Don't Go L.J. Breedlove (books to read fiction TXT) 📖

ordered, refusing to admit it was in part because he still didn’t have a shirt on. What was it with her tonight? “Get something to drink from the fridge or something.”

“Would you like tea?” he asked, as he obediently headed into the kitchen, an acknowledgement he’d noticed her evening ritual.

“That would be great,” she said. “Chamomile?”

The piece was good. And funny in spots. Poignant in others. Her heart broke with the mother whose kid went to the school. She’d gotten gassed and had been throwing up. Cage had gotten her to the ambulance for treatment before he got arrested. She kept saying over and over that she had almost brought her son. Just putting signs made by children on a fence.  What could go wrong?

She swallowed hard. What indeed?

“It’s good, Cage,” she said, and heard/felt him relax. “I’ll send it over.”

He collapsed into the big chair, like the air had gone out of him. “I’m done,” he said. “Maybe I’ll just sleep right here.”

“Adrenaline,” she told him. “You’ve been running on it. Best fuel there is. Until it’s gone.”

“Damn right it’s gone,” he said, and just that quick he was out.

Sarah wheeled herself into her room — Cage’s room that he’d given up for her — and found a blanket. She wheeled back out and spread it over him.

She checked her email, read the one from Emily saying that was it for the night. And then she went to bed.

She’d miss this when she went back to the residence hall. She was going to miss this a lot.

Chapter 18

11 a.m. Sunday morning, Cage and Corey’s apartment — Corey was up. That was a surprise. And he’d made coffee. Cage took a cautious sip. And that was the third surprise: it was drinkable. Cage eyed his cup. “Sarah?”

Corey rolled his eyes. “I am capable of making coffee,” he said. “But yes, she made it. Dad called. We’re expected for lunch at 1 p.m. after services. Or we can come to the services, I suppose.”

“I’d like to hear your Dad preach some time,” Sarah said from behind him. He turned and handed her his cup and fixed another one for himself. She took a sip and sighed with pleasure. Cage had seen women orgasm with less emotion.

What was wrong with him? Sarah had all but announced she was gay the minute she entered the newsroom. Set Ryan back, she had. He tried not to smile at the memory. And here he was having sex thoughts? About a gay woman? He needed to get laid.

“You’re invited to lunch, too,” Corey told her. “Although you probably have a choice. We don’t.”

“Why would I not want to go?” Sarah asked, sounding genuinely puzzled. Of course, they weren’t her parents.

“What should we take?” she asked, looking in the refrigerator. “I could make a salad, I think.”

“Take?” Corey said, exaggerating his reaction. “We show up. Isn’t that enough?”

Cage laughed.

“Mom would probably appreciate a salad,” he told her. “But Corey is right. We usually just show up.”

“I’ll take a salad. Maybe your mom will be less skeptical of me,” she muttered as she pulled out stuff.

“What’s that mean?” Cage asked.

“Your parents — especially your mom — have been inundated with new people who have undefined roles in their sons’ lives. She is skeptical of my intentions,” Sarah said. “And I don’t think it will help matters if I explain that I’m gay.”

“No!” the two chorused together. “I mean,” Corey trailed off. He looked at Cage.

“To be honest? I’m not sure what my parents would think of that,” Cage admitted. “But Dad is a Baptist preacher.”

“And what they don’t know won’t hurt them?” Sarah said with a laugh. She brought the cutting board down onto the handles of her chair and proceeded to dice produce. Corey and Cage just watched for a moment.

“Do they think you’re virgins or something?” she asked.

Cage choked. “Jesus, Sarah, you just blurt things out, don’t you?”

She shrugged. “Curiosity. It’s the journalists’ sin of choice. Have either of you ever brought a girl home?”

“Well, Emily,” Corey offered. “But she doesn’t count. They like her. But they know we’re not with her. You know. Like that.”

Sarah carefully did not look at Cage with that comment. They were so not going there.

But she did process what Corey had just said and set the knife down as she looked at the two of them. “You mean to tell me, that I’m the first girl you’ve ever taken home? And I’m white? And in a wheelchair? And living with you? No wonder your mother looks at me like she’s studying a new specimen of human being. Did you even explain ahead of time?”

Cage shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t really thought about it. His parents had always welcomed the newsroom staff when they got dragged into the Washington family home.

“Have they met Carroll?” Sarah asked as she resumed making the salad. Cage took the board from her, dumped all the vegetables into a bowl, and added the dressing efficiently.

“Dad has,” Cage said. “He was cool. But he did ask if I had talked to J.J. about... things.”

“Dad wants you to have the father-son chat with J.J.?” Corey said laughing. “Well, better you than him, bro. Do you remember? I didn’t think I would ever recover from the embarrassment. Took me weeks to even look with lust at a girl.”

Cage started laughing. The brothers looked at each other. Corey was laughing so hard, he had to lean against the countertop. Cage stopped, then looked at Corey again, and laughed at him. Corey’s laughter was infectious, a higher-pitched giggle than his normal voice would suggest.

Sarah watched the two of them with a half-smile.

“OK then,” Cage said, and wiped tears from his eyes. “Now that we’ve gone down that memory lane — and no, Sarah, we are not going to repeat what Dad thought necessary to discuss, not ever — I will define your role as another stray from the newsroom. That’s a description they’re used to.

“But to answer your other question. Not even Gregory