Page 48 of Comfort Read

“Hi!” Kit tries to sound cheerful, oblivious. It falls flat. “I, um. I made you some coffee?”

Sage’s eyes flick to the cups in Kit’s hand, but he doesn’t respond. Slowly, and feeling unaccountably ashamed of himself, Kit sets both drinks down on the dresser. Hating himself for it, he says, “Is, um. Is everything okay?”

“I’d like to ask you a question, Kit.” Sage’s voice is cold, hollowed out. “Do you remember the terms of our agreement? What you signed up for, when you signed up for this?”

“Of course I do.” Sweat prickles at the back of Kit’s neck, down his spine. In spite of this—like an idiot—he tries for levity, hoping to shift the abruptly grim conversational mood. “Although, I think what we got up to last night maybe cancels out⁠—”

“What,” Sage bites out, “were the terms?”

“Um…” Kit takes a half step back, confused. He’s never seen Sage like this, even when he was inches from smashing a paparazzo’s camera. Even when he was wilting under the hot glare of the other guests’ attention that night at Tinamous. “Well—I was supposed to, you know, pretend to be your boyfriend? So that you could convince Wayne to fund your movie? And in exchange you were going to pay for⁠—”

“You weren’t supposed to tell anyone.” Sage doesn’t scream this; Kit thinks it would be better if he had. He thinks anything would be better than the quiet, furious rasp of Sage’s voice, the way it’s obvious that he wants to scream and is holding it in. “Remember? That was the deal. You make a few appearances with me, I fix up your bookshop, and you keep your goddamn mouth shut. As I recall it, Frankie and I were very clear about that. We wrote it down in black-and-white and everything. And you signed it, Kit. You signed that contract. You swore to me that you’d keep it to yourself.”

“I did! I have!” There’s a roaring in Kit’s ears. His heart is pounding so hard he’s half-expecting it to burst from his chest, to look down and see it pulsating on the floor like something out of Edgar Allan Poe. “Sage—what’s happened? Why are you looking at me like that, what⁠—”

“Oh, see for yourself,” Sage snaps. He tosses his phone across the bed so it lands at the edge closest to Kit, his mouth twisting in disgust. “It’s not like everyone else on earth isn’t going to see it. They probably already have; we’re probably the last two people to know it’s out there. That’s usually the way this goes.”

Kit reaches down and picks up the phone, noticing as if from a great distance away that his hands are shaking. That shaking intensifies to the point that the words blur when he sees the headline: “Sage Burned in Fake Romance Scandal: ‘Boyfriend’s’ Sister Tells All.”

“Oh God,” Kit breathes, feeling all the blood drain away from his face. “Oh no, oh God⁠—”

“You might as well watch the video.” Every word is clipped, like Sage has painstakingly chipped each one from a block of ice. “I already have, and my guess is you’re going to see a lot of it for the next few days. Longer, really, unless some other celebrity does me a favor and royally screws up their life.”

Swallowing hard, wishing he had any other option, Kit scrolls down to the embedded video and clicks play.

It’s a video of Maggie, because of course it is—a grainy, poorly shot video, to be sure, but unmistakably Maggie just the same. She’s leaning against a familiar counter that Kit places, after a second, as the one at Featherstone’s, the clothing store just up the street from Kit’s bookshop. It’s Alena’s family’s place, and she’s been Maggie’s best friend since they were in kindergarten. Kit’s known for years—hell, the whole town has known—that if you’re looking for either one of them, the best place to find them is at this very counter, gossiping.

“You know how much I hate fighting with him,” Maggie is saying on-screen. “And I know I shouldn’t have let him frustrate me, he’s had such a bad year and I shouldn’t have been needling him. I know better! I swear that I do. But, Alena, Jesus, he told me—listen, you swear you won’t tell anyone?”

“I’ve already sworn twice, but sure, third time’s the charm.” Alena’s not in frame, so Kit can’t see her, but he knows from her tone and a lifetime of experience that she’s rolling her eyes. “I solemnly swear not to breathe a word of it to another living soul. Although, great news, if you don’t tell me soon you won’t have to worry about that anyway, because the anticipation will kill me⁠—”

“He told me it’s all an act.” Maggie’s voice is so low it barely even counts as whispering, but the judgment in her words comes through loud and clear. “Him and Sage, I mean. That he’s just—that they’re just—faking it. Faking the whole thing!”

“What?” Alena sounds horrified, which Kit, in this moment, finds pretty relatable. “They’re—he’s—what? Why on earth would they⁠—”

“Oh, it’s for Sage’s career, apparently!” Maggie throws her hands in the air. “He wants some movie funded and needs to look stable, I guess? And in exchange he’s going to fix up Kit’s bookshop. So, you know, that’s obviously perfectly fine, and I’m the asshole for having an issue with it! Naturally!”

“But, I mean… that’s crazy.” Alena’s whispering now, too, as though the shock has robbed her of all but a single vocal cord. “It’s crazy, Mags, was he drunk? Did your weird cousin bring brownies again, like that one time with⁠—”

“Cousin Larry and his weed brownies weren’t even invited,” Maggie hisses. “Intoxicating my mother without her permission is a lifetime ban—that isn’t important! The important thing is that now I know, and he asked me not to tell anyone, but, I mean… I had to, Lena! I had to say something. I’m losing my mind, I’m lying to Mitch and my kids and my mother and it’s horrible. She called last night to ask if I think Seline would be interested in coming to Christmas, and I… what? What’s that face?”

“Hey,” Alena says, suddenly louder, and using a very different tone. “You—yes, you in the hat. What’re you doing with—” The video cuts off.

“Oh God,” Kit says again, staring blankly at the screen.

“For Christ’s sake, is that all you have to say?” Sage’s tone is sharp, even aggressive, but his body language betrays him—he’s wrapped his arms tightly around himself, as though trying to collapse inward like a dying star. “How about, ‘I’m sorry, Sage,’ or, ‘I screwed up, Sage,’ or, ‘Let me just grab the millions of dollars you need to make your movie out of my other pants, Sage’? Hello? Are you listening to me?”

“Of course I’m sorry!” Kit shouldn’t be shouting, because doesn’t have any right to; he is anyway. “Of course I screwed up, and of course I’m listening, and of course I’d give you the money if I had it. Of course I would! But I didn’t—if you’d just let me—it was an accident, okay? I didn’t mean to tell Maggie, she was just needling me and wouldn’t leave it alone and it just slipped out, all right? I never in a million years thought she’d tell anyone⁠—”

“No one ever thinks that!” Sage stands up and begins pacing across the room, doing an upsettingly convincing impression of a caged tiger. “No one ever says, ‘Wow, I better tell my big important secret to the person most likely to betray me at their earliest possible convenience,’ that’s never how it happens! You tell someone you think you can trust, and then they care more about spilling the juicy secret than they do about you, and pretty soon the whole goddamn world knows!” He’s breathing hard, his expression ragged, his eyes wild as he stops in front of Kit, looming over him. “That’s why the rule was not to tell anyone. Because that’s how you keep a secret, Kit. You don’t tell anyone!”

“I said I was sorry!” Kit can feel tears burning in his eyes, threatening to fall, and blinks hard, trying to clear them away. “And I said it was an accident, and I said I didn’t mean to—and Maggie didn’t mean to, either. You heard her in the video, she didn’t care more about the juicy secret than me, or whatever you said. I put her in a terrible position⁠—”

Sage snorts, but there’s no humor in it. “Oh, don’t sell yourself short, Kit. You’ve put us all in a terrible position. And don’t try to like act like Maggie’s some saint. I bet she told everyone in town!”

“You know what, Sage? Say whatever you want about me, but you shut the hell up about my sister.” It’s reflexive, the words and the snarl he delivers them with; he’d say the same thing to anyone. Hell, he’d say the same thing—if maybe less vehemently—about Justin. He’s furious at Maggie, for this and for the conversation that led to it, and the next time he sees her, he plans on personally ripping her face off. But she’s still his sister. Kit and his siblings might have vanishingly little in common, but one thing they’ll always share is exclusive rights to go for one another’s throats, and a rigid unwillingness to let anyone else even try it.

“Well, that’s just great, Kit,” Sage snaps, rolling his eyes. “What touching loyalty. Wish it was a family trait, don’t you? Maybe then Maggie wouldn’t have blabbed the whole thing to some random service employee⁠—”