Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
“I don’t want to.”
“I don’t care.”
“Mason, please.”
“I understand the boy you lost is inside you,” I say hurriedly. “I understand he’s a part of you.”
“You don’t.” She squeezes her eye closed. “You can’t possibly.”
“I do, Payton. That little boy over there means more to me than anyone in the whole fucking world, and he is him. He is his dad, just like you said before. But he can be me, too.” I’m all but pleading now. “I want him to be, so what else can I do? Tell me, and I’ll do it. Anything. Everything. But you are pushing me away when you promised not to. Overnight, everything changed, and I don’t understand. Help me, please. Talk to me, because I’m at a loss here. I told you I’d wait. I want to wait. Five months, five years, I don’t care.”
“I do!” She throws her arms out. “I do, and I changed my mind. I don’t want you. Don’t you get it?” She swipes at her tears angrily, her glare heavy and pointed at me. “Have I not made that obvious enough yet?”
“No, you haven’t.” Her false bravado falls in a blink. “I know you. Better than anyone.”
She looks to the ceiling, trying not to cry. “No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do.” I’m right in front of her now, and when her gaze moves back to mine, it’s laced with longing she won’t give in to. “Me and you?” I push on. “We were inevitable. This was meant to happen. Written in the fucking stars way back in time if you want to be cliché about it.”
“It couldn’t have been.” She denies my words, but hers hold little conviction. “I could lose you just the same, and then what?”
My brows snap together at that, those words not ones I’ve heard from her before now. “But we were, and you won’t.”
“You don’t know that. Anything can happen.”
My heart pounds in my chest, and I take a step closer. “As sad as that might make you, as hard as the reality might be, it’s the truth. I feel it in my bones. You and Little D were meant to be mine, and whether you give me you or not, I’m not going anywhere. Not ever.”
“Don’t say things you have no control over.”
Is that why she’s doing this? She’s afraid to lose me so she just let me go?
“Payton,” I whisper, hearing the ache in my own damn voice, but none of it’s for me. It’s for her and the desperation in her battered blues, her fear staring back at me. “I might not be able to dictate the world around us.” I swallow, trying to make her understand. “But I have control over my own actions, and while I might have lost sight of some of my goals lately, I’m figuring it out now, but you’re still priority number one. So hear me when I repeat myself. I am not going anywhere. I’m here either way, because I love that little boy with every part of me. Maybe more than I love you, and I do, Payton.” She buries her face in her hands, but I keep on. “I love you.” I reach for her. “I fucking love you, Pretty Little, but I don’t know what to do anymore. I want you. Hell, I’ll take a tiny piece if you’ll give it to me.”
“Stop.”
“I’m dead serious. I can’t compete with a ghost, so I won’t,” I promise. “He can keep your heart for all eternity. Just let me hold you for all of mine.”
Payton breaks into a sob but quickly turns it into a growl. She tears away from me with an angry shove that has me stumbling.
“Don’t you get it?” she screams, her hands burying themselves in her hair. “You’re not competing!” she wails, then collapses, forcing me to catch her just before her knees hit the ground.
Big blue eyes meet mine, and her palm presses to her stomach as if speaking the words is causing her physical pain.
“You’re not competing,” she seethes, tears rolling rapidly down her beautiful face. “There is no competition, Mason. There’s no competition, and that is the problem.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Payton
Before, May
His callused hands wrap around my torso, tugging me closer, and I go with a smile. All I can think is I want to stay here forever, wrapped in his warmth, in the strength of his arms and the heat of his body, wrapped with mine.
But I know it won’t last.
Soon, I’ll wake, and he’ll leave me like he always does.
“Deaton?” I whisper, flipping to face him, but the room is too dark.
And he never whispers back…
A touch so featherlight it sends tingles through my body, creating a trail of warmth along its path. They start at my shoulder, continuing down my arm at the slowest, most tender of paces. I wait for the feeling to return, for his touch to trail back up and start over again, but it never comes.