Chapter Thirty-three
Payton
Fifteen weeks old (almost four months)
I pulled my giant mom SUV into my parking space at the house and cut the engine. I leaned my head against the soft leather seat and studied the windows, trying to see who was still awake and who wasn’t.
I’d told my brothers that I’d had a date. It was a lie I started to tell them every so often over the last few weeks. It got them off my back about moving on and forgetting about Mason. Usually I’d go to dinner with my friends from the hospital or see a movie by myself. The alone time was nice, and my family had stopped bitching so much and trying to set me up with friends and coworkers.
I walked into the house to find my brothers on the couch, Katie sitting between them in her bouncy seat. “It’s almost ten o’clock. Why is she still up?” I made my way into the room and stepped in front of the television. Both of them moved their heads to the right, trying to see around me. “Really?”
Pax frowned, waving his hand for me to move. “Every time we tried to put her down, she’d wake up. Finally we just let her have her way and put on a movie. What’s the big deal? It’s not like she has to get up early for school tomorrow.”
I put my hands on my hips. “The big deal is that we’ve been working on this sleep training for a solid two weeks and I’m pretty sure you two just unraveled everything.” I didn’t know why I was even bothering. Neither of them had looked away from the TV once.
When I threw my hands in the air, Parker grabbed the remote and pressed pause. “Why are you home so early? Who are these losers you’re going out with?”
“Just because your dates don’t end until the sun comes up, doesn’t mean mine have to.” I unbuckled Katie out of her seat and cuddled her to me, sitting down in the brown leather club chair. “Come here, Bug. You need to go night-night.” I kissed her chubby cheeks and started to rock her a little.
Pax grabbed his cell. “Speaking of dates, since you’re home, I’m going to go have one myself.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Dates that start at ten o’clock at night are booty calls.”
“Don’t I know it?” He winked and headed out the front door.
After he left I glanced across the room at Parker. “What? Why are you staring at me like that? Sorry I didn’t have sex with Nate, geez.”
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you had a date with some dude named Dan tonight?”
“Oh, uh, yeah. I meant Dan.” I giggled like an irritating schoolgirl, trying like hell to sell my lie. “I just go on so many dates these days that I’m getting guys confused. You know me, just a dating machine.”
Parker tilted his head to the side. “Didn’t you say you were meeting up with a Chuck last week?”
“Oh, uh, yep. Chuck. He’s in real estate investments.” I sighed dramatically. “It’s not going to work out between us though, he has daddy issues.”
My brother gasped loudly, pointing at me and startling Katie. “You aren’t going out with anyone. You’ve been lying this whole time.”
I gasped right back, trying for indignant. “I most certainly have not. Katie and I don’t have to sit here and listen to this. We’re going to bed.” I went to stand.
“Sit back down.” He was using his big brother tone. I didn’t want to listen, but my body kind of automatically responded. Years of conditioning. He started ticking off points off on his fingers. “Nate? Dan? Chuck with daddy issues? You’re going through the characters on Gossip Girl.” He shook his head sadly. “How dumb do you think I am?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Not as dumb as Pax, if that makes you feel any better. I told him Dan was a writer and his first book caused quite a bit of controversy. He still didn’t catch on.”
“Why lie?”
“I was tired of everyone telling me what to do. Tired of everyone wanting me to move on, to pretend like Mason doesn’t exist.” I smiled down at the baby in my arms, kissing the top of her head. “Because he does. And one day he’ll come home.”
Parker narrowed his eyes. “And then what happens, Pay? You welcome him back with open arms? You hand over Katie without a fight?”
I sent him a small smile. “I don’t have all the answers, Parker. I just know that he will come home. That one day the tour will end, and he’ll be standing at the front door. And when that day comes? Things are going to be hard enough. There is already going to be so much we need to figure out. I don’t think bringing another guy into this mess is fair.” I stood up, maneuvering Katie to my shoulder, a practiced move I did a hundred times a day. “I already brought you and Pax in, already put you two in a position to get hurt. To lose someone you’ve come to love. I won’t do that to anyone else. It isn’t right.”
Parker got to his feet, holding his hands out and smiling at the little girl he thought of as his niece when she cooed at him. “If you think that I’ll let you just hand her over to him, you’re wrong. He doesn’t deserve her. And he doesn’t deserve you either, Pay.” He took Katie out of my arms and held her close to his chest. Both my brothers had come to love her like she was their own. They were with her every day. They were helping me raise her and watching her grow. They were already wrapped around her little finger.
I placed my hand on her tiny back and met my brother’s eyes. “You’ve never seen them together, you don’t know how much he loves her. You don’t know what it was like in the beginning.”
“You’re right. I was just here for the aftermath. I listened to my baby sister cry herself to sleep when she thought no one could hear. You haven’t moved on, you haven’t even tried.” His body was relaxed, but his face was hard. I opened my mouth to argue that point, but he kept talking. “You can play the martyr all you want. You can tell me it isn’t fair to start a relationship right now. You can tell me that Katie is your only priority. But I know the truth. Mason hurt you, Pay, devastated you. You might not want to admit it to me, or to yourself. But he did.” He shook his head. “You dropped everything to help him. You were there for him when he had no one else. You turned your life upside down to raise his baby sister. The child his parents left as his responsibility. Your social life, your job? All that is gone. You gave it all up for a man that walked out on you without a backward glance.”
“He didn’t walk out on me, Parker. He had to go back on tour. He didn’t have a choice.”
He snorted. “Sure, keep telling yourself that.”
I watched as my brother walked down the hallway, Katie cradled in his big arms. Once he turned into her room, I headed toward the kitchen. If Park was going to put her bed, I was going to have a glass of wine. I poured myself a tall one from the opened bottle of red on the counter and then sat at the table. I pulled out my phone and started flipping through the old pics I’d saved. The ones from the beginning, the ones of Mason and Katie I’d taken. When we were best friends and we were turning into more. When we were becoming a family.
I hadn’t gotten over him, my brother was right. But how could I? I was living in his house, raising his baby sister. It wasn’t like I could take Katie and run. That would be kidnapping, if he ever decided to come looking for us. I could only sit here and wait for the day he came home. And hope that I was the only one who ended up hurt.
I took a deep breath and picked up my phone. Jacks had been calling to check in on Katie and me. Something Mason had stopped doing altogether once they’d extended the tour. Something Parker had said was weighing on me. It was a thought I’d had then pushed to the furthest corners of my mind. But it was time and I needed to know the truth.
Me: Did Mason have a choice about going back on tour?
I waited, drumming my fingers on the counter and sipping my wine. When my phone dinged, my stomach dropped. I was terrified of seeing his answer.
Jacks Cole: No, he had to do the first six weeks or his crew wouldn’t have gotten paid. He had people depending on him and he did the right thing.
I let out a small sigh of relief. Okay, so when he left, he had to. He did it because he cared about his crew, the people his tour had employed.
Me: And extending the tour? Whose idea was that?
Jacks Cole: Mason’s.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying like hell not to cry.
Me: Thanks.
Jacks Cole: I’m sorry. I know that wasn’t the answer you wanted to hear.
Me: No. But it was the one I needed to.
I placed my phone facedown on the table. I didn’t want to see those words staring back at me. They were making me sick. It was what I had feared, put out there in black and white.
Mason hadn’t wanted to come home. He didn’t miss us so much that it hurt. He wasn’t lying awake wondering how we were. He was just done. He didn’t want this life. He didn’t want to be part of this family.
I took another sip, a larger sip. I took a deep breath and when I let it out, I let him go.