Page 19 of Off-Limits Daddy
If Sage only knew thatseeing itwasn’t the problem.
It waswhatI saw that was killing me.
No—I saw wild hair catching the summer light, messy in a way that wasn’t fair. I saw sharp laughter—his—the kind that made something low and hot twist in my chest before I even understood why.
Sage was my best friend, the kind of friend who was more like family. And by extension, his little brother had always been part of my life too. I’d patched up Ari’s scraped knees, let him nap on my chest when he was small, talked him down from first crushes and stupid heartbreaks when he got older. I’d always looked out for him. Maybe that’s why I noticed when the way he looked at me started to change—somewhere around sixteen, seventeen. Figured he’d outgrow it once he went off to college, met new people, built a life outside Briar Creek. I told myself he just needed time.
And for a while, it felt like maybe I was right. He left, started classes, dated a bit. We still talked—FaceTimed sometimes, swapped dumb memes, traded updates. He was still Ari. Still bright and flirty and too much for one room.
Then came that damn barbecue. Ari’s mom, Liz, insisted on throwing it because he was home for the summer after finishing his first year of college. I hadn’t been thinking about much that day—just beer, chicken on the grill. Ari was nineteen. Still Sage’s baby brother in my mind. Then I heard it—his laugh, rising above the hum of conversation like it belonged in the center of everything, like it was meant for me. I looked up, and there he was. Sunlight in his curls, head tipped back, mouth wide with that cocky, careless grin. And it hit me—low and sudden, like someone had taken a swing at my ribs and missed on purpose, just to see how I’d flinch.
I remember making myself busy after that. Refilling drinks. Checking the grill. Avoiding him without making it obvious. Because suddenly, he wasn’t just the kid I used to hoist ontomy shoulders. The kid who used to doodle on napkins at family dinners and drag me into his bedroom to show me his latest sketch. He wasAri. Confident, expressive, impossible not to notice. He teased Cael, talked with his hands, and threw me these sideways glances like he knew exactly what he was doing. Or maybe he didn’t. But when our eyes met—his bright, daring—I looked away first. Told myself it was nothing. That he was just being Ari. But something in me had already shifted, and I knew it wasn’t going to unshift anytime soon.
Didn’t matter that I stayed out of sight every time he came home from school after that summer. I still caught myself asking Sage about him, careful to keep it casual. Alwayslisteningfor the scraps of updates like they mattered too much.
And now here he was. Grown. Back. Looking at me like maybe he wanted something too.
Sage’s voice cut gently across the spiral of it. “I’m not asking you to be anything you don’t want to be. I’m just saying—you’ve always been solid, always saw his worth. Ari needs you, Reid, even if he acts like he doesn’t.”
Yeah. Solid. I wanted to be that. Wanted to be the one Ari leaned on. The one who caught him when he stumbled.
But it was worse than that.
I wanted to be the one he reached for in the dark. The one who got those smiles—all heat and trouble—directed nowhere but at me.
And God help me, I didn’t know if I couldwanthim like that andstillbe the man Sage thought I was.
“Thanks,” I muttered. It was the only thing I could say without losing whatever thin grip I had on myself. “For trusting me.”
“I always have,” Sage said, calm. “That hasn’t changed.”
He meant it like reassurance, but it didn’t land that way. Not when trust and guilt were rubbing each other raw beneath my ribs.
I drained the last of my coffee, letting the bitter liquid sit thick in the back of my throat. Better that than the taste of every other thing I couldn’t say yet.
Sage stood, rolling his shoulders, the scrape of the chair legs loud in the quiet. “I’m heading out. Text me when you get the time. I got some parts for the car.”
I nodded. “Will do.”
He nodded once, clapped me on the shoulder—a familiar weight that felt more like family than friendship—before heading for the door, and walked out into the night.
As soon as the door clicked behind him, I sagged forward, elbows braced on the scarred surface of the table, palms over my face.
It wasn’t the weight of the wildfire that had worn me down tonight.
It was this.
It washim.
Ari.
It was wondering how the hell you protected someone from yourself.
By the time I decided to head home, the coffee was long forgotten, the weight of Sage’s visit sitting heavy behind my ribs.
Didn’t take long to get there. Nothing in Briar Creek ever did. My place sat out past the old baseball field, down a road where the blacktop gave up halfway through and gravel finished the job.
The house wasn’t fancy, but it wasn’t falling apart either. One of those sturdy ranch-style places from the seventies, with wide windows and an old oak out front that used to have a tire swing when I was a kid. My parents had bought it before I wasborn, their version of settling down late in life. If they were still around, they’d be in their eighties.
