“I’m still not sure why it came as such a surprise.” His voice is so quiet I have to lean closer to catch every word. “That you—or anyone—would actually want me that desperately.”
The sentence breaks something open inside my chest that I don’t think will ever close again.
I move slowly. Telegraphing every inch, the way I’ve learned to do this week. Giving him time. Giving him space to step away, to put distance between us, to choose differently.
Mason doesn’t step away.
My hand finds his jaw. His skin is warm beneath my palm, roughened with stubble he hasn’t bothered to shave. My thumb traces the line of his cheekbone. His breath hitches but he holds still, eyes wide and luminous.
I kiss him.
Not the desperate, heat-driven collision of the past few days. Not the frantic reclaiming of territory lost. Something slower. Something that starts soft and stays soft, my lips finding his with the careful deliberation of a man who’s been thinking about this exact moment for ten years and refuses to rush it.
Mason groans against my mouth. His hands come up to grip the front of my shirt, twisting the fabric between his fingers, and he kisses me back with a trembling intensity that tastes like salt.
Someone wolf-whistles from the direction of the pool table.
I don’t care.
Let the whole town see. Let them whisper and gossip and draw whatever conclusions they want. This man is mine. Has been mine since we were seventeen and too young to understand what that meant. And I am done—done—pretending otherwise.
When I finally pull back, his forehead falls against mine. Both of us breathing hard. Both of us shaking. His fingers haven’t released my shirt.
“We still have a lot to talk about,” I murmur against his mouth.
Mason laughs. The sound is wet and raw, cracking at the edges, and he releases one hand from my shirt long enough to dash tears from his cheeks with the back of his wrist.
“Yeah, we really do.” He sniffs, hard, then laughs again—brighter this time, closer to the sound I remember from before everything went wrong. “But it’ll have to wait.”
He tilts his head toward the stage, where Atticus has appeared with the tuned guitar slung across his body, adjusting the microphone height.
“Show’s about to start.”
THIRTY-NINE
PHOENIX
From across the bar,I watch Judah cup Mason’s face in both hands and pull him close.
He kissed him.
Mason’s hands twist into the front of Judah’s shirt, pulling him closer instead of pushing away. Even from here, I can see the way his shoulders shake. The way his whole body seems to curve into Judah’s like a flower turning toward sunlight it hasn’t felt in years.
They kiss.
Something inside my chest cracks open.
Relief floods through first.Thank God.They’re finally moving past ten years of bullshit and admitting how much they need each other.
Joy follows close behind the relief. Mason deserves this. He deserves to be kissed like that, in front of everyone, by someone who’s been waiting a decade for the chance. He deserves the happiness spreading across his face right now, visible even in the dim bar light, visible even from thirty feet away.
My best friend is getting his love story.
And then the other feeling arrives. The one I’ve been shoving down every time it tries to surface.
It starts as a cold trickle at the base of my spine and spreads outward, seeping into my limbs until my whole body feels heavy with it. The joy doesn’t disappear—it’s still there, genuine and fierce—but something else has wrapped itself around it like a choking vine.
Where do I fit in this?
