“She has Alzheimer's.” I turn to Sage, and her face slightly drops as she watches me. “She didn't recognize me the night ofyour party and kept getting upset that I called her mom.” Like the first time I told her about my mom, it doesn't feel so hard. I just need to teach myself to come to her about it rather than her having to probe me about it because Iwantto tell her. I just don't know how.
“I'm so sorry, Liam.” She grabs my arm, and her touch alone makes every ache in me feel better.
“She's been sick since I was in college. Some days, she's really good, and other days, she's trying to stab her nurse.” The elevator suddenly feels smaller, but Sage gives my arm a reassuring squeeze, and her smile lifts the weight off my chest just a bit. “Her nurse is great, though; Moon also thinks so.”
She lets out a soft laugh, and I'm grateful the topic is lighter. The doors open before she can add anything, and when Moon walks in, I realize neither of us has pressed any of the buttons.
He watches Sage, and when I turn to her, she only nods.
“What are you guys doing?” I look between the two of them, but they both shrug, and they're both horrible liars. I decide to threaten not to get Moon a car later so he'll tell me.
By the time we get to the arcade, we realize they don’t have a parking lot, so they go in without me as I look for parking nearly forever. When I finally get in, it’s thankfully not too crowded, but I texted Moon asking where they were, and he didn’t respond, so I’m stuck searching for another ten minutes.
I finally spot Sage from across the room, and three guys are talking to her. I let out an annoyed breath and tell myself not to get upset over something so dumb, although they're so shamelessly checking out her titties.
“His English is no good.”
“No, don’t be silly! His English is great.” Sage laughs softly, and the two guys behind the one who's talking to her say something I can’t understand, but I’m sure they’re talking about her with the way their eyes roam her for too damn long.
“Beautiful.” One of them says as he gestures to Sage and I have to actually hold my hands behind my back not to grab him when he takes her hand and leans in, and kisses her dimple.Mydimple.
“Grazie!”
They cheer as if a two-year-old can’t say thank you in Italian, and I decide I hate Italy and their friendly men. The one I'm going to punch first, given the chance, gestures to the game in front of Sage.
“Pink?” He points at the huge pink dolphin, and when Sage confirms that she wants it, I almost push past them and pay for it, but he hands the girl his ticket, and when she hands him three baseballs, I let him embarrass himself first.
Only one of the balls hit the pins, but he needs to knock over all three towers to win. He gestures for her to wait, and when he gets three more balls and misses, his friends laugh and take a turn. The second one misses all three horribly, and they push him away, which makes Sage die of laughter. I don’t know what the hell is so funny about this, but even Moon laughs, and I’m not buying him a goddamn car after this, let alone two.
I take a step forward but remember what my therapist said. “I want to punch all of the guys in the fucking throat,” I verbalize and quickly realize this isn't working because I don't see what's wrong with that.
Then my eyes land on Sage, and I think about her reaction to that, and she'll be upset. I let out a breath and think of what I canresort my anger to.
When the guy next to Sage pays the girl another ticket, I walk over and take all three balls from her.
“Mi scusi?”
I ignore him as I throw the first ball into the tower of pins, and they crash so hard that one pin hits the second tower which makes it fall. I throw the second ball at the last tower, and it fallsjust as quickly. The girl hands me the dolphin, and I turn on my heels.
All of the boys stare at me, and I shove the last ball into the chest of the one who kissed her before wrapping an arm around Sage’s waist and walking away.Hmm, I guess my therapist was onto something.
“That was a bit unnecessary…”
“Punching them in the throat would’ve been unnecessary. Be happy you got a dolphin in peace.”
She pushes my arm off of her as she turns to me. “We're going back to no talking.”
I shove the dolphin into her arms before she can walk off, the remainder of my patience slowly evaporating. “Fine by me; one more thing, though. You maythinkwe’re not together, Sage, but you’re not available.Nothingabout that was funny, so stop giggling at every man who looks at you because I don't have any more coping strategies in me tonight.”
She looks confused about my last part before sherollsher eyes. “I’m very available.”
“Sage Loana–”
“I’mavailablefor any man Iwant.”
I glance over at Moon and silently tell him to tell me this is a joke and another one of his ways to piss me off, but he only puts his hands up in mock surrender before taking a few steps away, and I lean down so I’m at eye level with her.
“That was me playing nice, beloved. There’s still plenty of time for me to turn around and put him in a coma for kissing you, so watch that pretty mouth of yours and do not test me.”
