“Pics or it didn’t happen,” I said matter-of-factly.
Mason waggled his eyebrows at me. “Number?” he challenged me. I gave it to him and saw him type something into his phone. A few minutes later my phone pinged. I pulled it up and found a message from Lizzy forwarded to me by Mason. As promised, it was a younger Mason with a thoroughly bedazzled tinfoil crown with the words “Word Boy of February” in pink glitter on the front. Next to him was a young blonde woman in a wheelchair with a dramatically sad look on her face who I could only assume was Lizzie.
“Nice,” I laughed. “Who did the bedazzling? You or Lizzie?”
“Neither,” Mason responded. “That was all Everett.”
We laughed and joked the rest of the way over to my parents. When we arrived, I noticed Kaine’s car was gone, but Bishop’s was here. It didn’t mean Bishop was home, as he and Kaine spent a lot of time together.
Mama K met us at the door with hugs, her gray eyes smiling. I think she surprised Mason when she hugged him, because he seemed to freeze for a minute before relaxing into it. As sassy as Mama K was, there was no better hugger in the world.
“There’s my partner!” Mama D announced as we entered the living room. Mason smiled and sat across from her at the table. They’d taken a couple of leaves out of the table to make it the perfect size for playing Scrabble.
“Lee, don’t forget to take the soap and lotion I made you, sweetie,” Mama D said as I sat down. She set a bag down next to Mason that earned us a raised eyebrow.
“Mama D makes soaps and lotions as a hobby. She has a special formula she uses for each of the kids, and we get some every few months.”
Mama D smiled gently at Mason. “Let me know if you like it,” she said. “I do my best to match the scent to the person, to the trait I see most in them.”
Mason nodded and smiled as Mama D handed me a shopping bag filled with her concoctions. I saw her eye Mason as she settled in.
“I also make a pretty sweet lip balm, Mason. Ohio weather can be hell on skin, especially lips,” she said. “I put some for you in Lee’s bag.”
“Thank you,” he said, blushing and letting his lower lip loose from between his teeth.
We settled around the table, Mama D asking first if we wanted something to eat or drink. We were both still feeling full after our arcade meal, but I got up to get a beer. A quirked eyebrow at Mason and he shook his head.
As we set up the game Mason asked Mama D “Why did you split up the teams like this? I would have thought you and Kyra would want to be partners.”
Mama D laughed. “The kids made a rule several years ago that we weren’t allowed to be on the same team anymore,” she said.
“Yep, the kiddos decided we knew each other too damn well and that it was tantamount to telepathy,” she winked at Mama K, whose cheeks turned bright pink.
“Yes, and I know exactly what you’re thinking right now, Diana Devereaux, and you should be ashamed of yourself!” Mama K exclaimed.
We laughed, and the game began in earnest.
While we played, I asked my moms if they’d seen Kaine. I was worried about my baby brother.
“He was here earlier today, but he and Bishop were meeting someone for dinner,” Mama D answered.
“Did he say who?” I asked, playing a couple of tiles for a low score word.
Mama D looked up from her tiles, her eyes glancing at Mama K before she answered.
“Um, Nicki is back in town, apparently,” she said.
I nodded.
“Kaine and I ran into him at Wally Waffle the other day,” I said with a grimace. “He… was pretty upset afterward. I wasn’t sure if he was going to contact him again or not.”
“He didn’t have a choice,” Mama D said, glaring down at her letters a touch angrily. She kept rearranging them, but regardless of how they appeared, she couldn’t seem to make anything of them. “Nicki showed up at the house last night.”
“Shit,” I sighed. I saw the confused look on Mason’s face, so I explained. “Nicki was Kaine’s first love. They were friends through most of high school, and Nicki’s parents moved away their senior year,” I explained to Mason. “He was… pretty devastated by it.”
Mason nodded. “I can understand that. It must have sucked having his parents move.” As Mason spoke, I saw a look pass between my parents for a moment, then it was gone.
“What did he want?” I asked, trying to be nonchalant.
“He wanted to talk to Kaine, of course,” Mama D said. “We convinced him to wait, as Kaine was still at school,” Mama D said as she finally gave up on her letters and threw them back into the bag to be reshuffled.
“It also gave us time to round up Bishop, so Kaine wouldn’t be alone when dealing with him,” Mama K said. I loved my parents, they could be sneaky when needed.
“How… How did he look?” I asked.
“Awful skinny, poor kid. He looks like he could easily put on twenty pounds and you wouldn’t be able to tell. He’d been crying… His mom passed away last year. He didn’t mention anything about his dad, so I got the feeling he wasn’t in the picture anymore. Luckily Bishop got here before Kaine, so he was able to help him get straightened out before Kaine saw him.”
I nodded. It made sense. The three boys had been close growing up, until their sophomore year at school. Bishop had started spending more and more time working on his art, which had led to Kaine and Nicki becoming closer.
“Any idea where they went?” I asked, wondering if maybe we should stop in and check on them.
“No, Lee. Leave him alone. He needs to get this figured out on his own,” Mama D said, eying me over her tiles.
“I know, Mom… It’s just…” I sighed. “I hate to see him hurt like this. We know what he was like after Nicki left. I don’t want him to have to go through that again.”
“You can’t stop it,” Mason’s voice whispered. I looked over at him and he coughed, suddenly embarrassed. Apparently, he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “I mean, he’s the only one who can decide how he’s going to feel about Nicki. He can choose not to let him hurt him again, or he can decide the love is worth the pain,” Mason shrugged. “Everyone has to make that choice at some point.”
The look on his face made me wonder who it was that Mason had needed to decide about letting into his heart. I had a sneaking suspicion, but now wasn’t the time to discuss it. We turned the conversation back to the game. While Mama K and I were no slouches, we were no real match for these two and they were thoroughly trouncing us.
Mason hadn’t been kidding when he claimed to be a word genius. He turned my puny little “REV” into “REVIVIFY”. I laughed, and challenged his word, certain it couldn’t be in the dictionary.
“Challenge accepted,” he said, winking at me with his hair flopping in his face. That look! I felt all the blood in my body head south and I shifted in my seat, suddenly afraid to stand up and embarrass myself.
“Revivify,” he quoted, “…to make someone or something strong, healthy, or active again. To restore to life.”
“Dang it!” I exclaimed half-heartedly, laughing as Mama D and I conceded the game.
Mama K came around the table and hugged her partner. The look on Mason’s face was just… heart-rending. It was so sad, but so happy at the same time. Like he was trying to soak up a lifetime’s worth of hugs in that one moment. I watched the two of them stand there for a moment and just felt my heart swell with some unnamed emotion. I wanted to wrap this incredibly brave, strong man up in bubble wrap and protect him from all the evils of the world.
Mama D looked at me and nodded, as if in approval. I smiled at her – I’d never been able to successfully keep secrets from my parents, so I was pretty sure they knew how I felt about Mason already.
Mama K released Mason, but only after placing a gentle kiss on the top of his head.
“You can be my Scrabble partner anytime, Mason!” she said. “How long are you going to be in town? I have a few peo
ple I’d love to trounce, if you’re available.”
Mason smiled and looked over at me shyly.
“Um, supposed to be two weeks,” he said. “But I guess you never know…”
“Well, as long as you are in town, we will expect you here for Friday night D&D,” Mama K said. Dammit, he was a grown ass man. You’d think my parents wouldn’t feel the need to tell him what to do.
“Sorry,” I whispered as we finished putting the game away.
“For what?” he asked, looking at me in genuine confusion.
“My moms can be a little… overwhelming,” I said, after pausing to find the most inoffensive word I could think of.
“Don’t be,” he said, smiling at me as we settled on the couch by the fireplace. “It’s kind of nice to have someone who cares.”
I hesitantly draped an arm around his shoulder. I really wanted to drag him over onto my lap and snuggle him close, but I wasn’t sure we were there yet.
“Is this… okay?” I asked, feeling the need to make sure he wasn’t uncomfortable.
He paused for a second and said, “No, I’m not exactly comfortable.” I started to withdraw my arm, but froze as he leaned into me. We’d taken our boots off when we’d arrived, so he tucked his sock covered feet up under him and then laid his head on my shoulder.
“Now, I’m comfortable,” he said, smiling up at me.
I saw both my parents spot the action and was relieved when they didn’t react to Mason’s head on my shoulder. My hand slipped down and started running through his curls.
We talked with my parents for a while, enjoying the heat of the fire. I listened to funny stories about Mason’s experiences in the publishing world, and listened as he asked my parents thoughtful questions about the sport they loved so much.
Mama K and Mama D started arguing about an MMA fight they had seen recently, talking about grappling, strikes and scoring. I knew Mason was really trying to follow what was being said, but he seemed completely out of his element.
They were trying to explain the rules of Mixed Martial Arts to Mason, and why one of their recent fights had resulted in a disqualification because their opponent had performed a headbutt.
“I don’t get it,” Mason said, shaking his head. “Why would he have even thought a headbutt would be useful in that situation, unless he wanted to cause real damage? You said he was shorter than you, Diana? I keep thinking that even if he’d connected, your teeth would have hit his head and just cut him up badly.”
“Yes, and no,” Mama K said. “I think he used it because a lot of his early training was in Krav Maga,” she said, her slight Spanish accent becoming more noticeable as the evening progressed. “Krav Maga is a kind of no-holds barred reality-based fighting. There are also some forms of full-contact karate that permit headbutting, but by and large in MMA, it’s a big no-no.”
“Why is it worse than any of the other strikes?” Mason asked.
“You can do a lot of serious damage with a headbutt, if done correctly,” Mama D said. “You can break the nose, shatter a cheekbone, or break the zygomatic bones of the eye and cheek.”
Mason winced, and I seemed to remember something from his medical records mentioning a fractured zygomatic bone. I hugged him a little closer to me as my parents continued.
“If done with enough force and skill, you could kill someone with a head butt,” Mama K added. “Here, let me show you.”
“Um, thanks, no…?” Mason got out as she pulled him to his feet. She laughed at his expression as he stood there, and I could see the uncertainty in his eyes as he glanced from her to me.
“Don’t look at me, babe. This is a rite of passage in the Devereaux household,” I said.
“So, Mason, you are the big, strong man, right? I’m this poor, helpless female…” She sing-songed her voice and batted her eyes at him. The look on his face was hilarious. I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe. I knew what came next.
“You come up behind me, and wrap your arms around me, pinning my arms to my sides,” she began, showing him how to stand and hold her arms. “I can’t break free, you are stronger than me. But what I can do is get momentum,” she leaned forward just a bit, then her head shot back quickly. I saw Mason’s eyes go wide as she halted her movement, stopping her head just short of his nose. “I use my momentum and the weight of my head like a wrecking ball. I swing it back, connect with almost anywhere on your face, and not only are you injured, you are stunned from the force of the blow and you risk a concussion. And unless you have some really good training, you are likely to release your grip on me as well.”
I watched Mason’s face as he soaked it all in. I was afraid this might have been too much for him, because at first, he seemed stunned and hesitant. Slowly, though, I saw his mind working through the different scenarios and I could almost see the pieces falling together for him.
“What if you hit the mouth? Wouldn’t knocking out teeth be painful, too?” he asked.
“Eww… No…” Mama K said, making a face. “Human bite wounds can get infected badly. Avoid the mouth, if you can. Hit the nose, the cheekbone, the eye socket. Don’t go for the chin. The only time you should try for the chin is if you can hit it from below, like an uppercut.”
They continued for a little longer, Mama K and Mama D taking turns demonstrating different offensive and defensive moves for him. The look on Mason’s face when he flipped Mama K onto the carpet was exultant. We finally had to wrap things up since the moms had to be at work in the morning.
As we were leaving, Mama K stopped me.
“Mijo, you need to bring him to the dojo so we can show him a thing or two,” she said.
“Mom, I don’t know if he’s going to be here that long…” I began.
“Lee—” she stopped me with a finger to my lips. “Bring him. He will feel a lot better if he knows how to defend himself.”
My eyes must have widened comically because she laughed at me.
“Your mother and I have been working with victims of abuse and neglect for more years than you have been alive, baby boy. Women and men. It’s not hard to see the signs on this one,” she said, nodding out the door toward Mason. “Just…be careful with your heart, baby.”
I nodded, hugged them both close, then jogged out to the Jeep where Mason waited for me.
He looked at me curiously. “Everything okay?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Mama K wants me to bring you to the dojo. She thinks you have potential,” I said. Mason grinned at me. “Interested?” I asked as we pulled out of the driveway.
“Actually? Yeah, I am,” he smiled, almost as though in surprise at his own response.
As we drove home in companionable silence, I couldn’t keep myself from smiling, too.
“Thank you,” he said, breaking my train of thought as we drove home.
“For what?” I asked, confused.
“For sharing,” he said. “Your family is pretty fucking incredible.”
I nodded in agreement, reaching out and taking his hand in my own for the rest of the drive home. I had to agree.
18
Mason
Then I did it again. I fell asleep in the car on the way home from Lee’s parents’ house.
This time, though, I at least woke up enough that I didn’t need to be carried into the house. We walked into the darkened house and dropped our things in the living room. I started forward and almost ran into Lee, who stood frozen in the darkened room looking into the kitchen anxiously, a look of confusion on his face.
“What?” I asked, walking up from behind him, reaching out and wrapping my hands around his waist. He stood, strangely stiff under my touch.
“I just… I could have sworn I turned that light out when we left,” he whispered, gesturing to the light over the kitchen sink.
Fear choked me for a moment, and I froze, my eyes zipping around the room. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, desperately trying to push back the fear. God damn it, no. I wa
sn’t going to let Ricky and Dreyven have one more day of my life.
I looked around the room, trying to keep my face away from Lee so he wouldn’t see the fear I knew was hiding in my eyes. I released him and backed up so I could examine the door to the house. There didn’t seem to be any scratches on the lock or any visible damage to it but in the dim light I couldn’t be sure. I looked around the room, but nothing looked out of place. Of course, I hadn’t been in Lee’s home very long, I could be missing something that would be glaringly obvious to him.
I looked at the table where my laptop still sat, and my heart sped up. Were my folders lying next to it like that when we left? I couldn’t remember. I moved to the table and opened the laptop, typing in my password, unlocking the operating system. Nothing seemed amiss there.
“You okay?” I heard Lee ask.
I nodded sharply, and maybe a little too quickly.
“Anything missing?” he asked. I shook my head no.
As I stood there, I could feel the fear threatening to overwhelm me. I couldn’t let it win. I. Would. Not. I stood there for a moment frozen but started using some of the coping skills my therapist had been teaching me diligently. I forced the rigid muscles in my body to relax one by one, taking deep breaths between each relaxation. After a moment, I looked up only to find Lee’s eyes caught on me with concern.
“Do you see anything missing?” I asked, looking around.
“No,” he whispered. “But stay here,” Lee kept his voice low. He opened the closet behind the door and took something out. At first, I thought it was a baseball bat. Then I realized it was too narrow. It looked like a long stick? I shrugged. Maybe he had walking sticks like hikers used. He turned and began heading down the long hallway toward his office.
I started to follow him, but he held his hand up.
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