by Tessa Bailey
Sage straightened her spine and edged into the room, staying close to the wall just in case the rest of the room decided to cave in. When her foot nudged an empty bottle of whiskey, she pulled her leg back and kicked it across the room, not so much as flinching when it shattered against the dingy skirting board. God, it felt good. The resentment she’d been harboring broke free and ran amok inside of her.
Her gaze shot toward Belmont, and as expected, the man looked like he’d just seen the ghost of Napoleon. The second he fully entered the room, it was entirely new. He had that effect on everything. Instead of a scene from a nightmare, it now looked like a movie set, the hero arriving to save the day.
But she didn’t want to be saved. She wanted to be her own hero. Even if she failed, at least it would be at her own expense. Not at the expense of others, like her parents. Like Belmont. The room was the epicenter of everything she’d run away from. The worst parts of her upbringing that slipped into her nightmares regularly. Recognizing the self-pity didn’t make it any easier to avoid. It rose up and swallowed her whole.
“I’m so angry. I don’t want to be, but I am,” Sage heaved out. “Did you know I could get mad? Did you know I’m not serene and understanding all the time?”
Belmont was still. So still. But dead focused on her. “Tell me why you’re angry.”
She crunched a piece of broken glass beneath her heel, grinding down. “Because I hate feeling responsible. I hate it. Why should I feel responsible when this is what they gave me?” She lifted her hands and dropped them helplessly. “I should have laughed when my mother called and told me Augie was trying to kill my father. This place almost killed me. Everything inside of me. I left here a shell. And I decorated myself, same as I decorated churches. I’m a lie.”
He was silent for long beats, thoughts whizzing through the blue of his eyes. “I won’t deny you’re the kind of beautiful that makes me hungry, Sage, but you’re no shell. God, no.” His tread creaked across the floor in her direction. “Call yourself a lie? You proved yourself wrong by coming back here. You can’t turn off your sense of responsibility, your love. Your beauty runs so deep, maybe even you can’t understand it.”
Her anger tried to nosedive, but she held on for dear life. “You can’t do this,” she cried out. “You can’t say and do the right thing every time. Just let me be pissed off. Let me feel guilty and shitty and robbed. Okay?”
“Okay.” She reeled a little at the loss of his stare, the weight of it falling to the floor. Before she could ask what he was looking for, he produced an uneven metal rod. Or a pipe. At some stage, it had probably been part of the deteriorating plumbing, but she stopped speculating when he pressed the cold length of it into her hand. “Be mad. I’m right here with you.”
Her laugh was more a brittle exhale than anything else. “You don’t want to see me break things. You want me to pretty them up. You want me to make you better. Pretty you up.” Air razed the inside of her windpipe. “We’re just like them.”
“No. We’re going to fight until we’re not.” He nodded at the pipe. “Right now is about you, though. Get as ugly as you want and I’m going to stand right here, having your back.”
A huge, horrendous sob broke from her throat, freedom finding its mark in the center of her chest. She walked toward the closest piece of furniture—a bureau. Surprisingly, it had held up pretty well, the little pink rosebuds she’d painted on the surface still visible beneath the dust and grime. She pulled out the top drawer, wincing at the sound of scraping, splintered wood. And then she bashed it with the pipe, again and again, until spikes and nails were all that remained. Chunks of lumber flew in every direction, so she closed her eyes during the downward swings to protect herself. Every drawer received the same treatment, the muscles aching in her arms in a satisfying way. So satisfying. Her teeth hurt from being clenched, her throat sore from gritting out unintelligible words. By the time she’d finished, her heart was going wild inside her rib cage. A good wild. The kind that made a person feel like they could jump ten feet high.
When she dropped the metal onto the ground, she drooped, only to find her back pressed to Belmont’s chest. He didn’t touch her, he simply stood there and propped her up while she caught her breath, his heartbeat eternal against her.
“Impressive,” he rumbled.
And she laughed for the first time ever inside her childhood bedroom.
Chapter Twelve
Sage’s laugh made Belmont close his eyes. He couldn’t stand there too long absorbing it, because he didn’t want to risk her withdrawing. Putting the line back in the sand between them. But for a few seconds, he let it soothe his ears and reverberate down to his feet.
Had he placed Sage on a pedestal and refused to acknowledge she might have any faults? Yes. He’d done that. And to be frank with himself, Belmont wasn’t sure he’d stop easily. The fact that she was so troubled over coming back to Sibley only highlighted how selfless her decision had been. It made her even more incredible in his eyes. He sensed, though, if he explained that to her, she’d turn the metal pipe in his direction. So he looked for a way to cheer her up instead, his gaze landing on something brightly colored in the bureau’s rubble.
He gave Sage’s head a nudge with his chin, then stepped around her, stooping down to pick up the stapled-together sheaf of papers, which appeared to have glued cutouts of a…boy. On every available inch.
“Oh my God. Don’t look at that.”
Too late. He was already leafing through page after page of collages. The same smirk greeted him over and over again, an advertisement for teeth whitening if he ever saw one. What was Sage doing with a veritable shrine to this person in her room? There was a terrible discomfort in his chest. His hands wanted to rip the item down the middle. He might have done it if his goal wasn’t to cheer up Sage.
“Who is this?” Belmont asked, still flipping through the sea of obnoxious, smiling faces. So much denim. “He looks familiar.”
Sage hurried into the spot beside him. “He’s no one. Can I have that back, please?”
Belmont handed it over, but he couldn’t stop his frown. In all the time he’d spent around Sage, she’d never shown interest in a man. Once, he’d allowed himself to imagine her on a date, holding someone’s hand. He didn’t sleep afterward for two days. There wasn’t a man alive that would work harder to fill her needs than Belmont. His jealousy—which, in his estimation, was a weak word for what he felt—was shot through with outrage. Sage getting less than she deserved? Not in this lifetime.
“He’s obviously someone, Sage, if you took the time to catalog every expression he’s ever made.” He eyed the makeshift book with distaste. “Is that…are those the kind of men you like?”
“What do you mean, what kind of men?”
The floorboards creaked beneath his boots as he shifted. “Blond.”
“It’s Justin Timberlake, okay?” Sage made this giggle-snort sound that was so sweet, his jealousy almost ebbed. Almost. “I can’t believe this. We’re standing inside my nightmare and it should be awful. But we’re arguing about ’N Sync’s former front man, like we’re back in the Suburban with everyone…and it doesn’t seem so scary.” She swiped at an eye with the back of her wrist and sighed. “I think his hair is nice.”
“It’s very…” His mouth twisted. “Curly.”
“Yes, it is.” A laugh tinkled out of her, easing his frown. She seemed to almost be enjoying his discomfort. Teasing him about it. “When I was a teenager, he was my type. Didn’t you have a type when you were in high school?”
Intuition told Belmont this was where he was supposed to tease her in return. Was this…flirting? Did she like this sort of thing? “No one in real life. But I guess I thought Storm from the X-Men movies was pretty.” Her face started to fall and he panicked. He really needed to practice this whole flirting thing. “I have a different type now.” He turned his body toward her, just an inch or so, and electric heat fired through him at her response. Was it
wishful thinking, or did her eyes continue to drop to his stomach…and lower? The more she looked, the more indecent he felt in the thin sweatpants. They hid nothing, especially when her interest made him harden behind the seam.
“What should I do…” Belmont asked. “If a woman is my type. But she has a different type?”
“Types change over time,” she said in a breathy way. “Maybe some people develop a thing for redheads after meeting one they liked. You see?”
His jealousy curled its lip. “Sounds like you know a lot about this.”
“Well, I have you fooled then. I don’t know anything about it.” He held his breath when Sage reached out to cup his cheek. Don’t move. Don’t ruin it. “Things are complicated between us. We spent a long time buried in each other and now we’re trying to come up for air. I don’t know if we can breathe separately and still be—”
“Together?” Hope unfurled inside him like a banner. More than he’d had in a long time. “Are you telling me that’s possible?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “But you brought Christmas carolers to my door last night, Belmont. If you weren’t a woman’s type after that, she wouldn’t deserve you.”
Incapable of checking himself, he turned his head and kissed the inside of her wrist. “Yes, you would.”
At the jump of her pulse against his mouth, Belmont sensed the crossroads between them. A physical one. They had two options. Break apart or give in and cling. Sage knew it, too, because she dropped her hand and took the booklet from beneath her arm, examining the cover despite Belmont’s grumbling. “It was just my way of escaping. Pretending to walk down a red carpet or riding in a limousine. Wearing pretty dresses and getting compliments. Little things that girls dream about.”
“What do you dream about now?”
Her expression seemed troubled for a passing second. “It’s my turn to question you now, isn’t it?” she said, a little too brightly. “Or are you cheating, trying to combine two turns in one?”
She was back to flirting with him now. Did women flirt because they eventually wanted more? The possibility roughened his voice, like fine sand granules. “If you want me to remember the rules, you have to stop glowing like some kind of angel.” He moved a step closer. “You said you want compliments. Like that?”
“That was lovely,” she breathed, clearly surprised.
Belmont nodded, his gaze skating over her pink cheeks. “I’ve got about a million of them. For you.” Honesty crawled up his throat. “I was thinking I should save them up so I never run out, but just about every second, I think of a new one. So I think we’re good.”
“Yes. Good.” Again, her attention slipped down to his belly. His lap. Then zipped back up like she’d burned her eyes. “I like your sweatpants.” Color spread down her cheeks and neck. “I mean, I like that you’re comfortable. In them.”
“I’m not comfortable in anything, Sage.” His blunt fingertips skated down his abdomen, but dropped away before he could make contact with that part of himself that pulsed nonstop for her. “Everything is heavy. All the time.”
“Oh.” Belmont didn’t realize he was growling at the Justin Whatshisname tribute until Sage dropped it to the ground, nudging it aside with her toe. “Bye bye bye,” she murmured. “If you knew who Justin Timberlake was, you would have laughed at that joke.”
“Sorry, Sage. I’m never going to laugh at anything that involves him.”
They stared at each other. “No, I’ll probably never enjoy X-Men again, either.” He was still reeling at the idea of Sage being jealous of him, when she rushed to continue. “It’s my turn to ask a question, right? Tell me about a typical day for Belmont.” She wet her lips. “Before the road trip. Tell me how you spent the hours between morning and night.”
The sounds of boat wake, boots on the deck, a shower running, voices in his ear. Those things came to him in flashes. “You want to know about my day.”
“Yes.”
He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms, a relaxed pose that was totally at odds with the discomfort he experienced when talking about himself. “My apartment is near the marina, so I can hear the water when I wake up. I…like that. Like knowing it’s right outside, the tide moving in and out.” He tried to clear the hesitancy from his voice. “I shower and eat something—usually boiled eggs and toast. And then…” He shrugged, letting the truth come out. “I check in on everyone. I call the store for Peggy and the restaurant for Rita, to make sure they made it to work all right. Aaron…I couldn’t call anyone to check on him, so I bought that laptop. He’s always posting something on the Twitter, so…”
Sage made a small sound. “You bought a laptop just to follow Aaron? Why didn’t you just call him directly? All of them?”
“I’m not good at conversation.”
“Is that really what it’s about?” The sudden emotion packed into her gaze was so much, he could barely maintain eye contact. “They would have loved to hear your voice.”
He was slowly starting to believe that, and Sage’s confidence nudged him that much closer. For as long as he could remember, he’d tried to limit his interference in his siblings’ lives. They’d never treated him like less than a full brother, but their different fathers had always made him feel like an intruder. Especially after what happened at the well. “After that, I go down to the boat, make sure the equipment is functioning the way it’s supposed to. The men start to arrive midmorning and we head out to one of the sites.”
Belmont watched Sage carefully to gauge her interest in his job, his blood rushing to see the curiosity on her face. What would she think if she knew he’d saved up enough for a house? That he’d pictured her inside of it every day since they met, walking the halls, laying in a backyard full of green grass?
That would never be a reality if she stayed in Sibley. If both of them stayed.
“When I come home, I check on everyone again. I memorize the following day’s tide schedule, confirm appointments, and I listen to the water.” He captured her eyes with his own, held them with all his might. All his truth. “And in between all of it, starting when I wake up through when I finally fall sleep, I think of you.” His throat started to hurt. “I check in on you, too.”
Sage seemed to be recalling something, her back straightening. “All those hang-ups first thing in the morning. That was you?”
He nodded slowly, his focus unwavering. “I know you’re going to try and stop me from going into that cave, Sage.”
There it was. The elephant in the room had just become the gauntlet between them. The division was excruciating for him, but he wouldn’t hide his intentions from her. Apparently she wouldn’t disguise hers, either. “I am going to stop you. I know what it’ll do to you.”
Belmont hardened his jaw, grinding his teeth at the very idea of watching her go back into the ground. “I’ve known for weeks something was coming and I know we have more than just a disagreement ahead. I wish there was some way I could stand aside and let you jump this obstacle on your own. I can see you want to so bad, but I’m not physically able to let you. I can’t. Please understand.” His throat worked. “I love the tide because it’s constant. No matter how often it gets low or rises high, it’ll keep coming back. Know the same about me, Sage.”
“I do,” she whispered.
He pushed off the wall, stopping in front of her long enough to lay a lingering kiss on her cheek. And then he left the room to go clean.
Chapter Thirteen
Belmont sat down on the porch outside Sage’s parents’ house and tugged the folded, faded documents from his pocket. In the mad rush to reach Sibley, he hadn’t had time to look at them recently. The long list of men who might be his father.
Miriam had never told him his father’s name. And he’d never asked.
She’d been so sad in his early memories and he’d never wanted to see her like that again. Those times when he’d stood outside her bedroom and listened as she wept. Huge, heart-wren
ching sobs that made him worry she had fallen down and hurt herself. But through the crack in the door, he could see she was unharmed, so he would just bed down and wait, wait until she stopped.
Belmont had read the entire journal his mother had left behind, cover to cover. There was no mention of his father’s name. He’d never been capable of frustration with Miriam, though. If anyone understood his need to do things in his own time, it had been her, so he wouldn’t begrudge her leaving out the information he needed. If anything, he’d been surprised by how much Miriam had understood his siblings. Understood him. He’d caught himself wishing she’d said the words in her journal out loud, only to realize he did the same thing. Kept his thoughts trapped inside, never sharing. After reading Miriam’s final thoughts, he’d started trying to be more open with his family. Rita, Aaron, Peggy. Sage. Had they noticed?
Belmont stared out over the weed-ridden front yard. After having no luck on his own, he’d hired a private investigator back in San Diego to find his father, a move that had been way outside of his comfort zone, but proved somewhat fruitful. Since his mother had been a public figure, her life was well documented online, and by building a timeline and speaking to people she’d worked with, the investigator had given him a list. Unfortunately, it was a long one.
Why did he want to find his father?
Belmont didn’t really have a straightforward answer to that. No, he’d been plagued with uncertainties, instead, since he could remember. As the oldest, he’d never questioned his desire to protect those he loved, but he’d often wondered if he was doing it right. After all, his methods weren’t conventional. There was no one to ask, though. No example to learn from.
Now that he was a man, his motivation had become less about needing a role model and more about learning his history. Getting the closure for Miriam that he sensed she’d never really gotten. And maybe in the process, he’d find some for the fatherless child he’d once been. The child who’d faded as far as possible into the background while his siblings spent time with a different father.