“That…is so sadly typical,” Sky added with a grimace, but Mason shrugged it off.
“Sex isn’t everything. At least I’m not hiding itfrom my wife and I’m satisfied with the rest of my life. No one’s perfect and Sina has beaten herself up for this enough.” He pinned her with a scolding look. “He isn’t going to tell anyone and you’re right, we can’t fix this until he knows the truth.”
“I know.” Her voice dropped to a watery whisper and there was a sniffle as she looked towards Sam’s bedroom. “It was Uncle Lance.”
“What?”Sky shouted and reached for the counter as the kitchen dimmed and spun around him, causing his stomach to heave. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Shhh! Breathe!” Sarina folded a tea towel and used it to fan his face.
“Did he force himself on yo?—”
“No!” she interrupted, shaking her head. “It was just something that happenedonce. We were both going through a lot of things after Dad’s stroke. Cora was dying and Mom was being awful, as usual… We were spending a lot of time together because Lance was helping me manage the practice and Dad’s estate and things just…” She held up her hands, shaking her head. “It was just a hug at first. I had a tiny breakdown one night in Dad’s study and we got carried away. We agreed to act like it had never happened and I didn’t even tell him when I found out I was pregnant.”
“Did he ever find out?” Sky asked, then gasped. “Did Mom? Cora was the closest thing she had to a real friend.”
“I don’t think so!” Sarina answered in a loud whisper. “Mason is the only one I’ve ever told. I didn’t see the point in turning everyone’s lives upside down when Cora was doing so poorly. Then, she died and it didn’t seem right to tell Lance while he was in mourning. There were times when I thought he had guessed that Sam was his. I started to tell him once, but Lance stopped me and told me he was glad Cora had passedfirst. He said he hated the idea of leaving behind someone who needed him.”
“What the fuck, Lance? How do you sweep something like that under the rug?” Sky wondered if he knewanythingabout the people who had raised him and the town he’d grown up in. “I had no idea.”
“Trust me,” Mason said with a hard snort. “I’ve learned more than I ever wanted to know about our neighbors’ sex lives since I became mayor. And from all I’ve heard about Lance, there wasn’t a skirt in this county that he didn’t try to lift.”
“Yup,” Sarina said. “I definitely knew that Uncle Lance was a slut and completely forgot about it the very next morning. I didn’t think it would get complicated but my IUD failed and I got pregnant with Sam.”
Sky stared back at her. “I am a man who is not a doctor and I am gay so you’re going to have to explain that.” He held up a hand. “Actually, Sam is amazing and I don’t need to know how you made him and I don’t want to put any more thought into who you made him with.” He did give her a hard dose of side-eye. “Iamjudging you because he was the same age as our father, Sarina.”
She hummed in agreement. “I have daddyandmommy issues so any attention and affection from an older person does it for me, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Lance has a few more kids out there that we don’t know about.”
“Nana certainly thought so,” Mason told them with a loaded look.
“That’s horrifying,” Sky said.
Sarina snorted and waved it off. “That’s life and this was the hand I was dealt. Everything worked out in the end.”
Sky rubbed his temple, uncertain as he considered themanyrevelations Sarina and Mason had shared. “Did it? You’reboth in the closet and there is so much trauma stuffed in there, I don’t even know how to begin unpacking it.”
“Why unpack it when we can all move on and put the past behind us?” Sarina suggested, making Sky groan.
“I think I can do that, as long as no one asks me about you two or who Sam’s real dad is,” he warned, his gaze swinging between his sister and Mason.
“Why in the world would they?” Sarina laughed dismissively. “Everyone thinks that Sam is Mason’s son becausehe is. Masonchoseto be a father long before he met Sam and he’s been there from the moment that baby took his first breath. He’s changed more diapers than I have and Mason’s the one who charges in to rescue Sam when he’s had a bad dream or gets sick in the middle of the night.”
“It’s what I signed up for.” Mason took a nonchalant sip of his beer.
“I think I will take one of those.” Sky pointed to the bottle, setting Mason into action.
“Shit! I forgot I was supposed to get you a drink!”
Sky rolled his eyes. “A lot has happened in the last ten minutes.” That was the understatement of the decade, or possibly of Sky’s life. “Thanks,” he said when Mason passed him a beer. Sky considered Sarina’s argument and nodded. “Sarina’s right: you’re Sam’s father as far as I’m concerned. You’ve been a better father than ours ever was and I’m proud of both of you for being amazing parents. That had to be really hard for you,” he said to Sarina, mentally straining to put himself in her place the way his therapist had suggested. He would never know what it was like to carry a child, work on his feet all day, or do all of that while dealing with the baggage that came with being a Sutton. “Mason has amazing role models for parents, while ours were barely human.”
She hummed loudly. “My therapist deserves a combatpatch. Thankfully, Mason was here and he did most of the hard parenting work.”
He shook his head. “She has so much more on her shoulders, with the practice to run and your mother and the estate to manage.”
Sky swore at himself. “I kind of felt like you and Mom deserved each other and that you wanted all of this, but now I feel bad.”
He had felt so betrayed before. But with the benefit of hindsight and maturity, Sky imagined how everyone would have reacted if he’d gotten Cora pregnant. And while he was revolted by the idea for so many different reasons, it was much easier to understand why Sarina had panicked and was so afraid to tell him about her and Lance. Sky would have gotten over it in time, but the news would have shattered him after his father’s funeral. There was no way he would have been able to hide it.
“I’ll help out more with Mom and take this estate shit more seriously.”
