“That’s a problem?” Nic clearly didn’t understand Sage’s reaction either.
“Guys.” Sage sat up, took his glasses from Luc, and straightened them over his nose. “What I’m going to tell you is not publicly known anywhere, and I really want it to stay that way.”
“Of course.” Luc was giving Nic the side eye.What on earth could his secret be?
“Both of my parents are addicts. They have been my whole life.”
“Why is that an issue?” Luc asked. He knew what addiction was, but it’s not like paranormals suffered from it. “Do you still live with your parents? Do we need to arrange care for them so you can come and live with us?”
“Goodness no. I haven’t lived with my parents for a lot of years,” Sage said. “I have a small house, nothing like your penthouse, but it’s mine. No, the reason I’m bringing this up is because of this.”
He pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket and opened the call log. Nic leaned over Sage’s shoulder, so Luc did, too. The first thing he noticed was that the phone was on silent, and then he noticed a stream of twenty or more unanswered calls, most of them from different numbers that clearly weren’t in Sage’s contact list. “Who’s been calling you?” Luc said, still not making the connection. “Is there another squid emergency?”
“No, or at least I hope not. These calls are from my parents. I blocked their numbers, so now they are borrowing phones from friends, people in the pub, anybody they come across, and they’re trying to call me from there.”
“Is something wrong with them?” Nic asked, and he was probably thinking the same thing Luc was. Do we have to go and save the parents now?
“The only thing wrong with them is that they can’t afford another beer, or perhaps their drug dealer has stopped their line of credit. This is something they usually do this time of year.” Sage locked his phone screen and slipped his phone back into his pocket. “My parents are addicted to both alcohol and illicit substances and have been for most of my life.
“I don’t know what it was like for you, but when I was growing up, there was never much food in the cupboards. The school uniforms and clothes I wore were hand-me-downs or stolen from thrift shops. When I was about ten, Marty’s mom just started putting out an extra place at dinner, and every night before I had to go home, she would hand me a packed lunch to take to school the next day.
“If it wasn’t for Marty’s mom, I would never have achieved what I did. My parents rarely noticed that I wasn’t even home. It was Marty’s mom who convinced me to study my love of cephalopods. She encouraged me to get my higher degrees.” Sage smiled. “It was her family – Marty, her, and about six of Marty’s siblings because he has a huge family – but they were there when I graduated. Cheering, waving, whistling, and making so much noise when I crossed the stage to get my degrees. I have never felt so cherished as I did in that moment.”
“Were your parents there?” Nic asked quietly.
Sage shook his head. “They were invited, but they never bothered to come. I had moved out by then and had my own place. I have been really careful with money ever since.”
Luc wanted to cuddle Sage into his arms and protect him from the world, but Nic was waving with a pointed finger like a kid needing the bathroom. “Oh! Oh! So that’s why you were searching for cheap flights to Iceland.”
Sage nodded. “I never saw the point in spending more money than absolutely necessary for things I needed.”
“We’re going to have a problem with that, Luc baby. I mean, we just buy what we like when we like.” Nic was laughing.
“That’s because we’re a lot older and have been living a lot longer than our sweet third,” Luc said. “Sage never said we couldn’t spoil him, and you know you and I are going to do that.”
Sage’s cheeks were bright pink. “Yes, well, the issue with addicts is that they don’t think about anyone else. It is an illness, a disease, and they’re getting worse. Most years, once I started working, they would call me around the holiday season and tell me they couldn’t afford to pay their rent. Or their rent had been increased, or something had happened, and they were about to be homeless. This year they told me they needed the money because my father was deathly ill and needed specialized treatment they couldn’t afford.”
That sounded serious, and Sage looked as if he was trying to hold back his tears.
“When I asked my mom what my father’s diagnosis was, she wouldn’t tell me. She just kept yelling at me that it was my duty as their son to send them money. I’m not heartless. If my father had been genuinely ill, then I would’ve helped him. I have contacts at various medical facilities. I could’ve got him the bestof care and paid the facility directly. I offered to do that, but it wasn’t good enough.”
Sage’s eyes were squeezed shut. “They never did anything for me growing up. Marty’s mom raised me, not them. Did you know my parents still think I live with Marty’s mom? I moved out years ago and told them that, but they forget every year. All they want is money. I said no. I blocked their number. And now I’m being bombarded with calls from numbers I don’t know – I can’t use my phone for anything else. They’re determined to get through to me, and I can understand why. If they keep pushing, they know I’ll give in eventually.”
“You’ve got no idea what’s wrong with your father, or even if anything is wrong with him at all?”
“No.” Sage’s inhale was shaky. “But I do know, sick or not, if I send them money, it’s going to go to booze and drugs, just like always.”
Nic reached for one of Sage’s hands, and Luc did the same. Luc’s hand was gripped tight. “It’s just one thing after another. What worries me is that when they find out that I’m your third, they won’t be happy for me. For one thing, they hate paranormals – they never accepted Marty as my friend. But when they learn about you, because you live such public lives, all they will see is that my mates own a hotel, and then the pressure to give them more and more and more will just increase. I don’t think it’s fair to saddle you guys with that sort of situation.”
“An allowance through a lawyer?” Luc was talking to Nic.
“Plus an accountant and a trust manager.” Nic nodded. “They could get sworn statements from the parents guaranteeing that the moment they get in touch with their son again, all financial benefits will cease immediately. An NDA, so if they try to sell their story, it’ll get shut down instantly, and they’ll end up incourt. We could try demanding medical records, but I can see the lawyer having an issue with that, so we could just include a clause that we’ll pay any medical treatment necessary, directly to the facilities involved.”
“Wait, wait.” Sage looked between them. “You sound like you’ve done this before. Are you going to pay my parents to stay away from me?”
Luc couldn’t tell from Sage’s tone how he felt about the idea. “Pretty much. We haven’t had to do anything like this before, but we have a team that protects our public profiles as much as possible. From the sounds of it, your main interest is getting your parents to leave you alone without having to give them any money.”
“Giving them money is just enabling them in their addiction. I’d far rather pay for them to go to a rehab facility.”
