“That’s perfect. Thanks.”
I let go of the camera but don’t step back. “We need to talk.”
Mason is quiet for a beat. Then he exhales—not a sigh, just a slow release of air, like someone setting down something heavy they’ve been carrying for too long.
“Yeah. We do.”
I blink. Whatever I expected him to say, agreement wasn’t very high on the list.
The crowd shifts around us. Someone brushes past, jostling Mason’s elbow, and he steps sideways to avoid the tripod getting knocked. The movement brings him closer to me. Neither of us corrects the distance.
I clear my throat. Force my hands to stay at my sides instead of reaching for him.
“You don’t owe me an explanation.” The words come out rougher than I want them to, scraped raw by the effort of keeping my voice level. “But I would reallyreallylike to know why you left.”
Mason goes still. Seconds pass excruciatingly slowly. He removes his glasses. Cleans them on the hem of the flannel—myflannel—with slow, careful strokes.
When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet but steady.
“My answer to that question would have been very different if you’d asked me a few days ago.”
“Okay,” I manage, very aware that I can’t say anything that might spook him before he gets this out.
Mason stares at the stage. His jaw works once. Twice.
“I felt what you felt.” Each word emerges as though it’s been pried loose from somewhere deep. “Through the bond. That morning. After we—after it happened.”
My pulse kicks hard against my throat.
“And what I felt was horror.” His voice fractures on the word, a hairline crack that splits the careful composure he’s beenmaintaining. “Disgust. This overwhelming wave of revulsion at what we’d done. And I assumed?—“
He stops. Swallows. His hands curl into fists at his sides, knuckles bloodless.
“I assumed it was about me. That you were disgusted by what we were. By what I am.”
The floor drops out from under me.
“No.” The word rips out of me before I can shape it into anything gentler. “Mason,no. That’s not?—“
“I know.” His voice is barely audible now, almost lost beneath the bar noise. “Or at least, I’m starting to.”
He turns his head just enough to look at me. Those gray eyes, red-rimmed behind his glasses, hold mine with an openness that guts me.
“Phoenix is the one who figured it out.” A ghost of a smile touches his mouth. “And then she bashed me over the head with the obvious truth until I couldn’t possibly pretend not to see it.”
Gratitude swells in my chest like a balloon filled until it’s about to burst. I’m so damned grateful for that beautiful hurricane of a woman.
And not at all bothered by the idea of sharing a nest with them both for the rest of my life.
“I was horrified withmyself,“ I insist, hoping I’m telling him something he already knows. “I thought I’d taken advantage of you. Your heat came early and I could have kept you safe without crawling into that messy nest you made out of our sleeping bags. I didn’t have to do what I did?—“
My voice breaks. I drag a hand across my face.
“You were barely eighteen, Mason. You were in heat and scared and Ibondedyou. All I could think was that I’d ruined your life. That I’d stolen something from you that you’d never be able to get back.”
The bar buzzes around us, an entire existence happening beyond us while we’re frozen in this moment. Glasses clink. Someone laughs too loudly near the pool table. The world continues as though nothing extraordinary is happening in this cramped corner, as though two people aren’t rewriting a decade of heartbreak in real time.
Mason’s throat bobs. His eyes glitter behind his glasses, light catching on the tears he’s not letting fall.
