by Fiona Zedde
“What the devil is she doing here? She looks well comfortable in her nightie and with her stuff scattered everywhere.”
“Uh…” Sage’s brain had shorted out completely.
“No matter. That girl is always a welcome sight,” her father boomed, rustling in his carry-on and pulling out his Dopp kit. “She could come to eat with us.” Then he disappeared into the bathroom, leaving the door wide open. He took his phone from his jacket pocket, fiddling with it as he squinted at the screen through his bifocals.
“Don’t you dare invite her out with us, Sage Bennett.”
An indecipherable noise floated from the bathroom. Her father muttering to himself. The familiar chime of a text being sent came from his phone.
From down the hall, Sage could hear Phil’s soft voice, then Miss Opal’s loud and open-throated laughter which somehow made her mother frown. Sage felt her stomach cramp all over again.
“I like her.” Her father came out of the bathroom wiping his hands on a small towel. The smell of mint mouthwash followed him into the bedroom. “She’s really smart. Did you read her article in Science Journal America about the in microbial gut populations in vegans versus vegetarians? Really interesting research that.” Passing the full-length mirror, he brushed a hand over his jaw, critically eyeing this still stubble-free jawline before patting his back pocket to make sure his wallet was still there.
Sage blinked. “I did read that article,” she said after a moment’s surprised silence. “Most of it went right over my head, though.”
Her father grunted out a laugh. “Me too.”
Sometimes she forgot how well Phil and her father got along, and how much they had in common. Although Phil called herself a science hobbyist, she kept up with the information in the obscure scientific journals she subscribed to and kept a lab across town with some of her Mensa friends. On one of her father’s long-ago visits, Sage had even exchanged email addresses with him, another so-called science hobbyist.
Sage’s mother made a disapproving noise and moved toward her husband.
And that was that, Sage thought with more than a little relief. What her mother wanted, she usually got.
She walked out of the room, heading toward the bedroom she and Phil shared. Used to share.
Phil was there, naked except for a pair of black thong underwear and a matching bra offering up her breasts for inspection. She stepped past Sage and walked into the closet, dipping her shoulder to the side to avoid touching Sage.
“What the fuck are you doing here? You should be gone.” Skin shivering with the rush of sudden anger and helplessness, Sage stalked after her.
“This is my house too, in case you forgot.”
Phil pulled a black dress from its hanger, shook it out, and held it in front of her. Was she getting ready to leave? Something about the way she looked at herself reminded Sage of her father in that moment. After a nod of satisfaction, Phil stepped into the dress, sleek and black that hugged her from knees to shoulders, and Sage stepped forward on automatic pilot, to help her zip into the dress. After the barest pause, Phil turned her back and stood still as Sage smoothly tugged up the zipper, breathing in the faint scent of coconut oil that lingered in Phil’s hair.
Sage froze. No, they couldn’t have this “normal” between them anymore.
When Phil moved to turn away from her, Sage grabbed her arm. “We can’t do this. Not with my parents here.”
“Let go of me.” Phil’s eyes snapped fire, anger all tangled up with hurt.
Sage dropped her hand as if she’d been burned. She struggled to find her footing in this new dynamic, this disaster they’d become. “You’re supposed to be gone.” She hissed the words, an accusation.
“And you’re supposed to act like an asshole to me and try to throw me out of the house that I half own so maybe we’re even for now.” She spun, slipped her feet into black heels, tipped lipstick into a small black clutch and left Sage to stew by herself in the closet.
By the time she got back to the living room, her parents were there, her father wearing a pleased smile while he showed Phil something on his phone. She matched his height in her high heels. Her mother sat on the couch, stiff and upright, her purse on her lap and clutched between her hands, her eyes glued to the door like she was waiting for a jail sentence to be over. Sage looked from one face to the other, sure that she’d missed something. Before she could ask what it was, Miss Opal’s voice rang out from the kitchen.
“This stove is nice and big. And so clean. Do you even cook in here?”
“Yes, but I clean up well.” Sage flashed a look around the room, trying not to let her anxiety show, wanting everyone to be happy, or in her mother’s case, as happy as they could be and not start any shit. She took a few steps toward her mother who looked like she was chewing on nails, changed her mind and went into the kitchen instead.
Miss Opal was halfway inside the pantry, bending down to look at the lowest shelves.
“I don’t recognize most of the things in here,” she said, sounding pleased.
Miss Opal loved to cook, for herself as much as for the kids who had moved into and out of her life. Many a day Sage had stopped by her house to find her in the kitchen, the house empty except for her, backing or cooking, reading a paperback romance while a pot bubbled and the kitchen overflowed with delicious scents.
“You can use whatever you want in here.” Sage stood with her back to the counter, fingers clenching and releasing around the edge.
“Of course, baby love,” Miss Opal said.
Sage rubbed a finger along the smooth granite edge of the counter. “We’re ready to leave whenever you are.”
“Of course! I didn’t mean to hold you up. I was just being nosy while everybody was putting themselves together.”
“You’re not holding us up.”
A soft snort and a quick smile. “I think Mrs. Bennett might feel a bit differently,” Miss Opal said. “She’s been holding down that settee for what she probably thinks is a whole hour now.” Her voice was soft, secretive, but teasing. She’d worked for Sage’s parents long enough to know all their faults.
“It’s fine.” Sage pushed away from the counter, relieved to find something to smile about. “Ready?” She offered her arm to Miss Opal and they left the kitchen together.
In the living room, things were just as she left it. Phil, now with a chunky star-shaped necklace resting just beneath her collar bones and her phone tucked away, was attempting a conversation with both Phil’s parents. It wasn’t working out too well.
What was she still doing there?
“All right.” Sage forced a cheerful smile. “Everybody ready?”
“Of course, daughter.” Despite his wife’s grim look, he practically leaped toward the door, holding it open for the women to walk through.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Phil said with a laughing smile.
“You’re going with us?” Sage felt stupid for asking.
In the spirit of inane questions, Phil gave her a quick once over. “Aren’t you hot in all those clothes, honey?” she asked, voice low and falsely solicitous. She knew damn well Sage was wearing the long-sleeved shirt to keep her tattoos out of sight.
They sneered at each other.
“I invited her to come along,” her father said, ignoring their by-play, his hand on the doorknob, smile easy and unconcerned. “There’s plenty of room in your big SUV. Plus, I’m paying, in case you’re crying broke these days.”
He was obviously joking since it would take just about the world ending as they knew it for Sage, and the rest of her family, to be truly broke. But as financially savvy as he was, her father was dim as a box of rocks where emotions and people were concerned. Like why the hell did he think inviting Phil to dinner with them was okay?
A crack of pain in her jaw warned Sage she was clenching her teeth too hard. She let the other women walk out before her, fussing with her keys to avoid giving her father a dirty look.
It
was going to be a long ass dinner.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“We should go to that place you got us take-out from last time,” Sage’s father said. “I haven’t had Jamaican food that good outside a yaad.”
Of course, he was talking about Novlette’s, a restaurant where Sage and the rest of her friends, her very gay friends, hung out all the time. Damn near as often as Rémi’s club. But she didn’t want to take them someplace where they’d be a risk of someone recognizing her, or her and Phil. This wasn’t something she would’ve thought of before, but Phil in the car with her scowling mother and Miss Opal, who found everything about Phil and Miami fascinating, frightened her into being more careful than usual.
Sage cleared her throat. “Why don’t we try someplace a little different?” she suggested. “If you don’t like it, we can head to Novlette’s before you all leave.” And when Phil wasn’t with them.
The look Phil gave her in the rear-view mirror clearly told Sage she wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Okay…” Her mother looked at her with something like suspicion.
“As long it’s someplace where we can sit outside,” Miss Opal said. “It’s real nice here. I want to see as much of it as possible before I leave.”
Sage mentally ran through a list of restaurants in her head where no one knew her, where there was outdoor seating and a decent view. “I know just the place,” she said.
In the back seat, Phil sat behind her with an arm dangling outside the car while Sage’s father perched in the middle seat between the two women. He looked happy as a pig in shit. His wife did not.
“As long as you know where you’re going and the food is good,” her father said. Then he went back to fiddling with his phone. He sent a text. “By the way, I invited Errol to come eat with us. I hope you all don’t mind.”
“You’ve inviting all kinds of people to eat with us, why should one more be any different?”
“Mother…”
Sage threw her mother a look of frustration, not just because of the sheer rudeness of her statement with Phil sitting right there, but because Errol wasn’t just anybody. He was the reason they came all this way.
A soft emotion smoothed her mother’s face, her version of an apology, but she said nothing. Phil’s smile, such as it was, stayed on her face. “It would be nice to meet Errol. We’ve heard about him but never met.”
“We?” Her mother’s face tightened up again.
“It’s strange with you living in the same state that you never even met Errol. The world can be so small and big at the same time,” Sage’s father said. As usual, he was ignoring his wife’s rudeness, living in a world of his own creation, seeming to comply with everything she wanted but living his own life regardless.
When her mother first told Sage about Errol, how he was an orphan in Jamaica with no resources, that they were sponsoring him because too many people took on kids from China or someplace else besides home, she had been surprised. She still remained surprised but was glad they’d decided to share what they had to help Errol and other kids like him in Jamaica.
As far as she knew, he was the only one they had actively sponsored and taken from Jamaica, sent to a private boarding school, and promised to pay for his college degree as well. They helped kids at an orphanage back home, but none of the individual kids to this extent.
“It is,” Phil agreed. “Like I had no idea when you wrote to me about my article in Science Journal America that you were Sage’s dad. Such a small world.”
Sage felt a start of surprise. She had no idea that was how they met. She thought it had been just him gradually getting to know Phil through careful and repeated exposure over the years.
“Exactly,” Sage’s father said. “A happy coincidence.”
Her mother made a noise, and for a few awkward moments, silence rang loudly in the SUV. Then, thankfully, they arrived at the restaurant. Sag pulled the car into the lot, relieved that it wasn’t overflowing with Saturday early evening traffic. Then again, they were at a lull between lunch and dinner. After six, the place would probably have been impossible to get into without a reservation. At least it seemed that way from the couple of times she’d been there before. For a new place, it was damn popular.
“We’re here!” Sage announced unnecessarily.
Phil gave her an unamused look and climbed out of the truck. “Yay,” she muttered under her breath.
Sage hopped out of the car while her parents wrestled with their seat belts and began getting out of the truck together.
“You didn’t have to come, you know,” she muttered under her breath, glad that both her parents got out on the other side of the truck.
“I don’t want to be rude to your father. He invited me.”
“But you don’t mind being rude to my mother?”
Phil rolled her eyes. “This is so not the time…” She tucked her little purse under her arm and marched past Sage, her ass rocking under the slim fitting black dress that managed to straddle the line between elegant and sexy as sin. Her palms itched to cup that ass, to feel the muscular glutes she loved to clutch and bite when they were fucking.
With a deep breath, she slammed the driver’s side door shut and pocketed the truck keys. The paved parking lot was brand new, smooth with freshly painted stripes diving the parking spots, a valet waiting at the front to take their truck if they wanted, a building that looked new and even more impressive, modern without being cold, something she’d missed the last time she’d been there.
Her parents and Miss Opal walked arm in arm, leaving Sage to walk stiffly at Phil’s side toward the double doors of the restaurant. The wrap-around terrace on the second floor was no more than half full. Plenty of space for Sage’s little family. And their plus one, she thought, thinking of Errol and his impending appearance.
The hostess seated them quickly and without a wait on the wrap-around terrace, finding room for them on the section overlooking the bay.
“This is so nice,” Miss Opal said, dragging out the last word.
The place was decent. Not as good as Rémi’s club, of course.
“I still prefer Gillespie’s, though,” Phil said, echoing Sage’s thoughts. She smiled over at her woman before she could think better of it. And for a moment, Phil smiled back at her, an intimate look that said they were on the same page, not just about this but about everything else in their lives.
But that wasn’t true anymore.
Shifting in her seat, Sage tore her eyes away from Phil and stumbled into Miss Opal’s curious gaze. “What’s Gillespie’s?” Miss Opal asked.
“Uh… um…Rémi’s is… it’s... um…”
“It’s a club our friend owns,” Phil said, easily filling the gap between Sage’s flustered mumblings.
What the hell was wrong with her? She couldn’t share a single real thing about her life? But this was what happened when you were in the closet. Every truth was a minefield of disastrous discovery, every authentic part of your life you took for granted as good and safe became something to be ashamed of, something to second guess. A quiver of unhappiness rippled over her skin.
“Yeah. It’s in town on the water. A much better view.”
“Why didn’t you take us there? The food is good, right?”
“The best,” Phil said, her filled with tender poison.
“I just thought we’d try something a little different for once.”
“Well the same for you is different for us since we’ve never been there,” her father said.
Sage squirmed under the combined stares of everyone else at the table. A waitress appeared at their table, and Sage wanted to kiss her.
“Hi, I’m Mattie and I’ll be taking care of you today. Can I start you with anything to drink?”
When she left with their orders, her father started up a conversation with Phil about Neil deGrasse Tyson and his likely stalkers. Despite their animated discussion, Sage still felt Phil’s gaze on her and she deliberately avoided it.
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Not now. Please.
The beginnings of a headache throbbed just behind her right eye and, her body felt heavy and unwieldy, a reminder that she hadn’t slept well the night before. Even the bright, late evening sun, which usually powered her like a battery, didn’t help. It seared into her skin through her clothes, the long-sleeved shirt hiding her tattoos, into the back of her neck, through the short but thick coils over her scalp.
Letting loose a silent sigh that shook her entire body, Sage roamed her gaze over the other tables on the terrace where they sat. The crowd at Wilde’s was as different from Gillespie’s as you could get. Eclectic but with a strong mobster vibe. Guys in blazers despite the heat, probably packing a different kind of heat in holsters under their clothes, girls wearing thick makeup more suited to late night, most wearing enough jewelry to blind the eye if you stared too long. A few tourist types here and there took up random space, but they looked a little out of place. But maybe no more than she and her family did.
Her eyes made another sweep of the place, then, she froze. Was that…?
The long hair, this time wrapped in a topknot like the princess in a Disney movie, was definitely the same. Her eyes drifted from the girl’s hair and found a pair of pale brown eyes staring back at her. The surprise of it settled hard in her belly.
Crystal. Like an idiot, she didn’t count on Crystal hanging out at Wilde’s on her day off.
“You okay, honey?”
Of course, it was Miss Opal who noticed her flinch.
“Yeah, I’m good. Just thought I saw someone I know.” No point in lying when her reaction clearly said as much.
Sitting on the side of the table opposite to Sage, Phil twisted around to look. “Who?”
It didn’t take her long to find who Sage was talking about. Which was basically because Crystal hadn’t stopped staring. “You know her?”
Caught off guard with her unexpected bluntness when she was usually more circumspect around her parents, Sage made a vague motion. “Yeah. I met her a couple of times.” Literally twice. Phil’s gaze narrowed, and it was obvious she knew exactly what Phil meeting up once or twice with this obviously young girl consisted of.