by T. N. King
She had to keep reminding herself, just like right now, that it was a good thing that Mason wasn’t coming with her parents. That with the tensions between he and Aaron it was for the best and that this meant she had more time to work on the both of them in order to ensure that when they did meet next it wouldn’t be as bad. To ensure that she could repair that fracture that it had caused in her relationships with both of them. She was just glad Mason hadn’t gone to jail, she was willing to give Aaron anything he wanted if it meant Mason’s safety.
Was it wrong of her? The lines between acceptable and not acceptable were blurring so badly that she had difficulty even attempting to sort it in her own head, but there definitely wasn’t anyone with whom she could have gone over it with. One word to her parents, one even slightly suspicious phrasing and they would be demanding that she leave, or worse. She couldn’t afford it, she couldn’t afford to deal with any of those repercussions. Which meant that she needed to find a way to make it work without dwelling so much on all of the what ifs and negatives as she was. She was just… sad, which was another realization she didn’t need to face.
“Babe,” Aaron’s voice sounded from close enough behind her to make her jump, wide eyes turned back to him and her heart thudding in her throat like somehow he could have heard her thought process just by coming up on her as he had. “Pretty sure your parents are here.” He didn’t sound as enthused about it as he had earlier that morning, but he was tired. That was all. “Pretty sure your dad ran over that box out there too.” Of course, he had, just like of course Aaron had heard her reminding him to get the box.
His eyes were on her though, searching her face like he could pull the words right out of her head and she forced that overly-excited, pleased grin onto her lips with only marginally more difficulty than it had taken her to do this morning when they’d unlocked the apartment. She was eighteen, living with her boyfriend, and her parents were coming to visit their first home together. She was supposed to be excited. She was supposed to be pleased. She was supposed to be feeling all kinds of positive emotions. Her body shifted, arms thrown around Aaron’s neck and her lips pressing into his cheek repeatedly with a laugh that was forced easier and easier every time she was called to do so. “I can’t wait to show my mom our shower!”
She couldn’t cry. She couldn’t even look like she wanted to cry. “And the kitchen sink! She’ll be so jealous we have a working vegetable sprayer!” Lips stopping between her words only once Aaron’s own lips started to lift, the sound of her parents arguing over what apartment number it was supposed to be reaching her just as she pulled back, readying herself for a day of more fake smiles and laughter where she would to try and force to look genuine. She just couldn’t help still wishing Mason had come with them….
Chapter Seven
‘Be grateful your sister’s boyfriend was so understanding.’ It was like a ominous warning that rang in the back of his head throughout the day now, taunting and pressing at his subconscious. Be grateful. He was that at least. Grateful to not have had to serve any more time than he’d needed in the holding cell assigned to him. Grateful his lawyer had worked him down to a minimal number of hours for community service and the continued therapy sessions that he was already attending, even if he was now required to again attend twice weekly instead of just the once. So understanding. That was the part that stuck in his throat, like acid reflux that he just couldn’t get rid of. He wasn’t understanding, he didn’t know what had managed to convince him not to press charges but he doubted very much it had anything to do with understanding. That monster wouldn’t have done anything that didn’t in some way benefit him. Maybe it was to stay in Marie and Paul’s good graces, maybe it was his way of apologizing to Nicole for that bruise….
Whatever it was Mason didn’t trust it. Just like he didn’t trust all of the explanations that had been given to him. Marie and Paul weren’t angry, of course they weren’t, after they’d had it explained to him that Mason was ‘under the impression’ that Aaron was harming Nicole they had said they understood completely. Paul had even thanked him for his continued protection over her, even if it had been ‘misplaced’ this time. It hadn’t been, he knew, and he didn’t know how Nicole had come up with such a plausible story so fast or when it was she’d begun being able to manipulate the situations around her as she had, but he wasn’t a fan. He wasn’t a fan of having Marie patiently explain over and over again that Nicole had just frozen because the look on Mason’s face was surprising to her.
It wasn’t surprising, she wasn’t scared- not of him, possibly of what he was going to go do, but that was only because he had allowed her to get to know him as well as he had. He was tired of the explanations and the pandering, annoyed with having to now keep his mouth shut on the subject, noncommittal noises of assent or disagreement the only response he was really allowed when it was the subject came up. Benevolent Aaron and his generosity and understanding. He didn’t want to hear about their apartment, which he knew that Marie and Paul had gone to visit the week before. He didn’t want to hear about how, now for a full week, Nicole had been living with that asshole, enduring who knew what in order to stay in that relationship. If she was enduring anything, he understood that there were honeymoon periods. He was familiar with both the psychology of it and the first hand memory of seeing it done. It was possible she was enjoying her first week cohabitating with him, but Mason didn’t want to consider that either.
It just meant that family night was going to be more of him swallowing his own responses and sneers than it was of him swallowing whatever food Marie had prepared. Something he was preparing himself for even as he unfolded out of the car, shoulders stretching and his resolve slowly being built in place. At least family night this week coincided with date night, which meant that Marie and Paul would have plans after dinner. At least Aaron and Nicole would be too busy at their own apartment setting up still to make the trek across town to join them. He wasn’t ready to face the two of them yet, wasn’t ready even to look at Aaron again without risking another physical bout of rage. There were only so many times he could react without finding himself behind bars.
His fingers tested the door knob, unsurprised to find he didn’t need to use his key- they had been expecting him, but he had wanted to be sure, squeezing into the entryway and locking and closing the door behind him even as the medley of whatever obviously odd concoction was being served that night hit his nose. “Oh! It’s kale Paul! Don’t be such a big baby, you don’t even know if you like it, and you won’t if you don’t try it at least!” Marie’s voice rising over and above the general sound of kitchenware clinking. Then Paul’s reply swallowed in his hearing by the peals of laughter that definitely didn’t belong to either Paul or Marie.
Nicole was supposed to be at her new apartment, she was supposed to be getting settled into the place with Aaron, and the nerves that twisted in his abdomen from the expected sight of the two of them seated around the bar with Paul while Marie cooked nearly made him stop in his tracks. Only even the thought of Aaron wasn’t enough to stop him from turning that corner, coming up short at the sight of only Nicole with her father. Her face red from laughter and the back of her hand pressing into her lips as she watched her mother brandishing what looked to be some fancy spatula hybrid at Paul threateningly, green bits of what he was assuming were kale hanging off the end.
“Mason! You’ll eat my kale right?!” Marie’s eyes bouncing to him instantly, alerting the other two to his presence and his weight shifting off to one side as he placed his keys on the counter, throat clearing in an attempt to answer her even as Paul and Nicole’s heads turned towards him. He didn’t know how he felt about kale, he wasn’t as concerned with that as the widening of Nicole’s eyes, or the shuffling she was doing to stand, his body bracing for the reality that she might excuse herself entirely from the room. He hadn’t seen her since before he’d been released that night. The last time he’d seen her in person was as that squad car was
being driven off with him in the back, she hadn’t been able to be present for sentencing, or the court date that had been arranged. She hadn’t been there the one night he’d come back here to take refuge in his old room. She was supposed to be away at college… with Aaron.
Only her tiny little body was flying at him and again he braced, ready for those little fists to be ineffectually hitting at his chest as she was like to do when she got really upset with him, but they weren’t doing that either. Her whole body slamming into his almost hard enough to knock the both of them backwards, little arms wrapping up around his torso nearly double and the force of them closing around him forcing the air from his lungs in a puff against the top of her head. She was hugging him. Something he normally sought to discourage, his arms hanging limply at his sides for a whole other breath of time before he allowed them to lift hesitantly back around her, draping around her frame much more loosely than she was doing to his.
Out of all of her reactions… he hadn’t been expecting this.
Another half of a moment and he was leaning down into it, the point of his chin pressing into the top of her head and all of him trying to ignore that dampness he could feel spreading from her face into the front of his shirt. He was aware of their audience, just as he was aware of the rarity of his allowing this much physical contact at once, but he couldn’t have pushed her away from him even if he’d wanted to. The hand at the small of her back uncurled slowly, palm pressing down into the fabric and his chest expanding with the breath that he took. This was fine. He just had to keep his face neutral for the two watching, even though he could both hear and see Marie start to mirror her daughter, spatula forgotten as she lifted her hands to her face and tried to pretend there wasn’t moisture going down her own cheeks as well.
“Where’s Aaron?” The words were out of his mouth before he could help them, bland and with only the slightest note of questioning to them. He could feel Nicole stiffen the minute it was he said his name and he instantly regretted it, already lowering his own arms as she fought to extricate herself from the hold she’d thrown herself into. Marie and Paul shared a look behind her back and Mason wasn’t sure if it were directed towards himself or Nicole, wasn’t sure if it had to deal with them or Aaron, but he was guessing it had more to do with he and Nicole. They were both aware of how frequently the two of them kept in touch, just as he knew through Paul that they were both aware of their lack of recent communication.
“Well he just did the sweetest thing and surprised Nicole with the trip back here this weekend, said he knew she needed time to see her family and dropped her off with us so he could go visit with his own folks too.” Marie was gushing and he tried not to care, or to curl his lip too prominently at her appraisal of Aaron. His adopted family and he weren’t close, that much had been clear both the night of the incident where they hadn’t been the ones to interfere or call the cops, and the day of the trial where his adopted mother seemed to flinch every time his name was brought up. So why was he bringing Nicole back randomly and leaving her in the one spot his control was the most fragile?
All questions he couldn’t even begin to ask, nodding and humming like that made the most sense in the world to him. Fine. It was fine because that meant Nicole was here, even if she was making a show of wiping her face so as to save herself from talking there either. “Someone said something about kale?” He knew what it was, he was sure he’d eaten it in something or another before, but Marie and Paul were sharing that look again, and Marie was near giggling by the time that they broke eye contact.
“Well we’re going to leave you kids to try the kale, Paul has insisted it isn’t date night food.” Her back already turning to plate up what was indeed only two plates with whatever that dish resting on the stove contained. “It isn’t, I need my steak.” With Paul watching over her shoulder with a disgusted look pointed at all the greens. “So we’re going to cut out early, if that’s okay?” The looks made more sense now at least, conniving in their own way to bring normalcy back to their household, their attempts at manipulating the time to give Nicole and Mason room to talk was so obvious it was almost painful, but then they weren’t deceitful people and never had been. Again, Mason made another noncommittal noise, cutting his eyes to Nicole with a half raised brow to see if she was going to object.
Nicole who looked so uncomfortable that she was switching her weight from foot to foot at seemingly random intervals. “Oh, okay.” Nerves so obvious in her voice that it was a wonder to him that neither her father or mother addressed them, just shared another look over the top of the stove as Marie finished up and untied the apron from around her waist. “I guess that means we have to get the kitchen to…” her attempted joke fell flat, but Paul at least laughed anyways, one armed hugging her to his chest on his way out of the door, only releasing her there at the entrance to the kitchen.
“Don’t destroy the house in our absence,” he half chuckled, pointing first at Mason and then Nicole before Marie caught up to him, hitting the top of his shoulders and mumbling something that Mason couldn’t catch from where he was standing in the kitchen, both adults laughing even louder on their way out of the door.
“I ate already,” it only took the turning of the key outside, motor sounding to life just loud enough for him to hear before he admitted it. “I picked up sushi after work as soon as I got the email that she was trying a new dish.” He had been hoping that he could shorten his time here with Marie and Paul by doing so as well, but that had been before he had known Nicole would actually be there as well. His shoulder turned, pushing against the door jamb to rest his weight against it as she bustled her way over to the stove, moving the fork idly through what looked like some noodle dish or another… with sweet potatoes on top of it, her face scrunching appropriately, as she did so.
“I did too, I picked up McDonalds on the way, I was hoping she’d make a desert with it though…” her voice trailed, turning to look at him only when he started moving, brushing up behind her in order to get to the other side of the sink and taking the plate, judging off of portions, that had been meant for him and scraping it slowly into the disposal, hand held silently out for hers as well even amid her snorted laughter. “We can’t just put it down the drain!” He didn’t know why she was almost whispering, that car had left the drive minutes past now and they both would have heard if Marie had needed to stumble back through the house to get something she’d forgotten.
“Maybe we can’t, but I can,” scraping hers off as well and running the thing even as he jerked his chin up and slightly to the right. “The pan too would you? That way she can’t offer us leftovers in the morning.” He’d rather escape testing out the recipe altogether if at all possible, something that he knew Nicole agreed with even if she were hesitant. “Unless you want to eat it? This way she’ll think it was enjoyed and never know that we threw her food away.” They’d both learned their lesson for using the trashcan back in his sophomore year of high school, watching the memory play across Nicole’s face as well, another giggled snort as she finally conceded to handing the pan over.
“I can still taste the mint….” Her voice was still lowered, even if her laughter wasn’t. That mint had infused more than half of the dish, so much added to what he was sure was supposed to have just been a pinch for flavoring that it was the predominant, eye burning taste of it all. “What if she does think we like it though? What if she makes it again!?”
Mason shrugged, his shoulder rotating in place and rinsing the rest of the food off of those dishes even as Nicole started taking them from his hands, running soapy water and a sponge along them and moving them into the drying rack in tandem with his movements. “You could always say you’re on a diet.” It wouldn’t be the first time, and the jab of her elbow into his ribs was unnecessary, although he let her get away with it all things considered. “I’ll just tell her I didn’t like it the first time.” Then she would get upset and insist she must have cooked it wrong, which was likely also accur
ate, and he’d bring take out over and she’d throw the disastrous meal out and end up laughing about it with the added bonus of not trying a new recipe for a week or two.
His turn away from the sink brought her too close behind her, half side stepping in order to keep from brushing against her again and hastily grabbed the dish towel off of it’s hanger, rolling it between his palms and around his knuckles to get rid of what water had accumulated there. She could pretend to be as shocked at his answer as she wanted, all faux gasps and not quite reproachful enough looks over her shoulder as she finished rinsing off the last dish. “Or you could just eat it,” he returned drily, handing her the towel as she turned around and half following her when she went to exit the room. He wasn’t sure if they were heading towards the living room or the entry way right at first, warily pausing behind her when they reached that junction and nearly sighing in relief when she turned towards that large couch.
“I don’t remember how we got out of the broccoli stem broil one anymore.” Her voice sounded far away, face screwed up like it tended to do when she was focusing on something particularly, and he was so lost himself in watching all of that and settling into the couch with the arm at his back that he almost didn’t know what she was talking about in the first place. His memory scrambled, that mental imagery of the dish she was talking about making his lips thin in instant distaste.
“You suddenly developed the flu,” he reminded her, corner of his lip curling slightly at the memory of her blending that ‘puke’ before Marie had come in from the pantry, looking back over her shoulder every five seconds and urging him to hurry and help her get out of there. She’d been an inventive fifteen year old, if slightly rebellious. “We spent the night in the hospital while they ran numerous tests and Paul bought us all Wendys from next door since the cafeteria was closed.” Marie had been beside herself with the way the flu had been breaking out in their area, she’d been terrified she’d missed all the other symptoms previous to that night and that Nicole was going to need to be admitted for much longer than the twenty four hour hold she had been.
