Sage

77

Harry.

"I'm carrying, if you're looking to start another fight." Gale clarifies pointlessly as I close and lock the frosted glass door. The music becomes a dull hum of bass and echoed vocals behind it, making the room we're in a painful quiet as Gale looks around, taking in the two velvet couches sitting across from one another, and glass coffee between them.

It's too small, not big enough to fight you in if I wanted to, I want to say. But I don't. Gale knows what these rooms are for because we'd often be in them together, snorting quick fixes up our noses during parties just like this one. In fact, just a year ago today, that's exactly what we would be doing. Vacuuming a euphoric night up our nostrils, not silently standing across from each other like two apprehensive strangers with nothing to say.

Gale lifts his brows at my silence and I try not to notice the way it seems to pain him to hold that expression, given the scar on his left eyebrow, so I look directly into his eyes instead.

I hate that he has his guard up. That he feels the need to around me. While part of me does want to knock his teeth in for even approaching Ellie before we had a chance to discuss last night, another part of me (a much bigger part) sees my best and only friend. Someone who I know would never do anything to jeopardize our relationship. And though it's hard as fuck, that part knows I need to make amends. Not only for me but for Ellie.

My pride is a heavy mass blocking my airway, and I have to swallow it down to speak.

"I'm not looking to start another fight. I just wanted to talk."

"Talk." He repeats skeptically. I nod and reach into my waistband to grab the metal gun. Gale's narrowing eyes follow my movements carefully as I deftly unload the chamber and set both the weapon and the bullets down on the coffee table in front of us.

His gaze flickers back up to mine, and I raise my hands, taking a seat on one of the velvet navy couches. Maybe if he sees me surrendering first, he'll believe that I'm not here to fight, and he'll sit.

Hesitantly, he does. But he doesn't remove the gun he promised he had on him.

"Then you're here to talk," He decides.

"Right,"

"So talk."

The pride is making its way back up at his tone. I know I can't do this shit sober, and luckily there's a convenient bottle Beluga Noble and two glasses.

I grab the bottle and pop it open, pouring the warm alcohol into the glass. "Ellie thinks we should squash this. So that's what I'm here to do."

Gale says nothing. His gaze remains strong as I slide him the first glass, then begin to pour my own. I ignore his staring as I take the first sip, my face twisting in a grimace at not only the strength of the alcohol but the temperature of it. Room temp vodka burns twice as much.

"And what do you think?" He inquires, grabbing his glass and mimicking my actions. I watch as he purses his lips after his sip, placing it back on the table and leaning back into the couch, tossing his arm over the back of it.

What do I think?

I take another sip, not letting go of the glass as I ponder his question.

I think that he's the Godfather of my only son, and that title doesn't carry lightly. Whatever I felt before I started downing glasses of whiskey had nothing to do with him and everything to do with me and my jealousy. Or dare I say, anxiety.

One of the very few things my father taught me was to not borrow things from the future. Not happiness, not fear, not anxiety.

"Deal with it when it gets here," He said to nearly everything. Whether it was jitters about a test I may have failed or a certain pregnancy test I didn't want to come up positive. I won't borrow sadness or anxiety from the future. I'll wait until it's the present and then I'll deal with it.