by Megan Green
Part of me wants to just forget it. Stephanie is in his past. And I believe him when he tells me he loves me. Bringing up ancient history never does anyone any favors.
But I also know the way my mind works, how this will eat at me until something finally gives way and I snap. It could be weeks from now. Months even. But eventually, something will happen, and I’ll be unable to hold it in any longer.
No, it’s better I get this over with now. Maybe hearing why he did it from his own lips will help lessen some of the sting.
The thud of a car door closing sounds from outside, and Hannah leaps to her feet.
“Daddy’s home!” she shouts as she sprints toward the door.
I catch Hope before she can follow Hannah outside, scooping her up in my arms and walking over to the door Hannah left wide open. My heart softens toward Mason a little as I see him kneel down and catch Hannah in his arms when she flings herself at him.
I’m not going to let something as silly as Mason being married to one of the girls who lived to make my life hell ruin this good thing that’s developing between us.
Ancient history, I remind myself.
I carry Hope outside with me, tightening my hold when she tries to wriggle out of my arms at the sight of Mason. He beams up at me when he sees me approaching.
“Hey, you,” he says when I reach them. He stands with Hannah still clinging to his neck, her legs wrapping around his middle as he picks her up. With Hannah in his arms and Hope in mine, he gives me the best hug he can manage. “I missed you.”
A lump forms in my throat at his words, and I’m not entirely sure why.
“I missed you too,” I say as the sting of tears pricks the corner of my eyes.
“Did you two have fun?” he asks, and before I can even open my mouth to respond, Hannah launches into a play-by-play of our time together.
Mason smiles as he listens to her, setting her down before taking one of her hands in his. He closes his other hand around mine, and the four of us make our way to the front door.
The next few hours pass in a blur as Hannah shows Mason everything we did over the past twenty-four hours. We all work on dinner together, and Mason spends the time at the table telling us a little about his day of training.
“It was a little redundant, considering I’d completed the fire academy. I had been in every single one of those situations in real life and ones that made their simulations look like a cakewalk. But it was good to get the feel for it again. And now, I’m officially certified as a volunteer.”
“That’s great,” I say, reaching over and closing my hand over his. “I’m so happy for you.”
And I really am despite the uncertainty I’ve been feeling since finding Stephanie’s picture. I might not completely understand every single dynamic of our relationship yet, but I’d never, ever begrudge his happiness.
Hannah insists we watch The Little Mermaid again after dinner—apparently, I’ve reawakened her old obsession—but somewhere between “Under the Sea” and “Kiss the Girl,” she knocks out, Hope snuggled against her chest on the couch between us, their breaths rising and falling in the same rhythm.
I look up at Mason to see him smiling down at them.
“I know I was only gone a day, but fuck, I missed this,” he says as he reaches a finger out to caress his daughter’s cheek.
She shifts slightly under his touch, the hint of a smile pulling at the edges of her lips as she dreams.
Mason stands and scoops her into his arms, leaving Hope curled up on the couch in her place. “I’ll get her to bed.”
He walks off with Hannah, and I pull Hope to me, the warmth of her body providing me with some much-needed strength. I don’t want to put this off any longer.
When Mason returns, he sits down so close to me, I’m practically in his lap. Hope leaps down from the couch to avoid getting squished and scampers over to her dog bed. I almost want to call her back to me, just to have something to hold on to when I ask Mason about his ex-wife.
Mason starts kissing my neck, his hand sliding up the side of my thigh to my ass as he works his mouth. He quickly realizes I’m not into it, however, his head lifting as his brow furrows. “What’s wrong?”
I reach under the cushion of the sofa, where I stashed Stephanie’s photo before putting away the photo album. I hold it out for him.
The line between his brows deepens as he takes it. He turns the envelope over a few times in his hands before lifting his gaze back to mine. “What’s this?”
I shrug. “You tell me.”
With his lips set in a thin line, he opens the envelope, slowly sliding the photo out.
If I thought he looked confused before, it’s nothing compared to how he reacts when he sees the picture of Stephanie.
“Steph’s bridal photo?”
I nod.
“I don’t get it. Why am I looking at Steph’s bridal photo?”
I let out a humorless laugh, irritation rising in my throat. “Really, Mason?”
“What?” he asks, bewildered. “You knew I was married.”
“Not to her!” I say, all the hurt and frustration I’ve been feeling bubbling over as I speak the words. My voice cracks as tears threaten to spill. “How could you not tell me you were married to her?”
Mason’s gaze drops from me down to the photo before coming back again. I watch as some sort of recognition dawns in his eyes.
“You didn’t know I was married to Stephanie,” he says. It’s not a question.
I sniff hard, trying to suck back my tears. “How could I? You never told me.”
“But you knew my wife’s name was Stephanie.”
I scoff, “Because Stephanie is such an uncommon name. Come on, Mason.”
His mouth drops open in shock. “I really thought you knew, Maddy. It never even occurred to me that you didn’t realize my ex was the same girl we’d gone to school with.”
Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m just desperate. But something in me believes him. He doesn’t really like to talk about his ex-wife. The night after we first made love and he told me about how hard it had been when she left was the only time we ever really spoke of her in any depth.
“Why her?” I ask, my voice meager, my mind not wanting to articulate the question but my heart needing to know.
Mason takes me in his arms, his hand coming up to push the hair back from my face. “I was stupid, Maddy. After graduation, after I enrolled in the fire academy and all the rest of my friends,” he says the word with so much cynicism that it’s hard not to want to reach out and comfort him, “bailed on me, Stephanie was the only one who stuck around. She was the only constant in my life, the only thing that felt familiar. I clung to that. My world had been changing so fast, my life potentially on the line almost every day when I went out on calls, and Stephanie felt safe.”
“She was so awful, Mason,” I say, realizing as soon as I say the words how stupid they are.
If anybody knows how terrible Stephanie Harris could be, it’s Mason. I mean, calling me names and writing nasty things on my locker pales in comparison to abandoning her husband with a newborn baby.
But Mason only nods. “She really was. But she’s gone now, Maddy. You’ll never have to worry about her again.”
I relax into Mason as he bends his head to kiss me, my body giving in to his as his fingers start to work their magic.
But even as he touches me, as he works his body against mine, his lips leaving a trail of heat wherever they go, his eyes conveying the way he feels for me with every look, every thrust, I can’t help but wonder, Does he ever look at me and wish I were her?
17
Mason
“Hey, asswipe,” Reese says as he plunks down in the booth across from me. “You happen to notice there’s a celebration going on here? A celebration in your honor, might I add.”
He tips the mouth of his beer bottle toward me before raising it to his lips. I exhale slowly, guilt seeping in as I realize what a downer I’m b
eing.
I might not be one hundred percent back on the team, but Reese and the guys are happy to have me back in any capacity. They insisted on taking me out tonight for drinks, and we’ve ended up at a sports bar in downtown Billings, so the rest of the guys can watch some UFC fight.
I’ve been sulking at a table since we walked in, my thoughts stuck on Maddy and the shift I’ve felt in our relationship since I got home from training earlier this week.
“Sorry, man,” I say, grabbing my own beer and taking a swig to try and show him I’m having fun.
Reese sits forward, his elbows coming to rest on the table between us. “Okay, what gives? Why are you as depressing as one of those damn caged lions at the zoo?”
My gaze shoots up to his, and I lift a brow in question. “You go to the zoo often, Reese?”
He shrugs. “Don’t try to change the subject. What’s with you?”
I sigh, leaning back against my seat. “Maddy.”
Reese’s face falls. “Really? Oh, man, I thought things were going good with you two.”
I nod. “As did I.”
“So, what’s changed?”
I blow out a breath.
Reese and I have met up for lunch, drinks, and just to shoot the shit a few times since Maddy and I started dating, so he knows the basic ins and outs of our relationship. He knows we used to know each other, and he even knows the details of everything that transpired to drive us apart. So, I guess there is no use in trying to keep anything from him now.
“You know how I told you that the kids I hung around with in high school sucked?”
Reese nods. “Yeah. You said they gave that beautiful girlfriend of yours shit pretty much all the time.”
“Exactly. They treated her like garbage. I still can’t believe I stood by and allowed it to happen.”
We’ve discussed this before, and no matter how many times both he and Maddy tell me it’s in the past, I doubt I’ll ever fully forgive myself for not growing some balls and putting an end to it.
“You can’t change the past, man. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up over that,” Reese reminds me.
“I know,” I say, wiping a hand across my brow. “And that’s not what this is about. Not directly.”
“Okay …” Reese says, spurring me on.
“Well, there were these two girls who always teased Maddy more than the others. It was like they lived to tear her down.”
“Fucking hate bitches like that,” Reese says as he downs another sip of beer. “Think their shit doesn’t stink just like the rest of ours.”
“That pretty much sums them up,” I say, thinking back to Tiffani Swenson and Stephanie in high school.
“So, what? Maddy suddenly decide she can’t get past the way your friends were in high school?”
I shake my head. “No. It’s more about what happened after high school.”
Reese sets his beer down. “I thought you said she took off? How’d she even see them again after high school?”
“She didn’t. But those two girls … their names were Tiffani and Stephanie.”
“Again, so what? Tiffani and Stephanie are two of the most generic names I’ve ever heard. Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
I pin him with a hard stare. “Think about it.”
“Tiffani and Stephanie,” he says, turning it over again in his head. “Stephanie and Tiffani. Is this like an Ace Ventura thing? Finkle and Einhorn. Finkle and Einhorn. Tiffani is Stephanie. Stephanie is Tiffani. Stephanie is a—” he cuts himself off, realization dawning in his eyes. “Wait. Stephanie. As in Stephanie, Stephanie?”
I snap my fingers as I point at him. “There you go.”
“Wait a minute. You mean, you married the same girl who used to bully Maddy?”
I nod, my face flaming under his scrutiny.
“Dude, why?” Reese asks, staring at me, dumbfounded.
“Dude, because I was an idiot. We’ve had this discussion a billion times since the night Steph walked out. You know this. I never should have married her. I’d regret it if it hadn’t brought Hannah into my life. She’s the only good thing to come out of that whole fiasco.”
“Well, yeah. But I mean, how could you marry her, already knowing she was such a bitch?”
I knew Stephanie wasn’t the greatest human being on the planet, but I thought she was changing. Like I said, she’d stood by me, even after everyone else wrote me off. I thought maybe she’d finally grown up, that we could put the past behind us and have a brilliant future. Plus, she was hot as fuck.
But as it turned out, there’s some truth to that old adage, A leopard never changes its spots. Steph might have appeared to change on the outside, but deep down, she was the same ugly-hearted, mean-spirited girl I’d known in school.
“So, Maddy got pissed when you told her you’d married her archnemesis?” Reese asks after I don’t answer his last question. With as many times as we’ve gone over the reasons why I married Steph, I figured it was rhetorical anyway.
This is where I feel like a fool. Because while I truly did believe that Maddy had understood that Steph, my wife, was the same person as Stephanie from school, I should have made sure she knew. I should have spelled it out for her, answered her questions the same way I’m now answering Reese’s.
I remember thinking it was strange she hadn’t questioned me further when she found out who my wife was that first night we made love. But I chalked it up to Maddy being the bigger person, her confidence having grown enough that she knew she didn’t have to worry about trivial things from my past.
I should’ve known better. And maybe, somewhere deep down in my gut, I suspected she didn’t fully grasp the situation. But it was easier to tell myself she was okay with it than to accept the fact that I was too afraid of what the truth might bring.
“No,” I say to Reese. “Turns out, she didn’t put two and two together when I talked to her about Steph. It wasn’t until she found that picture I keep tucked away for Hannah—just in case she ever wants to know more about her mother—that she realized exactly who I’d been married to.”
Reese cringes as the words leave my lips. “Yikes, dude. So, now, she thinks you lied to her? Kept the fact that you married her old tormentor a secret?”
I hold my hands up. “But I didn’t. Not intentionally anyway. Whenever I talked about Stephanie, I always called her by her name. It never occurred to me that Maddy didn’t realize she knew her, too.”
“And you explained that to her?”
“Yeah,” I say on a sigh. “And she said she understands. That she isn’t mad.”
“But you think she is?”
I down the rest of my beer. “It feels like she’s pulling away from me.”
“How so?” Reese asks.
I can’t help but lift a brow at him. “Did you somehow become a therapist in the last few months? You going to give us couples counseling?”
“Bite me, asshole. I just don’t want to see you blow a good thing with your stupidity. This is the happiest I’ve seen you in … well, ever.”
I want to protest and tell him I’ve always been happy, but I can’t force the words to leave my mouth. Because while, yes, I have been happy, there’s a definite difference between the way I felt six months ago to the way I feel today. Even as I worry about the state of our relationship, I know that Maddy brings me a happiness I haven’t known since the day she walked out of my life all those years ago.
I blow out a breath before diving back into my feelings, laying them all out for Reese to see. “I don’t know. She just seems to be spending more time at work. And things keep coming up as to why she can’t spend an evening with us. I feel like it’s only a matter of time before she disappears completely.”
“Well, she is a busy vet. It’s entirely possible that those things that keep coming up are, in fact, real emergencies.”
My fingers fiddle with the wrapper of my empty bottle as I think over his words. “I know you’re right. And
I know I need to believe her when she says everything is okay. But I don’t know. I can’t shake the feeling that something big is coming. And you know what you all used to say about my feelings,” I say, referencing the way the guys at the station joked about me having a sixth sense.
Reese nods. “You always have been extra perceptive. But I really think you’re making more out of this than there is. I get it; I really do. You were burned bad by your ex. It’s hard to open yourself back up and trust someone completely after that. But I’ve seen you and Maddy together. I saw you and Stephanie together, too. And, my friend … it doesn’t even compare. You and Stephanie always seemed to barely tolerate each other, bickering over every little thing until she stormed off to go sit in the car or whatever the fuck she did until she got her way. But you and Maddy? You and Maddy are magic. Powerful fucking magic.”
I want to bust his balls for even uttering those words in regard to my relationship, but he’s not wrong. The time I’ve spent with Maddy has been explosive and fantastic. In short … it’s been magic.
“You know, you’re not as dumb as you look sometimes,” I say, giving him a sideways smile.
Reese lifts his bottle to his lips and drains it. “That’s good because you’re dumb enough for the both of us. Now, get your ass out of here. Go home and show that woman of yours that she has nothing to worry about in Stephanie Dipshit. Go give her some of that magic stick.”
I roll my eyes. “I take it back. You’re the biggest dumbass I’ve ever met,” I say as I slide from the booth.
“That might be true,” he calls after me. “But I’m the dumbass with the biggest cock.”
The entire bar turns to stare at him as I walk out the door.
18
Maddy
“Ahem.” Cami’s voice sounds from beside me, pulling me from my thoughts.
I lift my gaze from the cat lying on the table in front of me, looking at her in question.
“Something wrong, Cami?” I ask, not really appreciating the interruption.