38. Mason
Chapter thirty-eight
I didn’t sleep last night. I’m going on twenty-eight hours without rest, and that’s not helping me think straight. Beth and Grams have gone into recovery mode, while I’ve sat in my apartment, wondering how it all went so wrong.
“Mase?” Beth’s voice echoes through the otherwise quiet space.
“Out here.” My words are weak and brittle, having barely used them since my fight with Callie yesterday.
The balcony door slides open, and my sister joins me on the couch as I stare out at the marina and the endless ocean ahead.
“I managed to get all your appointments rescheduled or covered for the rest of the week,” Beth says, a timid version I barely recognise coming from her. “Grams, Mum, and Dad have sorted… everything else.”
I nod, already knowing after a text Mum sent me not long ago.
Emilia was fired from the tennis club for misconduct.
Grams had Anna call her in, and she was faced by my parents and grandparents when they offered her a payout in exchange for a public apology for breaching my privacy and tarnishing my name.
I did well enough to establish my own reputation, but until Emilia, it was all just public assumption.
But none of that can help repair the fallout between me and Callie. Only we can do that. I hate that she’s hurt because of something I did.
Giving Derek money was with good intentions, but it could have happened differently if she had spoken up, too.
I waited no more than thirty seconds before I chased her out of the office, but it was enough of a head start for her to reach her car, leaving me to watch her tear out of the staff car park.
My phone wouldn’t stop ringing. I had to deal with that first, even though my heart was pulling me to Callie.
By the time I got to her house an hour later, she wasn’t there.
Westley found me slumped against her front door.
He’d seen the articles, and whilst he wasn’t pleased with how everything had unfolded, he told me not to give up and to let Callie calm down.
He reminded me of all the changes her life has seen in the last year—some bad, some good, but changes nonetheless.
Sometimes we respond with the highest emotion instead of the reasonable one, and you can’t always see reason until you’ve had time to process.
I sent her a text, begging her to at least let me know she was okay. Finally, just after ten that night, I got two words. I’m okay.
That would have to do until I figured out how to fix it.
“Have you heard from her?” Beth asks, kicking off her heels and tucking her feet underneath her.
I shake my head. “Not since last night.” I pick at a loose thread on the couch cushion. “I don’t know if it’s the money that’s worse or the shit with Emilia.” I drag a hand down my face. “It’s just all fucked.”
Beth takes a deep breath before slumping back against the couch. “If it were me, I think it’d be the other woman thing.”
“But I didn’t cheat!”
“I know.” Beth lays a hand over my knee.
“And I’m sure she knows that too. But it’s one thing to know your partner has a history and then have the evidence shoved in your face.
Some people couldn’t care less, but Callie’s mum was the other woman; some of her feelings are probably drawing on sympathy for her. ”
I should have known Callie would have preferred me to acknowledge Emilia as a previous hook-up rather than try to protect her feelings.
I think I was trying to protect what I had with her.
It still feels so new, like I haven’t fully got my grasp on it, and it could slip through my fingers at any moment.
“Beth, what do I do?”
The doorbell rings before she has a chance to answer me.
“I’ll get it.” She disappears inside while I check my phone.
I wanted to turn it off. The DMs, tags, texts, and phone calls were relentless, but I didn’t want to miss hearing from Callie.
I’m pulled from the melancholy by harsh whispers. Sighing, I drag myself from the couch and head inside.
Tristan and Beth are standing toe to toe by the front door in a heated argument. I have no clue why they butt heads so much, but I’m certain it’s either because they’re both perfectionists and like doing things their own way… or there’s some unresolved sexual tension.
“Can you two just fuck already? I can’t deal with your bickering today,” I say, crossing to the kitchen and pulling a bottle of water from the fridge.
Beth practically faints with how deep her gasp is. “What the fuck?!”
“As if I’d have my dick within a ten-mile radius of this princess.” Tristan points to my sister while glaring at me.
She smacks his hand away. “Oh, please, I’d have you obsessed with me the second you saw me naked.”
“Is that before or after I threw up?”
I press my head to the kitchen counter with a groan. “I’d rather wallow alone, you guys.”
“See, you’re not helping. You should just leave,” Beth says, then she lets out a squeak that has me looking up. Tristan holds her by the waist, lifting her so she stands behind him before he turns back to me.
“I came to see how you were,” Tristan says gently as he takes a seat on the stool on the other side of the bench.
“Fan-fucking-tastic.”
“Talk has slowed down online. Emilia’s account doesn’t even exist anymore,” he adds.
I guess that’s something.
Beth takes the stool beside Tristan. “I don’t get how this even happened, Mase. You know better than to let people take photos.”
“I wasn’t always that careful, either, and I never imagined meeting Callie and having this be a thing I had to deal with. I just … didn’t think about any of it.”
“Did you know about the photos?” Tristan asks.
“Girls always want photos of me.” I huff. “I didn’t know she was taking the more intimate ones.” At least they weren’t of my dick, but it’s still fucking petty, and violating. Girls had only ever wanted one of two things from me—sex or money. I guess Emilia was trying her luck for fame, too.
“I’m sure Callie just needs a bit of time to process,” Beth says.
I groan. “She gave me the out, but Emilia had already made her uncomfortable. I didn’t want to add to that.
I’d feel jealous as fuck if someone Callie had history with flirted with her right in front of my face.
If it weren’t for Anna, I would have punched her ex when he was talking shit about Callie. ”
“He talked shit about Callie?” Tristan asks, anger and disgust coating his features.
“He was baiting me. Exactly what Emilia was doing to Callie. I should have told her to fuck off then and there.”
“Hindsight’s a bitch. We can’t get everything right the first time. Hell, some people still get it wrong the second and third time, even if we think we’re acting with good intentions,” Beth says.
Discomfort settles in my gut. “Yeah, I guess in the theme of being honest, then.” I reluctantly look up at Tristan. “I… paid for your mum to get into her new place.”
Tristan tilts his head. “What?”
“She’d been on the waiting list for three years. I was at an event and overheard someone on the board talking about another building opening up. They were just waiting for more government funding. I said I’d help if they could guarantee me the next opening for someone on their waiting list.”
“Shit,” Tristan says in a breath. “You made that happen?”
“I didn’t tell you cos you’ve never accepted my help any other time I’ve offered. Now I’m wondering if me trying to fix things actually helps or just feeds my ego.”
Tristan’s off his seat in an instant, rounding the counter and pulling me into a hug.
“There’s nothing egotistical about you, Mase.” He slaps my back a few times, and I wrap an arm around his. “You help when you see people can’t help themselves. That’s empathy. That’s kindness.” He pulls back, patting my cheek. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Is there something wrong with your mum?” Beth stares at Tristan, more patient than I’ve ever witnessed. When it comes to him, at least.
“Car accident when I was fifteen. I was fine, but she ended up with an incomplete thoracic spinal cord injury. She’s largely wheelchair bound, and didn’t have access to the best rehab and physiotherapy fresh from her accident.
It’s been a long journey, but she’s gained more independence than ever in the last few years.
The place Mason helped her get into is fully adapted to her needs. ”
My sister is speechless, which is rare for her. Maybe now she’ll go a little easier on Tristan, knowing his life is so much harder than anything we’ve been through. This latest nightmare included.
I’m not going to let this ruin us. I believe Callie and I are meant to be together. We can get through this. No matter what I have to do to get us back to the place we were before, I’ll do it.
She stole my heart the second I saw her.
I didn’t know what to do with it then, but now I know, and I’m not giving up without a fight.
I’m going to love her and look after her until my dying breath.
Nothing in my life has ever felt as right as it does when I’m with Callie.
My soul has been waiting for her this whole time, and I know she feels it too.
Just like the couple from our love letters, we were meant to transcend the pages. I wonder what Greyson did when he spoke of the decision he made to secure his future with Florence.
Forgive me for what I must do, and know, I would sooner suffer any consequence than willingly bring you pain; for it has ever been my sole desire to love you with the utmost devotion.
That’s what he wrote.
I shift uncomfortably on my feet. “You guys didn’t look at them, did you?”
“I’d rather stick a fork in my eye,” Beth says without a hint of resistance.
Tristan chuckles. “Yeah, hard pass, dude. I mean, I love you, but no.”
“I can’t go back in time and erase all this, but how do I convince her that girls in my past don’t mean anything to me. Callie… she’s my everything.”
Beth’s eyes turn glassy, and she sucks in a breath. “She loves you, I know it. She just needs to remember that what you two have shared means more than either of your pasts.”
“Have you even shown her the floor plan?” Tristan asks me.
“You mean, how he basically let her pick everything?” Beth adds, while my eyes drop to the water bottle as I start picking at the label.
“It was never a house you were looking for, Mase. And if you weren’t so busy staring at Callie, you would have heard my theory months ago when I said exactly that.
You were looking for the person who felt like home. ”
Yeah, well, I found her, and I refuse to spend a lifetime without her.