Chapter 290 Calling him

Chapter 290 Calling him
Sage's POV

I dialed.

It rang twice.

"Sage."

His voice came out differently than it would have three days ago. Not differently in tone. Ryder Kane's voice was always the same register, always the same controlled even quality that did not shift much with circumstance. But there was something in the single word of my name that told me he had been sitting with his phone waiting for a call that might not come and was not taking it for granted that it had.

"Hi," I said.

A pause.

"Hi," he said.

We sat with that for a moment. Both of us on our phones in our separate locations, not saying anything, which would have been unbearable three days ago and was something closer to necessary right now. Like we both needed a second inside the fact of the call before we could do anything with it.

"I got the document," I said.

"I know," he said. "Diego told me he gave it to you."

"I read it," I said.

"Okay," he said. He was not going to ask what I thought about it. He was not going to use it as an opening to say anything. He was giving me the call on my terms, at my pace, and letting me decide what it was for.

"I have a doctor's appointment on Friday," I said. "First prenatal. I booked it before—" I stopped. "I booked it earlier this week. You did not know about it because I had not told you."

A silence.

"Okay," he said, and his voice was very careful around the word. "Thank you for telling me."

"I am not telling you so you can come," I said. "I am telling you because you are the father and you should know there is an appointment and that it is happening."

"I understand," he said.

"I have not decided anything," I said. "About us. About what comes next. I have read the document and I know about the statement you made to Diego and I am still processing all of it."

"I know," he said.

"I am still angry," I said.

"I know that too," he said.

I looked at the document still on the table in front of me.

"What you did with the letter," I said. "With Reeves. I need you to know that I understand what that was. I understand why you did it that way instead of just saying sorry again. I understand that it was not a performance." I paused. "I am not ready to tell you what I think it means for us. But I want you to know I understand what it was."

He was quiet for a moment.

"Thank you," he said. Two words and nothing else, which was Ryder's way of receiving something without trying to build on it before he had permission to.

"How are you?" I asked. The question I kept asking without meaning to.

"Not good," he said. "I am not going to lie to you and say I am managing. I am not managing. I am sitting in a room at the back of the clubhouse and I have not slept properly in three days and Tommy is bringing me food that I am mostly not eating." A pause. "But I am not asking you to care about that. I am just answering honestly because you asked."

"I do care about it," I said. "That is the irritating part."

"I know," he said, and there was something in those two words that was not quite the ghost of what it had been three days ago but was in the neighborhood of it. The particular quality of two people who knew each other well enough to communicate underneath the surface of the words.

I pressed my hand flat on the table.

"The appointment is at ten on Friday," I said. "Millbrook Family Practice. Dr. Osei."

A pause.

"Is there anything you need me to do before Friday?" he said.

"No," I said.

"Is there anything you need at all?" he said. "Not from me specifically. Just. Is there anything."

"I'm okay," I said. "Diego is here. I am not alone."

"Good," he said, and he said it like he meant it, like the fact of Diego being there was a genuine relief to him rather than a complication, which told me something.

We sat in silence again for a moment.

"Sage," he said.

"Don't," I said, before he could continue.

"I was not going to apologize again," he said.

"What were you going to say?" I asked.

A pause.

"I was going to say that I know this call was not easy to make and that I am grateful you made it," he said. "That is all."

I looked at the ring on my hand.

"Friday is two days away," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"I will let you know before Friday," I said, "whether I want you there or not."

"Okay," he said.

"That is all I can give you right now," I said.

"That is more than enough," he said. "More than I expected. More than I deserve."

"Don't do that," I said. "Don't be so reasonable that I cannot stay angry at you."

A pause.

Then something that was not quite a laugh from his end. Brief, quiet, immediately contained. But real.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay," I said.

I ended the call and sat in the quiet of the kitchen and felt the particular exhaustion of a person who had just done something that took everything they had and was not even close to done yet.