For Research Purposes | ✔

CHAPTER SIX

     Sage shows up at Sam's door holding two cups of coffee. Sam's eyes track to the white one, with the green logo and he's having a Pavlovian response, mouth filling with saliva. To the coffee. Not Sage.

     The other cup in his hand is notably not from Starbucks. It's a robin's egg blue with a white logo. Sam recognizes it because it's the coffee Sage brings with him to class all winter. Bluestone Lane. Which is in the opposite direction of the Starbucks.

     Sam steps out of the way to let Sage in. When he'd walked home this morning, it'd been in the low fifties and nippy out. Sage is dressed for the cold in light wash jeans and a black cable knit. Underneath, he has a patterned collared shirt, the collar and the tail visible. Sam would expect no less.

     "You went to two coffee shops?" Sam asks, his tone ridiculing.

     Sage holds out the Starbucks cup to Sam. "I went to one coffee shop and a Starbucks. That conglomerate doesn't count."

     "Alright, you coffee snob," Sam says but his tone is deflated as he takes the cup and tries not to think about all the implications of Sage going out of his way to bring him Starbucks. Particularly when.... "I got us breakfast," he says. "Well, stole it technically. Bagels."

     Sage follows Sam over to the little breakfast nook in his kitchenette. "Did you bake them?" Sage asks as he takes a seat on the stool across from Sam.

     "Why?" Sam asks. "Afraid I'll poison you?"

❧

     Sage sometimes thinks Sam could be flirting with him.

     But then probably it's just his imagination. Yeah, it's that. It's being in Sam's apartment on a Sunday morning, with the light streaming in, bouncing off all his odd furniture. It's the scent of coffee under his nose and Sam in grey sweats with damp hair, and the hot bagel he's folding back the tinfoil on.

     It's not that Sam is flirting with him. It's just that the situation feels very morning after. Feels like a breakfast date, which Sage reserves for only the most special people.

     Sam picked him up an everything bagel with Taylor ham, egg and cheese. Sage limits himself to one of these sandwiches a week so he guesses this is it.

     "I put salt, pepper, ketchup because if you don't eat it that way, you're a sadist," Sam says glancing up at Sage with his sandwich hovering by his mouth. He takes a bite after he's done speaking and ketchup spills onto his chin.

     For a hot second Sage imagines—nothing. He imagines nothing because he's not an idiot. And Sam swipes his finger across his face, slipping it between his lips so he can suck the condiment off. And Sage is back to imagining things.

     "A sadist, huh," Sage muses with a soft laugh trying to get out of his head where bad (delicious, dirty) things are happening. He picks up half his bagel and starts eating. He makes a noise, content, forgetting just where he is and who he's with momentarily. It's a bit natural, sitting here with Sam, having breakfast, that Sage is halted, staring at Sam who's eyes are half closed as he eats.

     "That's not Taylor ham," Sage notes after too much staring. Enough staring to notice the usual dark circles under Sam's eyes. His eyebrows are growing in and slightly unruly. And he's flushed, probably from his shower.

     "And this is not an oven," Sam responds with the last of his bagel in his mouth so his words are sort of muffled as he taps the counter they're eating at. "Are we done stating the obvious?"

     Sage rolls his eyes but it's more playful than anything. "Why?" he asks.

     "I don't eat pork," Sam responds running his fingers along the lid of his drink. It's an anxious movement, the way he taps at the edge, moves his hand down so he can lift it and then sets it back down, changing his mind.