Page 50 of The Art of Dying

“Nope,” he said.

“She wasn’t the one?” Naomi teased.

Trex smirked. He was convinced he had a soulmate out there somewhere, and when he met her, he’d feel this magical feeling. We all thought he was a little crazy, or maybe just a commitment-phobe, but he talked about her so convincingly it was hard not to believe in it, too. I’d felt that way with Mack, so I held out hope Trex would find her sooner rather than later, and he wasn’t letting his imagination talk him out of a good thing.

“Nope,” Trex said again.

I put a buttery corn cob on the last open space on Dylan’s plate and then looked around for what I wanted on mine, but then I paused. Mack said she had a bad feeling. What if it wasn’t about the deployment? What if it had to do with Mason?

I stood.

“Kitsch,” Mack said, shaking her head no. “Don’t.”

Everyone looked to me.

“Everything okay?” Trex asked.

“We need to know,” I said to Mack.

“No, we don’t,” she said, shaking her head again.

“Know what?” Sloan said, his eyes bouncing from me to Mack and then back again.

I took a few steps toward the bedroom, but Mack stood up and rushed over to me, putting her hand on my chest. “I don’t want to know.”

“Are y’all pregnant?” Matt asked.

“Oh my God, you’re pregnant?” Caroline said, clapping her hands together.

“No,” Mack and I said in unison.

Mack and I stood in a silent standoff. We rarely argued, so once everyone heard the tone in our answer, they all grew quiet, too.

“What’s going on?” Trex asked. “Should we go?”

I shook my head. “Mason’s been sending her letters.”

“Kitsch!” Mack hissed.

“He’s been doing it for years, and she won’t let me open them. He always knows when we move, a letter came after her mom passed, and another when we got back from her dad’s funeral, after promotions, pregnancies, when the kids were born… whenever something big happens, she gets a letter. She just got another one. It was in the mail sent to Matt and Naomi’s house.”

Caroline gasped. “Mason, as in the guy you dated who hurt you?”

It wasn’t a secret. Over the years, Mack and I had both confided in our friends about our lives before we met. That included Mason.

“Just let it go, honey. Please?” Mack said, patting where she’d just had her palm against my chest. “Okay? Let it go.”

I considered her words for two seconds and then blurted out the rest. “He knows we’re deploying. At least let me take a look so I can be reassured he’s not going to show up while I’m gone.”

Naomi laughed once. “He’ll have a new hole in his face if he does.”

Mack gestured to Naomi. “See? Even if he does, he’ll regret it.”

“How do you know?” Trex asked. “If you haven’t opened the letters, how do you know he’s planning something?”

“Just a feeling,” I said, still staring at my wife.

“I get it,” Matt said. “That would drive me insane, too. Naomi has an ex who’s still obsessed with her. If he was sending her letters, I’d want to put a stop to it, too. Besides being disrespectful, that’s pretty fucking creepy.”

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