“Told you,” I whisper as Trav walks past. “Lysol.” Mase buries his face in my hair to hide his laughter.
Trav grumbles under his breath but still guides Nana over to one of the open chairs in the living room. “Not that I’m not happy to see you or anything—”
“Yeah, especially with a greeting like that,” Olly cuts in.
“—but what are you doing here, Nan?” Trav finishes shooting a glare at the other half of the Roberts twins.
Warm eyes filled with affection scan the room until they land on my boyfriend, all of Mase’s muscles going rigid under me. “I came here to warn yo—” Whatever else she was about to say gets cut off by a pounding on the door. Again, B is the closest and plays doorman, except this time there’s no pleasant greeting, only an irate Brantley barreling his way into the room.
“About that,” Nana says, finishing her earlier statement.
“You can’t avoid this conversation forever, Mason.”
Stunned silence meets Brantley’s booming words.
Calmly, eerily so, Mase stands with me in his arms, carefully setting me down and handing me off to Trav, not once taking his eyes off his stepfather. I remain silent, letting Trav tuck me against his side protectively while also searching out Bette’s gaze. Mase isn’t the only powder keg we have to worry about exploding if this takes a bad turn.
“I’m not avoiding it, I just didn’t think a bar full of strangers and members of the press was the best place to have it.” A chill races down my spine and goose bumps coat my arms at the complete lack of emotion in Mase’s voice as he speaks. “I also don’t think you want to be having it here.” He gestures to their audience.
“I can’t believe you want to risk your career all so you can play house with some girl.” Where Mase’s voice was devoid of all emotion, Brantley’s is filled with venom, especially the way he says “some girl” like a curse.
I jolt. Trav squeezes my shoulder, in warning or comfort, I’m not sure; maybe it’s both. I’ve long suspected Mase has been shielding me from things when I try to get him to talk to me because I sense he’s stressed. I’m sad to realize I was most likely correct in that assumption.
“How many times”—Mase’s hands ball into fists at his sides—“do I have to tell you to stop referring to my girlfriend as some girl?” he asks through clenched teeth. I take a step to go to him, but Trav only tightens his hold on me, ignoring the glare I send his way.
“Is her pussy so magical you’re willing to jeopardize everything we’ve worked your whole life for?” Brantley’s vulgar words make me flinch, and I see Bette jump in front of E as he shouts, “What the fuck?!”
“I’d choose your next words. Very. Carefully,” Mase warns. His stance shifts, his demeanor hardening in a way that gives me flashbacks to the night Liam showed up at the AK house.
No one speaks.
No one moves. If you asked if our lungs were still breathing and our hearts were still beating, I might even doubt that.
The dead silence filling the room is reminiscent of the eye of a hurricane.
I hate this.
I hate being the cause of all this discontent. The last thing I want to do is cause a rift between Mase and his family. For as much as I wasn’t looking forward to living in a different state than him when he was drafted, I would have never asked him to do what he did. Hell, the reason I did what I did to handle the whole Liam situation was to make sure Mase had the best potential come draft time.
Oh my god, I can’t tell Mase about that now—he’ll lose his fucking mind for sure.
It isn’t until there’s another knock on the door that something cuts through the animosity brewing.
Who is it now? It’s like Grand Central Station up in here.
Still…
No one moves.
When another knock comes, this one more insistent, Em finally goes to answer it.
“Brantley. Roberts.” Grace Nova-Roberts enters the room, taking in the scene in front of her with a clenched jaw. “What the hell do you think you are doing?” She sounds more like she’s scolding a child than speaking to her husband.
“Mom?” the twins say in unison, breaking Mase from his death-glare stare-down with Brantley.
With grace appropriate only for someone with the name, Mase’s mom moves to stand between her son and husband, commanding all