Page 42 of Mason

If that’s not the most endearing thing I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is.

I swallow, hiding my smile behind my mug as I take another sip. “How old are they?”

He shrugs. “Older now. But when they were younger, I’d make them breakfast regularly. It became a thing.”

My chest tightens at the image—Mason in a kitchen, flipping pancakes while little girls watch in fascination, maybe sneaking bites of batter, giggling when he scolds them.

It doesn’t fit.

And yet, somehow, it does.

There’s a softness to him, hidden beneath all his sharp edges.

A quiet loyalty, devotion, protectiveness.

I trace the rim of my cup, hesitating for half a second before asking, “You don’t have kids of your own?”

Mason stills.

His fork pauses mid-air, his entire body going rigid like I just stepped somewhere I shouldn’t have.

Shit.

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.

Maybe I just crossed that invisible line where things become too personal, too close.

For a moment, I think he won’t answer.

But then he exhales, slow and controlled. “I have a daughter.”

His voice is flat. Like he’s trying to make it sound like a fact instead of something that could unravel him.

My stomach tightens.

I know he said last night that he lives alone, so I don’t ask if he’s married. Not my business. But I haven’t seen anyone else here since I arrived. No toys, no tiny shoes by the door, no framed photos of a child on the walls.

Nothing.

It makes my chest ache, just a little.

I glance at him, watching the way his jaw tenses, his fingers tightening around his fork.

He doesn’t offer any more than that.

And I don’t press.

But the question lingers between us—thick, heavy, unspoken.

Where is she?

And why is a man like Mason Ironside—a man who makes pancakes for his nieces, who carries the weight of his past like a ghost that won’t let go—eating breakfast alone?

We continue breakfast in easy silence.

No tension, no expectation. Just us—plates clinking, coffee steaming between us, a slow return to something normal.

But normal doesn’t last.

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