“Wait a minute! You want me to spill, but I spotted you in town with Camden yesterday and you haven’t said a word.” Now Grace was the one blushing, and Sage had the upper hand.
“That was nothing. We were just . . . uh . . . talking. Besides, this is about you right now, not me.”
“I’ll tell if you do, Grace, ’cause right now it looks as if we’ve both been holding back.”
Sage had been having a nice lazy morning getting the tree decorated just the way she liked it—color coordinated and symmetrically appealing—drinking her coffee, and even contemplating reading the paper—not that Sterling had much of a paper. Grace, for once, also had a bit of time off, so it was supposed to be just a relaxing morning. But this was better.
“Look, it’s not even Thanksgiving for a couple of days. The tree can wait. Come sit down with me and tell me all. I think my innocent ears may get singed if the ten different vases sitting on every available space in our apartment are any indication. Only a man who is incredibly pleased or incredibly guilt-ridden sends so many bouquets.”
“No, I haven’t done anything for the flowers,” Sage said. And then she stopped, her turncoat face turning scarlet again and spilling the beans for her.
“You have done something, Sage! You know I can always tell when you’re lying.”
“Fine, then.” How was she going to speak about this? How could she not? She’d thought of little else since that night in his home last week.
Taking a deep breath, she looked at Grace, her cheeks permanently red, her stomach tied in knots. “It was the night of that huge storm, when I couldn’t get home. Spence and I had a few kisses.” Okay, this was harder to say than she’d imagined. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“And . . .” Grace was sitting on the edge of her seat now, not allowing Sage to look away.
“Well, then we got into the hot tub . . .” She just couldn’t admit her humiliation to Grace. It was too horrid.
“Tell me everything now, or I swear, Sage, we will no longer be besties.”
“We started to make love and then he jetted off to another state practically before I even arrived back home,” Sage said hurriedly.
“Wait! You started to make love? How far did you get? What exactly happened?”
“We . . . um . . . went all the way—or sort of all the way—but he freaked when he found out I was a virgin, and neither of us had a happy ending,” Sage said, feeling the humiliation all over again. “He just stopped.”
“What? You’re kidding, right?”
“I wish I were. And he hasn’t spoken to me since. He went to Seattle the next day and he’s been gone all week.”
“No phone calls, nothing, just flowers?”
“Yeah,” Sage said, not even wanting to look at the freaking flowers.
“Well, that sucks. What kind of man doesn’t even call? Hell, I remember when we were in middle school and you doodled his name all over your notebook: Sage and Spence forever,” Grace said with an indignant scowl.
“I guess we didn’t choose too wisely, because I recall that on your notebook it said Grace plus Camden equals forever.”
“Yeah, we were supposed to marry the devastatingly handsome brothers and be related for life. Heck, we’d even have our children at the same time so they’d grow up together and be best friends just like us.”
“Don’t you wish life worked out so easily?”
“Yeah. But the real world never goes the way we want it to. Enough of that. I want to know how you feel. You lost your virginity. Was it good? Bad? Did he suck? I want details, lots of details.”
Sage spent the next fifteen minutes filling Grace in on exactly what had occurred at Spence’s house. Even speaking about it again had her hot and bothered. How could an experience that had been so good for her, have been exactly the opposite for him? She felt shamed and humiliated and didn’t ever want to see him again.
“You have to talk to him, you know,” Grace told her. “You have to figure out what in the world he is thinking. He had to have been shocked. Most women don’t make it to your age with the V card still intact. Give him a chance to explain himself.”
“He hasn’t even tried,” Sage said with a frustrated sigh.
“Then corner the man and make him speak.”
“I can’t even think about this anymore. Please, please, please tell me what is up with you and Camden, and let’s not talk about me. You were having lunch together at the diner and your heads were bent together awfully close.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Sure, sure.”
“No, really, Sage. We’re just working together on something, or he’s trying to work with me on something, but I don’t want his help, but the man is a pain in the ass and won’t take no for an answer.”
“There’s no way you are getting away with being so vague, Grace.” Sage had lost all interest in decorating the tree.
“There’s really nothing to tell,” she said, probably hoping that would satisfy her best friend.
Not by a long shot.
“Grace, I know that look in your eyes and I know when you’re hiding something from me. I will get it out of you!”
“Look, it’s really nothing, but Cam seems to think it’s something. I just can’t talk about him right now. The man infuriates me.”
Sage sat there, looked at the pain on Grace’s face, and knew she needed to give her friend a break. Just like Sage didn’t want to speak about Spence right now, it was more than obvious that speaking about Camden was too hard for Grace. They would talk to each other when they were ready, Sage had no doubt about that.