Reckless Abandon (Reckless - The Smoky Mountain Trio Book 2) Page 3

  I snort uncomfortably. “Let’s just say you were right.”

  “Cam,” she says, her voice soft and remorseful. “I’m so sorry. For everything. I only wanted the best for you. I should’ve been a better friend.”

  After that summer and everything that happened between me and Sage, I was so confused and mixed up and angry at myself and the circumstances, I did everything I could to ruin the friendship we had. Nothing London could have said or done would have changed anything, and it eats away at me that she thinks otherwise.

  I place my hand at the small of her back. “London, stop it. You were a good friend and flat out told me I was making a mistake. You were honest and that’s what friends are. I just didn’t want to listen. I did what I did out of anger and confusion. It felt like everything was spinning out of control and I just needed something – or someone – who was there to help stop the madness. Someone other than you or Sage. Lisa just happened to be the first person I grabbed onto. I was young and made a rash decision. I was stupid.”

  “No, you weren’t. We were in an impossibly difficult situation. You were off at boot camp, and I know that was so hard for you. I was away at school trying to come out of my shell a little bit and figure out who I was when I wasn’t with you or Sage. Plus, if you’d done something different or gone a different direction, you wouldn’t have had Taylor.”

  She turns and looks over her shoulder at the house. We can hear the distant laughter of my son, who is singing along to my mother’s favorite Elvis song, Blue Suede Shoes. London returns her gaze to me with a grin on her face.

  “At least he sings better than you.” Her joke is emphasized with a quirk of an eyebrow and I nudge her shoulder with mine.

  “Yeah, well you know I have many other talents,” I reply, but the innuendo falls between us like a lead balloon.

  That’s a topic of conversation we steer clear of since that fateful night.

  I quickly recover with a question of my own. “Tell me what you’ve been up to these past few years? Are you still with Clay?”

  Clay Christopherson was the guy that swept London off her feet her third year in college after she’d transferred to NYU. I never asked or found out the reason why London moved to New York and left behind Nashville. She would never tell me, except for the fact that she wanted to study sociology and felt the program at the bigger school was better and aimed more at the work she wanted to do in the future.

  Because we’d lost touch, I had no idea what was going on in her life now. All I knew was she’d returned to Nashville and began work as a social worker, helping and guiding foster children who were being pulled out of abusive homes and abandoned situations. Although she’s never said so, I think it’s based out of guilt for never stepping up and saying something about Sage’s abusive father. Maybe things would’ve been drastically different had that happened.

  But none of us did that. And we all have to make amends in different ways.

  London shakes her head, scrunching her nose like she smells something rancid.

  “Um, no. Clay and I broke up a long time ago. He hated Nashville and returned up to his hometown in Connecticut. He’s practicing law there now and I think he’s married.” She shrugs her shoulders, as if uninterested and couldn’t care less about his whereabouts in life.

  I’d never met him, just like she’d never met Lisa, but he sounded like a stuck up, conceited douchenozzle. He wore collared polo shirts and loafers, for fuck’s sake.

  Now I’m curious if she’s dating anyone else.

  I give her the eyeballs. “Well then? Anyone else in your life right now?”

  The air between us grows heavy as if a thick fog descended and created a murky film in the space between our bodies.

  She clears her throat. “I see Sage every once in a while when he’s in town.”

  My jaw drops to the floor like an anvil.

  “What? Where?”

  She breaks our gaze and looks off into the distance, her fingers toying with her lips. I reach out to grab her wrist, drawing her attention back to me.

  “London, how is he?”

  The unshed tears glisten like crystals in her eyes, her lips quivering uncontrollably.

  “Being on the road doesn’t help him…I’ve tried, Cam. I really have. I love him so much, but I don’t think I’m good for him, but I know I’m the only stable force he has. Everyone else around him – his manager, his agents, the music producers, fans…they all bring out the worst possible environment for him. I know he loves me too, but it’s just hard for him. I think I only serve to resurface all his pain and past suffering when I’m with him.”

  She lowers her head in despair. “And I think he’s using again and I can’t do anything to help.”

  I loop my arm around her shoulder and draw her into me. Just like I would’ve done in the past when we were together. Friends. Confidantes. My only aim is to shield her from more suffering.

  There’s one thing I know just as plainly as London does. And it’s that Sage can bring out the best in us and also the worst. After everything he’s been through, that pain manifests itself into an armor that repels love and kindness. We tried to help Sage. We were young and foolish and thought our love could get him through it.

  We were naïve to think that the three of us together would be enough to make things right and help Sage sort out all the shit his life and that dreadful ordeal lumped on him.

  But as that summer drew to a close, and London and I went off in opposite directions, we lost that final connection and hold we’d had on one another. And the ties were eventually severed between me and Sage over something I still feel guilty over.

  London held on a little longer, though. Until Sage finally cut those strings, as well. I didn’t even know that they had reconnected again.

  “Shh,” I murmur against her ear. “You’ve probably saved his life more times than we can count. You’ve shown him more love and more compassion than anyone else has ever done, just like you always have. He just doesn’t know how to reciprocate. Maybe, London, it’s time to let go.”

  She looks up into my eyes, her green eyes sparkling like gems, and I can clearly see that’s not an option.

  “Cameron, will you help me?”

  My eyes go wide because I don’t know what she’s asking. “Help you with what?”

  “Help me prove to him that he is loved and worth something. That he means something to us and we need him. He won’t listen to just me. I sound like a broken record with him. It has to be you, Cam. It has to be you.”

  Chapter 6

  Ten Years Earlier

  Sage’s attorney had contacted my dad to let us know that the bail hearing was scheduled at ten a.m. the next morning. London came with her mom, who sat in the front row of the courtroom. I sat on the left of London, her hand clasped tightly in mine, with my parents sitting right behind us.

  Geoff, the attorney my father retained, indicated there was really no reason for any of us to be at the bail hearing because it would take all of fifteen minutes for the proceeding to occur. But nothing and no one was going to keep us from seeing Sage for the first time in three days.

  Geoff spent a few minutes outside in the hallway when we got there explaining the process, but I spent that time holding London in my arms, trying to comfort and reassure her that it would all be all right. My dad had promised to do anything he could to post bail for Sage if it was granted.

  Geoff warned us that in cases like murder and domestic violence, bail was normally denied by the judge unless there was no previous criminal history and there was little worry over Sage fleeing. In that case, the typical bond could be from a hundred thousand dollars up to a million dollars.

  A million dollars in this small, redneck town was unheard of. And no way could my dad come up with that kind of cash. And neither could London’s family, even if her dad was willing to contribute.

  None of that mattered, though, the first moment we locked eyes on Sage.

  W
hen he shuffled into the courtroom, his eyes were cast downward, avoiding our eye contact altogether. I’d half expected him to be in a bright orange jumpsuit and handcuffs behind his back. Instead, he wore his tattered jean jacket, an old concert t-shirt, old worn jeans with the knees ripped and his Converse.

  The sight of him, his face bruised and purplish from the broken nose, his arm in a cast and the exhausted circles underneath his eyes had London immediately crying out.

  “Sage,” she gasped, as I wrapped my arm tighter around her waist to hold her up as she swayed into me.

  I leaned in to whisper in her ear. “We need to be strong for him, sweetheart. He needs that from us now more than ever. Can you do that?”

  It was like seeing one of those inflatable balloons that was withered and collapsed, inflate with air and stand tall as London found her resolve. She stood up straight, shifting her shoulders back and nodded in agreement.

  Because we were in the front row as the attorney and Sage sat in front of us, London bent down, stretching out her arm to reach for Sage. She touched the top of his shoulder, squeezing him with a reassuring gesture.

  “We love you, Sage. We’re here for you.”

  Sage ignored her, his head bowed in defeat and defiance, his exterior shell and armor in place for all the world to see. It was his “fuck all” attitude that he gave to the general public. The one that protected his heart from being hurt.

  London and I were the only ones who really knew the true Sage. The light within him that would shine bigger and bolder than even a harvest moon in August.

  The guy sitting in that courtroom, ignoring us with his steely aloofness, was not our friend Sage. This one was the product of a mean, abusive drunk and a system that didn’t care about boys who are beaten by their own fathers.

  I watched as my father chatted quietly with Geoff and London blotted her eyes with some Kleenex her mother had handed her. I could feel the tension ripple off Sage’s shoulders. The anger and hostility that brewed just underneath the surface. The pain that lingered there like a thousand-pound boulder that he’d been carrying around for years.

  I was so pissed that this is how things landed for Sage. Could this all have been prevented? Hindsight being twenty-twenty, the guilt ate away at my conscience. We should’ve spoken up before. Done something to get Sage out of his house and away from that cruel man.

  “All rise for the Honorable Judge Bettencourt.”

  There were close to twenty people in the courtroom, including those who work in the court system and other attorneys who were awaiting their clients’ hearings. I stood up on shaky legs, assisting London with a gentle grip on her elbow. The room suddenly felt like the air had been syphoned from it and I found it hard to breathe.

  If Sage didn’t get bail, or my dad couldn’t afford to post his bond, I didn’t know what we’d do. Or how London would be able to handle it. Or how Sage would survive it.

  If Sage was remanded to jail, I couldn’t bear it.

  He was part of our lives for thirteen years. I didn’t know who I was without Sage and London in my orbit. I knew I couldn’t live without him. I’d suffocate and die without them.

  The gavel’s harsh thud rang out and snatched me from my reverie. We sat down and I kept close tabs on the back of Sage’s head. Geoff leaned over to Sage and whispered something in his ear and Sage gave a curt nod. From the angle in which his face was visible to me, I could see the tight-lipped expression demonstrating his mood.

  Solemn.

  Angry.

  Scared.

  Alone.

  Goddamn it. Had I pushed for Sage to come to prom with us, this would never have happened. The only reason I didn’t was because I was a selfish bastard and I’d wanted London all to myself at the dance. I didn’t want to share her that night and wanted her alone for as long as I could have her. So, when Sage told us he had to work that night and that he would meet us later at the hotel, I was thrilled because it meant London would be mine alone for a few hours.

  I loved Sage – maybe more than I’d ever admitted to him. When we’d all been together sexually, it turned me on to greater heights with just the way he looked at me and watched us with that unapologetic heat in his gaze. Or the brief brushes of his skin against mine. Or the way he allowed me to let go when he took charge. It was so fucking hot.

  But I also wanted to know what it was like to be one on one with London. How it felt not to have to share her with Sage.

  I blinked and cleared my mind of the hot thoughts and memories that swirled in my head, covertly adjusting my dick that had grown semi-hard with the erotic memories.

  All I knew for certain was that the outcome of that hearing better be a positive one so that Sage could come home with us.

  Because I wanted more time with him before I had to ship off to boot camp.

  Chapter 7

  Present Day

  What the fuck was I even doing here?

  I’d literally just been grieving the death of my younger sister the last week, offering my mom what little comfort I could give as we mourned together. Holding her as we stood at her gravesite where Jeanine’s body was buried next to my father’s grave.

  And now here I am, sitting next to London in my old beat-up truck outside the gates of a beautiful historic mansion twenty-minutes outside of Nashville. Sage’s home for the last three years, according to London. The one he bought with his first earnings after making it big as an alt-country crooner.

  It seemed like a far-fetched fairytale, one of those Lifetime movies where the convicted felon turns into a big-time rock star in the course of ten years. But it’s reality, as if the time Sage spent in the state penitentiary was completely expunged and ignored by his legions of fans and it didn’t matter to any of them. He was revered like a modern-day Jonny Cash. The man in black.

  But Sage wasn’t in Folsom, he was locked up in the Smoky Mountain state correctional facility for three years. An inmate in a prison full of murderers, rapists and child predators. All of which he was not.

  It still makes me sick to think about it. All the while he was locked up and unable to live his life in freedom, I was far away fighting for freedom and doing a great job messing up my own life.

  After begrudgingly saying yes to London’s favor to visit Sage in Nashville, I left Taylor with my mother for the night as London texted Sage and asked if she could stop by and see him. He’d responded within an hour giving her the green light. What London conveniently failed to mention was that I’d be tagging along with her.

  I can’t wait to see how this goes down.

  Landscaping lights illuminated the heavy wrought-iron fence – likely there to keep creepers and stalkers out of his home – as we idled at the front waiting to be buzzed in.

  “You sure about this?” I asked, turning to London who stares out the front of the truck. “We still have time to back out.”

  Her beauty strikes me like a right hook to the jaw, the shadows dancing across the slope of her nose and the slight subtle curve of her forehead. She is flawless, and it stuns me that she doesn’t have a boyfriend or husband. Some lucky bastard who by now should’ve swept her off her feet and treated her like the Queen that she is.

  On the other hand, I’m selfishly thankful she isn’t attached to anyone. Mostly because jealousy is an evil beast that tears through my gut with its sharp talons and fire-breathing breath whenever I think of her with someone else. All the feelings that I never let go of and harbored over the years have resurfaced with a vengeance. It’s made me realize that maybe under different circumstances, we could start something together. Rekindle our old relationship.

  That is, of course, dependent on her feelings toward Sage and vice versa. She’d told me about their casual hookups over the years. How she fell into a pattern she called, “hopefulness and lies,” where she’d hoped that Sage would stick around and love her the way she knew he could and believing his promises to remain sober and faithful.

  It made me seeth
e with hatred and anger that Sage had had London all these years and yet he was so careless with her love to throw her away like that. Hypocritical, I know, considering I did the exact same thing when I left for boot camp. Leaving her to think she wasn’t enough for me when really it was my feelings of inadequacy. Knowing I wasn’t good enough for her and didn’t want her holding on to something I couldn’t give to her in the long run.

  London nods her head as if convincing herself she is ready for this reunion to happen.

  “Yes,” she confirms emphatically. “I just want you to be prepared for what you might find. Sage’s different now, Cam. He’s changed. A lot. That delicate softness that existed in the past is long gone. He’s been hardened by his experiences that we can’t even begin to comprehend.”

  She shifts in her seat, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap.

  “He’ll never be the same boy you once knew.”

  My gut clenches in guilt. The way we left things between us. The things I said to him when he was at his most vulnerable. I knew he was hurting and scared and so angry with the circumstances back then, and yet, I crushed him with what I did to him.

  Running away, even though I concealed it through boot camp and later my tour overseas and time in Italy, was just a coward move. I left him when he needed me the most. I could’ve been there through letters and visits when I came home during my leaves. I could’ve answered his calls.

  I could’ve apologized for my reckless abandonment of him.

  But I didn’t.

  If Sage even lets me into his home, it’ll be a miracle. I don’t deserve it.

  Running a hand through my short-cropped hair, I exhale a breath.

  “Sage is not going to be happy to see me.”

  London laughs, a sound I love to hear. Sweet and naughty in equal measure.

  “Probably not. It’s a wonder he’s even agreed to see me. The last time he left…we had a big fight. He was so angry at me.”

  I enfold her hand in my palm, closing it in my fist.