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Mase put the last case away and shifted uncomfortably. “Liberty’s special. I’m not really sure how to explain it. Medically, it’s called OCD, but it’s more than that. She has compulsions to make everything perfect, or what’s considered perfect in her mind. She sometimes becomes obsessed with details and if she’s having a really hard time coping with something she thinks is off, she gets upset. You’ll see her do things that’ll raise your eyebrows and then you get used to it and forget she has a clinical disorder and chalk it up to just being quirky. It’s easy to forget she has it. I’ve been living with her for so long, I just kind of adjusted my own routines to help balance hers. So long as I don’t stray too far from our usual routine we don’t have much of a problem and it’s smooth sailing.”
“Isn’t there, like, medicine she can take for that?”
Mase chuckled. “Like I said, it’s complicated. There are medicines, but one of Libby’s quirks is that she has a very hard time swallowing pills. She can get them down, but then she freaks herself out because she feels like they’re stuck in her throat. She’ll continuously touch her throat until she’s covered in hives from irritating her skin. Plus, if she goes off the meds her issues return and as far as coping, she’s then out of practice. All she’s doing is numbing out a part of who she is. We’d rather see her work through it.”
“We?”
“Yeah, me and Libby. She’s aware she has it. The level of which she suffers from the disorder is extremely overwhelming to her at times.”
“Did you know she was like that before you married her?”
Mase laughed. “What’s that supposed to mean? You think I wouldn’t have married her if I knew she had imperfections? Gee, thanks.”
“No, I just…Liberty told me you two got married, like, a month after you met.”
Mase didn’t appear offended and continued to smile. “You guys talked about that? Actually, it was two months. And yes, I knew she had it the night I met her. It’s kind of what brought us together.”
“How do you mean?”
Mase looked at his watch. “Another time. It’s been twenty-seven minutes. I told her we’d be back in thirty. Let’s not keep her waiting.” The mantel returned to the floor and the screen went dark. They shut off the lights and headed back downstairs. Libby was placing three glasses of orange juice directly above three perfectly folded napkins just as they entered the dining room.
She smiled when she saw them come in. “Perfect timing.”
* * * *
Because Sunday was Mason’s nightshift day, he was essentially off Monday unless he got called in, which, by the sound of it, rarely happened. If Sean’s intrusion that morning upset Liberty, she failed to show it. Breakfast was outstanding. Sean couldn’t recall the last time he was so well fed. After breakfast she busied herself with tidying up the kitchen and Sean and Mason returned to the entertainment room to digest and watch the remainder of Top Gun. There was little talking, but that was fine. When the movie was over Liberty was again playing the piano.
The afternoon seemed to progress without incident. After lunch they spent a good part of the afternoon playing cards and small talking. No heavy topics were discussed and Sean got the chance to play voyeur and see the inside workings of Mason and Libby’s relationship he imagined most people didn’t see.
There was no denying Liberty’s appeal. She was one hundred percent feminine, but in a more adorable way than a femme fatale way. When she laughed she did so openly and her laugh was one that inspired the smiles of others. She was what Sean would call a cotton kind of girl. She looked good in natural fibers, wore them well, and anything over processed or weighted in detail would only detract from her natural beauty and seem prosthetic.
Her frame was small and Mason frequently held onto her, pulling her to his lap, tucking her under his arm. These were actions men, no matter how reserved, tended to do with little women. She opened up sides of Mase he would have never been able to fabricate in his own mind.
Mase was always an even keeled kind of guy, even back in his twenties, but he was even softer with Liberty. Sean had a difficult time reconciling the cries of ecstasy he overheard the night before with the chaste handling he observed throughout the day. Even that morning, he had known simply by the energy of the room that he walked in on a private moment, but he couldn’t imagine the two of them experiencing the intense dynamic he and Mase had shared years ago.
“Last card.”
Sean looked up as Liberty called out her status. Shit. He was losing his shirt in this match. Time to put on his game face. Crazy Eights was something he had known how to play since he was a child and he wasn’t too fond of losing, no matter how cute Liberty was when she won. He slammed down a deuce. “We’ll see.”
