Chapter 1
Sage
“HERE’S WHAT YOU asked for.”
Looking from the envelope that was just tossed on the table, up to the man who has been my dad since I can remember, I feel my chest get tight. I know what’s in the envelope without looking at it, and I also know it’s too late. The soft check I did on Kim came back as her being an only child, but I know now from a few different sources that she was adopted by a couple in Florida when she was born. I also know she has an identical twin sister who grew up in Alabama with their mom and had a life completely opposite of Kim’s. That life has led her to trying to cope with the pain of her childhood by using drugs and men, going so far as prostituting herself out to deal with that hurt.
When I first found out that information, I knew I completely fucked up. I should have trusted my gut when I saw the look on Kim’s face as I confronted her. I didn’t do what I should have done, and I not only hurt Kim, I messed up beyond repair.
“I know you’re a man now. I know you don’t need my advice. But I’m gonna give it to you anyway,” he warns, taking a seat on one of my folding chairs at the card table set up in my kitchen. I’ve been using it since I moved into this dump, because I’ve been saving almost every penny I make and putting it into my house.
“Dad—”
“No, you’ll hear me out. Sit.” He nods to the chair across from him as he stretches out his legs. “Who’s this girl to you?” he questions, nodding to the envelope on the table.
I don’t even know how to answer that question. I thought for a moment she could be my future, but then shit went down and I thought she was a liar and just as fake as the rest of the women who’ve come into my life. I should have known better. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, or you’re afraid to find out?” His eyes search mine, and he shakes his head, running his hand over his cropped hair. “I get that you want to experience life, experience women. I was young once, so I understand that shit. But, son…” He holds my gaze and drops his voice. “You’re never going to find someone if you don’t give anyone a chance, if you’re always searching, never stopping to see what’s in front of you.”
“I fucked up,” I tell him the truth, and he moves, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in the chair.
“How?”
Taking a seat across from him, I look at the envelope and tell him what went down. I fill him in about meeting Kim, about the time we spent together, and then I explain about Kim’s sister and what happened at the bar. Last, I spill what occurred after, when I corned Kim outside the salon. “I fucked up,” I repeat my earlier statement when I finish, and he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees studying me.
“Did you apologize?”
“Yeah.” I did apologize, but I knew the second I did that it was too late. The sadness I left her with had changed into anger, leaving me no shot at fixing what I broke.
“If she’s important to you, do it again, and again, and again, until she understands you’re sorry. Really fucking sorry,” he says, and I lift my chin, letting him know I heard him. But also knowing that ship has sailed, because not only is she still pissed at me, she now has a man, and even though I might be fucked up in a lot of ways, I won’t go there with her tied to someone else.
“Now, we need to talk about Nalia,” he adds, bringing my attention back to him, and that tightness in my chest changes to something even more uncomfortable. I hate the look on his face right now, hate that he and my mom both have the same expressions every time Nalia is brought up. I love my sister. I love her with all the love I have inside of me. But I’m pissed off at her. “She’s your sister, and as much as you and I don’t like what she’s doing, she still needs us right now.”
“I’ll be here for her, but I don’t want anything to do with Sharon,” I state, referring to the woman who gave birth to me.
I don’t understand Nalia’s reasoning for wanting a relationship with our birth mother. She tried to explain it to me once. Tried to describe how she feels it’s the loss of us that turned our mother’s life upside down. But as far as I know, her life was shit before she was forced to give us up when we were only two, because she had gone out partying, left us alone, and hadn’t come back for two days. No one even knew she was gone until they heard Nalia and me crying, and by that point, we were both in need of medical attention.
“I know you don’t, but you still need to be there for your sister. She thinks she can help Sharon. So as much as you and I may not like it, we still need to let her try,” he says, and I feel my face go hard and my muscles tense.
“The only person that bitch needs help from is the devil. What she did to me and Nalia…” I shake my head. “What she did to the two of us was wrong. I don’t care how she tries to twist it or what reasoning she has for what happened. It was fucked.”
“I agree with you.”
“Christ, she left us alone for two days, and the only reason she even came back is because she found out the cops were at her place,” I growl, feeling pain slice through me at the thought of the woman who was meant to protect us leaving us alone to fend for ourselves when we could barely walk.
“Nalia knows all of that. She doesn’t give a fuck,” he states quietly.
“I fucked up. I should hav—”
“You didn’t fuck up. You didn’t do anything wrong. She needs to find her own way and realize for herself that sometimes you can’t fix people, no matter how hard you try. And you need to have her back while she does that.”
“I get that, but I want not one fucking thing to do with any of that.”
“And I understand that, but—”
“No, I know you and Mom have always been about forgiveness and second chances, but no.”
“What about your other siblings?”
“We’re cool. We talk now and then, but my relationship with them has nothing to do with her.”
“All right,” he murmurs, and with that, I stand, take the envelope that I will never open over to my desk, and shove it into the top drawer.
“I gotta head out,” I state as I turn and head into the kitchen and open the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water for the road. “I’ll be out of town for a couple days chasing a skip, but I’ll call and check in.” I watch my dad unfold from the chair and stand.
“Make sure you call. You know your mom worries.”
“I’ll call,” I agree, picking up my keys before heading for the door. Feeling my dad close, I open the door and grab my bag I dropped next to it earlier.
“Be safe.” He pats my shoulder as he moves past me. Lifting my chin, I lock up then move to my ride while he heads for his bike.
Kim
“HARDER, PLEASE,” I WHISPER, running my hands up the smooth skin of his back, feeling his muscles bunch at my touch.
“Slow, baby, you feel too fucking good,” he murmurs, licking and kissing up the column of my neck.
Nice.
No. More than nice. Perfect.
Pressing my head back into the pillow, I wind my legs around his hips and tip my pelvis, sending him deeper, moaning in my throat when I do.
“Goddamn, you’re beautiful.”
My face softens and I slide one hand around his waist, up his abs, chest, and neck, stopping at the underside of his jaw to run my fingers along the sculpted edge there.
“No.” I shake my head, swallowing over the lump forming in my throat. “You’re beautiful.” And he is, the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.
Waking with tears in my eyes, I roll to my side and wrap my arms around my stomach. He’s still torturing me. Months later, the memory of him is still torturing me. “You need to get over this.”
I roll to my back and watch the rain beat against the skylight as I blink away the tears in my eyes. A few months ago, Sage came to me and apologized for the way he treated me. I told him I accepted his apology, but I lied. The time that had gone by before his apology had given me a lot of time to think, and the more I thought about what went down, the more upset I got.
Yes, he was wronged, but if he had felt even a fraction for me of what I had felt for him, he would have at least heard me out. He would have at least let me tell him about Kelly, but he didn’t do that. He made assumptions and said shit to me that I can’t get out of my head. Shit still hurts every time I think about it.
Three weeks after that apology, he asked me to have dinner with him. I didn’t say, “Fuck you,” like I wanted to. Instead, I lied and told him I was seeing someone—that someone being my best friend, who also happens to be gay. Yes, I lied, but once bitten, twice shy. I may have fallen for the charms of Sage Mayson once, but there’s no way in hell I would do it again. But that doesn’t mean my heart has given up on the idea of him. Every time I see him, I remember exactly what I felt in those moments we had together.
Letting out a long, deep breath, I sit up. Today would be the perfect day to do nothing but lie in bed and read. Unfortunately, I have a doctor’s appointment that I need to get to, and if I don’t get up now, I never will. Hearing my cell phone ring in the living room, I sigh. I’m sure it’s my mom calling to remind me about the appointment, since she’s the one who set it up.
Apparently, the doctor I’m meeting with has helped a lot of people with diet plans and medications, so they can live a somewhat normal life. Putting my feet to the floor, I slowly get out of bed then frown when my cell stops ringing, only to start right back up. My mom can be persistent, but she’s never called, hung up, and called again when I didn’t answer. Going to the living room, I find my phone where I dropped it last night. I pick it up and see my mom isn’t calling. Chris is.
“Hey.” I put the cell to my ear as I move to the cupboard and pull down a coffee cup.
“We need to talk,” he says, and I feel my brows pull together.
“What’s wrong? You sound freaked.”
“I saw Sage last night.” Pressing my hand to the counter, I drop my chin to my chest.
“Okay,” I reply quietly.
“He… fuck. He saw me with Dale and…” I listen to him pull in a breath. “I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.”
“What happened?”
“He saw me with Dale,” he repeats, but I still don’t understand why he sounds so freaked.
“Okay.”
“You’re not getting it!” he shouts. “He saw me with Dale. He saw me and Dale.”
“Oh,” I breathe as reality dawns. My hand curves and tightens around the edge of the counter to keep me upright.
“Yeah and….” He goes quiet, and I wait and wait, but he doesn’t continue.
“And what?” My stomach twists.
“He gave him a black eye, that’s what.” I hear Dale say in the background, and my eyes close.
“Shit, I… I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” I knew I shouldn’t have lied. I knew I should have come clean, but it was easier to pretend I had a reason to stay clear of him than to deal with the fact he still affected me.
“I’m fine. Don’t be sorry. This is good,” he tells me, sounding like he’s smiling.
“What?”
“I thought he was into you before, but I now know he. Is. Into. You. And, baby girl, I’m fucking thrilled this shit is finally done and out in the open.” He laughs.
“Uh, did I miss something?” I question. “You just told me he punched you, and you know how he treated me. Why the hell would you be happy right now?”
“No man has that much passion for a woman he doesn’t give a fuck about, and you’re still hung up on him. Don’t you wonder why that is? Don’t you wonder why, after so fucking long, a man that you spent less than twenty-four hours with is one you can’t stop thinking about? Don’t you want to try and figure that out?”
“No.” And it’s not that I haven’t wondered the exact thing. It’s that I refuse to go back there again. I refuse to even allow the idea to enter my head. What we had was a fluke. Yes, he made me feel something for him during those moments, but afterward, he made me feel like shit. So no, I actually don’t give a fuck.
“You’re a liar, but I still love you, and I hope—I really hope—that the next time he asks you out, you say yes,” Chris chimes in.
“There isn’t going to be a next time,” I say, stirring the cream and sugar into my coffee and taking a sip.
“We’ll see,” he mumbles, and I roll my eyes.
Chris has been Team Sage since the beginning, but Chris is also a hopeless romantic who still believes in fairy tales and happily ever afters. Only, in his fairy tale, he’s the damsel in distress waiting for his white knight to show up. He didn’t want to go along with my lie, but he did for me as his best friend, something I now wish he wouldn’t have done.
“How’s your eye? Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Nothing a little concealer won’t cover up,” he says.
“I can’t believe he hit you.” I rub my forehead in an attempt to wipe away the headache that has started pounding there.
“Dale had his tongue down my throat. He thought he was protecting your honor. It was hot. Not the whole me getting punched thing, but the part before, when he tore Dale away from me and growled ‘motherfucker,’ breathing all hard and shit.”
“Oh my god, you’re so crazy.” I fight back a smile as I head for my room, setting my coffee cup down on my dresser.
“If you’re really not interested, I wonder if I could convince him to join my team,” he coos, and I hear Dale say something, sounding pissed, which doesn’t really surprise me.
Dale and Chris have been dating each other casually for a few years now. When they first started seeing each other, Chris wanted them to get serious, but Dale always had an excuse for why they couldn’t. Then, when Kelly left, Chris moved to Tennessee to be closer to me so that I wasn’t quote unquote ‘alone,’ and since then, Dale has had a change of heart. Only now, Chris is the one who isn’t exactly sure if he still feels the same way he used to, even though Dale is the only man Chris has ever been serious about. Gah! They are seriously like a soap opera.
“If you can convince him, you can have him,” I mutter, then look at the clock and see time has caught up with me, like it normally does when I’m talking to Chris. “Come by the salon tomorrow when you get done dropping Dale at the airport. I need to finish getting ready to leave here in the next twenty.”
“Shit, you’re meeting your new doctor today,” he says quietly, and I pull in a breath through my nose.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No, it’s okay. You should spend some time with Dale before he goes home.”
“He’ll understand if I leave him for a few hours to go with you.”
God, I love my best friend. “Seriously, it’s okay, and make sure you put some ice on your eye.”
“Will do. Call me when you get done with your appointment.”
“I will.” I hang up and drop my cell to the bed, telling myself that I don’t care if Sage knows who Chris really is to me, but royally freaking the hell out that he does.