by Lexi Ryan
“What are you talking about?”
“Mason, I’m a woman. I see the way she looks at you. That girl is in love with you.”
“I know. Lindy, I’m in love with her too.”
“Yeah, but the difference is, she’s going to walk away. She’s going to leave you.”
My gut clenches like she just put her fist in it. “You tell yourself whatever you want.”
She tilts her head to the side, and for a moment, her face shows real sympathy. “She’s been in love with you for years but she wouldn’t let herself be with you. Don’t you wonder why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Is it? I think it was complicated for me. Your parents talked to me about your future, your life, your hopes and dreams, and our baby. That was complicated.”
“How complicated was it when you used their money to buy yourself that Porsche? I bet you looked terribly conflicted driving around with the top down.” I shake my head. “You didn’t even need the money. But if you didn’t have to play by your daddy’s rules and go to the college he chose to get the car you wanted so badly, then you won, right?”
“I’m not the villain. Your parents made me believe that you would resent me if I had that child.”
I lean against the wall, as far from her as I can get. “You’ve explained yourself to me before. I’m not interested in hearing it again.” I point to the door. “That’s the way out.”
“Stop sticking your head in the sand,” she says, standing. “In Bailey’s case, it’s just about money. You can’t get any more basic than that.”
Her words send a chill through me. It’s not what she’s saying—I wouldn’t put it past her to lie—it’s the certainty in her eyes. “What do you know?”
“You know your parents aren’t above bribery, and you know how they felt about her. How they feel about her.” She turns up her palms and shrugs her shoulders to her ears. “I don’t know anything, Mason. I’m just a girl who sees the red flags when they’re there. I’m just someone who can feel it in her gut. This girl isn’t any better than I am. She’s worse.” She shakes her head. “I did what I did because I loved you. I did it for us. For our future. But if I’m right about her, she won’t be able to say the same. In her case, it wouldn’t have been complicated. Greed is simple and selfish.”
“I want you to leave.”
“You can bury your head in the sand all you want, but it’s not going to change the truth.”
“I said leave.”
She sighs heavily. “I’m just trying to warn you. You may hate me, but I still care about you.”
I hold my breath until she’s out the door, and when it shuts behind her, I immediately grab my phone, but I stop before calling Bailey.
I shake my head. No, Lindy’s trying to make me question Bailey because she’s jealous. She can’t be right when I just had a conversation with Bailey about a potential pregnancy.
But I can’t stop thinking about her words. If Bailey was willing to strip to send money to her sister, is it so far-fetched to think she’d have taken any money my parents offered? As I reach for my phone to call my mom, I hate myself, but the seed of doubt’s been planted.
“Mason,” Mom says. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, everything’s fine.” We already had our regular Saturday morning conversation, so I’m sure this call takes her by surprise—a sign that I’m not doing great in the son department. “I need to ask you something.”
“Of course, what is it?”
I’m ashamed of how long I hesitate, ashamed that it takes me so long to get the question out of my mouth. I don’t want it to be true, but I need to know. “Mom, when I was at BHU, did you offer Bailey money?”
She gasps. “What?”
“Did you give her money to stay away from me? Or pay her in exchange for a promise to never have a relationship with me?”
“Did she tell you that?” Mom doesn’t get angry often, but I hear it in her voice now, simmering quietly. “Mason, that’s not true. I didn’t like the girl because she was a stripper, but—”
“She didn’t say it. I’m asking.”
“No. Mason, absolutely not. I lost a year of my relationship with my son after making that mistake once. I wouldn’t do it again.”
I draw in a long breath, and it feels like my lungs are filling for the first time since Lindy put that piece of poison in my brain. “You understand why I had to ask.”
She’s silent for a beat. “I do, but I wonder why you asked me and not Bailey. With a question like that, shouldn’t you have been able to ask your wife?”
“Next time Mia’s in town, I’d like to bring her over to meet Faith.”
My sister stiffens and purses her lips. “What?”
I draw in a deep breath. I didn’t expect this would go great, so I’m prepared. The fact that I feel like I can even bring it up says a lot about how far we’ve come in the time I’ve been here. Yesterday, Sarah and Brandon brought Faith over to watch the game and swim. The Gators lost by fourteen, which was brutal, but more frustrating than the loss was that Mason barely got to play. They put him on special teams to receive the kickoff a few times, but he saw more play time in his first game last year than he did in this one.
When he got home, he took me straight to bed, kissing and touching me with a desperation I didn’t quite understand. After, he told me about Lindy’s visit and that she’s still determined to win him back. When I asked him if that was what he wanted, he kissed me again, harder and more desperately than the first time around. “You’re all I want,” he whispered as we made love again.
Today, I’m spending the afternoon with Sarah and Faith, and it’s been awesome. First, because she invited me over, and second because she hasn’t been rushing me out the door.
Now Faith is out back playing on the playset, and Sarah and I are cleaning up the kitchen.
“I know you’re not ready to tell Faith about me yet,” I say, treading carefully. “I wouldn’t expect you to tell her that Mia is her aunt. But Mia lost her brother, Sarah. And I think it would do her heart a lot of good to know about Faith. If she met her, she’d see that Nic’s still here in a way.” I see the worry on her face, and I reach out and squeeze her wrist. “No one is going to take her away from you. Faith is your daughter. I was sure when I made that decision that it was the right one, and I stand by it. I just want Faith to meet Aunt Bailey’s best friend, okay?”
Tears spill out the corners of her eyes. “Okay. I guess that’d be fine.” Then she surprises me by stepping forward and wrapping me into a hug. “Bailey, I’m so afraid I’m not good enough to be her mommy. If I weren’t, maybe I wouldn’t be so scared.”
“You’re a fantastic mother.” I turn her toward the windows so she can look at Faith playing on the swing set beyond. “Just look at her.”
She wipes away tears and turns to watch Faith pump her legs on the swing. “I’m so afraid I’ll never be the mother you are.”
I frown at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m ashamed of what you did for me. I’m ashamed that I let you, ashamed that I needed you to, and ashamed that I never would have had the courage to do it myself.” She draws in a breath and looks down at her hands. “If I’d been able to figure out how to cope after Greg left, you would have never had to take that disgusting job. I just kept thinking, how much more is she going to sacrifice for us? And I was left torn between wanting to let you have a relationship with Faith and wanting to push you away so you wouldn’t feel responsible for taking care of us.”
“Sarah, I made my own choices. I know how you feel about them, but at the time it was a choice I was comfortable with making. I wouldn’t do the same thing now, because I have a different relationship with my body today than I did then.” I look away, realizing this says a lot about what Mason’s done for me. He’s changed a lot about the way I see myself. I was always pretty clinical when it came to thinking of my body, but now taking off my clothes
for strangers would feel like an invasion of my privacy.
“I hate that you felt like you had to.” Her face crumples. “And I hate that I was so afraid of someone taking her away from me that I let you. You were always so brave, like a mother should be.”
I pull her into my arms and stroke her hair. “Giving her to you and giving you help when you needed it are my proudest accomplishments, but you are her mommy.”
We hug each other for a long time, and years of animosity seem to melt away, replaced by a new understanding.
Does your wife know you paid off Nic Mendez to stay away from her? What’s it worth to you that she never does?
Those two questions make up the entirety of the message from a guy named Ron Abrams, whose Facebook profile lists him as working at Blackhawk Valley Financial Bank. I probably never would have seen it if the guy who manages my social media accounts hadn’t flagged it and sent me an email. This is a couple of weeks old, and it’s probably bullshit, but I thought you should see it just in case. Let me know if you want me to reply. Otherwise, I’ll delete it and block him, just like we handle all the other crazies.
Ron Abrams is the asshole who sent Bailey the dick pic. He was full of apologies when I called his place of work and talked to the branch manager about him lifting people’s phone numbers from their accounts. He’s sure as fuck not going to see a dime from me, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t something I need to deal with.
I close the email application on my phone and put my head in my hands as I mentally rehearse the conversation where I tell Bailey I paid the man she loved—the father of her child—so he’d stay away from her. If I’d never done that, I probably wouldn’t have given a second thought to Lindy’s claim that Bailey took money from my dad, but my own guilt made me question her, and I feel shitty as hell about it.
Bailey stomps into the living room, tears the remote from my hand, and turns off the TV.
I lift a brow. “Maybe I was watching that.” I wasn’t.
She waves a folded paper in my face. I can’t tell, because she’s moving it too quickly, but I think it might be a bill. “I just got off the phone with the company that holds my student loans, and do you know what they said?”
“That they were paid in full?”
“Yes!” She smacks my shoulder with the bill. “They said they’d been paid in full by my husband. Do you want to explain, please?”
“It seems pretty self-explanatory.” I take a breath and push out of the chair, because she’s pissed, and I want to give her my full attention when she’s raving. Her hair’s wild around her face and she just looks . . . hot. “I paid them in full.”
“Why? Why would you do that?” Tears spring into her eyes.
If I thought this was fun a minute ago, my brain shifts gears so hard that I’m surprised there isn’t smoke. “Whoa, what’s wrong? I did it because I could. Because I wanted to.”
“You didn’t have the right.” She holds the paper in front of my face. Sure enough, it’s an old bill. “That’s a lot of money.”
“Not to me it isn’t.” Okay, so it is. She was carrying some pretty heavy debt, but I knew how much it weighed on her. It was worth it to take that away.
“Fuck you, Mason. You shouldn’t have done it. I don’t want to owe you money.” The tears don’t fall down her face. No, she’s too stubborn for that, but her hands are shaking.
“You don’t owe me anything. It was a gift, Bailey. I don’t expect you to pay me back.” Stepping forward, I take the bill from her hand and toss it onto one of the chairs. “You’re my wife.”
“I’m your fake wife.”
It’s a fucking punch to the gut I should have seen coming. “Right. Because you have one foot out the door, no matter how I feel about you. No matter how you feel about me.” I shake my head. “Is it all guys, or is it just me, Bail? Is it that no one but Nic is worth staying for, or is it just that I fall short?”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because I’m sick of living without you.”
She shakes her head, her jaw hard. “You wouldn’t think that if you knew about the things I’ve done or the mistakes I’ve made.”
“Then tell me. Tell me and let me prove I can love you through anything.” I tuck her hair behind her ear and brush my knuckles over her cheek. “Just give me a chance,” I whisper, and even though it’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, I feel like my heart’s been whispering those words for four years. “Give us a chance.”
“A chance?” She shakes her head. “Don’t you see what I’ve been doing here? I don’t just want to give you a chance—I want to give you everything.” Her bottom lip quivers. “But I want to give it to you. I don’t want you buying it.”
I don’t know if it’s her words or the look on her face that slams me in the chest, but I gather her to me and hold tight. “I’m sorry. Jesus, I never want you to feel like I was trying to buy you. I wanted you to be free of the burden of that debt, but I should have asked you.”
“Do you really think we can do this?” she asks, her words muffled. I release her, and she steps back to look at me. “We come from different worlds, and I want to believe it doesn’t matter, but I keep seeing all these reminders that it does.”
I take her hands. “Do me a favor and close your eyes.”
She frowns. “Why? So you can magically make my debt reappear?”
I laugh. “No, not that. Will you?”
She nods and closes her eyes. I don’t say anything else for a breath, because I just want to look at her—her residual blush from raging at me, her soft eyelashes on her cheeks, the way her blond hair looks even lighter across her tanned shoulders. She squeezes my hands. “Okay, now what?”
“Now I want you to imagine your life in ten years.” I swallow. I’m nervous, but at the same time I believe it when she says she loves me. “Your life as you’d paint it in a picture. Think about where you’re living. You’re working—what is your work? You wake up in the morning—who’s next to you?”
She opens her eyes, and her chest rises as she inhales. “You know who’s next to me.”
I cup her face in my hands and dip to kiss her. “Does the rest really matter?”
“Do you have a dress you could wear to a party this weekend?” Mason asks.
“Sure. I have lots of dresses. What’s the plan?”
It’s been a hectic week for him. They had an away game in San Diego last Sunday, and tomorrow they’ll host a Thursday night home game. I know he’s frustrated at practices and feels as if he’s fighting a losing battle for time on the field, but he’s also been quieter than usual when he gets home at night. Or maybe I’m the one who’s quieter. Since I found out about him paying off my student loans last night, I’ve been walking around with my stomach in knots about how to approach telling him the truth. It wasn’t until I said the words out loud that I realized I do want to give our relationship a real chance—but I can’t do that without telling him about the money I took from his father.
Mason shifts awkwardly and avoids my gaze. “It’s my parents’ anniversary party. They’ve been married for thirty years.”
Everything inside me stills. “Your father asked me not to come.”
“I’ve talked to my mother. She knows you’ll be there. It’s fine.”
“Maybe fine with you, but what about me?”
He draws in a breath and looks out the window. “I’m not any happier about going than you are.”
“I don’t get a choice, then?”
When he turns back to me, his eyes search my face. “My father’s an asshole, and he made you feel like shit by asking you not to come, and I apologize for that. For him. But I won’t let him dictate my life or who is in it. He did that before, remember?”
My heart squeezes, and for a beat I forget about Lindy and think the “before” he’s talking about is with me.
He takes my hands in both of his and squeezes. “You don’t have to go. But we’re together. And
if he made you feel so unwelcome that you won’t attend, then I’m not going either.”
That would break his mother’s heart, and obviously he wants to be there or he wouldn’t be asking me to do this. I shake my head. “I don’t want to make a scene.”
“My parents and I don’t have a good relationship, and I’ve been dreading their party.”
“Are you dreading it because you don’t want to see them, or are you dreading it because you don’t want them to see you with me?”
He flinches, and I wonder if I hit on the truth. “I want you with me. The rest is unimportant.”
“Mason, your parents don’t like me.”
He tenses, and even though it would be ridiculous, I wait for him to deny it. To defend his parents or to tell me that no one could hate me. But he nods and says, “I know. They had different plans for me.”
“Ouch.” It shouldn’t hurt, because I knew that, but it does. I don’t want him to accept it. I want him to defend me to them. “Lindy was their plan for you.”
“Not better plans, Bailey. Just different plans.”
“How are we supposed to make this work?” I ask, more of myself than of him. I want to tell him the truth. I even wrote him a letter that I planned to hand over if I couldn’t make myself talk. But if I tell him now, this party he’s already dreading is going to be that much worse for him.
“There’s nothing to make work,” he says. “We go, we talk to some people, dance, drink champagne, and then sleep it off in a resort downtown.”
That’s not how it’ll go if I tell him now. “If we get to the party and they’re unhappy that I’m there, I can leave.”
“No. If they want me there, then you’re going to be there, too. They’re going to have to get used to that.” He brings my hands to his mouth, kissing my knuckles. “You’re not just a girl I drunkenly married in Vegas. You’re my forever.”
I bite my lip. “How am I supposed to deny you anything when you come up with lines like that?”
