Page 130 of What We Become

“I can. I did.” I draw her back into motion, slow, swaying. “Sage, I spent years learning how to be what people need and leave before they needed too much. You’re the first woman I wanted to stay for. The only one.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, her cheek pressed near my shoulder, and I feel her breathing slow, feel her let something go. When she speaks again, her voice is smaller than I’ve heard it in weeks.

“I keep waiting for you to realize I’m too much work.”

I pull back enough to see her face. “Baby girl.” The words come out rough, almost broken. “You could never be too much. You could be nothing but work, and I’d still want every exhausting, complicated, beautiful piece of you.”

Her eyes shine, wet and silver in the low light, and she blinks fast like she’s fighting it. I don’t tell her not to cry. I just hold her closer, one hand at the small of her back, and keep us moving through the song.

“You’re not smooth,” she whispers finally, a faint smile breaking through. “You’re devastating. The whole world leans into you.”

“I’ll take devastating.”

She tries to roll her eyes, but she can’t quite pull it off with my hands holding her. “I feel selfish sometimes. I get five men and you get one-fifth of me. And I know you have Eli, but even though we’ve all agreed to this and moved in because we want to be a family, I still worry I’m not enough. Or that I’m too much trouble. I mean, look at the mess all our lives have become. I feel like you give so much and get so little.”

I lean down until my forehead rests against hers. “You aren’t a pie we divide into fifths. I get Eli. I get you. I get to come home and find both of you there, along with three assholes I’d trust with my life. Tell me which part of that is supposed to feel like less.”

Her hands tighten behind my neck.

“I don’t want an easier version of you, and I don’t want less. I want the woman who steals fruit from my drink, gets jealous when other women look at me, and went back to the diner today even though it scared the shit out of her.”

Her eyes turn bright, but her mouth curves. “You had to make it a feelings party.”

“Just a little one.” The song ends. There’s half-hearted applause, then the band picks up a faster tune, and the dance floor thins out. Sage pulls me toward the edge of the room, weaving us through the crowd until we find a shadowed corner near the end of the bar, away from the main lights and the blur of bodies. Her back hits the wall gently, and she pulls me in close, her fingers curling into my shirt as she rises on her toes. I don’t wait—I lean down and kiss her, deep and immediate, tasting the mint and gin on her tongue, the heat of her mouth opening under mine like she’s been holding back all night.

It’s not soft. Not a gentle dance-floor version. This is hunger, her hands sliding up my chest, nails scraping lightly over my skin through the fabric, and I press in harder, one hand bracing the wall beside her head, the other gripping her hip. She makes this low sound against my lips, half moan, half gasp, and it sends fire straight through me. I deepen the kiss, my body pinning hers to the wall, feeling her arch into me, the way her breath hitches when I nip at her bottom lip.

“God, Micah,” she whispers when I break away enough to trail my mouth down her neck, sucking at the pulse point where her heartbeat kicks against my tongue. Her hands tangle in my hair, pulling me closer, and I can feel her leg hooking around mine, grinding against me in a way that makes my control fray at every edge.

The bar noise fades. The band, the glasses, the laughter—all of it drops to a distant hum. My hand slides up her thigh, bunching her skirt, and the heat of her skin under my palm makes my breath catch. She’s warm everywhere. Alive everywhere. The woman who stood behind a counter all day and didn’t flinch is now pressing herself against me in a dark corner of a bar, her fingers slipping under my shirt, tracing my stomach, lower, teasing the waistband of my jeans without giving a shit about subtlety.

“Need you,” I mutter into her skin, voice rough. “Right now.”

She nods, fast and breathless, her hands already at my belt. The buckle gives under her fingers, and I have to physically stop myself from taking her right here against this wall in front of a bar full of strangers and a band that’s still playing like the world hasn’t narrowed to a single point of contact.

“Not here,” I manage, though every part of me protests the decision. I grab her hand and pull her toward the side exit, weaving through bodies and noise, and she follows with that half-laugh, half-gasp that tells me she’s as far gone as I am.

The door slams behind us, muting the music to a bass thump through the wall. The alley is narrow, lit by a single bulb above the exit, and the dumpster is far enough away that I can pretend this is romantic.

Sage doesn’t wait. She grabs my shirt and backs herself against the brick, eyes dark, mouth swollen from kissing.

“Here good?” she asks, breathless and grinning.

“Yeah.” I brace one hand beside her head. Her shoulder blades are flat against brick, and she doesn’t flinch. She picked the spot. Six weeks ago a man sealed her into a wall, and tonight she put her own back against one because she wanted to. I kiss her again, slower, as her hands slide beneath my shirt.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” she murmurs.

I pull her hips flush against mine, and she rolls against me.

“Micah.” My name comes out low and breathless. “I want you inside me.”

That’s all I need.

I push her skirt to her waist and slide her underwear down her thighs. She kicks them off, and I pocket them.

“Did you seriously pocket my underwear?”

“Of course. They’re mine now.”