Every night I get home from the set, I can’t help looking out at the light streaming from his window. It’s tempting—so tempting—to go out there and talk to him, but my days are long, and I’m too mentally drained to muster the energy. Or the courage.
Offering him a place to stay is the least I can do, but I know it’s not enough. If I could, I’d give him everything he needs, but putting myself in that position opens me up to the confusion and longing I developed the last time we got close.
I can’t live through that again. I drank myself stupid and threw myself into working as much as possible so I’d be distracted. Hell, I’m still on that path, and my body can’t take it for much longer. If it wasn’t for the long hours I’ve been putting in at Fandom and coming home utterly exhausted, I’d drink just to forget Mason’s in my backyard.
It’s not until the weekend that I actually see Mason again.
He wanders into the house in low-hanging sweatpants and a loose tank top. His hair is down, his beard still mesmerizingly thick, but it’s his arms that my gaze gets stuck on as he walks into the kitchen.
My hand freezes on the coffee machine’s On button.
Mason may have put on weight and have a bit of a foodie gut, but it’s as if he spent that entire time out in Montana swinging an ax. I remember when I stayed with him during a tour break, he made us go chop our own firewood. Fuck, he was so sexy. Even as a scrawny guy, the sight of him splitting wood … it made me spring wood.
I have to wonder if it had something to do with Mason being confident and strong-willed. He was responsible for his family and the land they owned, and he took it so seriously. When his dad had passed away, Mason took it upon himself to become the man of the house. Everything he did—moving to LA for college to get a smart degree and chase a pipe dream, and then landing a gig with one of the highest-selling acts of all time … He did it all for his mom and sister.
I remember the year we had our first taste of success, and we were performing on a morning talk show. The anchors were buttering us up about how we were the biggest thing since One Direction. It was probably the most relaxed I’d ever seen Mason.
He was relieved that he’d made it and didn’t have to go home penniless or without a way to substantially support his family.
Mason carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and I abandoned him because of my crushed ego. Okay, and heart. Can’t forget the crushed heart too.
I can play it off as being confused all I want. I know the truth deep down.
The reason I haven’t been able to face him for so long is pure and utter heartbreak. I shouldn’t have put that on him, and I shouldn’t have been such a shitty friend.
How do I make it up to him without sacrificing my heart again?
“Morning,” he mumbles, and yep, there goes my cock thinking it’s two and a half years ago.
My heart’s in on it too.
Traitorous body.
I give him a manly up-nod. It’s all I can do to stop my tongue from falling out my mouth.
“I haven’t seen you all week.” His morning rasp sounds like the old Mason. The one who’d wake me on tour with room service at my hotel door whether I was alone or not. He’d even order extra food in case whichever fangirl was with me was hungry. He was always taking care of others.
“The schedule for the show is tight,” I say. “We were supposed to film over ten weeks, but production got put on hold, so they’ve reduced it to six with the plan to still cram everything in.”
Mason frowns. I wait for the protectiveness he once would have shown me, for him to ask if I’m handling it all, but it doesn’t come. “Makes sense” is all I get.
How do we get things back to normal?
“Do you have any plans while you’re here, or is it to lie low and pretend Harley and the rest of the world aren’t looking for you?” I ask.
“You didn’t tell Harley I was here, did you?” His eyes are colder than they’ve ever been.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Like you wouldn’t tell him where my house is?”
“That’s different.”
Mason cocks an eyebrow. “How?”
“I was drunk then.”
“How new for you.” He grunts and moves to the fridge. After perusing what’s in there—not much at all seeing as I’m eating on set every day and haven’t ordered food in a while—he closes the doors. “It’s official. I’ve eaten everything remotely edible in your house. I keep telling myself to get to the store, but I keep chickening out. I’m not ready to show my face anywhere.”
“I can do a food order today and have it delivered. Just tell me what you need.”
“Anything that’s already premade.” Mason smiles weakly. “You’d think all that alone time living near my family, one of them would’ve taught me how to cook.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Did you want coffee?”
“Want? No. Need, yes please.”
I make our coffees with my back turned to him, and I stare intently as it takes an eternity for the coffee to drain into the pot.
“What are your plans for your weekend?” he asks. I don’t know if it’s to try to fill the silence, if he’s genuinely interested, or if he’s as awkward as I am and trying to grasp at anything normal between us.
Usually, I’d be calling the people who always come to my parties and throwing myself into the mindless PR-grabbing stunts, but I don’t have the energy for that. Plus, the last thing Mason wants is to deal with people. He doesn’t want anyone knowing he’s here.
“Catching up on sleep,” I answer. “Maybe trying to write for my new album that may never get made. Sleep.”
“Why won’t your album get made?”
I don’t answer him. I can’t tell him this reality show was my last-ditch effort to save my dying career when his is already dead.
The coffee machine finally does its thing and finishes, so I pour us two cups.
I hand Mason’s to him, black, just like he likes it.
He looks at it and then me. “Yeah, I’m not as hard-core as I once was. I need creamer now.”
“Really?”
“For a while I cut out coffee completely. Turns out there’s no need to stay awake when you have nothing to fill your time, so coffee wasn’t really a necessity.”
And yep. That’s exactly why I’m not getting into my career problems with him.
“What did you do up there?” I ask as I get him the creamer.
“Not a lot. When the lumber business was going downhill ten years ago, and before I left for LA to go to college, I planted some fir and pine trees, hoping to grow a Christmas tree business. My family had been looking after them while I was on tour and kept it going. The first seedlings were fully grown when I moved home. Like they knew the whole time when I’d be back. I’d already paid off the land and didn’t really need the money, so I donated them to local businesses over the holidays to give out for free. Caring for them and harvesting them gave me something to do with my hands.”
“Wow. That’s …” I blink at him. “Really cool.”
Mason shrugs. “Everyone deserves to have Christmas. Those who want it, anyway. It’s a time that should be joyful.”