Chapter 21
Sebastian
When it came to raising me, my father didn’t do much. Hell, if there wasn’t a camera involved, he wasn’t there. His job as a father was to provide for us, financially anyway, which didn’t work out great considering my mother was just as career-obsessed as he was.
Still, I remembered one thing from my short-lived childhood: my father loved my mom.
Her happiness was his top priority. I’d never felt much love from either of them, but I thought I knew what it looked like between two people, at least, in the romantic sense.
Which was why, three apologies deep into Mason ignoring me, I was losing my damn mind.
And not the cute, flirty, I’m-ignoring-you-but-secretly-turned-on kind of way she sometimes pulled. No, this was full-on, I don’t want to be in the same room as you, mad. The worst part? I had no fucking idea why.
I’d followed her from the kitchen to the nursery twice. Offered to change Rosie’s diaper. Even volunteered to run to the store for her favorite overpriced granola bars that tasted like birdseed and dark chocolate.
Nothing.
Not even a sarcastic comment about me being whipped. Which I was. Embarrassingly so.
It was driving me insane.
So, I had two options:
Keep apologizing until she cracked.
Or assume she’d hate me forever and panic.
Apparently, panic won. My brain didn’t ease into it—it went straight to the worst-case scenario, the kind of thought you don’t even want to admit to yourself.
I needed to love bomb her and remind her that I loved her more than anyone ever would.
Then came the guilt for even considering it, because that wasn’t who I was, at least not on purpose.
Still, the idea lodged itself in my head and refused to leave, twitching under my skin. The house felt smaller by the second. Rosie’s laugh in the background, Mason’s footsteps drifting in and out of earshot, and me—hovering, useless.
So, I left. Ended up at the gym.
Before the accident, that place had been my sanctuary.
My health regimen was obsessive—workouts lasting hours on end, strict meal plans, pushing my body like I could outrun my thoughts.
After talking with Cameron, I realized my “discipline” looked a lot like Mason’s eating disorders, just in a different costume.
Still, I’d loved it. Pop in a good audiobook or some music, work until every muscle ached, walk out feeling like I’d sweated the world off my shoulders.
Eight months ago, that all changed, courtesy of the metal rod now living in my leg.
Thirty minutes into my workout today, and my shirt already looked like I’d swum here. I started with fifteen minutes on the stair machine to loosen up my bad knee, but by now the whole leg had decided to protest my existence.
It wasn’t the kind of pain that sends you rushing to the hospital, which was somehow worse.
This was a deep, grinding ache, like someone had jammed a steel pin into the gears of my body.
Some days it felt like the rod wasn’t fixed at all, like it rattled inside the bone, slamming against whatever scraps were left in there.
Even lying back on the bench, hands wrapped around the bar, my knee throbbed so intensely it made lifting feel impossible, despite not even being part of the exercise.
I gritted and tried to push through it, after all, the last thing I wanted was to drop two hundred and fifty pounds directly on my chest. But I was fine. I had this. That was, until a pair of incredibly calloused hands appeared on the bar.
“Slow down, dude.” Instantly, I recognized the voice, and that alone made me want to drop dead. “Rack the bar. You’re about two seconds away from popping your shoulder out of place.”
I grunted as I put the weight into the holder above the bench, leaving me to stare at the last person I wanted to see.
“Mattie, what a pleasant surprise,” I grumbled, trying not to sound out of breath.
“Uh-huh,” she said skeptically as she offered me a hand. “Look, quite frankly: I don’t give a single fuck if you hurt or even kill yourself, but my girlfriend likes you so…”
She shrugged, making sure to keep her hand outstretched for me.
And I sat up without her help.
“She’s my girlfriend.”
“Our.” Mattie didn’t even blink. “You may have had her first, but I think I’m one slumber party from her moving me in. Plus, I know something you don’t.”
I swiped my tongue over my teeth, leaving it to linger under my canines as I stared at Mattie. She crossed her arms, leaving her biceps to strain against the tattered sleeves of her ancient Metallica shirt.
“What do you know?” I whispered, already fearing the answer.
Mason was pregnant. That’s why she’d gotten so mad earlier, and I was a fucking idiot.
Mattie smirked. Right now, she was like a hungry cat, and I was a mouse she hadn’t yet finished toying with. Slowly, she lifted a shoulder.
“Information is power, Father Castillo. Right now, I have almost enough rope for you to hang yourself, so why shouldn’t I just let you?”
Yep. That confirmed it. I really didn’t like Mattie.
I blew out a breath through my nose, doing my best to remain outwardly neutral despite the thundering in my chest. I wasn’t a detective, not anymore, but I knew it was best to ignore threats like this.
Maybe Dale had tasked Mattie with testing my faith, and that’s why she didn’t want to be lumped in with the cult.
I wasn’t supposed to know she’d been tasked with watching me, that she was meant to check if I’d intentionally lied to Dale. Her goal was to find any possible reason to punish me, and I wasn’t going to give her that.
I was smarter than her and Dale combined. I could beat this. My job was to play along, and I was a phenomenal worker.
“Because you’re a decent human being?” I suggested.
Mattie tilted her head like she was considering it, then shook her head. “Mmm… no. I’m funnier than that.”
She stepped closer, leaning down just enough so I could smell Mason’s perfume on her.
“Plus, you’ll find out soon enough. And the look on your face? That’s worth way more than ruining the surprise,” she taunted.
And then I did what any rational human would do: I got up and removed myself from the situation.
“Where are you going?” she called, sounding annoyed.
I cast her one final look over my shoulder. “Information is power, remember?”
Her brows pulled together just slightly, like she hadn’t anticipated me throwing her line back in her face.
“Cute,” she said flatly, though the corner of her mouth twitched like she was holding back a smile.
But, I didn’t care. If she wanted to toy with me, fine. I’d played long games before. So I kept walking, grabbed my bag off the floor, and slung it over my shoulder. The ache in my knee flared with every step, but the dread in my chest was worse.
Driving an hour away to buy a pregnancy test would be excessive for most people. But most people weren’t being hunted by an insane old man and his horde of evangelical lapdogs.
If Mason was pregnant, I needed to know. I needed to be ready. I wouldn’t get to be mad at her, or Mattie, or anyone but myself. The first year of our relationship had been consumed by my own selfish intentions. In repentance, I would spend the rest of my life doing right by her and Cameron.
Even if it killed me.
When I got home, I shoved the tests into my hoodie pocket like I was smuggling drugs.
In the distance, water rattled through the pipes.
Mason only showered either very early or very late, and Sophia was still working, so my bet was that Cameron was cleaning up after a long day.
Which meant Mason was somewhere alone, probably hiding from me.
Rosie was asleep in her nursery. No Mason in the reading nook. Which left only one option.
Her bedroom door opened under my hand with a creak. A fuzzy-socked foot jerked out of sight into her sensory swing, rocking like it was empty. Cute. Not fooling anyone.
I walked over and parted the purple nylon.
She looked up from her book, expression like a blank wall.
“There’s my princess,” I cooed.
Her gaze dropped back to the page without a word.
I pulled in a deep breath, then blew it out in one hard puff. No part of me wanted to be pushy with Mason, but she wasn’t giving me a choice. I dug in my pocket and dropped the box right across her pages.
She froze, spine stiffening.
“I told you, I’m not pregnant.” Accent thicker now—her pissed-off tell.
“I know. Just… Humor me? Please?”
Her mouth went flat, but she didn’t throw it back at me. Instead, she dog-eared the page, shut the book with a soft thunk, and handed it over like she wanted to stab me with it.
“I’ll be back, but this is ridiculous.”
She shoved herself out of the swing, not gracefully, and brushed past me. I followed. Close enough to keep her in sight, far enough she wouldn’t think I was hovering. Which I was.
We stopped in the bathroom doorway. She spun around and hit me with a glare that could strip paint. “What, first you don’t trust me not to lie to you, and then you don’t trust me to pee on a stick?”
The worst part was that everything in her tone screamed guilty conscience. But I couldn’t say that without detonating the whole room.
“Masie, I remember how nervous you were with Rosie. I just want to be here for you because I love you.”
Her glare wavered for a fraction of a second before she rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
She stepped inside, tests in hand, fingers shaking.
“If you’re nervous, I can read the instructions—”
“I’m not nervous. I’m pissed.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “You said you didn’t want another baby.
I told you I’m not pregnant. Isn’t that what you wanted to hear?
” Her lip trembled, eyes glossy. “Right now, Lucian isn’t my person.
You are. Just like last year, before we moved here. Why would I do anything to upset you?”
That stopped me. Not because it was romantic, but because Mason didn’t give reassurances unless she meant them. And she’d just handed me one for free.
I reached for her hand and pulled her closer. She stayed stiff. I pushed harder, one step, then two, until she collided with my chest. Her breath came in warm bursts against my sternum.
“Mason, what are you scared of?”
“Nothing.” Her voice rumbled against me. “I just don’t like that you don’t trust me.”
And I didn’t like that Mattie’s smug “I know something you don’t” was still playing in my head like a scratched record.
“I trust you,” I said anyway. “I just… want to make sure. You’re acting weird.”
She nodded twice, wiping her eyes. “Are you staying in here while I do it?”
“I am.”
“Then look away. The idea of being watched while I pee makes me nervous.”
Fine. I turned around, promised my eyes were closed, and listened—yes, listened—like a creep. The box tearing. Footsteps. The flush.
I set a five-minute timer. She put the test face down on the back of the toilet. We waited. The air felt thick, familiar, like déjà vu from another continent, another lifetime.
When the timer chimed, she reached for it.
“Actually, I’ll do it,” I said.
Her hand froze midair, then lowered.
“Quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid,” she muttered.
I flipped it. My heart stopped.
“Well?” she asked, and for the first time in hours, I heard something nervous in her voice.
“It’s negative.”