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My brother leans against the wall for support.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Jase nods. “Just a bit shook up, and tired. I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“You better be,” I warn, forcing a smile. “I’ll check on you later.”
My brother exits on the first floor and the two men follow him, leaving Mason and myself alone in the small space.
“I’ll let you clean me up, but you owe me some answers.”
“I think we should wait until tomorrow.”
“Then I’m going back down to be with my brother. The only reason I came up here now is so you can explain. I’m done playing this game in the dark.”
Mason sighs heavily. He doesn’t answer right away, but I can see his resolve crumbling. He knows he’s out of time. He has to tell me something, or I’m no longer cooperating.
“We’ll talk while I’m cleaning you up,” he offers, just as the elevator door opens into his apartment.
“All right, let’s do this.” I waltz into his apartment as if I know where to go, only to come to a sudden halt in the living room.
“Go sit on my bed. I’ll get the first-aid kit,” he says before I have a chance to ask.
I do as he says, climbing on his bed that’s now made. We didn’t leave it this way, which means Mason must have daily housekeeping coming through. I can definitely get used to that.
He disappears into the bathroom, only to appear a few moments later, carrying a white box with a Red Cross painted over the top. Putting the box next to me on the mattress, he opens it and takes out some alcohol wipes and a tube of Neosporin. He goes down on one knee to inspect my scratched-up legs, and I can’t help smiling about him kneeling in front of me like he is about to propose.
Holding out my hand, as if he is about to put a ring on it, I blurt out with fake excitement, “I do.”
Mason looks up at me, his eyes wide, and his mouth hanging open. Apparently, he doesn’t get the humor in it.
“It’s a joke, Mr. Grumpy Pants.”
“I am not in a joking mood,” he murmurs while unwrapping the alcohol wipe.
“Are you ever?” I tease, not expecting him to answer at all.
His warm hand wraps around the back of my leg, holding it still while he gently wipes the dirt off the scratches. I hiss at the burning sting when he swipes over the open skin.
“I haven’t been in a long time,” he answers. His voice somber, with a hint of longing. Almost as if he’s missing that part of himself.
“What changed?”
“Life… death. A lot of death, actually.” He moves to my other leg, repeating everything without looking at me once. “I joined the Navy when I was eighteen and became a SEAL when I was nineteen. My brother was a SEAL, and like every younger brother, I wanted to be just like him.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.” As soon as the words leave my lips, I regret them because I realize he only talked about him after mentioning death.
“Jonathan and I served together in the same unit. We thought we were indestructible. Turns out we weren’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“My parents died in a car crash thirteen months after my brother passed.” The sadness in his voice carries through the room. I can feel it as my own. “Sometimes I think that was a blessing in disguise, at least for my mother. Jonathan’s death was hard on all of us, but my mom… she was never the same. Heartbroken and so lost.”
I know I can’t say anything to make him feel better. The pain that loved ones leave when they die is unfixable; they leave a hole that nothing and no one will ever fill. It never goes away, no matter how many years pass. All I can do is be here with him, letting him know he doesn’t have to go through this alone.
“It’s not fair that life goes on, but it does, and we have to keep living it. Not without them, butforthem.”
His fingers stop moving, hovering inches from my skin, but I can still feel him. The heat radiating off his body, the electricity between us like an invisible tether connecting us.
