Page 49 of Bear
Lennon frowns, her forehead pinching. “What’s it say? I’m obviously not in that group text.”
My eyes roam from her questioning gaze to Duke’s. He’s trying really fucking hard not to look at her, but he can’t even help himself. He shakes his head “I may have threatened to dip their balls in gasoline and make them stand over an open flame.”
Her eyes grow wide. “You—” She bites her lip. “You’re just fucking with them.”
Duke shrugs. “I bet they don’t want to fuck around and find out.”
I wait until their amusement dies down to growl, “Is anyone going to answer my question? Seems like you’re hiding something.”
Duke, Mason, and Lennon exchange glances, and there’s a decidedly uncomfortable few moments of quiet before Mason clears his throat. “Um, so, Lennon and I were fucking tired when we came home from class. We took a nap, and I promptly wigged out on her, thinking she was my mom. Again.” He shoots me a tight-lipped smile. “That’s where it started.”
My eyes dart from Mason over to Lennon, and I can feel the blood leaving my head and my hands going clammy. “Fuck. Are you okay? What the hell happened?” I come half out of my seat before Lennon holds her hands up, palms out.
“I’m fine.” She takes a fortifying breath, staring at me. Finally, with a wince, she admits, “Duke came to the rescue.”
“Tell me,” I grit out, unable to keep the bark out of my voice. My demanding gaze flicks over Duke, whose teeth are tightly clenched, before swinging to Mason.
He grimaces. “I was only half awake. Shouted some nonsense in her face as I was trying to wrestle her out of my bed.” He scrubs a hand through his hair. “Whatever part of me was awake, looked at the long blonde hair on my pillow and flipped.” He swallows hard, looking down at the table for a moment before he meets Lennon’s eyes. “I’m really fucking sorry, Kintsukuroi,” he murmurs, his voice gritty and raw.
I wince. He’s so fucking troubled by what happened to his mother. I wish we could get him to see someone about it, but he outright refused the last time I suggested it.
Lennon draws in a shaky breath. “I know you are. And you already told me so.”
Mason grips chunks of his hair in both hands. “I can’t control it. I killed her. I don’t want to hurt you, Lennon.” His jaw sets hard, and he stares down at the table, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing. He’s letting himself get worked up again.
I can’t take it when he blames himself like this, and we all fucking know he’s struggling with his reaction to having her here in this house. Between him and Duke, I don’t know which is fucking worse sometimes, though her physical safety with Mason is a real concern, so that’s what I tend to focus on.
Mason’s fist slams down on the table, making all the plates jump and clatter.
Before I can say a word, Duke shouts, “For fuck’s sake, Mason, how many times do we have to hash this out? You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You didnotkill your mother. You fucking didn’t!” He turns and grabs the seat of Mason’s chair, pulling him closer. He grasps him by the back of the neck, his thumb sliding over his jaw. Duke guides Mason’s head so that their gazes connect. Quietly, he reiterates, “You fucking didn’t, Mase.”
Mason’s dark eyes lock on Duke’s, full of sadness. A muscle at the back of his jaw twitches madly, and I absently wonder if Duke can feel it moving under his thumb.
Watching the moment they’re having, I slide my tongue over my lower lip, wetting it, finally deciding that something more needs to be said. “He’s right, Mase. Your father is in prison for her murder. He was tried and convicted. Period.” I slash my uninjured arm angrily through the air. The movement jars the other shoulder anyway, and I suck in a quick breath before I grit out, “The. Fucking. End. It does you no good to torture yourself like this. It’s one thing to have nightmares you can’t control, flashbacks, all that shit. But you’re completely coherent right now. You’renotto blame. Admit that to yourself.”
I don’t miss the swift intake of breath from Lennon. Is it possible she wasn’t aware of parts of that? Or maybe it’s simply hard to hear that your friend’s dad is a fucking scumbag. She knows now, at the very least.
Mason looks at all of us with wounded eyes.
Duke’s voice comes out rough, sounding as if it’s scraping what he wants to say out of his throat. He levels his concerned stare on Mason. “Accident. Your part in what happened to your mother—it was a fucking accident. You never should have been there at all.”
Mason looks at each of us in turn, slowly breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Just like I taught him to, a technique that sometimes works for me. “I—” He hesitates, his eyes crashing shut for a moment. I can tell he’s mentally grappling with what he wants to say. He blinks rapidly, and I nod at him, trying to give him some encouragement. “I might”—his voice hitches—“not ever believe that.”
Duke tugs Mason closer, resting their foreheads together. He sighs deeply. “Mase.” His name comes out on a rasp. “Don’t do this to yourself.”
Lennon gets up from her chair and slips between Mason’s legs, sitting on his thigh and wrapping her arm around his shoulders.
I lean back in the chair, observing the three of them. Suddenly, it hits me like a bolt of lightning. Lennon mentioned Duke coming to the rescue, but none of them had said a damn thing about how that went down, but something tells me whatever happened between Mason’s nightmare and me walking in on Duke kissing Lennon in the kitchen is the root of it. I drag in a breath. I’m not asking. They’ll tell me if they want me to know. “I’m going to leave the three of you to it.”
“Bear? Are you sure you’re okay?” Lennon catches the corner of her lip between her teeth as she brings her pretty blue-eyed gaze to mine.
“Yeah. What I am is exhausted. I didn’t sleep at all, obviously. Class. Practice. I’m fucking wrecked. I’ll catch you tomorrow. Unless you need me, of course.”
“I’ll always need you”—Lennon shoots me a wink—“but you should rest.”
I definitely should, no question about it. But we’ll see if I can sleep with thoughts of my Little Gazelle saying she needs me racing through my head.
* * *
