Page 8 of Possession

He shook his head, turning his hands so he could grip Ollie’s tightly. “My aunt called them. She somehow found out about my channel and told them about what I do for a living.”

“God, what a fucking bitch,” Ollie said fiercely. “I’m so sorry, Mase.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and hung his head. “I should be used to it, and I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. It just seemed like things were finally starting to get better.”

“I know.” Ollie scooted forward on his knees, pressing his cheek to the side of Mason’s head, offering as much comfort as he could. He understood what it was like to lose family who weren’t willing to accept you for who you were. Mason had thought he’d accepted it and moved on. That he’d gotten past the pain of being disowned by Vinnie’s parents after they’d gone to the effort of adopting him after his folks had died when he was sixteen.

But when his grandma had reached out to him a few months ago, saying she and his grandpa wanted to repair their relationship after not speaking to him for nearly a decade because of him being gay, he’d been so happy. He’d let himself become vulnerable to the pain and disappointment all over again.

“Well, screw them,” Ollie said, giving his hands another squeeze. “If they can’t see what an amazing person you are, then they don’t fucking deserve you. I’m gonna keep you all to myself.”

Mason chuckled wetly. “Yeah, screw them.”

Ollie leaned back, and Mason knew what was coming next. He couldn’t put it off any longer and was honestly a little surprised Ollie hadn’t forced it out of him before he’d arrived on his doorstep.

“Now, spill. What happened?”

“You know that things haven’t been great lately…” Mason hedged, glancing away.

“I know you’ve been unhappy,” Ollie pointed out, tugging on his hands to get him to look at him again. “And I know that Vinnie’s been working a lot, which always makes him crabby, and that you’ve been alone.”

“It’s been awful,” Mason whispered. “I knew it wouldn’t be the same as being here with you and Penny, but I thought maybe I would make other friends to help pass the time. Or that Vinnieand I would play tourist on his days off and check out some of the local spots.” He wet his lips. “We did visit a lot of places, at first…”

“But then you stopped?” Ollie clarified.

Mason shrugged. “It was like… we saw all the things we wanted to, so then there was no reason to go anywhere. Vinnie was always tired but picking up extra shifts.” Mason pressed his lips together and sniffed inelegantly. “A few months ago, I started talking about how we should make plans for when we moved home. Maybe think about buying a house instead of renting another apartment.”

“Okay,” Ollie said, a furrow between his brows.

“Vinnie never wanted to talk about it. Whenever we talked about anything money related, he’d get upset and end up storming out.”

“Out of the room?”

“No, out of the apartment. He’d leave for hours and then come back and say he just didn’t want to talk about things yet and act like that was it. I didn’t get to talk about it because he didn’t want to.”

Ollie’s face was pinched, and Mason knew him well enough to know he was upset on Mason’s behalf but was holding it in. “So, what made you leave?”

“He came home the other day with a new contract.”

Ollie’s head jerked back in surprise. “A new contract, as in to stay for another year?”

Mason shook his head. “No, a new contract for a new hospital. In another state.”

“He wanted you to move again?”

Mason nodded, just remembering made his heart ache. “He acted like I should be happy about it. Like I had been talking about being bored and wanting to move somewhere else and not that I was lonely and wanted to go home to our friends. Weended up fighting, and he finally admitted that he was doing all this—working as a traveling respiratory therapist and picking up extra shifts—to make more money because he doesn’t like how much more I make than him. That he feels like it makes usunequal.”

“That foolish man,” Ollie muttered, shaking his head. “He’s always had more pride than sense when it comes to certain things.”

Mason gave him a halfhearted smile. “That’s true. I just usually wasn’t on the other end of it. So, I asked him if he wanted me to quit and shut down my channel, and he didn’t really answer. He said that this was the only way to come anywhere close to making what I did.”

“And you told him you didn’t care how much money he made?”

Mason nodded. “Repeatedly. I told him if it was about buying a house that we didn’t have to do that. That we could go back to getting an apartment and splitting everything fifty-fifty. That we didn’t have to talk about anything to do with finances if it upset him so much. And he acted like I was missing the point and being ‘deliberately obtuse.’”

Ollie rolled his eyes. “God, that sounds like Vinnie. He needs a swift kick to the ass.”

“Yeah, well, instead of doing that or something else I’d regret, I told him I was done with whatever point he was trying to prove. That if he needed to prove something tohimself, that was fine, but I wasn’t going to get dragged along anymore.”

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