Page 32 of Plain Sight

In fairness to Jameson, I am tired. I’m exceptionally tired. I was less tired after I pulled all-nighters to study for finals in college. I was less tired after my shifts at The Membership. I was even less tired at points in Jameson’s cottage.

Now I am eerily, all-consumingly tired. I’ve quickly gotten into the habit of taking an afternoon nap, and I can rarely make it past ten. It’s like a switch flips. I’m fine, but I could sleep, and then I’m so tired that it seems apocalyptic. I’m so tired that the thought of sitting upright feels like torture. I’m so tired that I can barely get through washing my face and brushing my teeth before I need to be horizontal.

The first few times I feel that exhaustion, I sleep until the next morning and wake up with Jameson kissing my temple and offering me hot tea. Maybe that’s a weird beverage choice this far into the summer, when everything outside is unsurvivable but in the sweet air-conditioned atmosphere of Mason’s penthouse, hot tea is the perfect thing.

Jameson happy is the perfect thing.

This seems horrible to say, even to think, but⁠—

For those first few nights, I want to believe it’s real.

Even if Malcolm Walsh is still out there, and my grandfather, and even if we have no idea what they might do next, I want to believe that everything inside the house is okay. It’s probably me at my most naive, but I want the fairy tale to have a kernel of truth.

Maybe the heroine’s mother isn’t dead. Maybe a wedding—and love—can repair the hero’s broken heart.

I know it’s weak, but I’m honestly exhausted, and for a little while, I let myself believe that our wedding day stitched up the broken parts of Jameson and let him move on with his life.

With our life. The life we’re going to make together. That we’re already making, if you think about it. Having our own house and a solid five-year-plan is also part fairy tale. We didn’t need those things to fall in love, and we don’t need those things to be living.

But then more nights go by, and I start waking up at night to an empty bed. Jameson isn’t anywhere in the penthouse.

He seems so happy to bring me tea in the morning that it sends a chill through the pit of my stomach. His mask is much stronger than it was the night he kidnapped me.

Maybe it should scare me, but…

It breaks my heart.

Deep down, I know he’s not hiding a bunch of shocking criminal activity from me. Whatever Jameson does at night is probably illegal, or at least some of it is—that’s not what I’m talking about.

I mean⁠—

I’m not afraid of him. I’m not afraid of the man who brings me tea every morning with his wedding band on his finger, or the man who spends time every day having full conversations with his bird, or the man who holds his baby nephew so gently. Jameson is fully invested in his conversations with Robin, and that’s the man who lies next to me in bed every night before he tiptoes out of the room and goes⁠—

Somewhere in the city, I think.

What I’m afraid of is the mask itself. The happier Jameson seems, the more worried I get. It might not be entirely fair for me to worry when he’s working so hard to seem okay, but it’s just not right. The act is perfect, and that means it’s just an act. I’ve seen what happens when the nightmares get the better of him. I’ve seen how badly he’s been hurt.

And healing that with a wedding is just a fantasy.

I don’t know how many nights he’s gone before I feel him get out of the bed. He’s so careful not to wake me up that it’s lucky I feel him at all. Jameson moves cautiously around the bedroom, pulling on clothes. The door opens, then closes. His footsteps pad down the hall.

I count to ten and follow him.

Not toward the elevator. I won’t be able to see anything from there, obviously. I go toward the slider that leads to the enormous balcony.

It’s already open. There’s someone on the balcony.

It’s not Jameson. It’s his brothers. Both of them are wearing pajama pants, and Mason has Robin in a carrier. He sways slightly from side to side.

“—nothing,” Gabriel says. “Must’ve gone out the other way. Can we⁠—”

“No,” Mason answers. “He knows how to get out without being seen. And he’s not afraid to bribe the man on duty.”

“We shouldn’t have taught him how to do that.”

“We?” Mason pats Robin’s back. “I had nothing to do with bribes.”

“Sure,” Gabriel says.