Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Sky is in my bed. Right now.
Somehow, Mason’s wildest fantasy had come true and his heart’s most secret and deepest desire was sleeping under his roof.
The only problem was, Mason was in the wrong bed.
He looked at the spot next to him, grimacing as Sarina took her vitamins and adjusted the creepy gel mask clinging to her face.
She looked like the villain from the “Saw” movies.
“Are you going to wear that all night?” he asked, making her snort.
She had moved on to her first bottle of lotion and was applying it to her elbows and her legs. “Yes. I want to have skin like a baby and these collagen masks work wonders.”
“What if I wake up and it scares me?”
“You won’t even be able to see it in an hour. It’ll be invisible.” Sarina pumped another moisturizer onto her palm and lifted up her camisole so she could slather it on her chest and stomach. “Oh! Since you’re here, put some of this on my back.”
Resigned, Mason held out his palm so she could squirt some onto it, then rubbed his hands together. “Turn around, Jigsaw.”
“What?” She laughed but turned so he could slide his hands under the back of her camisole and spread it onto her skin. “This reminds me of when I was pregnant and you used to give me back rubs.”
“Hmm…” Mason hummed absently as he used his thumbs to knead the muscles in her lower back. “Did Sky bring pajamas?” he wondered out loud but secretly hoped that Sky preferred to sleep naked.
“I don’t know. He kicked me out before I could take an inventory but he can always borrow yours.”
“I can’t believe I forgot that dresser. All the things I wear the most are in there,” Mason pouted as he smoothed the lotion up and onto her shoulders and massaged her neck.
He was in such a rush to clear out any trace of himself and change the linens, that he’d skipped the tall dresser that held his socks, underwear, pajamas, and loungewear.
“You can clear it out tomorrow. I told Sky you left them to be thoughtful, in case he didn’t pack enough boxers or whatever.”
Mason’s face twisted as he worked what was left of the lotion into his own hands until they were dry again. “Would you wear someone else’s underwear?” While he certainly enjoyed the idea of Sky in his boxers, he didn’t think underwear was something that should be shared in most cases.
“Probably not but I had to think fast.” She shrugged and leaned in to offer him a kiss. “Night.”
He leaned away. “No, thank you. Goodnight.” He settled back onto his pillows and crossed his arms over his chest, silently cursing Adele and the extra quilt and throw blanket. “I miss my bed. You have too many pillows and too many covers.”
“We can take them off if you want. I don’t mind freezing to death,” she offered but Mason shook his head.
“What do you think she’s up to?”
“Who? Mom?”
“Yeah. We both know she doesn’t care if the three of us ever talk again. Do you think she’s hoping for drama?”
Sarina humphed. “I think that’s a given. We won’t give it to her, though. This is our chance to fix things with Sky, if you can keep your hands out of his pants.”
A crooked smile spread across Mason’s face as he recalled how round and firm Sky’s ass looked when he was crawling and rolling around on the floor with Sam earlier.
It was definitely fuller and his thighs weren’t as lean as they used to be.
He licked his lips, imagining how Sky’s ass would taste.
Mason already knew what Sky’s cock and his cum tasted like but he wished he had tasted the rest of him when he had the chance.
He grunted when Sarina jabbed him with her elbow. “I said if you can keep your hands out of his pants,” she scolded.
“Right.” Mason nodded quickly. She didn’t say anything about my tongue… He flicked himself hard on the temple. “I will maintain a respectable distance between us at all times.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She rolled toward Mason and petted his arm. “I’ve always known that you…had a thing for Sky,” she whispered, startling Mason.
He rolled toward her and shook his head. “I didn’t! I don’t!” he whispered back, lying.
“It’s okay! I secretly hoped that one day the two of you might…” Her lips pulled tight and she sighed sadly. “I don’t know, run away together.”
“Run away? I never wanted to run away. Do you think Sky did?”
“Probably all the time,” she said with a sniffle.
“I understood why you didn’t come out and why you couldn’t date guys when we were in high school.
But when you didn’t come out in college, I kind of hoped you were waiting for Sky and that one day we would be like…
our own happy family. He had the biggest crush on you and I don’t think he ever outgrew it. I think that’s why he’s still so mad.”
Mason remembered what Nana said about him rescuing the wrong Sutton. “I wish I could stop letting him down. I keep doing the wrong thing.”
“That’s not true.” Sarina curled her pinkie around his. “You try so hard but it’s me and my stupid mistake that keeps messing things up for all of us.”
“Stop it. You had a lapse of judgment with the wrong person, but I wouldn’t trade Sam for anything, Sina. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat, I’d just find a way to protect Sky too.”
“You don’t have to save everyone, you know?” she said softly.
He nodded. “I know, it’s just harder to accept when you’ve let down someone you love. Sometimes, I still see that skinny kid who used to tag along with us and I wish I had done more and been a better friend.”
“You were also a kid and then we were away at school when that business with the creepy track coach happened,” Sarina reminded him.
“I swear, if I had been here, Sina…” Mason gave her a hard look.
He wasn’t an aggressive or a violent man and had always preferred to save that kind of behavior for the hockey rink.
There, it was appreciated and everyone involved was wearing protective gear.
But Mason would have enjoyed breaking Brian Digby’s jaw and several of his ribs.
“I would have helped,” she said in a low growl. “And I sure as hell wouldn’t have let Mom and Dad pack Sky off to the city like he had anything to be ashamed of.”
“My dad hated that they did that,” Mason confided. “He told me Stewart wouldn’t let him talk to Sky about it. But Dad didn’t think all that went down after Sky turned eighteen and that Digby might have been a groomer, especially after the other boys came forward.”
“Sam Sr. was probably right but you know what my parents were like.” Her lips twisted thoughtfully. “I bet you rue the day we met and wish you’d picked Marla Kloss to be your best friend.”
“Ew. Not Marla.” Mason pushed his tongue out. “She was always mean and look at how she turned out: married to a shitty CEO and almost bald from bleaching her hair blonde for twenty years.”
“Everything about her has always been fake. God, remember when she got her first nose job and she looked like the Crypt Keeper?”
They burst into tearful giggles and Mason had to shush her when she attempted the Keeper’s maniacal laugh. “Who lets a sixteen-year-old get a nose job?” he asked with heaps of judgment.
“My mom definitely would.”
Mason hummed in agreement. “Good thing you have a perfect nose.” He carefully booped it, afraid of the mask, and she held onto his hand.
“Do you ever regret becoming friends with me?”
“Never,” Mason stated. “You have your moments, but you were so sweet and you made it so easy for me when I told you I was gay, and you’ve never looked down on me because my parents weren’t rich like everyone else’s.”
His family was actually blue-collar, which was rare for Roseview.
His mother had trained as an electrician under her father and worked for the family business until he retired in 2012.
The Cartwrights had been mayors for four generations but most of the men in Mason’s family were carpenters and contractors.
Mason’s father’s small construction company had built several of the homes and businesses in Roseview but some of its residents still treated them like outsiders and acted like they were beneath them.
Including Adele Ainsley-Sutton.
No one would ever accuse Sarina or Sky of being well-adjusted but neither were stuck-up assholes like their parents and they avoided the rich kid cliques in school.
Unlike their peers, both understood at an early age that money couldn’t buy you brains or class and that shallow people made the shittiest friends.
Perhaps that was one of the few benefits of being raised by Adele: no one was ever going to stab Sarina or Sky in the back or step on them like a doormat.
They had been raised by a stone-cold, razor-tongued cunt who would cut them to shreds if they allowed anyone else to make a fool of them.
“I thought you were so cool because your parents weren’t like ours,” Sarina chuckled fondly. “Sometimes, I was jealous because Sam Sr. and Kate were so kind and normal, but you were always happy to share them with us so I forgave you for having the best parents in town.”
“Then, we got married and they were officially your parents.”
She nodded, smiling. “One of the many, many perks of being married to you. Sorry I came with so much crappy baggage.”
Mason rolled his eyes. “You gave me a perfect little human, I think I can overlook a few dismal relatives.”
She let out a loud guffaw and they both covered her mouth as Mason shushed her. “Sorry!” she whispered and snickered. “But it was a lot more than a few. They’re all dismal, except for Sky.”
“Nana wasn’t that bad.”
“No, she was actually pretty great, for a mean old gal.” Sarina was quiet for a moment, then frowned. “You still haven’t told me what she said and I can see it’s eating you alive.”
“It isn’t eating me alive.” Another lie. “But it wouldn’t make me feel better or help you, if I told you. I don’t know if it would actually help anyone or if it would just cause a lot of unnecessary pain.”
“Ew.” Sarina’s face scrunched. “Why would Nana tell you something like that? Why not just let it die with her, if it was that bad?”
Mason’s cheeks puffed out and he made an exploding sound as he considered. “Accountability?” he guessed. “It isn’t my secret to tell or any of my business, honestly, but maybe Nana wanted someone else to know so the matter didn’t die with her.”
That seemed most likely, the more Mason pondered Nana’s motives.
She had to know she was placing a terrible burden on Mason, but Nana couldn’t die knowing her nemesis would get away with something that scandalous.
He had no plans to ever confront anyone over it and for once, Mason had a secret he didn’t want to share with Sarina.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know and the fewer people who do, the better,” Mason said emphatically.
“Alright. I trust you,” Sarina decided, ending the matter. “But if it ever gets to the point that you need to tell me or talk about it, I’ll be okay. I promise.” She blew him a kiss, then flopped onto her back and closed her eyes. “I love you, Mase.”
“Love you too, Sina.”
Mason rolled over onto his other side, facing the window.
He might fall asleep faster if he could pretend he was alone.
With all that had happened and Adele’s latest stunt, it had been easy to “forget” Nana’s revelations, but their last conversation haunted him when he was alone and it was quiet.
His conscience was clear, for the most part.
Especially compared to the rest of the Suttons.
It was just the withholding part that didn’t sit well with Mason. He had never kept anything from Sarina before and Mason was afraid of hurting the only other Sutton he cared about, if the rest of the family’s terrible secrets came out.
Sometimes, the truth was just the truth and didn’t help anyone or make anything better. And sometimes, the truth made things a whole lot worse. In this particular case, Mason couldn’t see any way that it would help, only that it had to come out eventually.
I’m not the one who has to decide that, am I? Maybe I’m supposed to just watch from the sidelines and hang onto this in case something else happens and to make sure everyone plays fair.
That didn’t sound too far-fetched and actually made Mason feel better about being the bearer of something that ugly. Feeling somewhat relieved, he cleared away as many of his doubts and concerns as he could and focused on the fact that Sky was there, right now and sleeping in Mason’s bed.
I hope he doesn’t wear pajamas…