Page 90 of What We Burn

I am going to need to be sedated.

Eli’s throat works once.

“I can’t—” he starts, and stops. Tries again. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

“You don’t have to do anything.” Sage moves closer to him, not swaying anymore, and lightly touches the skin next to his fresh tattoo. “This is step one. Don’t screw up step two.”

“What’s step two?”

“Haven’t decided. Probably more needles.”

He huffs something that’s half a laugh and half not, and Sage smiles, and the worst comedian in the room—me—says absolutely nothing, because some things you don’t put a punchline on.

Raven puts a layer of Second Skin over the tattoo and charges him two hundred bucks. Eli tips her three hundred on top.

We pour out into the evening, Sage tilting to port, Eli’s arm coming up to steady her without thinking. She lets him. For three whole seconds, she lets him—and then she peels off and links back through my arm instead.

Eli hangs back and rides shotgun with Micah.

Knox drives my car again. Holden’s up front. I’m in the back, and Sage isn’t beside me.

She’s in my lap.

Climbed straight in, swung her legs across the seat, parked herself against my thighs, looped her arms around my neck like it’s the most natural thing in the world. This is my favorite way to go anywhere with her.

“I had fun today,” she says, her face an inch from mine, breath warm and beer-sweet.

“Yeah?”

“You’re fun.” Her finger traces the shell of my ear, down my jaw, along my throat. “You’re always fun, Milo. You’re the most fun person I’ve ever met. Did you know that?”

“I’ll have it added to my headstone.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Holden mutters. “He’ll actually do it.”

“Shush.” And she kisses me.

It starts soft—her mouth on mine, tasting, testing—and then her fingers curl in my hair and she makes a small, breathy sound and shifts until she’s straddling me, every part of her against every part of me, and my brain quietly evacuates the building.

“Kitten,” I manage. “Moving vehicle.”

“Knox is driving.”

“I’m aware Knox is driving. That’s the part that worries me.”

“Knox won’t crash.” She bites my lower lip and my higher functions go offline. “He’s very reliable.”

“I’m not worried about Knox. I’m worried about whether I can keep it together while you⁠—”

She grinds down, slow, and I lose the sentence entirely.

From the front, Knox tilts the rearview mirror. Giving us privacy or improving his angle—genuinely impossible to say.

Holden glances back. “Seriously. Again?”

“Eyes forward, detective,” Sage says against my mouth, and I feel her grin.

She kisses me until I can’t remember what a bowl is. Until my hands are under her shirt and hers are in my hair and I’m making sounds I will deny under oath. Then she pulls back, climbs off—I make a noise of protest I’ll take to my grave—and slides across the seat to Knox.