Chapter Thirty-five
Payton
Fifteen weeks and two days old (just about four months)
I took deep, calming breaths as I made my way around the kitchen, cooking dinner for everyone. Mason was in the living room, lying on the floor with Katie. I could hear him talking to her and it was like listening to the voice of Christmas Past. He was watching her every move, kissing her tiny bald head every few seconds. It was clear that he’d missed her. He was our shadow, following me and Pax around as we went about our normal routine with her. Paxton spent most of the day busting Mason’s balls, because that was Paxton. I did my best to not be in the same room as Mace.
He looked tired and thin. But still he was handsome. Sexy, wild, hot. All of the above. My body still reacted to his scent, to his nearness. But my brain and my heart? Not a fucking chance. I’d held out hope for a long time, thinking he’d come home. I had tried to comfort myself with the fact that it was all the label’s doing. However, the moment I’d read the text from Jacks, all that went out the window. Fuck Mace for leaving, fucking him for staying gone, and fuck him for not calling.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
I jumped, spilling some chicken broth on the counter when I heard Parker’s booming voice. I sopped up the mess and then took a large sip from the glass of white wine I’d poured myself. I knew this was coming. Paxton was laid back, he’d punish Mason in a passive aggressive way, with wit and veiled humor. Parker? He’d rip his head off and shove it down his throat.
“This is my house. Shouldn’t I be asking you the same thing?”
Oh, that was not going to go over well with my brother. I walked into the living room to see Parker towering over Mason. Not only was he a few inches taller than Mace, but Parker was standing one step up in the entryway. “Really? Last I checked it’s Payton’s house, my sister, the one who actually lives here. You know? The girl you walked out on?”
Mason opened his mouth to fire something back, but I honestly didn’t want to hear it. Not tonight. “Mason.” When I said his name, his gaze flew to mine. That was the first time I’d spoken to him since our initial conversation. I shook my head. “Let it go, please? Today has been hard enough, and I just can’t deal with the two of you fighting.”
He studied me for a few seconds, some of the fight leaving his body. “Fine.” He turned narrowed eyes on Parker. “But let’s get one things straight, this is my house. Mine.” He stalked off down the hallway.
Parker went and picked Katie up off her play mat and followed me into the kitchen, Pax hot on his heels. “What is he doing here, Payton?”
I took another sip of wine. “Tour’s over, and this is his house. I told you he’d come back one day.” It was as simple as that. This was his house, Katie was his sister, and I was just a glorified nanny. My heart hurt at seeing Mason again after all this time. And at the thought of losing Katie. Of not being around to watch her grow up.
“So this is it? You really are just going to let him come home and take everything from you? Take the baby you think of as your own? The little girl I love like she’s my niece? He leaves you both, like a coward, and then returns home to no fight. That’s fucking weak, Pay.”
“Hey, Park, come on man. That’s not fair.” Paxton put his hands on his hips, taking up for me.
I hung my head, letting my tears fall. Seeing Mason, it was almost surreal. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that he was here, that he was home. I was hurting and scared. I was walking around on pins and needles just waiting for him to tell us to get out.
I’d told Parker once that Mason would never do that to me, that he’d never hurt us like that. But that was before I knew the truth. He’d stayed away because he wanted to. I thought I knew him. I thought I understood his fears and his hang-ups, his heartache.
Turned out, I never really knew him at all.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Parker. This is throwing me for a loop too, okay? I come home from mommy and me yoga, and he’s just standing in the living room. It was like seeing a damn ghost.” I sat down at one of the barstools, smiling gratefully at Paxton when he went to the stove to rescue dinner. “He’s Katie’s brother, her godfather, her actual guardian. I can’t keep him from her. This house is in his name. The SUV that showed up two weeks after he left with a giant red bow on the top, I’m sure that’s in his name too.” I sighed and rested my forehead against the cool granite.
“I want to kick his a-s-s. Real bad.” Parker was bouncing Katie in his arms, a mean look on his face.
I couldn’t help but start to laugh a little at the sight of a big bad man spelling out ass and rocking a baby wearing a miniature pink tutu. “Please don’t kick his a-s-s. I don’t think that would solve anything.”
“I won’t let him hurt you, Pay. I won’t stand for it.”
I picked up my head and squared my shoulders. “Just give me some time to figure everything out. Let me talk to him, see what his plans are. Who knows? Maybe he doesn’t even want to live here. Maybe he doesn’t want to raise Katie.”
“If that’s the case he’s even stupider than I thought.” Parker shook his head and headed out the back door, probably to walk off his anger, taking Katie with him.
***
Mason didn’t come to dinner, not that any of us invited him. Pax was giving Katie a bath and I had a plate of leftovers in my hand.
When I knocked on the door to his parents’ bedroom he answered, “It’s not locked, Payton.”
“I thought you might be hungry.” I sat the plate of chicken and rice on his nightstand. I hadn’t ever been in here, although I’d stared from the doorway. When my brother’s moved in, I thought seriously about making the master my own. But I knew that it wasn’t right. Mason needed to go through his parents’ things in his own time. So I’d bitten the bullet and taken Mace’s room. I’d cried the whole time I was cleaning it out, boxing up everything that reminded me of him and replacing it with new things. Things not attached to a person or a memory. I may have also burned his sheets.
It didn’t matter how many times I washed them, his scent still clung to them.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
I nodded. “You’re right, I didn’t.” He was lying on his bed, staring up. Staring at the ceiling like he always did when he was thinking too hard. “We need to talk, Mace.”
He sat up and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Where is Katie?”
“Paxton is giving her a bath.” Pax loved bath time, he was the only one of us that let her splash and kick her tiny legs to her heart’s content.
“He’s good with her.” His words came out strained, like they were hard for him to say.
“They both are.” I shrugged. “They’ve been here for over a month now, every day. They help me with everything. The cooking, the cleaning, errands, Katie…I couldn’t have done it without them.”
He met my eyes. “I told you I’d pay for help.”
He still didn’t get it, and that made me sad for him. “Kate wouldn’t have wanted that. Remember? She didn’t like having a staff.” When he opened his mouth to argue with me, I held my hand up, stopping him. “I’m doing my best here, Mace. I’m doing the best I can to raise Katie the way Kate would have wanted. She was never my mom, but she was my friend. My mentor. And she talked about the future a lot, about the things that she wanted for her daughter. As well as the things she didn’t.”
He was quiet for another few seconds, and stared at me. “It’ll make you happy if your brothers stay?”
It’d have made me happy if you’d have stayed. It’d have made me happy if you’d called me, texted me. If you’d rushed home the first second you could.
“Yes.”
He nodded. “They can stay, for now. But if Parker gives me any more shit, he’s out.”
I knew it was his way of trying, his way of making an effort, of trying to start healing the hurt between us. “So we’ll all live here? Together? You don’t want me to leave?”
His forehead wrinkled. “Of course I don’t want you to leave, Payton. This is your home. Katie is as much yours as she is mine.” I let out a deep breath, one that I had been holding from the moment I saw him this afternoon. His shoulders slumped and his eyes turned sad. “I hurt you. I know I did. And I know that you may never forgive me, and I can live with that. But Katie and me? We can’t live without you in our lives. I’d never ask you to give her up. Never.”
“Okay.” Those were weak words for what I was feeling. I wanted to sink to my knees and cry with relief. “I’m going to go put Katie to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“Can I come?”
No. “Yes.”
He followed me across the hall where Paxton was getting Katie dressed in her jammies and brushing her wispy baby hair. He shot Mason a look but didn’t say anything when he sat down on the ottoman. Just like he used to before he’d abandoned us.
“Good night, Bug. Love you, sweet girl.” Paxton’s voice was soft and sweet, like it always was with Katie. But he glared at Mason his whole way out of the room.
“Come here, love.” I scooped her up off the changing table and went to sit in the glider, turning off the light on my way. I started to hum “Best of My Love” to her, as I did every night. Her beautiful hazel eyes started to get heavy. Mason was sitting so close. If I rocked just right, my knee would touch his. I didn’t want to crave that touch. I didn’t want to miss it. After a few minutes she was asleep, her tiny chest rising and falling peacefully. I stood and headed toward her crib.
“Wait, can I…?”
I turned, Mason was on his feet, looking down at his sleeping sister. I walked back to him and put her in his arms. “You can do whatever you want, Mason. She’s your baby.” My throat clogged with fresh unshed tears.
Those were the same words I’d spoken to him in the hospital. The same words I’d used to assure him that he wouldn’t hurt her, that she was his to love.
I wished we could go back, I wished I could go back to that day and never let myself fall in love with him.