Page 14
CHAPTER 13
YOU DON’T LIKE SPICY
SAGE
Sage blinked awake slowly. She was warm, comfortable, and… fuck . She was definitely not in her bed.
Untangling her arms and legs from the soft blanket that covered her, she sat up, taking in her surroundings as she tried to get her brain functioning. Gray sectional couch, framed posters on the wall, a big TV on a dark wood shelf, a table covered in papers and game boards…Oh.
She was in David Hughes’ apartment.
Her car, then the food, then the game tape, and then pulling his stupidly soft shirt on and not being able to keep her eyes open a moment longer.
She stood up slowly, wiggling her toes into the carpet. The living room and kitchen were empty, and based on the bright sun that shone in around the closed blinds, it was already later than she usually slept in.
Down the hall, she could make out the sounds of muted shouts and shoes squeaking on the court coming from behind a closed door. She glanced over at the time displayed on the microwave. 8:15am . Was he seriously watching more game tape? On a Saturday morning?
Sage walked toward the closed door, pausing for a second to look down at herself. David’s t-shirt was big enough that it reached her mid-thigh — decent enough. She was braless, too, but having been born a member of the itty bitty titty committee made it a non-issue.
Thanks for that, Mom.
“David?” she called out as she knocked twice.
“Come in.”
Sage opened the door, finding a home office. A futon couch was shoved up against one wall, a folding white table was covered in more papers, empty water bottles and mugs, and two white boards were mounted on the wall facing the couch. They were covered in David’s neat, printed handwriting — numbers, names, and plays sketched in the margins.
David sat on the futon, with Daisy curled up on his lap. A legal pad balanced on one knee, and his laptop sat open on a chair in front of him. More gametape played: this time their match up with College of Newport from earlier that week.
For a moment, she just watched him. His dark brows were drawn down low over his eyes as he watched the game, and he worried his bottom lip with his teeth. Square, black-framed glasses were balanced on his prominent nose, and fuck if he didn’t look good with those on. His beard was starting to tuft out unevenly along his jaw, like it might have been a few days since he last paid any attention to his reflection in a mirror.
He looked anxious and occupied, and Sage thought that if one more thing was added to the invisible weight he seemed to carry he might collapse.
“Morning,” Sage said, unsure of how to approach him. There was something profoundly intimate about being in his home with him, leaving her with a feeling of uncertainty that she wasn’t used to.
David blinked up at her, like he’d forgotten that he’d invited her in. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”
“No, you’re fine.” She moved to sit on the edge of the couch, and saw the exact moment when David noticed her bare legs. His brows shot up and she could feel his gaze tracing her exposed skin like a touch. Settling in on the couch, she tucked one of her legs up under her, very aware of the way he tracked every movement. “You’re back at it early,” she commented, pointing over at the laptop.
David shot her a pained smile as one of his hands started to absently scratch at Daisy’s ears. “I have to figure this out. I’ve got to turn this around for them.”
“What are your plans for today?”
“You’re looking at it,” he said with a low chuckle.
Sage should go home. It was the weekend, and she had stuff to do. She’d undoubtedly overstayed her welcome, and while David was being incredibly nice and gracious about her being there, it would be good to put some space between them. Wearing his clothes, sharing meals, and sleeping on his couch were not going to help her valiant attempts to shut down the way her body fucking screamed for him.
“Let’s go for a walk.” She stood up, and her movement woke Daisy, whose tail immediately started thumping against David’s wide thigh.
“What?” The look David gave her was exasperated, like what she was suggesting was ridiculous.
“You need to go outside. Your dog needs to go outside. It’s a Saturday, and there’s nothing for you to do until practice on Monday.”
There was a hint of a smile on David’s lips. “You’re very bossy, Lefty.”
Sage snorted. “Come on. Get up and put on some clothes.” She glanced down at her own attire. “Mind if I wear the t-shirt?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Not at all.” David picked up a wriggling Daisy, setting her down on the floor. Immediately she raced for the door, her collar jingling and golden tail wagging behind her. “There’s coffee in the pot in the kitchen if you want some,” he said as he walked toward his bedroom.
“I don’t drink coffee, but thank you.”
David turned to face her fully, disbelief on his face. “What do you drink in the morning?” He frowned. “Are you a smoothie girl? I think I have some frozen strawberries…”
“Tea,” Sage said with a quiet laugh. “Earl Gray with milk and honey.”
“What kind of milk?”
“Whole.”
David nodded, thoughtful, like he was carefully committing her response to memory before disappearing into his room. Sage went and brushed her teeth with the borrowed toothbrush again before pulling on her jeans and tucking the front of the t-shirt in. She took out her braid, running her fingers through the tangles before pulling it up into a ponytail. Daisy danced around her feet, yipping excitedly, sensing that the humans were about to go do something.
“Are you sure you have the time to do this?” David asked, emerging from his room dressed in a t-shirt and basketball shorts. It was a painfully normal outfit, and yet on him it looked almost obscene — his built, hairy legs, his wide arms and chest straining against the cotton of his shirt.
Sage shook her head. “I’ve got nothing planned today,” she said. It wasn’t entirely true, but delaying the start of her to-do list seemed like the most obvious thing in the world.
David got Daisy fastened in her harness and leash, and he held the door open for Sage as they walked outside.
It was a calm morning. The air was fresh and still, while still maintaining the slight coolness that held over from the night before. They walked side by side with Daisy prancing ahead of them, using every bit of the reach of the leash to sniff at the grass on either side of the sidewalk.
“Thanks for this,” David said, his voice soft, almost hesitant.
Sage looked up at him. “It’s a nice way to start a morning,” she replied. “In California, my mom would get us up every morning before school with enough time to go for a walk. We don’t have a lot of land around the house, but we would go and look at all of the plants, checking in on what was blooming or dying or changing color.” She smiled, feeling a rare wave of missing home. “I still like to run outside when I can.”
“Me too. A treadmill just isn’t the same as running outside.”
“And yet you still use plastic water bottles.”
David huffed a laugh, shaking his head. Quiet settled between them. “This is weird.”
“What do you mean?” She kept her voice carefully calm, even as her shoulders stiffened.
“This,” he said, gesturing between the two of them. “Hanging out with you. It’s —” He paused, obviously struggling to find the words to express himself. “It’s nice, Sage. It’s really damn nice.”
“Oh,” she said, something softening in her.
“But the team, and the work.” He reached a hand up to scratch at his jaw. “It’s just weird, because the more time that I spend with you the more I realize that I like you, and I actually want to hang out with you. And that’s all fine, except for the fact that you’re also beautiful and confident and my goddamn brain can’t seem to get the memo that you’re off limits.” He shot her a pained glance. “You’re a student, you’re young, and I’m your superior in a professional environment, and that all matters, Sage. I won’t be the guy who pretends like it means nothing.”
Oh .
Sage opened and closed her mouth, but she couldn’t find a single word to follow up what David had just said.
“Damnit, Sage.” He scrubbed his hands over his face before dropping them down to his sides and letting out a strained laugh. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Before she could stop herself, Sage reached out and grabbed David’s forearm, pulling him to a stop. “Don’t apologize,” she said, wishing that her voice sounded stronger, more confident. But what he’d said had shaken her. She hadn’t been expecting any of it. She’d known the attraction was there, sure, but the rest of it? “I appreciate the honesty,” she added, and it was the truth. She’d asked for him to explain himself, and he had.
She just hadn’t anticipated that response.
Gently, David pulled his arm out of her grip. For a moment, her fingers chased him, not yet ready to give up his touch. He shot a sad smile her way. “Want to head over to the office and grab your key? They should be open by now.”
Sage could only nod, and fell into step with David as he wound his way through the shaded buildings to the front office. David waited outside with Daisy while she went in and got a new key.
“All set,” she said, holding up the key as she rejoined them outside. She knelt down to scratch at Daisy’s ears, glancing up at David. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his posture stiff as he watched her.
“I’ll let you get on with your weekend, then.” David tugged at Daisy’s leash, starting to back away toward his apartment. “And…I’m sorry. What I said was out of line, and, well, yeah. I’m sorry.”
For the second time that day, Sage found herself presented with a chance to walk away. Except now there was the added weight of David’s words between them. She really should go.
But she had a feeling that if she left him now, whatever door he’d opened with his honesty would be shut. And while she hadn’t quite figured out how to respond, she knew with absolute certainty that she wanted to say something.
“Want to come up to my place for breakfast?”
What the fuck, Sage?
David looked as surprised as she felt. “Are you sure?” he asked, caution in his voice.
Sage nodded, warming up to the idea. She had plenty of groceries, and cooking was something she did well. It would be a good way to even the playing field between them after all of David’s generosity.
Sure. That was why she wanted to cook for him.
“For sure.” She turned in the direction of her apartment, hearing the crunch of David’s shoes against the sidewalk as he followed her. “And Daisy is invited too,” she said, grinning back over her shoulder.
“I…okay,” she heard David say as he followed her.
She still wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing, but something about the idea of the sad, subdued David that she’d seen in the last twelve hours sitting alone in his apartment didn’t feel right to her.
“Come on in,” she said as she pushed open the door. Her blinds were all open, and the white walls practically glowed in the sunlight. Her plants had taken well to the new environment, many of them sporting new growth — vines or leaves that stretched out toward the windows.
Daisy pranced about once she was off of her leash, and Sage went right to the kitchen to fill up a bowl of water for her. David followed quietly behind her, and when he saw what she was doing he thanked her.
“No problem,” Sage said. Opening her fridge, she called out behind her, “Any food allergies or things you don’t like? Other than spicy. I know you don’t like spicy.”
“You remember that?”
Sage turned around, finding David watching her carefully. “Yes, David. Of course I remember the conversation with the hot man at the bar who is now standing in my kitchen.”
David let out a huff of a laugh. “No allergies and I’ll eat whatever.” After a moment, he added: “Can I help?”
Sage got David set up with a cutting board, and within ten minutes a big pan of scrambled eggs, bacon, and veggies was sizzling on her stove. He was a bit awkward with a knife and the pieces he cut were anything but uniform in size, but he got the job done.
“So that’s a no on the granola,” he said, eyeing the scramble as he stirred it.
Sage let out a loud laugh. “There’s nothing wrong with granola, but I’m worthless without meat in the morning.”
He nodded in response, eyes darting over to where she warmed the tortillas on the stove, flipping them after a few seconds on the open range.
“Impressive,” David commented as she quickly flipped another tortilla from the stove to a plate.
“It’s really not.” Sage had grown up cooking with her mom, and flipping scalding hot tortillas with her bare hands was practically second nature at that point in her life. “Turn that off, and let’s eat.”
David watched Sage assemble her breakfast tacos, copying how she sprinkled grated cheese and chopped cilantro on top. When he went to add the hot sauce, Sage grabbed his wrist, stopping his movement.
“This will kill you,” she told him, taking the bottle away from him.
“It can’t be that hot,” David said disbelievingly, obviously not taking her warning seriously.
“I promise that it is,” she replied, sliding the bottle down the counter away from them. “I eat it almost every morning and it still makes my eyes water and my nose run. It’s brutal.”
“So why do you eat it?”
Sage led the way to her small table, sitting down with her tea and plate. David sat across from her, his body looking bigger than usual folded into one of her chairs. “The flavor is unreal, and the burn is worth it,” she said, shrugging before taking her first bite, humming at the perfect combination of flavors.
There was nothing in the world like breakfast tacos.
“This is the greatest thing I’ve ever eaten.” David was looking down at his plate like his mind had just been blown. “Seriously, how did you make this?”
Sage felt the sides of her neck flush. “You literally just helped me cook. You put stuff in the pan and stir it. That’s it.”
David scoffed, arching a thick brow at her. “Sage, if I tried to make this by myself the entire complex would be on fire.”
“You can’t be that bad at cooking.”
“No, I’m really that bad,” David said after swallowing another bite. “My mom tried to teach me, but I’m worthless. I can bake chicken, boil pasta, make toast, and fry eggs. That’s it.”
“What a cliche,” she teased, kicking out her foot under the table until she connected with his leg. “The young, successful bachelor who doesn’t know how to cook for himself.”
David laughed, a low, rich chuckle that reminded Sage of the night they met. There was an easy smile on his face, wrinkling the skin at the corners of his dark brown eyes. Then his gaze narrowed in on the vase of flowers that sat in the center of the table. The blue glass vase held a bouquet of orange, red, and pink dahlias she’d found at the farmer’s market the previous week.
“Who got you the flowers?”
“I did.”
David tilted his head. It obviously wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting. “You buy yourself flowers?”
Sage let out a quiet sigh. She hated having to explain things like this, the little parts of her life where she took her own happiness out of the hands of the world. “I love flowers, so why would I wait around for someone else to buy them for me when I can get them for myself?”
She watched David, who looked at the bouquet with a thoughtful expression on his face. After a moment, he looked up at her with a smile. “Makes perfect sense to me,” he said, and his voice was so kind that Sage felt the sudden burn of tears in her eyes.
She looked down, blinking furiously until she’d regained control over herself.
What the fuck, Sage?
David must have sensed not to press the topic, because he shifted the conversation to the team, asking Sage’s opinion on one of their conference opponents.
It was too easy to forget who David was. As they ate breakfast tacos in her brightly lit kitchen, he was just a beautiful man who shared her passion for basketball and scratched absently at his beard as he listened attentively to every word she said.
When they finished eating, David cleared his throat, rising from the table and reaching over to gather up Sage’s empty plate. “Dishwasher?” he asked as he carried the plates to the kitchen.
“Yeah, that’s fine,” she said, although she usually hand-washed when it was just her.
David busied himself tidying the kitchen, a focused frown on his face as he searched for where to put away the salt and pepper shakers.
“Those can stay on the counter,” Sage offered, leaning against the counter and definitely not looking at his ass. Definitely not.
“I should head home.” David wiped his hands on the colorful batik towel that hung from the handle of her oven. He whistled, and Daisy came prancing over from where she’d been curled up on a blanket that Sage had folded into a makeshift bed. Scooping up the wriggling dog, he gave her a kiss on the top of her head before turning to smile at Sage. “Breakfast was amazing, thank you.” He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but then closed it, shaking his head with a quiet chuckle. “I was going to offer to return the favor, but I’ll spare you the pain of suffering through my cooking.”
Sage snorted a soft laugh in response. “You’re welcome anytime,” she said, the offer completely sincere. She liked having David in her home. More accurately, she liked David.
“What you said earlier,” she blurted out, not entirely sure what she was going to say even as her mouth was opening and forming the words. “You too. I mean, me too.” She felt her cheeks flood with heat. “Fuck. I mean that I like being around you too. And your ass is perfect. Literally perfect.”
David looked at her, wide eyed and blinking, like he wasn’t sure what to say.
“So we should be friends,” Sage continued. “Friends who hang out and eat together. Who find the other attractive. People do that, right?” She took a breath. “What do you say?”
David nodded. “That…that would be good.”
Sage sighed, surprised at the relief she felt hearing David’s agreement.
“I’m going to head out,” David said, nodding his head toward the front door. “Thanks again for breakfast.”
“And thank you for everything with the car,” Sage replied.
She followed him to the front of her apartment, standing aside as he opened the door.
“David?”
“Hm?” He turned back to look at her, Daisy’s blonde head poking out above his shoulder.
“Give it time. The guys are going to get there.”
She didn’t need to explain that she was talking about the team. David shot her a sad smile, and then walked away.