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Yeah, that was understandable she supposed.
She followed him to the kitchen, and she realized he was limping a bit, but it wasn’t very noticeable. How did he know where to place his feet? Was he trying to walk normally for her?
Adam was in the kitchen, sitting at the kitchen table. He was polishing off a cup of yogurt.
“Oh,” Sage said, warning in her tone. “You never should have fed him. He’s like a gremlin. Now he knows where to come for food.”
Adam grinned up at her. “Quit it, Mom. This is nothing. You should have seen the steak we ate earlier. And the potato. He made peas, too, so that should make you happy. I ate a vegetable.”
Sage’s eyes widened and she looked at Brian. “I am so sorry,” she started, but he shook his head.
“Don’t worry about it,” he laughed. “Probably didn’t need to eat the whole thing anyway.”
He patted his muscular stomach, and Sage almost groaned. “Are you seriously saying you need to lose weight? Right…” she drawled.
Brian gave her a sideways, flirty grin. “Gotta keep in shape to pull young men out of dumpsters.”
“Aw, come on, Brian,” Adam cried. “That lid would have held if there hadn’t been a crack in one corner.”
“I know, buddy,” he said, moving forward to clap a big hand on Adam’s narrow shoulder.
The boy grinned up at him. “Although it never would have held your fat…”
“Stop right there, young man,” Sage said, before he could finish the sentence.
Adam giggled and she wasn’t even mad at him. Sage loved the sound of laughter from her very serious young man.
“Let’s finish your yogurt on the road, buddy. You’ve taken up enough of Brian’s time and it’s way past your bedtime.”
Without protest, he stood, quickly spooning out the rest of the cup and swallowing it down. “I’m done.”
Tossing the cup in the trash, he turned to Brian. “Thanks for the rescue, Brian. And just so you know, Mom likes Oliver wine, and anything, and I mean a-ny-thing, with chocolate in it. And pasta, though she complains after she eats it.”
“Adam!” Sage snapped, mortified. “That’s enough.”
Brian pounded fists with her son and met her gaze as Adam walked out. He gave her a wink, and she could tell he was trying to keep his laughter in. For the first time in years, Sage turned away from a man, her face on fire with embarrassment. She seriously needed to talk to her son.
* * *
But,talking to Adam about how inappropriate the afternoon had been didn’t go exactly the way she wanted. He sat in the chair, head bowed, and listened to her rant for a minute, before looking up with his brows cocked. “You’re always talking about time efficiency. I just saved you potential hours or days of getting to know one another. You should be thanking me.”
Sage sighed and looked out the window into the night, before turning back to him. “You didn’t, though. Two people learning about those kinds of things naturally is much healthier, and funner, than someone spoon-feeding them the info. Now,” she hesitated, and he looked up. For the first time, he appeared worried.
“I was just trying to help, Mom.”
Sage’s heart melted, but she had to draw boundaries.
“I know, buddy, but I need you to cool it with the info-dumps. If something is meant to develop between us, it needs to happen naturally, not because you manipulated the situation. And you manipulated the crap out of this one. You know that, right? You crossed several boundaries.”
He seemed to chew on that for a few minutes. “Yeah, I know. Okay. I’ll not do anything to throw you guys together, if you keep an open mind about him. Not all guys are like my dad.”
Sage sank down onto the sofa, feeling drained. “I know, buddy. I really do. Our life has been kind of topsy turvy for a while, though, and I haven’t been stressing about meeting someone, you know? I have you to keep me busy, and my new job,” she said, smiling. “It’s the two of us against the world, right?”
Adam leaned against her and reached out for one of her hands. “Right, but I’m not going to be around forever, and I feel like you’ve sacrificed a lot for me.”
She wrapped her arm around her son’s narrow shoulders, pulling him tight. It made her heart hurt how much he had matured in the past few years. He would be eleven in a few months, and the time seemed to be going faster. “I think we have a few more years, bud.”
Adam pulled back and looked up at her, face serious. “Mr. Ringold at my school is already talking about me shifting to OSU. He said he’ll put in a good word so I can start auditing early. He’s collecting the paperwork. He said he would message you about a meeting in a few days. I think he just doesn’t know what to do with me.”
