Page 16 of Comfort Read

“I don’t,” Sage says, his eyebrows climbing. “That’s why I asked.”

Wildly, Kit’s never had to answer this question before. Everyone he knows is already fully briefed on what had happened between him and Emerson the night it all fell apart; no one had been surprised when he’d left his job. In fact, he’d gotten a variety of unsolicited pep talks from various former coworkers, neighbors, and acquaintances, who urgently wanted him to know that, “When God closes a door, he opens a window,” and, “You never know where life will take you.” It had been humiliating at the time, with the sole silver lining that at least he didn’t have to endure the ordeal of telling anyone. They all knew already; hell, they probably knew more than he did, since they were presumably also getting the gossip from Emerson’s side of their divide.

If Kit had known, back then, that the price of not having to tell people would be having to first do it, unpracticed, with Sage Ballard, he might have made different choices. But life does love its little jokes.

“I sunk all my money into the bookstore.” Kit hopes he sounds like a normal person, that none of the grief, hysteria, and insanity of the last year and a half has slipped into his voice. At least he’s still walking backwards—the distraction is helpful. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. But things didn’t go as planned, and I couldn’t afford to do both. Not physically or mentally or, like, financially. So.” He shrugs, slipping his hands into his pockets.

“Do you miss teaching?” Sage’s eyes are hidden behind his stupid dark sunglasses, which he’d slipped on the moment they got outside. Kit shouldn’t be able to feel the weird, hypnotic power of Sage’s gaze through those!

The truth bubbles up out of his mouth before he can stop it. Kit is horrified to hear his voice catch a bit as he says, “Of course I do. I miss it every day, it was—oh!” To his mild relief, Kit succumbs to the greatest danger to face the guide of any walking tour: He trips over a curb and goes flying backwards.

At least, he starts to go flying backwards. Before he can truly fall, Sage reaches out with both hands and catches him.

For a moment they stand there, Kit in midair, Sage’s face creased with something between concern and surprise. Both the expression and the slightly uncomfortable hold he has on Kit’s arms suggest that he’s as startled as Kit to find them in this position. His palms are warm through the thin fabric of Kit’s shirt; he’s still bearing some of Kit’s weight, like he hasn’t even noticed himself doing so. He’s moved so quickly that his sunglasses have slipped down his nose, revealing the shock in his eyes.

Being this close to Sage is almost like being drunk. Kit’s thoughts are coming in little bursts, like Morse code: Holy shit, he’s in such good shape. SOS! His eyes are even bluer at close range. There’s so little space between them that Kit can feel the heat of Sage’s breath on his cheek. God, he smells good.

Kit suspects the credit for this last belongs to a cologne, probably one which costs more per bottle than Kit has ever paid in rent. Then again, maybe it’s down to the way Sage is wearing it. That bright green scent with an edge of musk, familiar and yet intoxicatingly new, against the riotous backdrop of waterfall and autumn leaves—he’s too handsome, that’s all it is. The combined effect suggests he’s mid-scene as a hot elf king in a movie called something like The Wilderness Chronicles or These Wild Beasts Within Us.

“Thanks.” Kit’s mouth is bone-dry, so it comes out cracked, but at least he doesn’t say, “You smell like a hot elf king.” That’s a win for them all.

“Don’t mention it.” Sage’s voice is low before he takes a sharp breath, lets go of Kit, and steps away. “But I think maybe that’s enough backward walking.”

“I think the tour idea is a bust anyway.” Kit runs a hand through his hair as his heart rate starts to lower. Letting his hand drop, he rubs absently at the spot where Sage touched him, trying to erase the faint, absurd sensation of lingering goose bumps. “We’ve walked up the whole main road and I haven’t told you where literally anything is, and I nearly cracked my skull open.” Making a face, he admits, “I’m not sure what we should do, to be totally honest?”

Head cocked to one side, Sage says, “Why not?”

“Because you’re Sage Ballard and this is Cedar Falls.” Kit gestures helplessly around them, skin tingling with sudden embarrassment. “I love this town, but it isn’t exactly the heart and soul of glamour. Fully a quarter of my foot traffic is because a stop at the bookstore followed by an ice cream by the falls is like a regular date night around here.”

Sage cuts him a considering look. The corners of his mouth twitch for a second, but he sounds serious when he says, “Hmm. Well, glamour is overrated, but ice cream isn’t, and we’ve already been to the bookstore. Plus, I’m always looking to broaden my horizons. Experience how the everyman lives. For the work, you know.”

It’s the amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes that makes Kit realize; he slaps his own forehead, groaning. “Oh my God, you were born here. Or like, not here here, but close enough. I’m an idiot. Sorry, I don’t mean to be standing here acting like⁠—”

“You’re fine, man, stop,” Sage says, laughing and waving him silent. “It is true that it wouldn’t be my first ice cream cone next to a waterfall, but I think the last time I was about eight. And it definitely wasn’t a date; I was with my parents.” A strange expression flits across his face, creasing his brow and twisting his mouth before he manages to wipe it away.

“Mmm, yeah, that would be an even weirder date than this one,” Kit says, before he can stop himself. He cringes, not sure what he’s more afraid of: that Sage will stiffen up and remind him that this isn’t a real date, or that he’ll just look at Kit with silent, withering pity for being so presumptuous.

To his surprise, Sage barks out a surprised laugh as they start walking again, Kit steering them towards the ice cream parlor. “You want to know something horrible? This doesn’t even break my top five weirdest dates. It might not even make the top ten.”

Kit’s mouth moves soundlessly for a moment before he finds his voice. “Listen, I’m trying very hard to be respectful of your privacy or whatever but: You can’t just say something like that and not elaborate. What? What the hell were the top five like, if this doesn’t make the cut? I took you to see the psychic tree, dude. I’m genuinely afraid.”

Sage laughs again, shaking his head. “Do you want to start with the accidental shark diving or the hot air balloon crash?”

“What?!”

Discussion of the hot air balloon crash—a wild story which features a lot more bats than Kit would have guessed—carries them past the clothing store, the general store, the antique store, and the one of the town’s two restaurants. It wraps up just as they step into the ice cream parlor, where they have to pause for Kevin. A classmate of Kit’s from kindergarten through graduation, he’d started working at Cedar Creamery when they were in high school and never left. He manages the place now, and while he’s a sweet guy, Kit remembers too late that he’s always had the tendency to panic in unexpected social situations. As they enter, he tries to project a vibe that suggests, “Be cool, man.”

It almost seems like a successful effort, at first. Sure, Kevin’s eyes all but bug out of his head when they walk into the shop, and he stares at Sage for so long that Kit has to say, “Kev, buddy? You good in there?” to snap him out of it. Otherwise, however, he manages to hold it together as they examine the flavors and place their orders, and Kit thinks they might escape without too much awkwardness.

Alas, it all falls apart for Kevin as he rings them out. Standing in front of the register, he says, “All right, so that’s a scoop of pistachio in a waffle cone and a strawberry sage—sorry, Ballard—basil. Sorry! A strawberry basil for you, Sage Basil. Ballard! Oh my God, you know what, it’s on the house!”

To Kit’s amazement and horror, Kevin flees, beet red, into the back. Sage just sighs. Meditatively, he says, “Knew I should have ordered the cookie crumble,” as he pulls out his wallet, extracts roughly six times what they would have been charged, and shoves the bills into the tip jar. Turning to Kit, he says, “Waterfall?”

Kit blinks at him, glancing back briefly to the still-swinging Employees Only doors. “Right—the waterfall. Yeah. Come on.” He leads Sage out of the shop and down the alley next to it, which spits them out into a small parking lot that peters off into grass. It’s late afternoon, the light beginning to fade and a chill nipping at the air. Though it’s a nice day for the time of year, it’s still the end of October, and ice cream isn’t exactly a warming food. Kit shoves his free hand into his pocket for heat conservation within a few minutes of stepping onto the well-worn desire path, which marches through the sprawling green carpet of grass towards the waterfall.

Sage falls into step beside him as they walk along it, each eating their ice creams. This time he leaves his sunglasses, which he’d taken off in the ice cream shop, hanging from his shirt collar. Kit’s not sure if that’s a good sign or not. He gets the sense that they function as a sort of armor for Sage, a layer between himself and the world. Does his leaving them off signify a growing sense of trust in Kit? Or does it mean that, after gaining a better sense of Cedar Falls, he no longer considers Kit a consequential enough person to bother hiding from?

Or maybe, Kit tells himself, his internal voice taking on a note of slight hysteria, it’s just a lot less sunny under the trees, and you’re being a complete lunatic. Get a grip!