Page 10 of Reckless Abandon
There were close to twenty people in the courtroom, including those who work in the court system and other attorneys who were awaiting their clients’ hearings. I stood up on shaky legs, assisting London with a gentle grip on her elbow. The room suddenly felt like the air had been syphoned from it and I found it hard to breathe.
If Sage didn’t get bail, or my dad couldn’t afford to post his bond, I didn’t know what we’d do. Or how London would be able to handle it. Or how Sage would survive it.
If Sage was remanded to jail, I couldn’t bear it.
He was part of our lives for thirteen years. I didn’t know who I was without Sage and London in my orbit. I knew I couldn’t live without him. I’d suffocate and die without them.
The gavel’s harshthudrang out and snatched me from my reverie. We sat down and I kept close tabs on the back of Sage’s head. Geoff leaned over to Sage and whispered something in his ear and Sage gave a curt nod. From the angle in which his face was visible to me, I could see the tight-lipped expression demonstrating his mood.
Solemn.
Angry.
Scared.
Alone.
Goddamn it. Had I pushed for Sage to come to prom with us, this would never have happened. The only reason I didn’t was because I was a selfish bastard and I’d wanted London all to myself at the dance. I didn’t want to share her that night and wanted her alone for as long as I could have her. So, when Sage told us he had to work that night and that he would meet us later at the hotel, I was thrilled because it meant London would be mine alone for a few hours.
I loved Sage – maybe more than I’d ever admitted to him. When we’d all been together sexually, it turned me on to greater heights with just the way he looked at me and watched us with that unapologetic heat in his gaze. Or the brief brushes of his skin against mine. Or the way he allowed me to let go when he took charge. It was so fucking hot.
But I also wanted to know what it was like to be one on one with London. How it felt not to have to share her with Sage.
I blinked and cleared my mind of the hot thoughts and memories that swirled in my head, covertly adjusting my dick that had grown semi-hard with the erotic memories.
All I knew for certain was that the outcome of that hearing better be a positive one so that Sage could come home with us.
Because I wanted more time with him before I had to ship off to boot camp.
Chapter 7
Present Day
What the fuck was I even doing here?
I’d literally just been grieving the death of my younger sister the last week, offering my mom what little comfort I could give as we mourned together. Holding her as we stood at her gravesite where Jeanine’s body was buried next to my father’s grave.
And now here I am, sitting next to London in my old beat-up truck outside the gates of a beautiful historic mansion twenty-minutes outside of Nashville. Sage’s home for the last three years, according to London. The one he bought with his first earnings after making it big as an alt-country crooner.
It seemed like a far-fetched fairytale, one of thoseLifetimemovies where the convicted felon turns into a big-time rock star in the course of ten years. But it’s reality, as if the time Sage spent in the state penitentiary was completely expunged and ignored by his legions of fans and it didn’t matter to any of them. He was revered like a modern-day Jonny Cash. The man in black.
But Sage wasn’t in Folsom, he was locked up in the Smoky Mountain state correctional facility for three years. An inmate in a prison full of murderers, rapists and child predators. All of which he was not.
It still makes me sick to think about it. All the while he was locked up and unable to live his life in freedom, I was far away fighting for freedom and doing a great job messing up my own life.
After begrudgingly saying yes to London’s favor to visit Sage in Nashville, I left Taylor with my mother for the night as London texted Sage and asked if she could stop by and see him. He’d responded within an hour giving her the green light. What London conveniently failed to mention was that I’d be tagging along with her.
I can’t wait to see how this goes down.
Landscaping lights illuminated the heavy wrought-iron fence – likely there to keep creepers and stalkers out of his home – as we idled at the front waiting to be buzzed in.
“You sure about this?” I asked, turning to London who stares out the front of the truck. “We still have time to back out.”
Her beauty strikes me like a right hook to the jaw, the shadows dancing across the slope of her nose and the slight subtle curve of her forehead. She is flawless, and it stuns me that she doesn’t have a boyfriend or husband. Some lucky bastard who by now should’ve swept her off her feet and treated her like the Queen that she is.
On the other hand, I’m selfishly thankful she isn’t attached to anyone. Mostly because jealousy is an evil beast that tears through my gut with its sharp talons and fire-breathing breath whenever I think of her with someone else. All the feelings that I never let go of and harbored over the years have resurfaced with a vengeance. It’s made me realize that maybe under different circumstances, we could start something together. Rekindle our old relationship.
That is, of course, dependent on her feelings toward Sage and vice versa. She’d told me about their casual hookups over the years. How she fell into a pattern she called, “hopefulness and lies,” where she’d hoped that Sage would stick around and love her the way she knew he could and believing his promises to remain sober and faithful.
