AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I nodded slowly. “You threw me, but I pulled the door shut.”
I waved him off before he said anything else. I couldn’t do this here. It was too big to have over half-eaten donuts with nosy security guards pretending they weren’t watching from their desks. “You should get Sage home. I’m sure Carly and Mike want to see her with their own eyes.”
He gave me a good long stare before rapping his knuckles on the table. “If I text, will you reply?”
“I will.”
Another curt nod. Jake wasn’t giving anything away. “I’ll be in touch.” He didn’t say when, and I didn’t ask. I’d probably lost that right when I’d left him hanging for so long.
As he got up to walk away, I caught Sage’s wide eyes. “Jake?”
He turned back. “Yeah?”
“Go easy on her, okay? I know she scared the hell out of you—”
“Don’t worry about Sage. We’ve got her taken care of.”
With those sharp, parting words, he collected his daughter, arm circling her narrow shoulders, and led her out of the building…and what felt like my life.
Before I trudged back upstairs, I grabbed the rest of my donut. This wasn’t one of those times chocolate cured everything, but the taste of it brought me back to my mother holding me and telling me everything was going to be all right. I needed a little bit of that right now.
Chapter Forty-four
Jake
Jeremy was sitting on my porch when I pulled into my driveway after dropping Sage off at her mom’s.
I hadn’t spoken to him since I’d walked out of our building two weeks ago. Seeing him brought on an onslaught of mixed emotions, dread being the biggest.
I was a big fucking hypocrite. I’d managed to be angry at Clara for avoiding having a conversation when I’d been doing the exact same thing with my brother. He’d texted, called, showed up at my place, and I’d turned my back. First, because I’d been so damn mad at him, then it had come down to not wanting to vocalize the decision I’d made the moment he’d asked me to pick him and MZ over Clara.
I walked up the porch steps warily. Jeremy stood, his movements creaky, like he’d been there a while. He probably had. I’d called him when Sage had gone missing on the off chance she’d gone to see him or Anne.
“Sage is at Carly’s?” he asked.
“Yep.” I unlocked the door, leaving it open for Jeremy to follow me in. I was just about wrung out from that hour between Sage’s school notifying us she was absent and the call from Clara, but it was time to face this.
“She’s okay?”
“She is. Grounded but no worse for wear.”
He chuffed. “I bet you and Carly can’t say the same.”
“No, we can’t.”
I didn’t stop walking when I reached the kitchen, only paused to grab a beer then headed out to the deck. If this was going to happen, it’d be over an icy drink with my favorite view as the background.
Jeremy took the seat beside me, his own beer in hand. For a while, we were just two brothers, sipping from our bottles, watching the sun go down.
Jer spoke first, but not about what I’d expected. “Sage went to Clara.”
“Kid loves her. I made a decision that has kept them apart.”
Clara hadn’t helped, but I wasn’t mad at her anymore. Now that I’d seen her in the flesh, the tears in her eyes, the way she’d gripped the table with all her might… Her fear had been palpable, but she’d still asked me to go easy on Sage because she cared about my girl.
I’d dropped my anger, replacing it with a determination to bring us all back together where we belonged.
“Right.” Jer’s head dropped. “A decision I asked you to make.”
