by JC Hawke
“Yes, I have, actually. But I won’t be starting until next September. I want to be here for Dad.”
No matter how much I try with Scarlet, she won’t pursue going back to uni until she knows her dad’s health is better. I just worry about what will happen if Anthony is still waiting for a transplant next year. Will she put it off again?
“I know, sorry. I won’t bring it up again—not unless you want to talk about it. I’m just about to go to the gym.”
“Ugh, boring. I’m trying to strip wallpaper. I was looking for a willing accomplice.”
“I don’t think I’d be much help, Scar. I told you I’m horrific at DIY.”
“It’s stripping wallpaper, you’ll do great. I will cook you tea after to say thanks.”
“I don’t even—”
“Leaving now to pick you up! Are you at Mason’s?”
“No.” I laugh. “I am staying at the girls’ apartment.”
“What? Why?”
“I will send you the address,” I say, hanging up and rolling my eyes, knowing she will want all the details.
Scarlet hasn’t stopped talking, from the minute I got in the car to the moment we pulled the final piece of paper from the wall.
It has been the perfect distraction, though.
I can tell she is lonely here. She only has her dad, and from what she has said, he sleeps a lot these days. It makes me sad. I’m excited for her to get back to medical school.
Anthony joined us out on the balcony for the spaghetti Bolognese that Scarlet made. He looks better today, with more colour in his cheeks and a slight spring in his step. I should feel guilty for spending time here after what Mason said, but Scarlet is my friend now, and I want to be here for her.
“How is the search going for a new studio?” Anthony asks.
“Slow, there isn’t much around. I am going to look at a space tomorrow which is exciting, but it’s expensive.”
“I’m sure something will come up, the right place at the right time.” He winks, taking a sip of his water.
“I hope so. I have a dance showcase in a few weeks and nowhere to train my girls.”
“Why don’t you use the gym here? It’s quite the space,” he suggests.
“That’s a great idea!” Scarlet agrees.
I clench my teeth, trying to keep my face neutral. “Thank you. I appreciate it so much, but I have to do this for myself. Also, my girls wouldn’t be able to travel out here each day.”
“That’s rubbish,” Scar mutters, stacking the plates and placing them to the side and out of our way.
“Well, if you need a hand with it at all, financially or otherwise, let us know. We could always set you up with a loan to help cover the costs.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
Although I already know I would never accept it.
“You’ve brought out a different side of Mason recently. We are thankful to you,” he says earnestly.
“Different how?”
“He never came here before. Or called, or even texted. The fact I know you is a miracle. I thought he would never come back here,” Scarlet expresses.
I smile, glad that they can see that change in him. Sometimes I think me and Mason are pure toxicity, but then I see the parts of him that Anthony and Scarlet are only now finding again, and it gives me hope.
“He is a good man.” Anthony sits nodding his head, swirling his water in his glass. “But stubborn. It’s the Lowell trait, I’m afraid.”
I lift my wine to my lips and take a large gulp. “You’re telling me!”
We all chuckle. My thoughts lost to the crazy man who drives me wild with want and need.
“You can’t leave now, by the way. Who would I hang with?” Scarlet looks over at me, giving me her best puppy-eyed look.
“Oh, because that’s why I’m with your brother.”
“No.” She shakes her head, sitting up in her seat and resting her arms on the table. “I think you are with him for the Tuesday special.”
My eyes go wide, and I stare at her open-mouthed.
She didn’t just say that.
“I am going to leave you girls to it,” Anthony announces, standing and making his way towards the door. Thank god he didn’t ask what the Tuesday special was.
“’Night, Dad!” Scarlet says sweetly.
“You bitch!” I whisper-shout as Anthony closes the terrace doors.
I chuck a piece of bread at her but miss.
“Leave my brother, and I will go to every newspaper that will listen and tell your anal story.” She starts to laugh, and I mimic her sarcastically.
“Yeah, because they will wanna hear that story. Idiot.” I giggle.
“You’d be surprised what strings I can pull. I have connections at The Times.” She nods but ends up snorting through her nose and breaking out into hysterics. “I can see it now. Dance prodigy QUITS to become Anal Champion.”
“STOP IT!” I heave out, trying to control my laughter.
“Heard it here first, folks.”
It’s eight o’clock, and I’m starting to get tipsy. We’ve only had a bottle of wine between us, but the great outdoors has made it go to my head.
We escape the cold outside and head for the kitchen. “I need to call a taxi,” I say, searching for my phone.
“Just stay. I can drop you home in the morning.”
“No, Mase would lose his head if he knew I was here.”
“Screw him. How would he even know?”
I think on it for a moment. “I should go home.”
“Nina, you’re more than welcome here,” Anthony says, appearing in the doorway.
“It’s nice to have the company around here with him sleeping the day away.” Scarlet nods to her dad, smirking. “Besides, who is going to help me finish this?” She holds up a bottle of wine.
Rolling my eyes, I give in. “Okay,” I drawl.
It’s late when we finally make it to bed, and Scarlet leads me to a room at the end of the hallway. She walks me inside with a wide smile on her face.
“What do you think?” she asks.
“It’s... nice,” I tell her, looking around at the mostly bare room.
My gaze catches a stack of boxes in the corner.
“It’s Mason’s old room.”
“It is?” I start to look around with more interest.
“Uh-huh.” Scarlet waggles her brows at me, and I chuckle. She is a little more than tipsy.
“Go to bed, you creeper.” I laugh, stepping farther into the room.
“Good night, champ.”
“Good night,” I call back.
The bedroom is smaller than I expected. It’s decorated in creams and navy tones, but nothing really matches. Other than the few boxes it’s empty, the walls and surfaces all free of life. I undress and pull on the pyjamas that Scar had already left out for me, then climb into the bed. She must have expected me to stay the whole time.
I scroll through my phone, feeling close to him but not close enough.
“Pix,” he answers on the first ring.
“Hey.”
“Are you okay?” he asks, his tone laced with concern.
“Yeah, you’ll never guess where I am.” I bite my lip, unsure as to whether I should have called. I hope he doesn’t get mad again.
“I presumed you were at Lucy and Megan’s?” he questions.
“Promise me you won’t get mad.” I toy with a loose thread on the blanket.
“Nina.”
“I’m in your bed. At Lowerwick.”
“Fucking hell.”
I start to giggle.
“Why are you there?” he asks.
“I was helping your sister decorate. And, maybe I feel close to you here.”
“You could be close to me, like really really close to me,” he groans.
“You were being an ass. I didn’t want to actually be with you.”
“Thanks,” he deadpans, but I can hear the smile hidden in his voice.
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“I’m going to look at a studio tomorrow.”
“Yeah? Tell me about it.”
I start to ramble on about the studio and all that it has going for it, and he sits and listens, only answering when I allow him the chance to ask a question.
I’m midway through talking about the exposed piping when my phone vibrates in my hand. I put Mase on speaker and open the message.
“Oh, wow.”
“What?” Mason asks.
I stare at the picture Joey has sent me, one I haven’t seen yet.
It’s my profile, and I’m reaching out to squat him away. It was when he was messing about and took photos of me randomly. The shot looks like I am reaching out to the person on the other side of the camera. It’s incredible, and I love it instantly.
I decide to test the waters; he seems to be in a good mood. “So, you know I had those photos taken. Joey, he took them?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I went to look at them today. They are incredible, Mase, and he just sent me this photo now, and I think you’d love it. Can I send it to you?”
“You met with Joey today? I thought you said you needed to find a studio?”
“I do, I am. Joey called and asked if I could go over the pictures.”
He snickers down the phone, and my eyes close in regret—not for meeting Joey and not for telling him I did, but regret that I ever believed he would be okay about it. “Sure, send the photo. I’d love to see it. I mean, if I can’t have the real thing I will take the scraps,” he says flippantly.
I run my tongue against the front of my teeth. “Grow up, Mason. You do realise if you weren’t such an ass this week, I wouldn’t be away from you right now.”
“I will add that to the list of endearments, angel.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap.
“Angel?”
“Yes! You don’t get to call me that right now.”
“What does Joey get to call you?”
I hang up, fuming at the infuriating idiot. My phone starts to ring instantly, and I decline the call, then I turn it off and drop it onto the bedside table.
Sitting up, I note how empty the room is, and I wonder if he cleared it or Scarlet. Either way, it’s as cold as he is right now.
I poke my head around the sitting-room door, finding Anthony sat up in a chair watching a rugby game on television. “‘Morning!” I smile, stepping into the room. “I’m off now, but thank you for having me.”
“Of course, give me a second.” He stands and rounds the sofa.
Leaning down, he pulls me into a hug. “Don’t give him too much hell, love. He doesn’t mean it.” He winks as if he knows his son is a complete asshole.
“Maybe,” I mumble, rolling my eyes and giving him a smirk.
“Is Scarlet driving you home?”
“Yes. Thank you again for having me. This place is a dream.”
He smiles thoughtfully down at me. “You’re always welcome here, love, with or without Mason.”
“Well, I promise the next time I come out, I will bring him with me.”
“I’d like that.” He nods.
The studio is awful.
It barely looks like the pictures, and the work that needs doing to it to fix it up is colossal. I’d never afford it. Maggie is being her super polite self and entertaining the salesperson. I wish I could be so classy, but I zoned out twenty minutes ago. Disappointment fills me, knowing I will have to keep looking.
I just need a room, close to the city and at a reasonable rate, it doesn’t even have to be fancy, but water leaks and broken floorboards? This place is borderline dangerous.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and I look down, noticing a number I don’t know.
“Hello?”
“Miss Anderson? Nina?”
“Speaking?”
Please be a potential studio.
Please be a potential studio.
“My name is George. I work for Mr Lowell—Mason.”
“Oh, hi.” I frown, and then my stomach drops. “What’s wrong?”
“Elliot asked that I called. Mason has just left for Lowerwick Estate.” I close my eyes, panic making my legs sway. “Mr Lowell, not Mason, Mr Lowell senior. He has been taken unwell.”
“Oh, god, which hospital?”
“I don’t think they have gone, the doctor was coming to him.”
I breathe out a sigh of relief. That’s good. If it were serious, they would take him to the hospital.
“Would you like to go? To the estate?” George asks.
“Uh,” I pause. Would Mason want me to be there? “No, that’s fine. I will make my way over later this evening, thank you, though.”
“Of course, just call if I can be of any help.”
“Thank you.” I smile, not missing the fact Mason’s receptionist is now in fact, a male.
Once I hang up, I think about Mason at the estate and how much he hated it the last time we went. The image of him at the door, not wanting to even enter past the threshold.
“Maggie!” I interrupt in a panic.
“Yes, darling?” She frowns as she spins around, both her and the estate agent looking at me in wonder.
“I need your car. I have to go.”
The gravel seems to crunch louder than usual under my trainers as I jump from the car. I don’t bother closing the door, my feet carrying me subconsciously past the ambulances and multiple vehicles littered around the circular drive. I take the steps two at a time and push open the main doors, propelling myself into their hell.
Soft purple locks lay in a curled mass against Elliot’s chest. It’s all I can see. And it has tears springing to my eyes and falling to my cheeks within a split second.
“No!” I shake my head, my voice barely above a whisper. “No.”
“Nina,” Charlie mutters, putting himself in front of me and trying to pull me into an embrace. I look around him: Scarlet, Elliot, his parents, Charlie and Lance.
Everybody but my Mase.
“Where is he?” I ask to anyone and no one, my eyes a blur.
“He needed some air, but I don’t know where he went,” Vinny mutters, stepping out from the kitchen and into the hall.
When did Vinny get back?
“Scar?”
Her sad eyes meet mine, and her head tilts to the side as her body rocks into Elliot’s.
More tears start to fall as we look between each other in understanding. “I’m so sorry, Scarlet.”
“Go find him.” She sniffs, before hiding her face back in Elliot’s chest.
I turn and leave through the open doors, taking off on a sprint around the house and across the first field.
He hasn’t made it to the meadow when I catch sight of him, still trudging toward the last gate.
I start to run faster, my limbs aching, knowing I need to get to him.
I reach the meadow and climb the gate.
“Mase!” I call, watching as he walks toward the hill.
“Mason!” I cry, my tears falling without restraint. He either can’t hear me or he’s not listening, too inside his own head. And I know how that feels—wanting to run away and shut the world out.
I continue running for him, knowing I just need to hold him, be with him.
I’m almost to him when he crumbles, falling to his knees onto the damp grass in his immaculate grey suit. “Mase, baby.”
I round on him, dropping to my knees in front of him as he lands. “Mase.”
Grasping his head in my hands, I try to pull his face down to mine, but he holds it firm, his body too powerful to control as he stares up at the sky.
“He’s gone.”
“Baby,” I whisper, standing so I can see him, cradling his face in my hands.
His eyes search my face, a lone tear rolling across his temple and into his hairline.
“He’s gone, Nina.” More tears start to fall, and I wipe them away with my thumbs.
“He hasn’t. Mason, he hasn’t. Feel him. Le
t him leave and then breathe him in. He is here, I promise.” My own tears stream down my cheeks and drip from my chin.
“He didn’t know,” he sobs.
I hold him close, leaning down and kissing his forehead as he cries. “I’m so sorry.”
“He didn’t know.” His head falls to my breastbone, and he breaks down in my arms, our tears merging into one as they stream down my chest.
My beautiful, broken man.
27
Mase
If ever I were to break, I’d never pick her arms to be the ones I would fall into. But this wasn’t a choice. It was a need, and she showed up.
A feeling I’ve not felt for many years weighs heavy on me, a feeling I know comes with a loss.
As a child, my mother’s passing was hard to take. It didn’t make sense, and it impacted me for years. I thought it was my age that made it feel the way it did, but the ache in my chest now tells me I would never have been prepared when it came to losing them.
I thought I was strong.
Walking back to the house with Nina under my arm, I draw from her strength, but I know it won’t be enough.
Her head lifts to mine, and she gives me a strained smile. As we near the house, I stop where I stand and pull Nina into me.
“I’m sorry, Pix.” I kiss her head.
“Sorry?” she questions as I turn and walk towards my Bentley, leaving her behind. “Hey!” she shouts. “Mason, what about Scar?”
My gaze catches hers, anger brimming behind her deep chocolate pools. “I will see you at home.”
Her brows rise in surprise as I shut the door, start the engine and tear off out of the drive.
Nina
My heart burns as I make my way up the front steps and into the house. I give a small smile to the Montgomerys who sit in the lounge, but I don’t stop, moving towards the kitchen where I see Lance leaning in the doorway.
I place my hand on his back. “Excuse me,” I whisper.
“Nina,” he utters softly, his face solemn.
I swallow down the lump in my throat and avoid eye contact with him. I can’t deal with Lance being nice right now. It will send me over the edge.
