Chapter 34
Mason
“Are you sure you’re not weirded out that I have a kid?”
Her breathless question came after her body finally settled down after her third orgasm. Her entire body was quaking by the time I was done devouring her swollen pussy, and I held her as close as I could get her.
“I’m sure,” I said.
“I mean, I have a son out there somewhere with my DNA and my looks running around and living his life.”
“Sounds like it bothers you more than it bothers me,” I said. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“It’s just …”
She turned in my arms, and I craned my neck down, so I could see her. Her beautiful stare was still hazy from our encounter, but her body was steady as she tangled her legs with mine. I could see her lazy thoughts racing around in her mind, and I planted a long, warm kiss on her forehead to try and settle her thoughts.
“Take your time. We’ve got all night,” I said.
“I always thought I would be a decent mother, right?” she asked. “And I had that opportunity. But instead, I gave him away. Does that make me a bad mother?”
“Could you have provided for him?” I asked.
“No. I had no job.”
“Could you have given him a stable home?” I asked.
“Not by a fucking long shot,” she said.
“Does he have those things now?” I asked.
“The adoption agency assured me he would,” she said breathlessly.
“Then you did the best thing a mother could do for her child, Sarah. You provided him with the life you knew he needed to succeed, no matter the cost to you. That’s what a mother does.”
I felt her squeeze me tightly, and I could feel her tears dripping onto my skin. I showered the top of her head with kisses, trying to get her to calm down while her emotions overwhelmed her body. It had been a long and intense past few days, and I felt honored that she felt comfortable enough baring her soul like this with me, in front of me.
While I could hold her and comfort her and kiss her.
“Emma said something to me,” she said.
“What did Emma say?” I asked.
“She said something that made me think you might’ve gone to see your mom?” she asked.
“How about this? We make tonight about you, and then tomorrow over breakfast in bed, we’ll talk about me.”
“Promise?” she asked.
“I promise. Sarah?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever told anyone this? Besides Emma, that is. About your son,” I said.
“No. This is the first time I’ve ever told anyone besides her. Honestly, it’s the only time I ever wanted to.”
“Thank you for telling me,” I said as I looked down at her. “It means a great deal that you let me in like that.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about your mother?” she asked.
I wanted to make this moment all about her. Her emotions and how she was feeling. I wanted to hold her through everything and make her feel like I could be a safe place to fall. She was opening up in ways I could tell she never had before, but there was something deep inside that was yelling at me.
Yelling at me to tell her.
“Emma and I did go to see my mother,” I said.
I watched her sit up as she turned her body fully toward me.
“What happened?” she asked.
“My mother has cancer,” I said. “Battling it for the second time.”
“Oh, Mason. I’m so sorry.”
“She’s withering away, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“What happened when you got there?” she asked as she cupped my cheek.
“We talked. I found out so many things.”
“Like what?” she asked.
“She left because she was unhappy. Apparently, my father and she started having problems. Problems he didn’t want to fix with therapy or anything like that. She didn’t want to pull me out of school or yank me away from my friends, so she left me with my father, and they agreed to split everything fifty-fifty.”
“Sounds like an impossibly hard decision for her,” she said.
“She could only find a third-shift position working in a factory, which was why she never picked up the phone for me. She said she wrote me letters every morning and sent them off before she went to sleep, but I never fucking got any of them. Our guess is that my father was intercepting them and doing something with them.”
“Have you called him?” she asked.
“I can’t. Not right now. I’m still too … angry. I don’t want any more anger in this situation. Just the truth,” I said. “She admitted she could’ve done more. Sacrificed her sleep to come see me. Taken vacation time and taken us somewhere. But looking into your eyes and seeing the toll your sacrifice took on you, I can’t—”
She leaned forward and kissed my lips softly as I tried to choke back tears of my own. My arms wrapped around her and pulled her close, rolling her on top of me as my face tucked right into the crook of her neck. I took in her scent as her lips traced over my skin, and I could feel my pent-up emotions bubbling to the top.
I began to sob into her skin as years and years of questions and anger came pouring forth, and all Sarah did was hold me until I was finished.
“Mason, I’m so proud of you. You went your entire life not knowing her. Now, you can get to know her. Stick around and spend time with her,” she said.
“And you, too. I want to see you as much as I can,” I said as our eyes connected again.
“You can see as much of me as you wish. There’s just one question.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The media. Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t give a shit about the media frenzy. All I want is to be with you. I just don’t want you suffering any more losses to your fan base or the reputation of your show by being seen with me.”
“I couldn’t care less about any of that now if I wanted to,” she said. “I’m tired of sneaking around. I want you to be able to hold my hand while we walk down the street. I want to be able to kiss you on the streets of the city I love most. I want you to visit me at work and have no one get upset. I want you to surprise me in my dressing room. I want us to be able to cruise with the top down in Dallas and not feel weird about it.”
She smiled, and my entire world lit up like the sun. I cupped her cheek and brought her lips back to mine as her body sank between my legs. She tasted of sweat and love and adoration, and the moment she pressed her cheek to my chest, I could feel her heave a sigh of relief.
“I love you, Sarah,” I said, “and we’ll navigate this together.”
“I couldn’t think of anyone else I’d want to navigate this with,” she said. “Except maybe Hugh Jackman.”
“It’s always Hugh Jackman,” I said breathlessly. “What is it about that guy?”
“It’s the Wolverine thing,” she said. “The claws and the muscles and the fighting and the strength. Oh, and the body hair.”
“You like his body hair?” I asked.
“It’s manly! Don’t shoot the messenger,” she said.
“I don’t think that phrase means what you think it means,” I said, grinning.
“Well, anyway. There’s your answer,” she said as she snuggled deep into my body.
“I could grow body hair, you know,” I said.
“Don’t you dare change a thing about yourself,” she said as she looked up at me. “I love you just the way you are.”
We held each other all night as we slept the evening away. Our bodies kept finding one another’s as we gravitated toward each other’s heat, like two magnets desperately searching for their counterparts. I woke up with her softness beneath my fingers and her light snores landing in my ear, and as I looked at her, I saw the rest of my life etched in her relaxed features.
I was in love with Sarah Williams, and I wanted her by my side forever.