Chapter Twenty-three
Mason
Four weeks and three days
Payton, Katie, and I were at dinner. I was leaving to go on tour in seven days. Payton had started her leave of absence from work today and we were celebrating. This was the first time that we had taken Katie anywhere other than doctors’ appointments or walking around the ranch.
“You look especially beautiful tonight.” I reached under the table and put my hand on her thigh. She was wearing a short maroon dress with some little boot-looking shoes. She’d fancied up Katie too. She was in a dress and there was a bow stuck to her dark baby hair.
“Thank you.” She licked her lips and smiled wickedly. “You look pretty good yourself, friend.”
I chuckled. “Friend, huh? You ever going to stop calling me that?”
“Are you ready to define our relationship, Mace? You want to have ‘the talk’? I figured still calling you my friend was just saving you from a panic attack.”
Well. She fucking had me there. I was not ready to define us. I wasn’t ready to say that she was my girlfriend, even though we both knew she probably was. Hell, she was basically living with me and helping me raise my sister. We were legit playing house. “Uh, I mean…”
She rolled her eyes and adjusted Katie’s frilly dress. “Just stop.”
“Are you mad?” I picked up my whiskey and took a deep sip.
“No, Mace. I’m not mad.” She shrugged. “I knew who you were before we even started doing whatever the hell it is we’re doing. No need to give you hives in order to pick a label.”
I knew she said she wasn’t mad, but she sure sounded mad. Or at least, annoyed. I couldn’t blame her. I was acting like a child. How was I supposed to raise one if I kept acting like one?
“We’re together. We’re banging each other, we aren’t banging anyone else…We’re, uh, dating?” We were going on dates, even if most of them consisted of takeout at home. She just stared at me, her eyes blinking steadily. “Look. You know that I care about you. You’re my best friend, you’re the only person I trust in this whole damn world. You’re too good for me. You’re an angel. But I’m trying here.” Please let that be enough. Because much more of this and I was going to honestly freak the fuck out.
“That was sweet, in a Mason sort of way.” She put her hand on mine on top of the table. “I’ve never asked you for more than you can give. And I’m not going to start now, okay? I knew what I was getting into with you.”
That made me sound like a mental patient or something. I wasn’t. I was just a guy who had always imagined his life going one way. And suddenly it was headed in the completely opposite direction. “I won’t sleep with anyone else, while I’m on tour, I mean. I swear.”
Payton’s eyes went wide and she took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I would hope not, Mace. That would be called cheating.” She annunciated the word like it was one I’d never heard before.
I couldn’t call it cheating. Cheating would mean that Payton was for real my girlfriend. I could think of her as my partner, my best friend, my soul mate…but the word girlfriend was making me start to get clammy. M Kat would be shaking her head at me right now, and my dad? His eyes would be darting back and forth between us. Because he’d understand where I was coming from.
Luckily we dropped the relationship talk and fell back into an easy rhythm. We laughed and joked. We took turns holding Katie when she got a little fussy in her car seat. After we paid the bill and we were standing to leave, an older couple stopped us.
“We just wanted to tell you how adorable your baby is, and how good.” The woman was smiling, looking into the car seat in my hands.
I smiled back. “Thank you, I think so too.”
“Pretty baby and a beautiful wife. You are a lucky man.” The old guy winked at me before ushering his wife out the door. I stood frozen in my spot. They thought we were a family. They thought it was mom, dad, and baby. That we were married. That we’d met and fell in love. That we’d had a wedding. That Katie was planned, that she was ours.
But none of that was true.
We weren’t a family. My family was dead.
And we hadn’t met and fallen in love. We’d met and hooked up. And now? What were we doing now? Dating? That sounded so fucking lame. But I couldn’t even say the word girlfriend out loud?
“Mace? You okay?” Payton snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Hey.”
I shook my head and turned to her, a smile on my face I didn’t feel. “Yeah, I’m good. Sorry.”
Her head tilted, her long hair falling over her shoulder. “Please don’t let what that man said freak you out. He didn’t know, and it’s not his fault. They were just trying to be polite. It’s not going to be the last time that happens, Mason.”
I closed my eyes and allowed myself a moment to feel the pain his words had caused. Feel the loss of my parents, the injustice of it all. The confusion of Payton in my life. The fear that I’d lose her and Katie, that I’d be all alone.
When I opened them she was still staring at me. I held my hand out. “Come on, gorgeous. Let’s get this baby home.”