"Stop referring to yourself as my sugar daddy," sighed Solace from the driver's seat.

Sage shrugged slyly. "You started it after you got mad at me for offering to pay your rent." His anxious energy from the airport was rising with each mile closer to their destination. Leaning forward, he poked her side. "Give your sugar daddy some love."

He laughed deeply when Solace shoved his face away, the car almost swerving from the tenacity of the push. "I will rip off your face," she warned.

"That's a lose-lose for the both of us."

Solace rested a hand on her lap, the other one on the steering wheel. Sage glared at it, still very much protective over a rental car. He would have been driving, but he was feeling too much to operate a moving vehicle.

"One more word and I'll –"

He rolled his eyes, grabbing her hand and setting it back on the wheel. "If you threaten to break up with me, I'm leaving you on the side of the road," interjected Sage.

Solace scoffed. "I was not going to break up with you."

"Really?" drawled Sage unbelievingly. He fiddled with the bag of chips he'd been entertaining for the past twenty minutes. His appetite was long gone. "Remember when you tried to dump me after I beat you in scrabble."

"I didn't end up doing it," she defended, her voice increasing an octave.

"Because I wouldn't let you, you psycho." Sage almost laughed at the memory. It had not even been a full three days of them dating when Solace thought it would be a good idea to play board games. Scrabble was strenuous, filled with uncontrollable vigor and duplicitous comments. In the end, he won with the word chutzpah, blocks were strewn, and relationships were on the brink of destruction.

"Like you're any better. You slept on the couch after you lost at Uno," fired back Solace.

Sage scowled. That was not his finest moment. But it was after that game when they decided once and for all that board games were illegal in the apartment unless they were on the same side. Then, everything was fair game; egos, tears, and all.

"I was back in bed within the hour," he grumbled.

Sage could not stay away from Solace now that she was hers. He was made for her as she was made for him. He simply could not sleep without her in his arms. It would be difficult living twenty-five thousand miles away from her.

After midnight, the dawn of the new year, they had caught a taxi. Sage was fully prepared to sleep in the living room after showering and scrubbing himself clean.

"What are you doing?" Solace had asked incredulously.

"About to go to sleep," he had said, unsure for an act as simple as closing one's eyes.

She had frowned. Sage would give her the moon to see her smile. "You don't want to sleep in my bed?" It was more of an accusation than it was a question.

Sage had grinned and said, "I didn't want to assume." He kissed her deeply, Solace's legs wrapped around his waist as he carried them to her room. Sleep had become an afterthought, intimate whispers, soft touches, and breathy laughs taking control.

His world was set back on its axis when she was around him. Sage leaned his head back on the seat, admiring Solace, dark skin as soft as silk, braids wrapped in a bun, and a smile that he would never tire of. Sage had made many mistakes in his short lifetime. The time he told his neighbors that a man stole their son's bike when it was really Sage since his parents couldn't afford one. Or when he almost blew up a car engine at his brother's work trying to impress a girl. And of course, the time he accidentally signed up to be an assassin.

But one of the greatest mistakes was not having kissed Solace Laurent sooner.

He would make up for the time lost.

The car came to a jolting stop. Solace always had a heavy foot.

Sage almost came to tears at the view of the small one-story home, rain-swept flyers with his picture still taped to the lampposts. The house was barren from Christmas decorations. Snow had nearly melted in Portland, the patchy grass making an appearance. Julian's jeep sat in the driveway and the family grey hatchback.

Solace's hand on his cheek brought him back from his thoughts. "Ready?" she asked gently.

He had to be ready. Sage dragged along the trip for nearly two weeks. He swore it was to tie up loose strings, and that was part of it. He sold the apartment, dumped his weapons over to Kane, and bought an actual cellphone. All he wanted was to see his family again, but what would they say? What could he tell them?

He had to lie for their safety, so he would do exactly that. Sage would tell them how he got caught up in a bad crowd and spent the past few months over in Canada (it was easy to blame everything on the North). Vague and ambiguous answers were the way to go in this case. Law enforcement would be harder to convince, but he spent six months learning how to manipulate and evade. Sage could pull this off.

"Not really," he said gruffly.

Solace shifted in her seat, pressing her lips against his. He faded into her affection, evaporated, and became a token of warmth. His bones sang at her closeness, the softness of her mouth sliding to the corner of his lips to the scar on his jaw and up his cheek to his forehead. Sage squeezed his eyes shut, letting the calm surround him.

"I'll be here," promised Solace. "I'm not leaving."

"Okay," he breathed out.

A ghost of a smile pulled at her features. "Got your inhaler?"

Sage narrowed his eyes. "Real funny," he remarked sarcastically.

She brushed his hair to the side. "Go see your family, Sage."

A sense of melancholy clung to her. Sage could read her like a poem, the smallest of twitches, the flicker of movement. It did not pass him.

Sage leaned into her touch, kissing the palm of her hand. "This isn't goodbye. I'll come back to you," he said fiercely.

Solace would only be staying for the weekend with her family, and he would see her off Sunday night. A long-distance relationship would be hard. He knew that. But it was temporary. Sage needed to stay in Portland with his family for the next few months as well as go meet Jabari. Sage had been away from them too long. Leaving again was not an option.

But Solace had her internship that she refused to quit since it paid well until she moved to Long Island. Her art classes at Harvard would keep her preoccupied for this January semester as she readied her portfolio to apply for the Rhodes Island School of Design. Her scholarship would follow along as it was a private grant. And in the fall, Sage's plan was to go to Harvard for an undergraduate in mathematics with Solace's school an hour away. He would move in with Emi (she was greatly nonchalant when they told her about their relationship) and visit Solace on the weekends or any day of the week, if he was being honest.

Sage had every intention of returning to his second home being Solace Laurent.

"I know, I know. We'll make it work. You need to be here," she said understandingly. "Now, stop stalling and go."

Forcing himself to let go, Sage nodded and stepped out into the Portland winter. One reassuring smile from Solace, and he was standing outside the red door, the colour he had picked out at the hardware store with his father on an impulsive summer night.

He had not been back in almost eight months, too busy shipped off to new cities and perilous missions. Sage thought about checking on his family once. He was in Chennai, his job to blackmail a crooked politician to pass a bill that would benefit Iron Hand's drug trade, when he saw a mother buying her children dosa's after their trip to Marina Beach, the family laughing and chattering rapidly. The woman had the same kind smile as his mother.

Sage had to force himself to stay.

But no longer. With a deep breath, he knocked.

"I'll get it, Mamá," shouted a man.

Soon, Sage was staring at Julian's stunned expression. His brother looked the same, all the while looking completely different. There were dark circles under his eyes like soot, his hair outgrown past his chin, frown lines prominent on his usual bright smile. Julian had aged with stress and the loss of his brother. 

 "Hey, man," said Sage. 

 Julian was frozen just like Solace had been. But unlike his girlfriend, Julian tackled him to the ground in a disguise of a hug. Sobs and laughter mingled, the embrace foreign between the two brothers, but right now, it felt natural and long coming. 

 "Where have you been?" choked out Julian. He was crushing Sage's chest, but he didn't mind. 

"I'll explain," he assured, pushing his brother off and sitting up. 

 Julian almost looked angry. "You can't just leave! You were gone for eight months, hermano. Eight months," he said tiredly. 

 "Julian, who is it?" asked his mother, wiping her hands on a cloth. No explanation was needed when her eyes widened, and she fell to her knees beside Sage. Her shaking hands held his face. "I knew you were alive. I could feel it." 

"Hi, Mamá," whispered Sage, wrapping his arms around her tightly. He could not remember the last time he hugged his mother. 

 "Ramon!" called out his mom. "Hurry, come!" 

His father, a stout man with a mustache he prided in, halted when he saw Sage. Then, a man Sage had never once seen cry before, let out a sob, failed to hide it behind his mouth, and continued to buckle to the ground. 

"Mi hijo," he said. My son. Sage went too long without those two words. 

 Sage's lips trembled, apologies pouring out of him. He had never meant to hurt his family like this. He was just trying to make things easier for them. "Lo siento, lo siento, lo siento," he repeated, the words cracking, and soon, his shoulders were shaking as if his sadness and relief were too much for his mortal body to contain, his family hugging him tight so he wouldn't fly away with the wind.

Sage Reyes was finally home. 

***

Author's Note:

And we are officially done! I hope this ending was satisfying or at the very least, enjoyable! 

Thank you to everyone who stuck around until the very end! I believe it was this book that introduced to me to so many wonderful new readers! It's been a long few months and although we had a month hiatus (which you all were so understanding of and I'm super grateful for that), my fourth book, Stealing Is An Art Form is finished. 

SIAAF has to be one of my favourites due to the plot and simply, the characters. I hope I did Solace Laurent and Sage Reyes justice :) 

I hope you all stick around for my future work because it would mean the world to me

And if you already haven't, please go check out my new book, The Emerald Tapes, which I will start in April. See you then

Until next time - m.k.t