The Art of Sage (Cruz Brothers #2)

by Melanie Munton

  He stared her down for several moments and then ticked his head in the direction of my car. “Get the fuck off my property.”

  “Gladly,” she huffed and turned around to walk past me. Her eyes briefly flicked up to mine before she walked out of my field of view.

  I watched Ed shoot daggers at Sage’s back, redirecting them at me when he finally realized I hadn’t moved. It was the first time he had acknowledged my presence since I’d walked over.

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  Slowly, I closed the gap between us. I was aware that my size and many tattoos created an intimidating picture, and I relished it as I saw uncertainty grow on Ed’s face. If I didn’t know for sure that Katie was watching every move we made, his face would have been well acquainted with the ground by then.

  “If you ever threaten her or so much as lay a finger on her again, I’m going to come back here and beat you to a fucking pulp, you piece of shit. We clear?”

  His lips pursed but he wisely didn’t say another word. Taking his silence as acceptance, I shot him one final warning look before turning my back to him and walking to my car. With every step, I resisted the urge to pull my arm back and clock him in the face. Never in my life had I wanted to hurt another person so badly, which was saying something because I’d conjured up many images of bloodying my own father’s face over the years.

  I reined in my temper as I got back in the car and looked over at Sage. “Where to?”

  She turned her head to Katie in the back seat, a small smile forming on her mouth. “Home.”

  The only sounds in the car during the ride over to Sage’s house were the rhythmic notes of Johnny Cash’s guitar on the radio, his voice supplementing the macabre atmosphere that filled the car. When I parked in front of Sage’s house, she let Katie out and handed over her house keys.

  “Why don’t you go inside and help yourself to anything in the fridge. I’ll be right in, okay?”

  Katie nodded and then looked at me. “Thank you,” she said and took off toward the house.

  Sage got back inside and closed the door. We hadn’t said a word to each other since leaving the Dole house, and I really didn’t know what to expect from her. “I’ll get your car to you by this evening,” I told her.

  “Thanks. I appreciate the ride, by the way.”

  I hated how cold her voice sounded. I’d never known her to be cold. I suspected it was because she was holding everything back, keeping it inside while she had Katie around.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. “He didn’t hurt you while you were inside or anything, did he?”

  “No,” she said in a sober voice. “I’m not so sure about Katie, though. I mean, he didn’t injure her, but she’s definitely hurt. I’m going to make sure that she’s eventually okay. I just don’t know how long that’s going to take.”

  I reached over and grasped her hand, though she didn’t return the gesture. She just sat there, looking completely lost. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I know how much you care for these kids.” I swallowed, adding, “And I know how close to home this one hit for you. If there’s anything I can do to help, I want you to tell me. I’ll do whatever you need.”

  “I’ll take care of everything,” she said without hesitation. “I’ve got this.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t always have to shoulder everything by yourself,” I replied gently.

  Her head snapped in my direction, a fire growing in her eyes. “This is my job, Mason. It’s my responsibility to shoulder the problems of these kids. Because if I don’t do it, who will? Better that it’s me, someone who actually gives a shit about them.”

  I breathed in through my nose. She was already upset and reacting more severely than she normally would. I didn’t need to further anger her by responding haughtily. “I meant that you don’t have to emotionally shoulder everything. I’m your boyfriend. I’m supposed to share your burdens with you, so I want you to feel comfortable talking to me about all of this. Everything that’s bothering you.”

  She scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “In my case, talking doesn’t really do any good. What happened to me has already happened. It sucked but I’m an adult now with a different life and I’m over the past. With Katie, there’s still a chance that this won’t emotionally cripple her for the rest of her life. If she has the right people with her to get her through this, she can come out of it a better person. That’s the difference between me and her.”

  “You think you’re emotionally crippled?” I asked.

  “I didn’t say that. I’m just saying that whatever I’m feeling right now is part of the job and I’ll deal with it. I have for years, long before I ever met you and I will long after you’re gone. I think I can handle it now.”

  She might as well have smacked me in the face with the impact those words had on me. “‘After I’m gone’? I didn’t realize I was going anywhere. Why would you say that?”

  She looked out the window, refusing to meet my gaze. “Everyone always leaves. Especially the people that I love.”

  “Pierce hasn’t,” I pointed out.

  “He’s the one exception.”

  “Does this have something to do with your ex?” I asked. “I don’t know all of the details of your relationship and I don’t need to know. But I would think you’d realize by now that I’m not him. Our relationship isn’t like whatever you had with him, so why are you assuming that I’m going to suddenly up and leave you one day?”

  “Because that’s how it happens!” she yelled, finally turning back to me. The distraught look on her face almost killed me. “You think you’re in love with someone for a while, everything seems great, and then you realize that it isn’t what it seemed. That you’re not as happy as you once told yourself you were. That your relationship was mostly a smoke screen for the real problems beneath the surface.”

  The panic I was feeling started to become painful. “Are you not as happy with me as you thought you were or something? Is our relationship a smoke screen to you?”

  “No, but…” She sighed and ran both hands through her hair. “You’ll eventually realize that my issues are too much for you. You can mostly ignore them now because the sex is amazing and we’re still in the puppy love stage. But when things start getting serious and real, you’ll bail because who wants to put up with someone who has this much baggage? It’s too much work.”

  Screw my self-control. “One, I have baggage too and I’ve told you all about it,” I said in a stern voice, getting frustrated against my better judgment. But she was talking crazy and I needed to set her straight. “I have issues too and it’s just as much work to deal with mine as it is yours. Two, do you really think that after all this time I would still leave you simply because of your past? I would have to be the world’s biggest asshole to do that when my past is as dark as it is. And three, whatever I do is my choice. You can’t predict our future and make all of these assumptions about what I will or won’t do. That’s not doing justice to me or to our relationship. I would like a little more credit than that.”

  Silence fell over us as we both breathed in short, shallow breaths. “Look, you’re upset,” I said. “This isn’t the best time to talk about all of this. I’ll come by tomorrow after we’ve both calmed down and we can talk more then.”

  She sat there frozen for a minute before gathering up her purse and one of Katie’s bags and opened the door. “Call before you come. I don’t want Katie around a lot of strange people while she’s still so upset.”

  She shut the door in my face before I could say anything else. As Dawson helped me get her car back over to her house after the kids’ party was over and I spent the rest of the night going through an entire pack of smokes, I went over and over everything she’d said in my head. I already missed her and I hated leaving a disagreement unresolved.

  It made me itch.

  I even texted her goodnight, telling her I loved her but she never responded. I told myself that she was dealing with K
atie—probably a pretty emotional night for both of them—so I couldn’t hold her lack of response against her.

  I only hoped that we hadn’t just taken a huge step backwards.

  ##

  I woke up the next morning in a piss poor mood because I got exactly zero sleep the night before. Without Sage next to me, knowing that she was at her house and in pain, dreamland was unattainable.

  I called her before I left my place, letting her know I was coming, and she told me to wait outside when I got there. I didn’t like it and wanted to talk inside where we could be comfortable, but I respected the fact that Katie was there and she was just looking out for her.

  She came outside in a tank top and shorts, a black robe with white skulls all over it, and her hair pulled on top of her head, held in place by a pencil. Christ, she looked good. But it was so not the right time to bring up having dirty car sex with her.

  “Thanks for bringing my car back,” was the first thing out of her mouth. No “hi” or “I missed you” or even a smile for me.

  “You’re welcome. How’s Katie?”

  She nodded slowly, staring straight ahead instead of at me. “She’s okay. She’s a strong kid so it may take some time, but she’ll make it through with more hope than a lot of kids in her position have.”

  Something told me that she was referring to herself. “What’s going through your head, baby? I know you’ve told me some things about what you went through, but there were things going on yesterday that you weren’t opening up to me about.”

  “Don’t push,” she gritted out.

  I tamped down my frustration. Why couldn’t she see that I just wanted to be there for her? “I’m not pushing. I’m talking. Someone had to push me to open up in therapy during rehab. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything, but they wouldn’t give up and in the end, it helped heal me. I’m not just going to give up on you, Sage. No matter how hard you try to push me away.”

  She shook her head and smirked, though there was no humor in it. “I’m not asking you to give up on me and I’m not pushing you away. I’m simply giving you an out.”

  I heard the spinning record in my head screech to a halt. “I’m sorry, what? An ‘out’? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “An out,” she repeated. “An opportunity to leave without any hard feelings. I know I’m a lot to take on and I don’t blame you if you come to your senses and realize how hard it would be to stick with me long-term. This is me opening the door for you to walk out without any horrible break up incidents.”

  I was having a hard time wrapping my head around how this conversation had gotten to that point. “Where is this coming from? I never said I wanted to leave you. I’m just as in this as I have been from the beginning. Nothing’s changed. You’re the one who brought all of this up out of nowhere yesterday.”

  She sighed and tipped her head back against the head rest. “I’m not naïve and I’m not an idiot. The way you looked at me yesterday when you dropped us off here…that was sympathy in your eyes, Mason. And in my experience, sympathy eventually turns to pity and pity turns to resentment. I won’t have you resent me. I couldn’t stand that. So, let’s just cut our losses now before we get too deep.”

  Enough of this. I framed her face in my hands, turning her head around to face me. There were tears in her eyes, a certain weariness in them that made me desperate to do anything to make it go away.

  “I’m already deep with you,” I told her. “I have been from the day I met you. This—us—isn’t something I can just walk away from. And that wasn’t sympathy you saw yesterday. That was concern because I do worry about you, Sage. I care about you. I love you. You’re supposed to worry about those you love because you only want them to be happy. And I could never resent you. But you…you have a lot of resentment in your heart, Sage.”

  She reared back like I’d slapped her. “Excuse me?”

  Careful. “Whether you want to admit it or not, you resent Roy. What he did and the fact that he got away with it, scot-free. You’ve carried that with you all these years and it’s turning into bitterness.”

  She threw my hands off her, scooting as far away from me in the seat as she could. “I’m not bitter.”

  “About this one thing you are, baby,” I said in a gentle voice. “Look what happened yesterday. We’re at the kids’ birthday party and you’re happy and playful, like you don’t have a care in the world. And then we leave that house with Katie and you completely shut down. It wasn’t that you were just upset with Ed and everything that happened. It was like you were re-living your own experiences and taking those emotions out on everyone around you. I’d never seen that side of you before. There’s no warmth to that side and that’s not you, Sage. You’re not this person.”

  She waved her hand at me. “And this is what I was talking about. The more you learn about me—the more you see—the less you like me. That is going to build and build until you aren’t even sure why you were attracted to me in the first place. People drift apart all the time. Just look at your brother and Mickie.”

  A shiver ran down my spine. “What are you talking about? What about Dawson and Mickie?”

  She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers. “That’s none of my business and it’s not the point. The point is that it happens before you even realize it and it destroys you.”

  “That’s not going to be us!” I accidentally shouted, making her jump. I lowered my voice before continuing. “You’re comparing us to other people and that’s not fair. You’re writing our ending before we’ve even had a chance to live the story. Nobody controls where my life is going to go but me, Sage. Nothing has even happened here and you’re acting as if we’re already over. I love you. To me, that isn’t something you just write off as sympathy.”

  All of a sudden, a sob broke out of her, shocking me and making me feel guilty as hell all in the same moment. Her shoulders shook as her hand clamped over her mouth, attempting to hold her cries in. I gripped the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles turned white. I was pissed that I hadn’t been able to control the situation or my reactions better. That in my attempts to make her feel better, I’d actually made it worse.

  She sniffled several times and I fought to get my voice under control. “There are tissues in the glove compartment.”

  She opened the door and discreetly blew her nose a few times before steadying her breathing. I struggled to find the right words to say, but the sound of her dejected cries was doing something to me, distracting me.

  “Look, Sage, I—”

  I paused when my eyes flew over to her and I got a good look at what she was holding in her hand. Holding it away from her like a snake that would bite her. Holding it with wide, horrified eyes like she couldn’t believe what she was looking at.

  The little bag of white powder I took from my parents’ house.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Why the fuck had I left it in there? I took it in order to get it away from my mother. She might have had her own addictions, but I still didn’t want her getting into that stuff. My intention had been to flush it down the toilet as soon as I got home. But I’d gone back to the shop that day and had stashed it in there in the meantime, completely forgetting about it until right then.

  Sage slowly turned her head to me, her expression fearful. A look you would give to a stranger, someone you hardly knew. Not good.

  “What is this?” she whispered.

  I hesitated a second and then found my words. “Sage—”

  “What is this!” It was a scream that time, a demand.

  I put my hands out in surrender. “Believe me, it isn’t what you think.”

  “It looks like drugs, Mason! Fucking drugs! Why is this in here?” She threw it on the floor in disgust, her face warning me not to touch her.

  “Just let me explain—”

  “Oh my God.” She met my eyes, looking at me as if she were afraid to hear the answers to her questions. “Was thi
s in here yesterday when we picked up Katie?”

  Fuck.

  There was no good answer to that. “I was going to get rid of it. It’s not for me—”

  “Oh my God,” she repeated and threw open the door.

  “Sage!”

  She bent down, pinning me in place with her furious expression. “If you want to get back into your old habits and ruin your life, that’s your choice. But when you bring it around any of my kids and put their lives in danger like that, that’s inexcusable.”

  She slammed the door shut and started walking back to her house. I rushed to open the door and follow her. “Sage, wait!”

  Strands of her hair fell out of the pencil as she spun back around to face me. “Stay away from me for a while, Mason. At least until I figure things out with Katie and…with us.”

  “Don’t do this, Sage.”

  “Let me think about things, okay? Just…leave me alone and let me think.”

  The last image I had of her before she closed the door on me and on us was her purple hair falling down her shoulders, loosening itself from the pencil’s hold. And as I reluctantly pulled out of her driveway, I told myself that I wasn’t going to let this happen again.

  I wasn’t going to lose the love of my life because of that poison.

  It didn’t get to come back into my life after five years and ruin everything again. Not fucking happening.

  I was not going to let that white powder take another damn thing away from me.

  No. More.

  I barely heard the ringing of my phone as I parked in front of the shop. I answered it as soon as I pulled it out of my pocket and saw Dawson’s name.

  “Hey, man. What’s up?”

  He sighed wearily. “Sal’s in the hospital.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sage

  There are times when I have so much anger inside me that it actually scares me a little.

  When it happens, heat spreads rapidly throughout my body and I start to literally shake with the desperate need to release the rage, though I never really know how. Sometimes I feel trapped inside my own head, forcing myself to control my thoughts, my reactions, my responses to everything. Whenever I think I have a handle on it and it’s improving, the darkness creeps back in and takes over, leaving me feeling helpless. It’s so overwhelming sometimes that I feel as if there may be something wrong with me.