“It wouldn’t make any sense for me to leave.”
“No,” he agrees. “It wouldn’t.”
The tension between us is thick enough to cut. All the ground we’ve covered over the past week feels as fragile as thin ice overa lake. Any minute, the tension is going to crack and we’ll be lost forever.
I set my mug down and meet his eyes.
“Phoenix will be okay.” The words are more of a statement than a question.
Mason nods. “I’ll make sure of it.”
The question scrapes its way up my throat. “And who’s going to make sure you’re okay?”
He doesn’t answer right away. His fingers have stopped tapping, gone still against the tabletop.
“I go where Phoenix goes,” he says finally. “That’s my job.”
I don’t need him to tell me that it’s a damn sight more than that.
But acknowledging that would mean acknowledging everything else—the shape of the pack that almost formed here, the tangled web of wants and needs that connected all five of us, the future that’s slipping through my fingers like trying to bail seawater with my bare hands.
“Dom’s never cared about anything the way he cared about getting her back,” Mason says quietly. “I’ve known him most of my life and I’ve never seen him like that.”
“He’d burn down the world for anyone he cared about,” I agree.
Mason’s eyes meet mine. “So would you.”
Another silence. This one feels different, less tense and more resigned. Like we’ve both accepted what’s coming and are just waiting for the other to be the first to admit it.
Mason pushes away from the counter. “I should finish packing. The car will be here in an hour.”
“Right.” I don’t move. Can’t make myself take the steps that would close the distance between us or widen it into something final. “Mason?—”
“Don’t.” His voice cracks on the word. “You don’t have to say it.”
“I wasn’t going to—“ I stop. Take a breath. “I just wanted to say thank you. For coming back, even if it wasn’t by choice. For giving me a chance to explain. For…” I trail off, not sure how to finish.
For letting me hold you again. For letting me see you. For not hating me as much as I thought you would.
Mason crosses the kitchen in three strides.
The hug catches me off guard—the sudden warmth of his body against mine, his arms tight around my waist, his face pressed into my shoulder. He’s shaking. Or maybe I’m shaking. Hard to tell where he ends and I begin.
I wrap my arms around him and hold on.
For a long moment, neither of us moves. I breathe in the scent of him and try to memorize the way he feels against me. The solid weight of him. The heat of his breath through my shirt.
Then he pulls back.
His eyes are red-rimmed behind the glasses he must have put on while I wasn’t looking. His mouth is set in a determined line that I recognize from our childhood—the expression he wore whenever he was about to do something reckless, like jump into the deep end of the pool before he’d learned how to swim.
He rises on his toes.
The kiss is soft and gentle.
A kiss that feels like goodbyes and regret.
When he steps back, his hand lingers on my chest for just a moment before dropping to his side.
