“Except for the afternoons I had to endure with my mother and the resulting trauma,” Sky mused, winding his other arm around Mason’s neck and allowing the towel to slide down his legs.
“I’ve tried my best to help with that,” Mason said with a sympathetic wince. “Not that any amount of sex could.”
Sky snickered into his champagne as he sipped. “I’m afraid you were sleeping with the wrong Sutton if you were trying to make my mom happy.”
“Shut up.” Mason put down his glass so he could take off his robe.
Sky quickly drained his glass, then eagerly climbed onto the bed.
“What if you didn’t leave?” Mason asked as he crawled after him and pushed Sky onto his back. He lowered and growled as he grazed Sky’s neck with his teeth, making him shiver and gasp. “I can take next week off. I checked and nothing important is happening and I’ll still be here if there’s an emergency. We could spend most of it in bed, whenever Sina and Sam are gone.”
There was a shaking whimper as Sky tugged at Mason’s hair, urging him to move lower.
“That is an incredibly tempting offer, but I have to go back, Mase. My mother might not believe it, but I actually am writing a book. I haven’t written a thing since I’ve been here, and it’s going to be a battle to get my head back into the story as it is.”
“I’m sorry, I take for granted how much your process depends on your ability to focus. All the drama with Nana’s passing and staying here must have made it impossible,” Mason said in awe. It had to require a lot of Sky’s energy to cope with all the chaos and Adele’s last-minute changes and demands. “I would have buckled. I don’t know where you get the strength or how you handled it all as gracefully as you did.”
Sky laughed it off. “You wouldn’t say that if you could hear what it’s like inside my head. I was screaming the entire time. The parts with Sam and Sina andyouand all the strawberry Jell-O were nice, though.”
“I’m glad I could help. It might be easier to work here if you had your own space and all of your things. Adele would probably lose interest after a while and you could create a new routine,” Mason said as he kissed along Sky’s clavicle.
“What are you talking about? Why would I work here? I live in New York.”
“What if you…didn’t, though? You could move into Sutton House,” Mason said hopefully, then changed course when Sky’s face twisted. “Maybe not right away. I understand if you’re not ready for that yet. I can come to the city on my free weekends, and no one will think it’s a big deal if you visit more often, now that we’ve worked things out.”
“I don’t understand.” Sky pushed Mason off of him and scooted back against the headboard, looking not at all pleased. “You want this—us—to be a regular thing. What about Sarina? Are you leaving her?” he asked angrily.
“No!” Mason answered without hesitating. “I could never do that to her and Sam.”
Sky’s eyes slid to the ceiling and his frown intensified. “Good… And we would just be…?”
It was easy to understand his confusion. Mason felt like two-hundred pounds of rotten, toxic trash as he sat on his heels and took Sky’s hand. “I know it soundsbad, but we wouldn’t be doing anything behind her back. She’dlovehaving you home for good. She’d even help us so we wouldn’t have to sneak around as much. We can tell Sam once he’s old enough to understand why we want to keep it private.”
“You want me to move here and live in Sutton House like an eccentric recluse? I’m not even thirty, yet, Mase.”
“Okay! We can do the semi long-distance thing, then,” Mason said quickly. “I get why you don’t want to settle down like that right now. Like I said, I don’t mind visiting you, and I’ll get good at phone sex. I’ve always wanted to try it,” he added.
Sky pulled his hand free and began to rock slightly, signaling his distress.
“What if I did want to settle down, just not like that? What if I wanted to find a man just like you, but who wasn’t already married to someone else? What if I wanted arealrelationship and a happy life, just like this?”
“Right! You deserve all of that!” Mason agreed, despite the way his heart ached and burned at the thought of another man touching Sky and loving him openly and proudly when he couldn’t. It was the only thing Mason couldn’t give Sky. It terrified him, knowing there was another, better man out there waiting to take his place.
“Do I?” Sky countered. “I won’t have any of that if I choose whatever the fuck it is you’re offering. I’ll be sleeping alone on the weekdays and every other weekend because I have to share custody of you with my sister. Ihatethe idea of phone sex but I’ll have to listen to you whisper about weird scenarios and come up with equally ridiculous responses while we jerk offwith our phones in our hands like teenagers. That’s what we’ll be reduced to because your wife or son might overhear you and I’ll be too ashamed to tell Kayla that I’m still creeping around with my sister’s husband and having deviant phone sex with him. Total loser energy,” he muttered at Mason.
“It was just a suggestion. We can skip the phone sex,” he said weakly.
“Great!” Sky said, his tone heavy with sarcasm. “So what does it mean, Mason? A happy marriage for thee, and gay spinsterhood for me?”
“Please don’t call me Mason!” he pleaded in a pained whisper, floundering as he searched for a solution that was fair to Sky.
Polyamory might be an option. People were slowly getting used to the idea, thanks to reality shows and social media. None of those people lived in Roseview, unfortunately. Mason would probably be run out of town with pitchforks if he announced that he was in love with both of the Sutton siblings.
“I wouldn’t expect you to wait forever. I’d find a way,” Mason said, knowing how foolish he sounded.
“Find a way to what? Clone yourself? Change the laws so you can marry two people as long as they’re siblings?” Sky challenged, then gagged. “Shit, that sounds even more disgusting when I say it out loud.”
Mason bit back a groan, grimacing as he shook his head. “Something similar crossed my mind, but I knew it would sound terrible. There’s no telling what could change in a few years, though. Sina might get tired of me, or you might go through with your plan to marry Nadine.”
