by Fiona Zedde
Her lips twisted. “You going to go say hi to your little friend?”
“Here you are!” The waitress appeared with their drinks and Sage again had the urge to give her the biggest kiss, or at least a tip that equaled to the same thing. With a smile firmly in place, perky Mattie efficiently served the drinks around the table. “Are you ready to order your meals?”
“Yes!” Sage jumped in like the idea of food at this place was the best one she’d ever had in her life. But she didn’t remember anything the girl said about their specials and she sure as hell hadn’t even glanced at the menu.
“I’ll have the special,” she said.
Mattie frowned. “Which one?”
Every restaurant had fish on their menu, right? “I’ll have the fish.”
The girl’s smile looked pained. “I’m sorry, miss…but which one?”
With a sound of impatience, Phil sat up in her chair. “She’ll have the lamb.”
“She said she wanted fish,” Sage’s mother said.
Phil tried her most sincere-looking fake smile at Sage’s mother. “She wasn’t paying attention to what Mattie said earlier. She loves lamb. She’ll rather have that than the fish.”
Without waiting for a reply, she nodded once at the waitress then rattled off her own order. By the time the waitress had gotten all their orders and run off to tell the kitchen, Sage was squirming in her chair. Not just from the looks her parents tossed between her and Phil but the poisonous glare Phil threw her way.
“Oh, God! Sorry I’m late! I got so lost on the way here.” The high-pitched voice dragged Sage’s guilty gaze away from Phil and her parents. A slender boy, feminine in a thin, asymmetrical shirt that skimmed down to knees in the front and brushed against his calves in the back, skinny jeans that might as well be yoga pants, and clunky boots he wore unlaced, dashed up to their table. “Does that mean I don’t get any food?” His teasing words were obviously aimed at their table, but Sage was damned if she knew this obviously flaming gay kid.
But her mother got to her feet just a beat behind her husband. “You’re right on time, honey!”
Sage’s mouth dropped open as her parents swarmed the boy with hugs.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Errol?” Sage couldn’t have hidden her shock even if she tried. The boy was as visibly gay as she was, his hips swishing under the thin shirt and tight pants, his hair straightened and hanging down past his shoulders in sleek and thick waves.
From the shelter of her parents’ arms, the kid looked over at Sage. “Yes, that’s me.” His smile was blinding, and sweet. He gently extricated himself from her parents’ arms after giving them each one last kiss then slipped close to Sage even though she was still sitting. “It’s good to finally meet you, almost-sister.”
Almost-sister.
Sage was too surprised to do more than tolerate his hug when he leaned down to hug her in the chair. But Phil had better manners—or maybe she was less stunned—so she stood up to hug the boy.
“I’m Phillida,” she said, looking like both a proud parent and some sort of fan. “You’re so very pretty.”
He actually blushed, his pale pecan skin coloring like a princess in a story book. “Thank you!” He gripped her in a full-body hug and they stared at each other, an instant mutual admiration society, because it was very obvious how beautiful Phil was. To Sage, it felt like a long ass time before Errol let Phil go so he could sink gracefully into the empty seat Sage’s parents saved for him. “Sorry again to be so late. This restaurant is a little hard to find.”
“Yeah, it’s so new that even the GPS was confused.” Phil fluttered long fingers to dismiss his apology. “Don’t worry about it. We’re just glad you made it.”
Sage cleared her throat. “Um…yeah. And…uh…congratulations on finishing school with a 4.0.” Her parents had gushed about his excellent grades during more than one phone call. “Mama and daddy are very proud.”
Errol reached out both hands to touch the couple on either side of him. “Viv and Trevor are the only reason I come this far. They saved my life. The least I can do is study hard and show them they didn’t waste their time on me.” His soft voice vibrated with sincerity and passion.
“Even if you’d been dead last in your class, to see you happy and thriving is enough for us,” Sage’s mother said. The lemon-face she’d been wearing disappeared when Errol showed up. She looked so genuinely happy to see the boy that Sage was having a complete mind-fuck around the whole thing.
“He has too much discipline to be last in his class,” her father said. A muscle clenched in his jaw from his intense emotion. “We are very proud of you, Errol.”
The boy blushed again.
The waitress returned to take Errol’s order, and the boy, so sure and confident of himself, scanned the menu and made a choice quick and decisively. Sage’s parents looked at him with adoration as Mattie left the table to put in his food order.
“So tell us, honey, what are you doing now that you’re about to have the whole summer off?” Her mother leaned in, her chin propped up on her upraised palm, apparently eager to hear all about her nearly-adopted gay son’s summer plans.
It was all fucking unreal.
Sage pushed away from the table, muttering something about the bathroom, then practically ran across the restaurant toward the restroom signs. Barely a minute passed before the bathroom door opened behind her and Phil stalked in on her high heels.
“Do you think they know?” Phil asked, keeping her voice low.
“You mean about Errol being a giant queer?” Sage’s entire body felt too warm, her cheeks burning like she had a fever. She splashed water on her face, making sure not to get any water on her shirt. “Well, if they managed not to see my big gay ass for this long I can see how they might easily not see his.”
“But what if they already know about you?”
Sage jerked around to look at Phil. “What?”
“You heard me.” Phil stood with her feet braced apart, hands in the pockets of her dress. Her gaze pinned Sage where she stood. “What if they already know you’re a big dyke who likes nothing better to eat pussy and strap up to fuck me when I let you?” She lifted her head in challenge.
Sage couldn’t even begin to imagine a world where that was true. “They can’t know,” she said, her voice coming out so rough that it hurt. “They can’t.” Then that would mean she’d been shielding herself for nothing, hiding Phil and the miraculous thing they shared—used to share—because she was the one who was afraid. “No,” Sage said again.
Phil snorted, but it was a gentle, almost kind sound. “Okay, honey.”
Sage couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Moments later, they left the bathroom together without saying another word and headed back to the table where her mother treated them to a suspicious and narrow-eyed stare. Her father and Miss Opal barely looked at them.
Did they know? Sage’s heart beat double-time at the thought.
But as the time passed and no one said anything, she gradually relaxed. The rest of the meal went by in a surreal rush. Sage’s parents freaking fawned over Errol and encouraged him to eat, asking him what his plans were now that he was graduating high school—enrolling in an art school in Boca Raton apparently—and asking what help he needed while they were there.
Sage couldn’t help it. She kept glancing at Phil to see if she was reeling as much from this big Errol revelation as much as Sage was. But she seemed as swept up in the Errol love fest as Sage’s parents, asking him questions, inviting him to brunch whenever he had a free day next, even asking if he was seeing anyone.
“I am hanging out with this one guy,” he answered. “He’s cool but I’m mostly focused on my school plans, you know.”
“That’s smart,” Sage’s father said and just about gave Sage a heart attack.
Phil just beamed at the boy. A child of genius parents, she’d finished at least three advanced degrees by the time she was eighte
en and only came back to Miami to attend school with kids her age because she wanted to be “normal.” School had been her everything until that last degree and by that time she’d been focused on reclaiming all the fun she’d missed out on. It was obvious that she loved how much Errol enjoyed school.
But because Phil was caught up in Errol didn’t mean she didn’t notice Sage. A few times, Sage caught her pitying looks, but they didn’t linger.
They wrapped up the meal with Errol inviting Sage’s parents to a gallery in Wynwood that had a few of his art pieces—he did surrealistic oil paintings that were a mashup of Dali and Kehinde Wiley—that he was excited to show them. He very obviously, Sage thought, didn’t invite her and Phil. Maybe because he wanted to have his nearly-parents all to himself.
“That’s great, sweetie,” her mother said. “I’m excited to see them in person. I bet the cell phone pictures don’t do them justice.”
Errol’s expression of bashful pleasure amped up Sage’s guilt, and shame. In the four years since her parents had been sponsoring him, she never once thought about going to see him much less to ask about his work. Other than to check with her parents to make sure he wasn’t scamming them, she’d ignored his presence in their lives. The assumption of him being another Jamaican who’d talk shit about gay people had made her erase him from her mind. Things were obviously different now.
She’d have to remember to make a trip to see his work.
“Drive safe, Errol,” she said. “You know Miami drivers are nuts.” He was taking her parents and Miss Opal to the gallery in his own car.
After a brief hesitation, Sage plucked the house key from her key ring and passed it to her father. “Take this and let yourselves in whenever you get back.”
Everyone was standing around the wreckage of empty plates, cups, and crumpled napkins on the table. Her father tucked his wallet back in his pocket after paying the bill and hiked up the waist of his slacks from what looked mostly like habit instead of necessity.
“No, darling. We’ll just call you when we’re on the way back,” her mother said. “You’ll need a key to get into your own house.”
What she should have done was make a copy for her parents, but her mind hadn’t been functioning properly the last few days. “It’s no problem. Phil has a key too.”
Her mother frowned, the first negative look on her face since Errol showed up.
“Don’t worry about it, Viv.” Sage’s father tucked the key in this pocket and brushed a hand against the small of his wife’s back. “Let’s get on the road before the gallery gets too crowded.”
They trooped out of the restaurant, Errol chattering about how happy he was the Bennetts were in town again, his voice a rising and falling rhythm that sounded a lot like singing.
While they’d eaten, the restaurant had grown more crowded, at least more people were sitting at tables than when they first got there, and as they walked out, taking a winding path through the packed tables, Sage became aware again of Crystal watching her, the girl’s face a mess of lust and hope.
Crystal sat at a big table with at least three other people who had joined in on the staring. Phil glanced back at Sage but didn’t say anything, even when they were in the parking lot and waving goodbye to her parents and Miss Opal who took off in Errol’s old but clean 4-door Honda Civic.
An unpleasant something sparked in Sage’s chest. Despite the nerves she had about being around her parents and Miss Opal, she couldn’t help but feel a little abandoned by them. Yes, they’d come to Miami for Errol’s graduation but she was their daughter, dammit. And Miss Opal was…her Miss Opal. That something was probably jealousy.
Hands in her pockets, Sage watched as they drove away, tracking their progress through the large parking lot then out into the street when Errol carefully joined with the flow of traffic. Once she was sure they were out of sight, she rolled up the sleeves of her shirt, unbuttoned the one more button at her collar.
Beside her, she could feel Phil vibrating with the need to unload exactly what was on her mind. She squeezed her eyes briefly shut then started toward their SUV. At the driver’s side door, she turned to Phil who had kept silent pace with her.
With a sigh on her lips, Sage turned, arms crossed over her chest. “Just spit it out.”
“Spit what out, exactly?”
“Jesus fuck! Is this what you’re going to do when it’s damn obvious what’s on your mind?”
“If it’s so obvious, then you tell me.” Purse tucked under her arm, Phil put her hands on her hips, an eyebrow at a disdainful arch. It was a pose Sage was well-familiar with. Phil was pissed and ready to get into her face about something. But this time instead of shoving into her space, Phil kept her distance. About four feet yawned between them, and that space felt as wide as an ocean.
“You’re pissed I slept with that girl.” Although Phil had no moral leg to stand on in this particular disagreement, Sage couldn’t keep the defensiveness from her voice.
“O-kaay…” Phil said in a slow and mocking drawl.
“Okay what?”
“That’s all you got from your amazing mind-reading abilities?”
Sage growled. She wanted to strangle Phil but she didn’t move. Although even in the midst of their most intense arguments, they’d never laid hands on each other. Not like that.
“I fucked her a few of days ago when I was pissed at you, okay?” she snapped. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Before Phil’s big bisexual revelation, they had a rule against revenge fucks. If they were pissed at each other, they didn’t take out their feelings on the bodies of strangers. They talked things out. They fucked the anger out of each other.
“You were the one who broke our rules.”
Sage frowned hard enough to give herself a Klingon forehead. “Which rule? The one that said we should be honest with each other? Nope, I kept that one. Unlike you.”
“You’re missing the fu—” Something she saw over Sage’s shoulder cut off the rest of whatever she was going to say. Her teeth snapped together, and her breath came out in a hiss.
Sage turned to see Crystal walking into the parking lot with three guys and another woman who Sage realized then had been sitting with her at her table. The group of five moved purposefully in Sage and Phil’s direction.
“What the fuck is this shit?” Phil asked, the picture of feminine aggression.
“Chill,” Sage said. “Don’t blow things out of proportion. None of this is the girl’s fault.”
“Do you even know her name?” Phil muttered the question from the corner of her mouth. “Anyway, upsetting your little piece on the side is the last thing I’m worried about,” she said the last under her breath as Crystal and her friends came closer. As they approached, Sage couldn’t help but notice how hostile Crystal’s friends looked. And then, with each step that drew the group even closer, she noticed the similarity between them. Dark skin, long hair, pointy chins.
Phil got one last dig in before the got right up on them. “You may have fucked her, but I think you might be the one who’s fucked now.”
The group of Crystal-lookalikes spread out in a semi-circle in front of Sage and Phil. Her girlfriend, tucked her tiny purse under her arm and faced them with hands loose by her sides. They didn’t have to wait long to find out what was going on.
“Are you the perv that fucked our underage sister?”
Underage?
But Sage didn’t hide her shock. At Phil’s quickly indrawn breath, she half-turned, a denial on her lips. But Phil shook her head once, a sharp motion that reminded Sage to keep her head in the game and focus on the important part of what was happening now. Namely that this group of protective siblings seemed intent on kicking her ass.
“You’re underage?” She asked Crystal the question, trying to keep calm.
Dammit, she knew fucking her had been a bad idea the moment it stirred in her pants. When the hell would she learn to listen to her gut instead of second-guessing
herself? “But I asked you how old you were.”
Panic flashed across the girl’s features and she bit her lip, saying nothing.
“How could you not think she’s jailbait?” One of the men jabbed a finger toward Crystal. “She looks like she’s still in fucking high school.”
Although Sage disagreed, she didn’t think now was the right time to voice that. “I didn’t know she wasn’t legal.”
“Exactly how underage is this girl?” Phil aimed her question at the man who seemed in charge of this whole confrontation.
“Her high school graduation is this coming weekend,” the woman chimed in, obviously spoiling for a fight. Her chest puffed up under the studded leather jacket and her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides.
High school?
Crystal had a college ID. She lived by herself in a dorm-style apartment. Were these idiots for real?
“I was twelve when I graduated from high school.” Phil stood tall and straight, her chin slightly lifted to look down on them all, Sage included. “You have to be more specific.”
“She just turned eighteen,” one of the guys shouted.
Another indrawn breath from Phil, and a look that clearly said what an idiot she thought Sage was. And Sage did feel like an idiot, a hypocrite even. She’d been the main one talking about how she didn’t fuck or date young chicks. She cringed remembering all the shit she talked the night she met Crystal. Rémi and Dez were going to give her hell for it for sure. Nuria would just laugh her ass off, then throw jailbait Sage’s way for the rest of her life. Which would probably be about ten minutes if these pricks had anything to say about it.
“What exactly do you want to do here?” Phil demanded. “Sage didn’t know this chick wasn’t old enough to fuck, at least not according to your standards. She’s not R. Kelly, on purpose out to trap underage tail for shits and grins.”
A comparison to pedo Kelly. Shit. Could this day actually get any worse?