Page 169 of Mason

Maxine and Brando are gone. Thank God. Brando’s glare still burns in the back of my skull like a bullet I probably deserve. The man looked at me like I was roadkill, like he couldn’t believe my grown daughters had to scrape me off the bar floor.

And now it’s just Mia and me.

She doesn’t speak right away. She just stands there, arms crossed so tight around herself, like she’s holding in something sharp. Her eyes—God, they look like hers. Her mother’s. And right now, they’re staring down at me like I’m some kind of broken thing she’s not sure how to put back together.

I sink deeper into the sofa, the leather creaking under my weight. My head’s pounding. My throat tastes like ash and regret. I can’t look at her for long, but I do it anyway—because if I don’t face her, I’m a coward on top of being a drunk.

“You gonna yell at me too?” I mutter, dragging a hand down my face. “Brando already did. Called me an embarrassment. He’s not wrong.”

“You are,” she says softly. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

I let out a bitter laugh. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I did.” Her voice cracks like she’s been holding it in for miles. “Because I don’t think you want to die, Dad… but you’re acting like you do.”

Dad.

Fuck. That word slices me clean open.

I blink hard, heart stuttering in my chest. She’s never called me that before. Not like that. Not when I was too drunk to earn it.

She walks over—graceful, careful—and kneels in front of me. Her hand touches my knee, light, like she’s afraid I’ll break. Joke’s on her—I’m already broken.

She looks up at me, eyes glossy. There’s so much love in them it makes my stomach turn. I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve her.

“I’m pregnant.”

Everything in me freezes.

My ears ring. Maybe I heard her wrong. Maybe the booze is messing with me worse than I thought.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m pregnant,” she says again, voice steadier now. “That’s why I’ve been so emotional. That’s why I panicked when you went to prison. I thought—God, I thought you were going to die in there, and I’d be left alone to raise this baby without a single damn trace of you.”

I can’t breathe.

I lean forward, elbows on my knees, trying to stay grounded, trying to absorb what she’s telling me. My daughter—myonly child—is going to have a baby.

“How far along?” I ask, even though my mouth feels like sandpaper.

“Three months.”

Three months. That’s three months of her carrying this weight without me. Three months of being scared and not knowing how to tell me. Three months of me being useless.

I rub my face again, slower this time. “Jesus,” I whisper. “I’m going to be a grandfather?”

She nods, eyes brimming. “Yeah. And I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. But I want you here. I want you sober. I want youalive,Mason.”

Mason.

NotDadthis time.

That stings more than the first. Because now I know what I’m losing if I keep this up.

“You don’t think I’m trying?” I rasp. “Every day I wake up and this... pit is inside me. This guilt. Over your mother. Over you. Over everything I couldn’t give.”

“I know.” She’s crying now, but it’s not loud. Just soft, steady heartbreak slipping down her cheeks. “And maybe you’ll never fix all of that. But you canshow upnow.”

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