Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Mason’s plan to sweep Sky off his feet for an extra weekend had been a complete success.
He was feeling optimistic about a much longer extension as he snuck back into his bedroom with an opened bottle of chilled champagne and two glasses.
He had raced down in his robe as soon as Sky stepped into the shower.
The bottle and the glasses were ready and waiting in the refrigerator because Sky didn’t waste time when he was bathing and was usually in and out in less than two minutes.
“What kind of soap do you use?” Sky asked when he came out and headed for the bed with a towel around his waist. “I love it.”
“Okay… Are we celebrating something?” Sky looked on in concern as Mason poured.
“Maybe. The night is young.” Mason passed Sky his glass.
They saluted each other before taking a sip, and Mason wound an arm around Sky’s waist. “But if I was celebrating…” He wiggled his brows at Sky and guided him back toward the bed.
“I wish you had come for better reasons, but a lot of wonderful things came out of this visit. The last two weeks have been heaven.”
“Except for the afternoons I had to endure with my mother and the resulting trauma,” Sky mused, winding his other arm around Mason’s neck and allowing the towel to slide down his legs.
“I’ve tried my best to help with that,” Mason said with a sympathetic wince. “Not that any amount of sex could.”
Sky snickered into his champagne as he sipped. “I’m afraid you were sleeping with the wrong Sutton if you were trying to make my mom happy.”
“Shut up.” Mason put down his glass so he could take off his robe.
Sky quickly drained his glass, then eagerly climbed onto the bed.
“What if you didn’t leave?” Mason asked as he crawled after him and pushed Sky onto his back.
He lowered and growled as he grazed Sky’s neck with his teeth, making him shiver and gasp.
“I can take next week off. I checked and nothing important is happening and I’ll still be here if there’s an emergency.
We could spend most of it in bed, whenever Sina and Sam are gone. ”
There was a shaking whimper as Sky tugged at Mason’s hair, urging him to move lower.
“That is an incredibly tempting offer, but I have to go back, Mase. My mother might not believe it, but I actually am writing a book. I haven’t written a thing since I’ve been here, and it’s going to be a battle to get my head back into the story as it is.”
“I’m sorry, I take for granted how much your process depends on your ability to focus.
All the drama with Nana’s passing and staying here must have made it impossible,” Mason said in awe.
It had to require a lot of Sky’s energy to cope with all the chaos and Adele’s last-minute changes and demands.
“I would have buckled. I don’t know where you get the strength or how you handled it all as gracefully as you did. ”
Sky laughed it off. “You wouldn’t say that if you could hear what it’s like inside my head. I was screaming the entire time. The parts with Sam and Sina and you and all the strawberry Jell-O were nice, though.”
“I’m glad I could help. It might be easier to work here if you had your own space and all of your things. Adele would probably lose interest after a while and you could create a new routine,” Mason said as he kissed along Sky’s clavicle.
“What are you talking about? Why would I work here? I live in New York.”
“What if you…didn’t, though? You could move into Sutton House,” Mason said hopefully, then changed course when Sky’s face twisted.
“Maybe not right away. I understand if you’re not ready for that yet.
I can come to the city on my free weekends, and no one will think it’s a big deal if you visit more often, now that we’ve worked things out. ”
“I don’t understand.” Sky pushed Mason off of him and scooted back against the headboard, looking not at all pleased. “You want this—us—to be a regular thing. What about Sarina? Are you leaving her?” he asked angrily.
“No!” Mason answered without hesitating. “I could never do that to her and Sam.”
Sky’s eyes slid to the ceiling and his frown intensified. “Good… And we would just be…?”
It was easy to understand his confusion.
Mason felt like two-hundred pounds of rotten, toxic trash as he sat on his heels and took Sky’s hand.
“I know it sounds bad, but we wouldn’t be doing anything behind her back.
She’d love having you home for good. She’d even help us so we wouldn’t have to sneak around as much.
We can tell Sam once he’s old enough to understand why we want to keep it private. ”
“You want me to move here and live in Sutton House like an eccentric recluse? I’m not even thirty, yet, Mase.”
“Okay! We can do the semi long-distance thing, then,” Mason said quickly. “I get why you don’t want to settle down like that right now. Like I said, I don’t mind visiting you, and I’ll get good at phone sex. I’ve always wanted to try it,” he added.
Sky pulled his hand free and began to rock slightly, signaling his distress.
“What if I did want to settle down, just not like that? What if I wanted to find a man just like you, but who wasn’t already married to someone else? What if I wanted a real relationship and a happy life, just like this?”
“Right! You deserve all of that!” Mason agreed, despite the way his heart ached and burned at the thought of another man touching Sky and loving him openly and proudly when he couldn’t.
It was the only thing Mason couldn’t give Sky.
It terrified him, knowing there was another, better man out there waiting to take his place.
“Do I?” Sky countered. “I won’t have any of that if I choose whatever the fuck it is you’re offering.
I’ll be sleeping alone on the weekdays and every other weekend because I have to share custody of you with my sister.
I hate the idea of phone sex but I’ll have to listen to you whisper about weird scenarios and come up with equally ridiculous responses while we jerk off with our phones in our hands like teenagers.
That’s what we’ll be reduced to because your wife or son might overhear you and I’ll be too ashamed to tell Kayla that I’m still creeping around with my sister’s husband and having deviant phone sex with him.
Total loser energy,” he muttered at Mason.
“It was just a suggestion. We can skip the phone sex,” he said weakly.
“Great!” Sky said, his tone heavy with sarcasm. “So what does it mean, Mason? A happy marriage for thee, and gay spinsterhood for me?”
“Please don’t call me Mason!” he pleaded in a pained whisper, floundering as he searched for a solution that was fair to Sky.
Polyamory might be an option. People were slowly getting used to the idea, thanks to reality shows and social media. None of those people lived in Roseview, unfortunately. Mason would probably be run out of town with pitchforks if he announced that he was in love with both of the Sutton siblings.
“I wouldn’t expect you to wait forever. I’d find a way,” Mason said, knowing how foolish he sounded.
“Find a way to what? Clone yourself? Change the laws so you can marry two people as long as they’re siblings?” Sky challenged, then gagged. “Shit, that sounds even more disgusting when I say it out loud.”
Mason bit back a groan, grimacing as he shook his head. “Something similar crossed my mind, but I knew it would sound terrible. There’s no telling what could change in a few years, though. Sina might get tired of me, or you might go through with your plan to marry Nadine.”
Sky laughed. “That might be your only viable scenario. But Nadine’s shot me down four times and says she’ll quit if I ask again. We both know that Sina will never get tired of you. You’re the perfect man and husband. She loves you just as much as you love her.”
“I’m not perfect, Sky. I’m a coward, and I’m selfish, but I love you more than I’ve ever loved someone who wasn’t Sam or Sina, and I don’t want to lose you again.”
“I don’t know what to do about that. I love you too, but I can’t be with you.
Not in any way I can live with or want to,” Sky added with a hard sniff, shaking his head.
“I’m going home tomorrow, and I probably won’t be back for a while.
Probably not until the holidays, or next year if I can talk Mom and Nadine into a trip to the cabin for Christmas. ”
“Tomorrow? So soon?” Mason asked.
Sky raised a brow at him. “I was supposed to leave on Thursday but you convinced me to stay for one more weekend. I should have left when I was supposed to, staying longer made this even messier.”
“I can text and call you this time, though?” Fuck, Mason sounded desperate and pathetic.
Not that it mattered anymore. He already tossed his ego and his pride out the window.
Neither were worth much at the moment. “We can still talk over video when we miss each other and maybe we’ll think of something if we give it a little more time. ”
“No, you cannot call me or text me,” Sky answered severely. “And I don’t want to see you, it’ll just make it harder to let go and I have to, Mason. I don’t need my therapist to tell me that this is damaging me and that getting out now is the smartest thing I can do.”
Mason reeled, and his eyes watered as if he’d taken a brutal punch to the gut.
“Don’t do this again! We just got you back, and my life is so much emptier without you. Please, Sky!” He reached for him and Mason swallowed a watery gasp as Sky gathered him in his arms and kissed him.
“You can message me about important things if it’s about Sina or Sam or Mom or Nadine, and you can obviously call me if it’s an emergency.
I’ll talk to you when I’m here, but we can’t be like this anymore.
Never again. I have to trick myself into forgetting that this happened and that I don’t love you so I can move on. ”
“This is it?” Mason realized and buried his face in the corner of Sky’s neck so he couldn’t watch as he cried. “This is our last night?” He felt Sky nod and gulped back an anguished sob. “Tell me how to stop this.”
“You can’t. I bought a ticket and I’m leaving after Sina and Sam get back in the afternoon. My bags are already packed and Nadine and Mom already know.”
“And there’s nothing I can say or do to change your mind or buy us a little more time?” Mason attempted half-heartedly. There was no way he could talk Sky out of leaving now, not in good conscience. Sky was right and too much harm had already been done.
“No, but you can make the most out of the time we have left,” he suggested. He tugged on Mason’s hair and forced his head up so Sky could kiss him roughly. He was smiling and there was a wicked gleam in his eyes when they met Mason’s. “I had better be limping when I leave tomorrow.”
“Alright, I’ll see what I can do,” Mason replied in a gravelly rasp, then went to work with a broken heart. If this was going to be their last night together, Mason would make sure that Sky’s train ride back to the city was an uncomfortable one.