Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Sage

When I first moved into Bash's place, I was ten kinds of nervous about sleeping under a roof with a strange man. Now he's on his second road trip since I arrived, and I'm already bored to death.

I totally miss him.

And so does Annie.

I'm already attached, and we haven't even kissed.

I spend the first day of his absence visiting tourist attractions since Bash was kind enough to leave me the convertible, but Vegas doesn't seem like the kind of place that's fun to explore solo. Maybe if I was looking to party with some new friends, I'd feel differently, but even if I wasn't crashing with Bash, that's not really my style. Two hours of gambling and I'm over it, although I did win enough to treat myself to a nice dinner and a little shopping.

By the end of the night, I've come to a realization that's unlikely to surprise anyone who knows me very well: Las Vegas is phony as hell, and it's too loud and chaotic for me. At least, the tourist parts are. It's a relief to go home, wash off the smell of the casino, and curl up on the couch with Annie for a few hours. I get about halfway through one of the books Flossie sent with me, a steamy Western romance that leaves me all hot and bothered. It's probably a good thing Bash isn't here. Otherwise, I might do something irredeemable.

I take the book to bed and finish it someplace where Annie won't judge me for getting all worked up.

By the second day, I need something to do with my idle hands. Bash told me that I could use the office while he's gone. I don't currently need anything in there, but when I peek inside, I see a mess.

"Good Lord," I grumble. Annie peers around my legs and chirps her disapproval. "That's right, girl, it's a mess in here. Why don't we do something about it?"

Annie bounds between my legs, and together, we set to work. A cursory investigation of the room reveals a kit for floating shelves. Having someplace to display things would help sort out the functional stuff from the clutter, so I start there. The kits aren't hard to assemble, especially not after I find Bash's tools in the garage. He seriously needs to up his handyman game, but at least he has a drill and a stud finder.

Before I get too busy, I make sure nothing incriminating is on display in the office. Once the area is clear, I assemble my recording equipment, go live, and set to work.

"Sorry if I'm missing anyone's comments, but my hands are a little full right now. Today, we're gonna be assembling some shelves and doing a little cleanup. Feel free to use this for body-doubling if there's anything around the home you've been putting off. Got laundry piling up? Is it time to clean your fridge? Maybe your office space is looking cluttered? Let's tackle it together!"

I don't talk as much as I do with my more personal TikTok lives. Instead, I focus on my work, tossing out comments as I go or humming to myself while I work. Annie takes up a supervisory position on the office chair, right at the edge of the camera's view.

With the shelves up, I start sorting and organizing the objects strewn across the desk and anything obvious in the boxes. I set anything that looks sensitive aside for later—papers, records, binders, that sort of thing. There's an empty filing cabinet in the corner, so I banish the paperwork there, but Bash has plenty of trophies and sentimental objects lying around. One box is nothing but framed family photos, and I go through them one by one where the camera won't see. I don't want to dox Bash's family, and I'm not sure what he's willing to share online, especially when it comes to the kids, but those pictures are cute as hell. I'm putting them all out once the live is over.

The room is just about presentable when a knock on the front door sends Annie bolting for cover.

"Gotta go, folks! Hope you got a lot done!" I wave to the camera as I sign off, then trot out to the living room. I'm not expecting a delivery or anything, and when I look through the peephole, I don't see anyone. I'm debating on what to do when someone knocks on the window.

"Sage, it's me!" Molly calls. I nudge the curtains aside, and sure enough, her smiling face is on the other side of the glass.

I open the door to let her in. "Sorry to keep you waiting—"

"Oh, don't worry about it. Happens all the time… I'm too short for the peephole." Molly hovers by the front door. "I just wanted to check on you since you're here by yourself. Make sure things are okay."

"Sure are. Come see what I'm doing." I lead her back to the office.

Molly's jaw drops as she takes in the room. "Wow, Sage, this looks great! Last time I was in here, it looked like a bomb had gone off. Now it's all, you know, feng shui-y. "

"I'm working on it." I drop into the chair Annie vacated and spin in a circle, admiring my own handiwork. "Not too bad for a morning project."

"You put this together yourself?" Molly examines the shelves from all angles. "How?"

"The instructions aren't that bad. Besides, I'm pretty handy, so I know my way around the equipment. Mainly comes from living on a working ranch my entire life. Also, it goes faster without a guy standing there pretending to be the stud found by the stud finder."

Molly sighs. "I wouldn't know."

"Do you have a honey-do list written out?" I ask. "If you want, I could help you knock a few items off the list before Noah gets home."

"You mean it?" Molly clasps her hands under her chin. "I'd love that! It could save more time for… other things."

"Oh?" I wiggle my eyebrows at her. "Are you one of the things on the honey-do list, by any chance?"

Molly titters. "Sure am, but I'd rather get your help with a reading nook for Vivian. I've been dropping hints about how it would be nice to put in a window seat and a few bookshelves at one end of the hall, but Noah says she's not old enough."

"Because he doesn't want to build it," I say.

"It's just, we've got our hands full with work and the kids and everything…" Molly wrings her hands.

I stop her right there. "I'm not trashing your man. I know how it gets for guys with normal jobs, let alone one who's on the road most of the year." I've let all kinds of things slide down the list of priorities in the last few years, but I don't pursue that thought too far. If I think about the ranch, I'll spiral. There's nothing I can do about it right now, and the van will be fixed when it's fixed, so there's no point fretting about it. A book nook, however, I can handle. "We can do it. Do you have the supplies, or do we need to make a run to the hardware store?"

"The hardware store? Not Ikea?"

"Not if you want something that fits the space exactly."

Molly thinks it over for about two seconds. "Okay, let's do it."

We head back to her house first and measure the space. Molly and Noah's kids are staying with a family friend who lives out behind the house.

"Francine is Anders's mother-in-law," Molly explains. It's a bit odd that she's living here and not with Anders and his wife Stella, but I don't think too much of it since they don't have any little ones yet. These folks are all such good friends that they almost seem like family anyhow. Like me and Flossie.

Once we've got everything written down, we head to the Home Depot and grab what we need. Molly's overwhelmed by the variety of options, so I take the lead on everything but the biggest decisions. We break for lunch back at the house, then get on with assembling everything. Molly's vision for the space is modest, and once we get going, it comes together pretty quickly.

"I know you said you're here finding yourself," Molly observes as I check to make sure the shelves are level, "but you seem really together."

"It's all smoke and mirrors," I assure her. "Before I left Montana, I was supposed to get married. I caught the guy cheating. I hopped in the van and took off to parts unknown, hoping to recover."

Molly doesn't even know Trevor, but her face pinches in indignation, and her cheeks flush bright red. "That bastard! Did you love him a lot? I sure hope not!"

"No, not at all, actually." The level says I'm dead-on.

Her face pinches into a grimace. "But you were marrying the guy?"

"It's a long story. Hold that thought." I drill in a couple of screws, and we move on to the next shelf. "I'm not sure I should talk about it when he's not here to defend himself."

Molly's quiet for long enough that I think she's dropped the subject entirely, but I'm wrong. "I can't imagine not being married to someone I'm madly in love with. Noah and I have had our ups and downs, but I can't imagine life without that deep, all-consuming love. It's what makes everything worthwhile."

I pause, the drill in my hand idling. "I used to think love was just a fairy tale, something people told themselves to justify the sacrifices. But seeing how you and Noah interact, it's... different. Makes me wonder if maybe I've been too cynical."

Molly gives me a soft smile, her earlier anger melting into understanding. "Love isn't a fairy tale. It's more like a project. You build it, maintain it, and sometimes you even have to rebuild parts of it. But the foundation, that's what matters. You came here running from something broken, but maybe, just maybe, you're also heading toward something whole. There are a lot of strong couples in this neighborhood that could be held up as prime examples of real, messy, beautiful love in all its iterations."

As I drill the final screw into the book nook, Molly's words linger in my mind, swirling with the sawdust in the air. It's strange, this idea of love as a project, something you work on rather than just fall into. Could it be that I've been avoiding love not because it doesn't exist but because I'm afraid of the effort it requires? That it would pull me away from my goal to save the ranch? Would there ever be room for both? The thought is both unsettling and oddly hopeful.

I've spent so long armoring myself against disappointment, yet here is Molly, with her lived wisdom, suggesting that real love isn't about avoiding pitfalls but navigating them together. Perhaps, then, what I need isn't to shield myself from potential heartbreak but to find someone willing to hold the hammer when things fall apart. Molly's marriage—flawed, challenging, but undeniably real—offers a blueprint I've never considered. It's a daunting prospect, rethinking my whole approach to love and vulnerability. But as I step back to admire our handiwork, I can't help but feel a small flicker of curiosity. What if I could build something lasting? What if I allowed myself to believe, just a little, in the possibility of a love that's crafted, not just stumbled upon?

"Maybe so." If nothing else, Vivian's about to get a sweet book nook out of the deal.

As for the rest, I've already established that Vegas isn't my scene. Whatever I'm doing here is temporary.