Chapter 7

Present Day

 

What the fuck was I even doing here?

I’d literally just been grieving the death of my younger sister the last week, offering my mom what little comfort I could give as we mourned together. Holding her as we stood at her gravesite where Jeanine’s body was buried next to my father’s grave.

And now here I am, sitting next to London in my old beat-up truck outside the gates of a beautiful historic mansion twenty-minutes outside of Nashville. Sage’s home for the last three years, according to London. The one he bought with his first earnings after making it big as an alt-country crooner.

It seemed like a far-fetched fairytale, one of those Lifetime movies where the convicted felon turns into a big-time rock star in the course of ten years. But it’s reality, as if the time Sage spent in the state penitentiary was completely expunged and ignored by his legions of fans and it didn’t matter to any of them. He was revered like a modern-day Jonny Cash. The man in black.

But Sage wasn’t in Folsom, he was locked up in the Smoky Mountain state correctional facility for three years. An inmate in a prison full of murderers, rapists and child predators. All of which he was not.

It still makes me sick to think about it. All the while he was locked up and unable to live his life in freedom, I was far away fighting for freedom and doing a great job messing up my own life.

After begrudgingly saying yes to London’s favor to visit Sage in Nashville, I left Taylor with my mother for the night as London texted Sage and asked if she could stop by and see him. He’d responded within an hour giving her the green light. What London conveniently failed to mention was that I’d be tagging along with her.

I can’t wait to see how this goes down.

Landscaping lights illuminated the heavy wrought-iron fence – likely there to keep creepers and stalkers out of his home – as we idled at the front waiting to be buzzed in.

“You sure about this?” I asked, turning to London who stares out the front of the truck. “We still have time to back out.”

Her beauty strikes me like a right hook to the jaw, the shadows dancing across the slope of her nose and the slight subtle curve of her forehead. She is flawless, and it stuns me that she doesn’t have a boyfriend or husband. Some lucky bastard who by now should’ve swept her off her feet and treated her like the Queen that she is.

On the other hand, I’m selfishly thankful she isn’t attached to anyone. Mostly because jealousy is an evil beast that tears through my gut with its sharp talons and fire-breathing breath whenever I think of her with someone else. All the feelings that I never let go of and harbored over the years have resurfaced with a vengeance. It’s made me realize that maybe under different circumstances, we could start something together. Rekindle our old relationship.

That is, of course, dependent on her feelings toward Sage and vice versa. She’d told me about their casual hookups over the years. How she fell into a pattern she called, “hopefulness and lies,” where she’d hoped that Sage would stick around and love her the way she knew he could and believing his promises to remain sober and faithful.

It made me seethe with hatred and anger that Sage had had London all these years and yet he was so careless with her love to throw her away like that. Hypocritical, I know, considering I did the exact same thing when I left for boot camp. Leaving her to think she wasn’t enough for me when really it was my feelings of inadequacy. Knowing I wasn’t good enough for her and didn’t want her holding on to something I couldn’t give to her in the long run.

London nods her head as if convincing herself she is ready for this reunion to happen.

“Yes,” she confirms emphatically. “I just want you to be prepared for what you might find. Sage’s different now, Cam. He’s changed. A lot. That delicate softness that existed in the past is long gone. He’s been hardened by his experiences that we can’t even begin to comprehend.”

She shifts in her seat, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap.

“He’ll never be the same boy you once knew.”

My gut clenches in guilt. The way we left things between us. The things I said to him when he was at his most vulnerable. I knew he was hurting and scared and so angry with the circumstances back then, and yet, I crushed him with what I did to him.

Running away, even though I concealed it through boot camp and later my tour overseas and time in Italy, was just a coward move. I left him when he needed me the most. I could’ve been there through letters and visits when I came home during my leaves. I could’ve answered his calls.

I could’ve apologized for my reckless abandonment of him.

But I didn’t.

If Sage even lets me into his home, it’ll be a miracle. I don’t deserve it.

Running a hand through my short-cropped hair, I exhale a breath.

“Sage is not going to be happy to see me.”

London laughs, a sound I love to hear. Sweet and naughty in equal measure.

“Probably not. It’s a wonder he’s even agreed to see me. The last time he left…we had a big fight. He was so angry at me.”

I enfold her hand in my palm, closing it in my fist.

“Sage is angry at life. At himself. At the universe. Not you, London. Never you.”

The corners of her mouth upturn into a small smile, full of grief and appreciation, as the gleam of the gates as they open in front of us catches my eye.

I take the truck out of Neutral and slowly drive down the long, curved driveway toward the gigantic house. A far cry from the trailer he grew up in.

Parking behind several cars – all expensive, high-end luxury models – I’m greeted with the first glimpse of a life that in a million years I never would have expected Sage Hendricks to be part of. Rich. Famous. Opulent.

It just didn’t fit with his childhood. Most days when we were kids, he wore tattered, dirty clothing and his hair and face were rarely washed.

Rounding the front of the truck, I open the door to assist London out of the passenger’s side. We step up the gray-stone steps to the front door and ring the bell.

From inside we can hear loud music pumping through speakers and the sound of laughter, singing, and people. Lots of people.

I bend my head so my lips are at London’s ear, squeezing her hand in mine as I say, “It’s showtime.”

The door opens and a half-naked girl, maybe nineteen or twenty at most, opens the door. She has a beer cup in one hand and she leans against the door with her hip jutted to the side, her midriff exposed between a bikini top and short cut-offs with the pockets visible from underneath the jeans material. She stumbles a little to the side, catching herself on the door before she falls over.

“Hey, you guys. Are you the ones with the coke?”

London gasps as I cough a chuff of surprise. London composes herself quickly, responding to the young girl’s question.

“Um no. We don’t have any coke with us, sorry. We’re here to see Sage.”

The girl gives a disinterested shrug of her bony shoulders and turns to walk away, leaving us standing in the doorway slightly amused. And a little worried.

“Okay then. Lead the way.” I extend my hand to allow London to head in first. Since she’s been here before, I assume she knows her way around the house.

A brief glance down the long, marbled corridor shows the back exit to the patio area and the area I assume is the pool. A few people meander around out there, drinks and cigarettes in hand. London grasps my hand and pulls me to the left and then to a large room with a couple of white and black couches and chairs, a big stone fireplace along the back wall, and the other walls decorated with gold and silver records.

It reminds me that while I was in Italy, Sage was nominated for and won Best New Artist of the Year through the Country Music Association, as well as Billboard Music. He even graced the cover of Rolling Stone two years ago.

I’d seen a copy of the magazine in the base commissary one day and had to do a double-take when I saw the headline and the picture. It read, “From Felon to Fame: Sage Hendricks Rises from the Ashes.”

It hadn’t looked like Sage at all, and I’d honestly not even recognized him when I first saw it – therefore, the reason for the double-take. His cheeks had appeared sunken and concaved, eyes lacked their usual brown effervesce, his dark olive skin a dull, paler hue. His entire facial structure and body looked emaciated.

And even now, as we emerge further into the room toward a group of people, my gaze skips completely over Sage, who sits on the couch, strumming a guitar, sandwiched in between two scantily-clad women who hang on him like he’s their savior. The only reason I know it’s him is because when he lifts his gaze first to London, a smile of recognition alights his face and eyes, and a sense of nostalgia swirls through me. He places the guitar down and stands on wobbly legs, opening his arms to give London a hug.

I stand a few feet behind her and observe – as if I’m not even in the room and just watching it through a TV screen – as he encloses her in his arms and then whispers something in her ear to make her laugh. It’s not a “ha-ha, that’s funny” kind of laugh, but a sad, humorless laugh.

Just as he begins to pull away, he lifts his gaze and his eyes land on me.

Everything I deserve and have avoided in the last ten years can be easily read in that wounded expression as Sage’s eyes flitter with recognition.

And then the words I absolutely deserve to hear are muttered from his intoxicated mouth.

“What the fuck is he doing here?”

My sentiments exactly.