Page 11

“Hey, hey. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.” York’s voice is rumbly and shouldn’t be soothing but, somehow, my racing heart starts to slow and I feel myself leaning into his bigger body.

“Can you lower your hands for me, honey? Let me get a closer look, hmm?” He wraps his fingers around mine and tugs down again, slower and softer, almost tentative. I really don’t want to see my blood stained fingers.

I relent and let him pull my hands down, slamming my eyes closed before I can see any of the gory details, and bite my lip to keep out another whimper. My pulse is like a drum beating all over my face as feather light touches poke and prod around my nose.

“It looks like a clean cut, honey. I don’t even think you need stitches.” York’s breath ghosts over my face, he feels closer than I would have imagined, his voice a soft whisper. There’s an emotion in his voice that I can’t quite place.

“Sage, I just got off the phone with Sybil, she’s a nurse. They’re on their way back and she’s going to double check York’s assessment. Not that we don’t trust his complete lack of any medical training, we just want to cover all of our bases to make sure you’re okay.”

Reese chuckles at Mars’ update.

“Thank you.” My response is watery and I hate how weak I sound right now.

“You’re going to be okay. I promise.” I try to nod but it hurts too much for anything more than a quick jerk of my head.

“I’ll go and grab some supplies to get her all cleaned up. Mars, want to come up and make sure we can keep the kids in the living room?” Reese and his brother’s footsteps retreat up the stairs and now it’s just me.

And York.

“I’m so sorry, Sage. I completely understand if you don’t want to be around me for the rest of this holiday but I need to apologize for last night, too. I never should have invaded your space like that.”

“Seriously? It’s your house. I should have been more coordinated with my towels.” I try to infuse my voice with a joking nature but I’m still in a crazy amount of pain. “Can we maybe talk about this later? When my face isn’t broken?” Warm air, once again, spreads over my face.

“Yeah, honey, but your face isn’t broken. Just a small cut. I’m so fucking sorry.”

We stand in silence. He’s still way closer than I would think he needs to be, and I'm standing here keeping my eyes closed as hard as possible. I do my best to not move my face too much, to both avoid any unnecessary twinges of pain and avoid the feeling of my crusty, drying blood… Disgusting.

“Mom is pissed.” Sybil’s sweet voice makes me jump and my eyes fly open. The pretty amused smile drops and, even though she tries to hide it, she grimaces when she gets a look at what I’m sure is the horror show that is my face.

“At least you’ve stopped bleeding.” York offers guiltily.

I laugh, pain shooting out from my nose. That assessment is the cherry on top of this whole ludicrous situation. I look at York and the pained expression on his face turns my bark of laughter into an almost manic fit of giggles. Tears start to stream again, this time because of laughter, even though it still hurts like hell.

“Okay….York, you should go upstairs and help Reese calm your mom down. I’m pretty sure I saw steam coming out of her ears when Mars started to explain what happened,” Sybil says. I can see York’s mouth open like he wants to protest but he shuts it and gives a quick nod before turning to face me.

“I really am so sorry, Sage.” Before I can try to tell him there is no need to apologize, he presses a quick kiss to my forehead and hustles up the stairs.

What. The. HELL.

Sybil lets out a low whistle, reminding me she’s been a witness to whatever that was. Oh my god. I send a silent prayer for the ground to open up and let me sink into the dirt. Hoping I’m never to be seen again.

9

YORK

If I wasn’t so upset with myself, it would be almost comical how hard my mother is working on tearing Reese and I a new one while her grandchildren watch. Mother isn’t one to hold back when she has an opinion, but she’s doing her best to keep her language as un-colorful as possible.

But, oh, how I can tell she wants to run a rainbow over the two of us.

Her ranting keeps stuttering out as she gets to a moment where she’d like to curse, searching for an alternative. “Bea, I’m okay.” Sage’s voice makes us all jump, we were all completely focused on the tongue lashing.

“Oh, dear. Look at you.” Mother crosses the room and cradles Sage’s cheeks in her hands, turning her gently left and right to get a full look at the damage I caused. Her eyes flare as she focuses on the small bandage across the bridge of her nose, almost making a unibrow with how close it was to each of her light eyebrows.

“I’m really okay. Sybil took great care of me.”

This only deepens my scowl, there was so much blood and the sounds of distress that had escaped her almost broke my heart. “Sage, I am so sorry. I don’t know what happened.” My apology makes me cringe, how fucking useless of an apology could I give?

I want to fall to my knees and beg for her forgiveness, to try to explain the thought of Reese taking her out made me see red, and made me want to kick my little brother out of my house, send him back to Utah so he wasn’t anywhere near her. That I yearned for her to be mine.