Chapter Forty
Mason
Fifteen weeks and four days old.
I watched through the window as she loaded up Katie and drove away. I wanted to go with them. I wanted to see them do mommy and me yoga, it sounded fucking adorable.
Holding Payton and Katie last night was the best feeling in the world. I’d give anything to get to do it again. Get to do it every night. But I needed to take things slow. I knew if I pushed too far, too fast, she’d shut me down completely. Much like the first night I met her. Payton would take some finesse. Hopefully I still had some.
“Can you not do anything right?”
I hung my head when Paxton walked up behind me. “You’re plan didn’t work, at all. She’s super pissed again. All the headway I made at dinner went up in flames.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot. I meant take over for her, not molest her.” He shook his head. “She needed to see you rock and sing to Katie, that would have melted her. Girls love shit like that. Katie has gotten me every date I’ve had in the last three weeks. And you need to remind Payton what things were like in the beginning, what it was like having you here. When y’all were a couple, a team.”
“Either way, she’s livid. She’s never going to forgive me.” I shook my head, letting despair and hopelessness take hold of my mood. I was straight up having a pity party.
“You’re a pussy. You’re such a pussy that I’m rethinking helping you get her back.” He shrugged his shoulders, a bewildered look on his face. “How you got her to start sleeping with you, on two separate occasions, I’ll never know.” I opened my mouth to tell him exactly how I got his sister into bed, but he cocked his fist back. So I shut up. “You owe me a hundred dollars by the way.”
“What? Why?”
“I had to pay Parker not to kick your ass. The Benjamin only bought you three days, so you better get your shit together and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Pity parties are counterproductive at this point. All those will show her, and us, is what a little bitch you are.”
I ignored the insult. Because what was the point? “You want me to win back your sister, the girl I left to raise a baby by herself? In three days?”
“Well, two days technically because yesterday was part of that bundle.” He started to walk off down the hallway. “Someone needs to run to the grocery store.”
“Why? We can hire someone to delivery groceries out to the ranch.”
He was looking at me like he literally wanted to hit me again. “Payton doesn’t like doing things like that. And the grocery store is next door to the yoga studio.” He glared at me. “The list is on the fridge. Pussy.”
***
I hadn’t gone to the grocery store in years. It wasn’t worth the time and effort. Usually I’d get recognized, then I’d have to leave my cart and run to my car. But Paxton was right. If I wanted Payton back, if I wanted to stop pissing her off, I was going to need to try harder. I flew through the aisles with a ball cap pulled low on my head. I got everything on the list, signed three autographs, and timed it so that I was walking out the door when mommy and me yoga let out.
“Mason?”
Payton was wearing Katie in a sling and her yoga mat was hanging from her back on a strap. She was flushed and her hair was pulled back from her face. Her yoga pants were tight and her top was cropped. I was, quite possibly, drooling. “Oh hey, how was class?”
“Are you stalking me?”
Totally. I gave her a small grin and held up the grocery bags. “I saw the list of things we needed on the fridge, so I thought I’d make myself useful.”
She tilted her head, smiling a little. “That’s really nice of you, Mace, but um, usually we have the groceries delivered.”
Paxton was a stupid motherfucker. “Well since I’m here, do you guys want to grab a smoothie or something? I was headed that way after I dropped these bags in my car.” I’d made a pit stop and bought a brand new Land Rover before I returned to the ranch yesterday. It wasn’t avoidance, it was a necessity.
“Mason…”
I shrugged, trying to be super casual. “It’s just a smoothie, Payton. But if you don’t want to go, just text me your order and I’ll bring you one home.” I was mentally crossing my fingers, praying that she’d say yes. That was how much I wanted to be near her, how much I wanted to be part of her day. Of her life. I’d gone from sleeping wrapped around her body every night to silently begging her to have a smoothie at the same table as me.
“Um, no, I’ll uh…A smoothie sounds nice.”
We walked side by side, and after I put the groceries away we got a smoothie together. She took Katie out of her sling and I held her in my lap. I made Payton laugh, three times. And I made Katie smile. It was the best day I’d had since the day I left nearly twelve weeks ago.