Page 15 of Promise Me Not

He goes quiet for a moment, and I struggle to breathe, staring at my son’s hand as it opens, his tiny fingers wrapping around Mason’s thumb.

Mason’s lips spread into a wide grin, a soft, quiet chuckle slipping free. “This your way of telling me you won’t let me go?”

A knot forms in my throat, and I lock my hand around my neck.

Suddenly, Mason’s face falls, and he bends, his forehead now resting on the edge of the crib. “Please don’t let me go.”

Gasping, I cut the camera off. I can’t listen anymore. Can’t watch.

I sit there in the sand for a while longer before I dare to turn the monitor back on. My muscles ease when I find no one but my sleeping baby on the screen.

Closing my eyes, I push to my feet, pulling in a lungful of salty air.

I’ve worn many masks over the years, something my mother demanded in her pursuit for a perfect daughter. It will be no different from that…and no different from the one I’ve worn on and off for almost a year now.

But he saw through that mask.

I wince, glancing up over the small sand hill to the large bay window at the back of my brother’s home. My home.

All our friends and their families will be in one spot today. It’s a whole-ass affair that just a few days ago I was looking forward to. Now I wish I didn’t have a part in the decision to make our house the main point instead of saying we should do it at Mason and the others’ place down the beach. That way, I could make an excuse and stay behind. I can’t do that now.

I wanted to visit with everyone. I need the distraction, now more than ever, but the mere thought of laughing and celebrating with everyone has me as nauseated as the morning sickness used to. That’s the thing about grief and the million other emotions flickering through me, though, right? It messes with my mind in a single blink. It can be a memory or a feeling or a sight. A song, a single word, or even a damn snack. Everything is fine, sometimes better than fine…until it isn’t.

Until guilt dirties it, or anger buries it, or fear wraps its vicious claws around and chokes it.

Get a grip, Payton. Everything is fine. You’re fine.

A few more days.

I just have to fake it, stay busy, and then the day will pass, taking the rope around my lungs with it. They’ll go back to college, and I’ll find all that progress I made but seem to have misplaced.

I can do this.

Besides, not much can happen in a week, right?

If my memory were a person, she would laugh in my face.

If anyone knows how bullshit such a thought can be, it’s me.

“What a royal dickmove that would be.” Mia grins.

“What dick move are we talking about?”

We squeal, surprised by the intruding voice, and look up as Mia’s ex walks over, but that’s not what has me swallowing. It’s the person who trails right behind him, an easy, not completely genuine grin in place. Still, it adds to his undeniable appeal.

Mason is effortlessly attractive with messy, dark brown hair he keeps trimmed short, and he chooses this exact moment to run a hand through it, accentuating the tapered muscles of historso that are in no way hidden by the shirt he’s wearing, if you can even call it a shirt anymore. He has the arms completely cut off, the sides slit down to the waist, where his palm tree–covered board shorts lie low against his hips.

He is the perfect specimen with the mind and heart to match.

I look away.

“Your face, Austin. Forcing us to stare at it is a dick move,” Lolli teases, and I know she’s feeling a little buzz. She turns to Mason. “Where’re your people?”

He sidesteps her, walking around the blanket until he’s right beside me, and I fight the urge not to swallow.

“My sister and Cameron should be here any time.” He makes a goofy face, reaching down and snagging Deaton from the saucer chair he was sitting in. He chuckles when Deaton blows little bubbles through his lips, and I can’t help the smile that forms on mine. “But Chase and Brady won’t be back until late tonight.”

At that, I reach for my phone with a slight frown. “Are you sure, because Chase texted me and said he’d be here for lunch.”

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