“I’m scared,” he said softly, sniffing. “Scared of loving someone, of loving you so much that…” he trailed off and closed his eyes and I felt my posture soften and ease in the face of his raw honesty. A little boy’s pain trapped in a man’s body. Ignored, unhealed.
Sage had been through so much, and while I hadn’t been around for all of it, I’d been in the background, heart breaking for him, for enough of it.
“It’s okay to be scared. You can’t have bravery without fear,” I reminded him, and he looked up at me.
“You don’t think I’m a punk-ass bitch?” he asked.
I shook my head and couldn’t fathom smiling at a moment like this.
How incredibly heartbreaking.
I wished sometimes that the MC life wasn’t so steeped in toxic masculinity, but it was sort of the nature of things. What got me was that most of the guys, older and younger alike, wouldn’t judge. A few, maybe, but a lot of them would understand.
I bent and placed my trembling lips against his and he sighed out, relaxing in my lap, his hand coming up to cup the side of my face gently as he returned the kiss.
He was hurting, desperate for something good, desperate to be accepted and loved again. I mean, I know it wasn’t the same, that nothing would or could ever replace Maren, but maybe I could be that for him now?
“Sage, I have always loved and accepted you for who you are. The soft bits, the hard bits, all of it,” I murmured.
“I think I realize that now,” he said, gazing up at me.
I smiled gently and said, “I’m not going to suddenly stop now, simply because you’re hurting, simply because you’re having a hard time.”
He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, sighing out in what I think was relief.
“I shouldn’t be relying on you so hard right now,” he whispered. “It should be me that you turn to, like in your letters that I never fucking answered. I can’t tell you how much I regret that now.”
“I don’t. I mean, I wanted to keep in touch with you, sure,” I shrugged slightly, “but if we’re being honest, at some point, I stopped writing them for you and started writing them for me. I didn’t know if you read them, I didn’t even care after a while. It just felt good to even pretend to be heard.”
“Oh, baby,” he murmured, raising a hand to cup my cheek again. I closed my eyes and turned my face into the touch. “I heard you. I smiled with you and I hurt with you. I held you in my thoughts and wished for you. I just felt like I couldn’t really do a fucking thing about any of it.”
I nodded and sniffed, getting misty-eyed myself.
“I love you,” I whispered, and he smiled up at me.
“I think I love you too,” he said. “I mean, I think I’ve loved you for a long time. A lot longer than I was even willing to admit to myself.”
The anxiety was clear on his face as the confession left his lips.
“It’s okay,” I murmured and kissed him again. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
It was awkward, bending like this to put my lips against his with him lying on my lap, but I didn’t care. My back could scream. I wanted to kiss and reassure my man.
16
Sage…
She was my garden of Eden. Her parents had named her so fucking appropriately. Her kiss as I lay in her lap confessing all my fucking secrets healed some of this fractured ache I’d been carrying around in my chest for so long.
I wanted her so badly, then. So fiercely, but there were way too many fuckin’ people around. I was a private man when it came to my intimacy. I felt caught out and sort of embarrassed that Rush had come in when he did, but at the same time… I was kind of grateful for that, too. I mean, we both hurt. We both still hurt. We probably could start helping each other instead of suffering in our own private pains.
I sat up and sighed. Eden smiled at me, my own personal angel, and asked, “Which one do you want to start with?” She waved a hand over the two ornament boxes.
“That tree’s not going to take them all,” I said dubiously, and she smiled.
“Probably not,” she said, looking at the poor tree with affection. The spindly fucked-up thing made her heart happy, like me somehow, against all odds.
“What about this one?” she asked, picking up what I presumed was her favorite out of the lot.
“What about that one?” I asked with a smile.
“I think it’s my favorite,” she said blushing, and I cocked my head.
“Why?”
“I love the purple,” she said, and I nodded. It was made from a solid chunk of purple heartwood.
“You know that’s the actual wood, right? Not dyed or stained or anything,” I said.
“Nuh-uh!” She didn’t believe me.
“It’s true, ask Rush or Chandler the next time you see them. You bake it in the oven and the heat brings out more of the purple.”
“Seriously?” she asked, taking it to the tree and hanging it on one of the branches.
“Dead serious,” I said, picking up another. I sighed. “This was Nox’s favorite.”
It was a mixed one – a light pine ball, the spindly pieces coming off the top and bottom, some deep, dark wood that was almost black. The real spectacular part was that Rush had somehow inlaid like a knot-work pattern of the dark wood into the lighter wood ball at the ornament’s center. It was impressive and truthfully had been my favorite, too.
“It’s beautiful,” Eden said, taking it from me.
“I think it’s my favorite, too,” I confessed, and she smiled at that.
“What about Maren’s favorite?” she asked softly.
I smiled and picked up the first one Rush had ever given her.
“It will always be this one,” I said. “She loved this one like no other.”
“How come?” she asked.
“Because it was the first,” I said. “Mare had a thing about firsts. I think it’s why I wanted to do this with you,” I said.
“Decorate a Christmas tree?” she asked, and I glanced up at her, her mouth a small ‘o’ of confusion that was utterly adorable.
“Decorate our first Christmas tree together,” I answered.
She smiled then, and it was so beautiful, so dynamic, my heart tripped all over itself in my chest.
“Here’s to a lot of firsts,” she murmured and hung the ornament.
She asked about every single one. About the story behind it, or what kind of wood, and with every single one we hung, I had a reminder of my sister – of her laugh, of her smile, of her beautiful face as she looked at Nox the way Eden looked at me now.
And somehow, by the time we hung the eighth and final ornament on the tree, I felt better. The memories of my sister, of the man who had become my surprising father figure in the wake of my own father’s death, didn’t hurt so much. I even smiled at a few of them.
Eden stood with me, the little tree aglow with the white little lights, its branches laden with the ornaments we could get on it without over burdening them. It was beautiful in its simplicity.
I took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “Thank you for doing this with me,” I said, and she smiled up at me.