“What’s going on? Something has you triggered.”
I want to tell Mase to mind his fucking business, but he’ll only hound me until I tell him. Or worse, start snooping in my business.
I look away from him, shaking my head. “Tiffany is asking questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Shit about my past. Things about my parents and where I went to middle and high school. She says she can’t truly love me until she knows me.”
Mason is quiet. He’s so quiet that I place my attention back on him. He’s watching me, his face neutral, but that’s nothing new when it comes to him.
“When you came to us that night at the club declaring she was going to be your wife, what did I say to you?”
I think back to the day nearly two years ago. The night I first laid eyes on Tiffany. I swear it was like a dream. Never had I seen a woman so fucking stunning. The moment my gaze landed on her unhappy face, my heart started racing in my chest, and I swear the word mine appeared in my head. I knew at that moment she belonged with me.
“You said I wasn’t ready for what that entailed.”
“And your reply?”
Rolling my eyes, I answer. “That I would give anything to have her.”
He nods as if his point has been made.
“I can’t give her this. I can’t give her what she wants.” Even the thought of telling her about me about…that, has my blood pumping through my veins so loudly it sounds like drums in my ears.
“Why not?” Mason asks, cocking his head to the side.
“You know why. My past isn’t like yours. None of you went through what I did.”
We all had it bad, and we all went through some fucked up shit in that hellhole, but none of my brothers experienced what I did. The degradation, the shame and the disgust you carry with you after something like that don’t go away with time. Bruises heal, trust issues resolve, but the shit I encountered stays with you forever.
“You’re right. We didn’t experience the same hurt that you did, but you don’t know enough about our pain to tell us it’s not as traumatic.”
He’s right; none of us has ever truly spoken about what we endured during those three years at that boy’s home. I saw the bruises and sores on Kazimir. I witnessed the light slowly leave Salv’s innocent eyes. Spent countless times sitting beside Mason as he battled the darkness that would leave him damn near comatose, but I don’t know their exact pain.
“Sorry,” I say.
Mason waves the apology away. “What that fucker did to you does not define you, Nic. And it will not change how she or your brothers see you.”
I wanted to believe that, but it’s hard when it has changed the way I see myself. I guess he can tell I wasn’t sold on that.
Mason sighs. “You’re going to lose your wife running from your past. The Saint that I know wouldn’t allow that.”
I look down at my hands warring with that reality.
Mason continues. “She’s not asking for everything. She just wants to be let in. Give her something or let her go.”
I thought about Mason’s words for the rest of the day. They repeated in my mind like a loop. “Give her something or let her go.”
I walk back into my house at nearly one in the morning. The place is quiet. Everyone has gone to bed. However, a light in the family room catches my attention. I make my way over to the large sitting room. Lying on the plush L-shaped couch is my sleeping wife. On the TV are the highlights of the basketball games from earlier today. She’s wearing her Knicks jersey with no bra. A blanket is tossed over her legs. Her mouth is slightly parted, and a little drool is falling onto the pillow. Her hair isprotected under a silk bonnet. There isn’t a stitch of makeup on her face. She looks so fucking beautiful it hurts to look at her.
“You finally made it in?”
I spin around to find Tiffany’s mother standing in the doorway, leaning up against the frame.
I turn back to my wife. “Yeah,” I reply, moving the covers off Tiffany. She rolls over onto her back, kicking her leg out and bending the other.
“I think she tried to wait up for you,” Evelyn continues to talk behind me. “I guess that game tired her out.”
