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His eyes widen, nostrils flaring. Waylon is suspiciously quiet next to me.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I say, undoing my fly, and tugging my shirt out.
I lift my fingers to my buttons, when he suddenly jumps out of bed, shouting, “Just stop!”
I freeze.
My gaze snaps to his, and I’m seething.
He’s pale as shit, and it’s then that I notice how much he trembles. His entire body seems to be quaking with chills. Except it’s stupid-hot in here, and there’s now a flush to his cheeks.
“Stop,” he whispers, a hand held out in a sort of plea I can’t make sense of.
Jaw working, I release the buttons on my shirt, and spread my hands as if to say, There. Happy?
His throat bobs with a swallow, and I can’t keep my gaze from tracking its descent. Nor can I keep my gaze from wandering down his smooth bare chest, down to where his ribs ripple on either side with his heavy breaths.
I shake my head. “Mason…”
“Get out.”
My head snaps up.
Next to me, Waylon says, “Mason.” While my voice was filled with sadness, his is filled with warning.
“Get the fuck out,” Mason snarls. “Both of you, just get out.”
Heat creeps up my neck, my cheeks… My eyes burn, and it’s suddenly hard to swallow.
The look in his eyes—the anger…the devastation…
On one hand, I think I understand.
On the other, I don’t understand at all.
Because buried under all that fury and grief, there’s something else—something bordering on fear, the desperate kind, like how I imagine a cornered animal would look.
And I don’t get it.
I don’t get where any of his newfound hatred of me is coming from.
But that’s what it is, isn’t it?
Hate.
I saw it that night in the kitchen. I saw it and I slapped him. I didn’t even know I was going to do it until it already happened, and all I remember thinking in that moment was, Come back. Please come back. Don’t leave me too.
Because this Mason? The one glaring back at me from red, bleary eyes.
I don’t know him.
He’s a stranger.
One warped by drugs and agony.
“For fuck’s sake, Mase,” Waylon spits. “He buried his sister today. Don’t be a dick.”
