Chapter 6 Cracks in the Wall #2
Every improvement.
After years of instability, ownership still felt strange.
Sometimes miraculous.
Mason unlocked the front door and stepped inside.
The familiar silence greeted him.
A silence he'd grown accustomed to over the years.
Most nights, he appreciated it.
Tonight it felt heavier than usual.
After a quick shower, he settled onto the couch with a bottle of water and stared at the dark television screen.
The quiet allowed memories to creep in.
The ones he usually avoided.
The ones he spent years outrunning.
His childhood wasn't something he discussed often.
Not because it was a secret.
Because it wasn't particularly pleasant.
His mother had struggled with addiction for most of his early years.
His father had never been part of the picture.
By age nine, Mason had entered the foster system.
After that came the moves.
One house.
Then another.
Then another.
Different schools.
Different rules.
Different families.
Always temporary.
Always uncertain.
Some homes had been decent.
Some hadn't.
None lasted.
The constant instability taught him an important lesson very early in life.
Don't get attached.
People left.
Families changed.
Promises broke.
The less you cared, the less it hurt.
At least that was the theory.
The reality had been much messier.
Mason rubbed a hand across his face.
Those years had left marks.
Not visible ones.
The deeper kind.
The kind that shaped every relationship afterward.
Trust never came easily.
Love came even harder.
By the time he reached adulthood, anger had become his preferred defense mechanism.
Anger felt stronger than fear.
Safer than vulnerability.
Unfortunately, anger also led him toward some spectacularly bad choices.
The memories surfaced one after another.
Bar fights.
Drinking.
Long nights spent trying to outrun loneliness.
The reckless years.
Years he wasn't proud of.
Years that nearly destroyed him.
He still remembered waking up in a hospital after one particularly ugly fight.
Broken ribs.
Concussion.
Enough injuries to force him into sobriety.
At first he'd hated every second of it.
Then something unexpected happened.
His life improved.
Slowly.
Painfully.
One decision at a time.
Blackthorn had played a huge role in that recovery.
The brickworks gave him structure.
Responsibility.
Purpose.
For the first time, people depended on him.
Expected things from him.
Believed in him.
The realization changed everything.
Then came Liam.
Mason's younger brother.
The one person who understood exactly what foster care felt like.
Exactly what survival required.
For a few years, things seemed hopeful.
Promising.
Until the accident.
The memory hit as sharply as ever.
Some wounds never healed completely.
They simply became familiar.
Mason stood and crossed the room.
He hated dwelling on Liam.
Not because he wanted to forget.
Because remembering hurt.
The guilt remained even now.
Years later.
He should have protected him.
Should have done more.
Should have somehow prevented the impossible.
The old thoughts were irrational.
He knew that.
Grief rarely listened to reason.
Outside, crickets chirped in the darkness.
Inside, the house felt smaller than usual.
More crowded with memories.
Eventually Mason moved toward the bookshelf near the living room window.
Several familiar titles sat on the shelves.
Poetry collections.
Novels.
Books he'd returned to repeatedly over the years.
One of them reminded him immediately of Eli.
That realization irritated him.
Everything reminded him of Eli lately.
Poetry.
Conversations.
Music.
The damn weather.
The younger man had become woven into his thoughts far too deeply.
Mason leaned against the shelf and closed his eyes.
What exactly was he doing?
Seriously.
What possible future existed here?
The answer came immediately.
None.
Absolutely none.
Eli was twenty-one.
A college student.
Bright.
Talented.
Ambitious.
His entire future stretched ahead of him.
Mason was thirty-eight.
A brickworker carrying more baggage than most people would tolerate.
They lived in different worlds.
Different generations.
Different realities.
Even if the attraction wasn't a problem, everything else would be.
The age difference.
The family connection.
The gossip.
The complications.
Every practical consideration pointed toward the same conclusion.
Walk away.
Now.
Before someone got hurt.
Before feelings became impossible to manage.
Before a temporary attraction turned into something irreversible.
The problem was that Mason already knew this wasn't just attraction.
That truth sat heavily in his chest.
Because somewhere along the way, he had started caring.
Really caring.
And that made the decision infinitely harder.
He stared out the window toward the dark horizon.
Thought about Eli's smile.
His curiosity.
His kindness.
The way conversations felt easier around him.
Then Mason forced himself to remember every mistake he'd ever made.
Every person he'd disappointed.
Every reason he wasn't the kind of man Eli deserved.
The conclusion remained unchanged.
No matter how much he wanted otherwise.
No matter how much it hurt.
No matter how tempted he felt every time Eli looked at him.
He needed to stay away.
Because some risks weren't worth taking.
And falling for Eli Bennett would be the biggest mistake of all.
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