“I feel different. And you feel different, too.”
“In a good way, I hope.”
“Yes, but there’s a part of you that’s a stranger. Even when you pull a condom out of your back pocket—and I’m not judging it—but there is some part of me that’s like, ‘Who is Mason? Who are these guys he needs to have condoms ready to go for?’ And I know you must feel the same way about me.”
“That’s for sure. I think about you being in a three-year relationship with a man, and that’s a lot to take in. It’s basically another life with someone else, isn’t it?”
“It’s been a lot of lives. There were two other guys before him.”
“Martin and James, I know,” Mason said. “You think I could really ever forget their names?”
“Oh, wow. You actually remembered?”
“I think you’ve underestimated how hung up I’ve been on you. I may have acted like I didn’t care, but every word Emery has told me about you—everything she’s shared, I’ve soaked it all up. Because I’ve thought about you, maybe even more than I should have, and the harder I’ve fought to push you out of my thoughts, the more you’re right there in them.”
“You’re not exactly making me feel better about what we’re doing.”
“Don’t worry, Chase. I don’t have a script for this. There is no script here. I do care about you. Deeply so. And it still feels good. Intellectually, I get what you were saying about why you left. I knew it a long time ago, but that never made me happy about it. But I get that we really are in two different worlds now. I don’t know you, no, but I want you in my life again. Even if it’s just as a friend. We can do that now, can’t we?”
“I’d like that a lot,” Chase replied. “You don’t know how hard it’s been to keep going on living a life without you.”
“If it’s been anything like living it without you, then it sounds fucking miserable.”
Mason kissed him and appreciated once again that spark that they’d finally gotten to share—the return of something powerful, something profound.
“God, this is weird,” Chase muttered as he pulled away. “Being able to actually talk like this again. Be open.”
“Right? Can you imagine what Emery would think?”
Chase’s face turned white.
“Not that I would tell her,” Mason added quickly. “I don’t have a death wish.”
“She would hate me.”
“No. We can just keep it like this. Besides, this is all there is to this. Plenty of people break up and start talking again, especially people who cared about each other as much as we cared about each other.”
Chase smiled. “Yeah. We can.”
Those words warmed Mason’s heart.
It felt wonderful to be on good terms with Chase again. To feel his own heart open up to him, which hadn’t been easy, but he preferred it that way.
* * *
Chase watched Mason as he stood at the stove, scrambling eggs.
Sausage, bacon, eggs, and biscuits were the usual breakfast for the Finleys. Ma used to fix the same meal for them every morning after the first round of milking, but when she got sick, Mason took on the responsibility.
Chase and Emery chatted about the stores they were going to hit up at the mall where they would do some preliminary wedding planning. But as Emery talked, Chase’s gaze kept drifting to Mason’s ass in the tight-fitting jeans he wore.
They’d spent the night before fucking around, just like they had for several nights since Chase had arrived. So many wonderful nights. It had left them chipper and ready for the week. Chase was just sad he’d be leaving on Saturday, two days away.
He almost wished he could have canceled his flight and stayed with them on the dairy, but it wasn’t the first time in his life that some part of him wanted to stick around, and he knew he’d find the strength to leave just like he had eleven years earlier.
Mason set a plate down in front of Emery. “I notice you haven’t been touching my biscuits since you got here, Chase. You used to down six or seven of those for breakfast.”
“Well, this body can’t really handle six or seven anymore. I try to avoid carbs when I can.”
