as the thought races through my mind. No, he wouldn’t hurt me. He’s had plenty of chances, and I’m perfectly fine. In fact, I’m better than fine. I’m here, cooking breakfast for someone I truly care about.
If Travis wanted to hurt me, he would have. I have to trust him.