Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
He nods, his attention still locked on my stomach. Suddenly his eyes pop up, and a smirk takes over. “Sit down, girl. I’m about to hook you up.”
And he does.
Mason pulls chocolate muffins from the oven and bacon-wrapped sausage from the air fryer, setting it out between us. He toasts a few slices of bread next, without burning them this time, and brings over a bowl of scrambled eggs he had sitting in the microwave.
I can’t stop smiling as he comes over to join me. “This looks amazing.”
“Good. Eat. We’re leaving this damn house today, so we need to make sure the little man is good and fed.”
My head snaps his way.
“What?” he mumbles around a mouth full of muffin.
“You really think it’s going to be a boy?”
Mason eyes me for a moment, then nods, his features softening. “I think everything happens for a reason,” he says gently, his hand tentatively reaching out to cover my own.
My eyes burn, but I don’t let the tears come. I’m hit with so much at once, denial and anger weighing down on me with that one line of his, but as fast as those emotions come, they’re washed away by a strange sense of curiosity and hope. I’m not sure how I feel about it.
“You think Deaton died for a reason?”
A sorrowful smile points back at me. “I think you lost someone you cared about, but you were given something even more precious in return. So…yeah. Of course there’s a baby boy in there, just waiting to meet his mama.”
Mason’s face grows blurrier by the second, so I look away, focusing on my food instead, and when a hot tear streaks down my face, the bitter cold they normally leave behind never comes.
Because Mason reaches up and wipes it away, leaving nothing but the warmth of his touch in its wake. Like the whip of whimsical wings, a flutter dances across my abdomen, and my limbs lock at the sensation.
My gaze snaps up, catching on Mason’s.
“It’s okay,” he says faintly, as if he knows what I’m thinking.
What I’m feeling.
As if he is feeling the same.
He can’t possibly.
Hell, I can’t possibly.
Can I?
No.
No, no.
I can’t.
I miss Deaton.
I love Deaton.
I only want Deaton.
Right?
Mason
She’s freaking out.
I don’t know if it was us waking in the same house and having breakfast or the comment I made about the baby being a boy. Either way, Payton is in her head, more so than normal.
Her every answer is a single word, and when she looks at me for longer than a second, her cheeks turn a truer shade of pink.
I think it’s fucking adorable, which is kind of messed up considering it’s probably a blush of embarrassment and not the sweet, shy little blush a woman gives a man she’s attracted to.
I’ve seen that on her before, because like it or not, she is attracted to me, but this is different. It might even be guilt, and that freaks me out. I can’t have her feeling guilty. If she does, she’ll pull away faster than a NASCAR pit stop, and there will be no one to blame but myself.
That’s not going to happen, though, because getting out of the house is as much for her as it is for me. I might still have wraps around my ribs and a sling rubbing my neck raw, but I can walk just fine, so I lead us from the house and down the road rather than to the sandy beach.
It might be November, but it’s Oceanside after all, so the sweats and hoodies we’re both wearing are more than enough to keep us warm.
I lead her down a side street that points to a few shops, and we make our first stop in a small candy store.
Payton’s eyes light up as she steps inside, her attention going to the giant wall of gummy candies right away. “I would have killed to come to a place like this as a kid,” she whispers, running her baby-blue painted nails along the acrylic dispensers.
I grab her hand, lifting to look closer at the color, and this time when she looks up and that blush comes back—it’s for me. A thrill of excitement rolls through me, but I tamp it down.
“I found it in the bathroom drawer.” She chews at her lips, the unspoken words hanging between us.
It’s baby-boy blue.
“I like it.”
She looks away, and a smile kicks up on my lips.
“So never been to a candy store, then?” I ask, lifting a giant gummy bear on a stick and showing it to her.
She gapes at it and shakes her head, picking up a tin box full of candies made to look like Band-Aids. She cringes, setting it back down. “Not once. There was one in the local mall back home, but my mom would never let us go in there. She said it was ghastly to even consider such a place. She saw some other kids stick their hands in a jelly bean dispenser once, and I think it freaked her out. That and we weren’t allowed sugar.”