Page 149 of Piece You Saved

“She’s fine. She doesn’t know I’m here,” Kade responds, staring at me blankly.

Saige did say her baggage was liable to rip your throat out.

“So you’re here to kill me, then?”

A dark scowl twists his face. “What is it with you doctors and being obsessed with death and dying?” Straightening, he swings around to the passenger seat. “Get in the fucking car. We need to talk.”

As he pulls the door open, I glance at it. “I locked that.”

He throws a smirk over his shoulder. “Yeah, well, you might need to see someone about a broken door in the not-too-distant future.”

I sigh, but I unlock my car and get in. And almost at once, I can tell he was holding Saige, and recently.

I try to silence the pang of jealousy that he’s been with her—holding her—for these last couple of days, and I haven’t.

For several seconds, we sit, staring out of the front window.

“How is she?” I eventually ask. Because something must be wrong for him to be here.

“About the same as you,” Kade snorts.

I glance at him and find him with his back to the passenger door, studying me.

“Which is?”

“Walking around like someone gut punched her and pretending it didn’t hurt.”

I don’t know whether to laugh. “Is that a joke?”

He scowls. “It’s not a fucking joke. She’s hurting.” He leans toward me. I do the smart thing and lean away. “Because ofyou.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“For a reason I can’t understand, Saige needs to have you in her life to make her happy.” He scrutinizes me as if trying to work out what that reason is. And fails, apparently, because he turns his head away and sits back in his seat.

“She misses me?” I ask, probably opening myself up to a punch in the face by letting out how pleased I am at the thought.

From the dark glare he levels at me, he’s not the least bit happy about it. “Yes,” he bites out. “She does.”

I stare at him, waiting for more of an explanation than the summary he’s given me.

“So that’s why you’re here?” I prompt when he says nothing.

He nods and goes back to saying nothing.

“And what exactly do you expect me to do about it?” I ask, wondering how I’m the one guiding this conversation when I have no idea what it’s supposed to be about.

“I would think it would be obvious what I expect you to do about it.” He wraps his hand around the door handle, pushes it open, and prepares to climb out.

I grip his arm, halting him. “You’re not being clear.”

He turns to pierce me with a stare. “Saige needs all of us to be happy.”

I study him. “Even if you hate me?”

Sighing heavily, he pulls his leg back into the car and closes the door. When he gives the hand I have wrapped around his arm a significant look, I take the hint and remove it.

He stares straight ahead for nearly a minute, and I wait.

---