by Mia Madison
I couldn’t tell if the look in her eyes was pained or angry. It was all the more evidence that I barely knew my mother. If there was ever an award for the most dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship, I was damn sure we’d be in the running.
It’d be funny if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.
Mom said nothing and I couldn’t get my feet or my mouth to move. It wasn’t until a pair of hesitant footsteps came down the hall that I found the will to force myself to turn around. Mason had packed up his clothes and—judging by the presence of a second suitcase—some of my stuff as well. I glanced back at Mom, still frozen to the spot, and shook my head sadly before leaving the room.
Was there even a point in saying goodbye? I doubted she would miss me. She was probably happy to get me out of the house so she could go back to her mid-life crisis without having a daughter in the way.
“You okay?” Mason lowly asked.
“Not really,” I quietly admitted. “Can we come back for my car tomorrow? I don’t want to drive right now.”
“Whatever you need. Seriously—anything at all.”
I gave him a small smile, knowing he was completely serious. But all I needed right then was his closeness and something I rarely ever allowed myself—a long, hard cry.
The tears started gently rolling down my cheeks the moment he closed the door of the Jeep behind me. He didn’t say a word when he got into the driver’s seat, but his hand fell on mine and he gripped it tightly while the pad of his thumb rubbed circles on the back of my hand.
The message was clear. My mother had never been there for me—but Mason would stay by my side through it all. Despite his claim to my mother, I doubted he’d let me go even if I asked him to. After all, he was mine and I was his.
And I was pretty damn sure it was going to stay that way forever.
“It’s not much,” Mason said as he flicked on the lights in his small house. “But I hope you like it.”
“It smells like you,” I said, the comment escaping unbidden. I walked further into the living room, glancing around at his furniture. “I love it.”
“I love you.” He approached me hesitantly and rested his hands on my shoulders. “And I’m worried about you. Is there anything I can do?”
“Can we just go to bed? I know it’s early, but—”
“Say no more,” he interrupted with a small smile. “Come on.”
He led me to his bedroom and I numbly undressed. There was a pang of curiosity to inspect the contents of his bedroom and take a closer look at the photographs he had on the walls, but I was too exhausted to even consider it at the moment. He pulled back the blankets and I slid in without a word.
The silence continued after he got in bed and shifted until he was directly behind me. I think he was hoping to lend me strength when he wrapped his arms around me and held me to his chest, but it had the opposite effect.
I broke down. It was the first time I’d seriously cried about my mother and the way she treated me since I was thirteen and years of bottling it up came out all at once.
Mason held me long after the sobs stopped shaking my body and I drifted into a dreamless sleep.
He seemed more worried over breakfast the next morning. He fiddled with his toast while watching me eat, waiting until I was finished before he finally spoke.
“Do you want me to take you home?”
Had I been holding silverware, I likely would have dropped it. Instead, I gaped at him and asked, “Are you kidding?”
“I didn’t mean... I just meant to get your car and whatever else you might need. I didn’t grab a lot.”
It was true that he hadn’t taken much out of my bedroom the previous night, but it was more than enough for the time being. Plus he had the foresight to grab my oversized purse which held my most important things.
“I’m not up for seeing her yet. If you pull up beside my car I’ll take that, but I’m not going inside.”
Mason hesitated, his fingers drumming on the table as he carefully contemplated his next words.
“Do you want to go anywhere else?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want you to feel obligated to stay here if there’s somewhere else you’d rather be. I know we just started dating.”
Despite everything, I felt the corners of my mouth tugging up in a small smile. Not only from the words themselves but from how adorably nervous he appeared to be as he said them.
“Dating, huh? Is that what you’d call this?”
To his credit, Mason didn’t back down or become more nervous after my teasing. He simply shrugged and looked into my eyes as he stated, “You’re my girl.”
Cue the butterflies wildly fluttering around in my stomach while my heart swelled.
“That I am. And I can promise you that there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than wherever you are.”
Mason’s soft smile was contagious. I was dimly aware that this was one of those sappy moments I would have teased others about had I witnessed it, but it wasn’t so funny when it was happening to me. It was just… wonderful.
But the smile on his lips eventually faded and a serious expression replaced it as he asked, “You sure you don’t need anything?”
I sighed, dropping my gaze to the table before I whispered, “Just tell me everything’s going to be okay.”
Mason reached out to grip my hand on the table and the movement forced me to look up and meet his eyes.
“It’ll be better than okay, Layla,” he said, his tone holding a promise. “I’ll take care of you. For as long as you’ll let me.”
We both knew I really didn’t need anyone to take care of me, yet his words made some of the terrible feeling lingering in my stomach fade away.
“I know,” I confirmed as I locked my fingers with his. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
It was then that I was sure. Deep in my heart, I knew everything really would be okay.
10
For someone who prided themselves on their intuition, I was sorely disappointed when I turned out to be wrong.
So, so wrong.
I’d been living with Mason for nearly two weeks when the reality that everything was not going to be okay finally settled in. I could see in his eyes that he knew it, too, but he clearly had no intention of pointing it out.
When he returned earlier than expected one afternoon in the most solemn mood I’d ever seen him in, I decided that it was time for us to stop lying to ourselves.
“No luck?”
Mason let out a slow breath as he dropped his keys on the coffee table. After a long moment of silence, he shook his head.
“She’s blackballed me,” he finally said. “All my clients dropped me and none of the gyms I went to would even give me an interview. Not even the ones I’ve worked at before.”
I shut my eyes, shaking my head to myself at the lengths my mother had gone to just to make life harder for Mason. My father might have been dead, but his surname still carried a hell of a lot of weight. Especially in our small town.
“What about hospitals? Can you go back to physical therapy?”
“I tried those first,” he admitted. Mason disappeared into the kitchen, coming back and plopping down on the couch beside me and offering me a beer. “I think it’s safe to say I’m never going to work in this town again.” He took a long draw from his beer before letting out a choked-off laugh. “God, this is so fucked.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said miserably as I rubbed his shoulder in what I hoped was a soothing gesture. “Do you think you might be able to find something in the city?”
“I’d have to move. I don’t make enough to justify the cost of commute.”
He was quiet as he finished his beer and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. There wasn’t anything I could say that would make the situation better, so all I could do was wait for him.
I didn’t have to wait long. As soon as his bottle was empty, he rose fro
m the couch and said, “I’m going to jump in the shower.”
“Do you want company?”
“Not this time, beautiful. I just—I need some time to think.”
The rejection stung, but I wasn’t mad about it considering it was my mother who was making his professional life a living hell. It was understandable that he would want some time alone to process everything.
As I walked into the bedroom we shared and I looked around at the shopping bags I’d been living out of for two weeks, I only hoped he wasn’t using the time to reconsider us.
I briefly considered barging into the bathroom and demanding to talk about it as a couple, but instead chose to plop down on the bed and wait while trying to think of a way to fix the mess we’d found ourselves in.
Nothing came to mind no matter how hard I thought about it and I eventually stood back up to pace back and forth across the carpet.
His framed collage of photographs drew my attention and I stepped closer, smiling at the images of Mason looking so happy with his friends and family.
It’d been days since I saw him smile like that—a pure, genuine smile that showed just how happy he really was. Since we found out what my mother had done, none of his smiles had reached his eyes. It broke my heart a little more every time I saw it.
I reached up to trail my fingertips over my favorite picture, the one he told me his father took of him and his brother during a fishing trip when he was in his late teens. Mason didn’t have any recent pictures of his brother—he told me he got rid of the ones from Ethan’s wedding after the couple split—and I wondered if the family resemblance was still as strong as it once was.
A thought popped into my head so abruptly it startled me. I tore my hand away from the picture and frowned as I glanced back at my scattered belongings.
That’s when it hit me. I could fix it.
I could fix everything.
The bathroom door jerked open and I jumped. Mason noticed me a moment later and looked around the room in alarm.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You scared me.”
His eyes narrowed. “No, there’s something else. Tell me.”
My tongue itched to tell him that I had figured out a way to make everything go back to normal, but something kept the words held back. I didn’t want to risk speaking too soon just in case my plan didn’t go over well or somehow backfired on me.
So I lied.
“Remember when you first brought me here and you were worried about me? Well, now I’m worried about you. That’s all.”
Actually, that wasn’t a lie. It was completely true. The only part I omitted was that I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have to worry about him for much longer.
Mason accepted my words and shook his head as he approached me. He kissed my forehead before pulling me into a hug and resting his cheek against my hair.
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“You won’t be fine until you find a job,” I mumbled, cutting him off when he tried to argue. “I know how important your job is to you. You don’t have to pretend like this isn’t tearing you up because I can see in your eyes that it is.”
“I’m supposed to take care of you,” he muttered miserably.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Please. You know I have enough money to take care of us both for the rest of our lives.”
“It’s not about money.”
“I know there are more ways than one to take care of someone, Mason. But you can’t give me what I need when you’re so completely depressed.”
My eyes softened when I saw the tormented look on his face. He must have come to the same conclusion on his own and it was tearing him up inside.
“I’m trying, Layla,” he said, practically pleading with me to understand. “I’m so happy that you’re with me. But—”
“It’s not enough,” I finished in a whisper. He started to speak and I cut him off again. “Don’t apologize for that—I understand more than you seem to realize. You’ll never be happy just living off someone else’s wealth and I won’t be either. Everyone needs a purpose.”
“You are my purpose.”
I smiled. “I know. But I think we both need more than that.”
It was obvious that he was reluctant to do so, but he eventually nodded in agreement. A long stretch of silence passed as we both considered our next move.
“What do you propose we do?”
“I have something to take care of tomorrow morning. After I’m done, I think we should sit down and have a serious talk about where to go from here.”
“And tonight?”
“Tonight,” I drawled, reaching up to twist my fingers in the soft cotton of his t-shirt. “I’d like to spend blissfully unaware of all our real life problems. Can we do that?”
Mason leaned in and kissed me soundly, but made no move to deepen it. After a few moments of the lazy movements of his lips against mine, he pulled away and looked at me through lust-filled eyes.
“We can definitely do that.”
He lifted me into the air and tossed me on the bed. When I bounced on the mattress and began to laugh, I opened my eyes just in time to see a truly happy smile on his lips. I had missed the sight of it more than I could begin to explain and I made a silent promise that come tomorrow—I’d find a way to keep it there permanently. By whatever means necessary.
11
When I got out of the car the next morning and stared up at the house I grew up in, there was a brief moment where I began to second-guess my decision. Not because I wasn’t willing to go through with my plan, but because I would have done literally anything to avoid another confrontation with my mother.
Unfortunately, I knew it was the only way. Long after Mason had fallen asleep, I stayed awake, staring up at the ceiling and mentally going through every scenario I could think of.
My plan wasn’t going to work without one final showdown. It was as unavoidable as death and likely to be just as unpleasant.
With that wonderful thought in mind, I took a deep breath and walked the metaphorical plank past my mother’s silver Jaguar and up to the front door of the house.
It felt a little surreal to ring the doorbell on what was still technically my house, but I figured it was a better alternative than going through every room in search of my mom. I pressed the button again and waited, ducking slightly out of sight so she wouldn’t be able to see me through the window in the door.
It swung open a few moments later and Mom’s head poked out. She reared back when she saw me, her eyes narrowing as she attempted to contort her face into a frown.
“What do you want?”
“To talk. Do you have a few minutes?”
She sucked a breath between her teeth and stepped back to let me in, slamming the door shut behind her and gracing me with a victorious smile.
“I knew you’d come to your senses eventually.”
“Is that right?”
“Mm-hmm. Your father would roll in his grave if he knew you decided to shack up with a yoga teacher,” she said, failing to stifle a laugh. “How embarrassing.”
“Actually, I think Dad would have really liked Mason.”
Her face twisted and I wasn’t sure if she was pissed that I disagreed or curious about my reasoning. When her eyebrow raised minutely in a silent question, I assumed it was the latter.
“He wasn’t always a yoga teacher. He was a pitcher in the majors until he was injured,” I told her as I pretended to inspect my fingernails. “And Dad loved baseball.”
Her eye twitched and I felt a perverse pang of pleasure that I had gotten the reaction I wanted. Regardless of anything she said, I knew my father loved me. Even if Mason hadn’t played his favorite sport, he would have wanted me to be happy above anything else.
The only problem here was Mom being offended that Mason hadn’t taken the bait she laid out for him. I wouldn’t even go so far as to call her jealous because I sincerely doubted that
she was. It was just a massive blow to her ego.
“Well, your father is gone and I don’t approve.”
“Why do you care? Seriously—please explain it to me. You haven’t cared about anything I’ve done in years. Not the boys I’ve dated, or my friends, or school, or anything else. Why change now?”
Her lips pursed together as her arms folded across her chest. This exact look was the closest thing to a scolding that I had ever gotten from her.
“I’ve never said I didn’t care, Layla. I raised you.”
“No. Dad raised me and Maria took over when he died.”
I knew she hated when I brought up the nanny I had for nearly a decade because she always suspected that Dad was having an affair with the woman. I was too young at the time to know if it was true or not, but I could still remember how broken up she was about my father’s death.
I didn’t care if Dad had cheated on Mom. The only thing that mattered to me was the fact that Maria cared enough to treat me like her own as I was forced to grow up in an otherwise parentless house. She was the reason why I turned out as well as I did. Whatever kind of relationship she had with my father didn’t matter. I would always have a special place in my heart for Maria.
“Don’t say that woman’s name in this house,” Mom hissed.
She didn’t realize it, but this was exactly what I wanted. I hadn’t come with my tail tucked between my legs to beg her to lift the black mark she had placed on Mason, nor had I come looking for a reconciliation that I didn’t want.
I came for a fight.
And I was ready to come out swinging.
“Why not? Maria was more of a mother to me than you ever were.” Her eyes went wild and I took another swing. “I used to wish that Dad would leave you and marry Maria so we could be a happy family. I even prayed for it.”
“How dare you?”
But I wasn’t finished.
“I think he loved her. Sometimes I saw him looking at her the same way Mason looks at me. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I think the only reason he stayed with you was because you were the woman who brought me into his life. His only true loves were me and Maria.”