Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

Ainsley

Papa enters my house.

He called me only a few minutes ago to let me know he and Dad are leaving for Santa Barbara.

"You'll be okay?" The fatherly concern is at an all-time high with these two men.

"Yes, of course, I will. Why would you doubt that Papa?"

He shrugs and takes a seat. Toby jumps right into his lap and curls up. My parents love my cat. They even told me that whenever I needed a cat sitter, they would do so happily. Not that I would be traveling anytime soon.

"Want to talk about the breakup?"

Not particularly. I told them everything already. From the moment Mina texted that she was in town, to the mysterious disappearance, and the final goodbye. According to him, I wanted a lifetime subscription to Better Homes and Gardens . In contrast, he wanted a few issues of Playboy .

"I'm a foolish woman, Papa. Believing I could change a man with my love." My arms tingle just thinking about him. "Mase couldn't reciprocate my feelings. He thought I had already imagined the next step. Not that I was asking for any more than what we had, but he assumed."

"That boy is an idiot," Papa shakes his head. "Not that I'm someone who can talk. I don't blame him. It is scary to fall in love when you've never experienced it, Ainse. I almost fucked up my entire life due to that fear."

That last sentence freezes my limbs. Without breaking the figurine I hold, I look at him, waiting for more.

"Love becomes real. It gets ahold of your mind, your heart, and your soul. It can be so fucking scary that you run away."

Why would you escape when you feel something so intense? I'll heal, but I'm so tired of waking up without Mason. Tired of not hearing his voice.

"Why not stay?"

"Fear," Papa answers. "You run far without thinking you'll hurt the person you love the most."

As far as we know, the only person Papa has loved is… "Dad?"

He bobs his head a couple of times as his lips press into a thin line. "I guarantee you that we fell in love way before either one noticed." Toby purrs while he continues his small trip down memory lane without stopping his caresses. "Before we had sex. I'm not kidding here. Never before did I care where I slept or about anyone around me. After he moved in with me, being at home became essential—being with him."

He watches me. His chin goes up as his lips stretch as wide as they allow it. "When you fall in love, your life changes. Gabe flipped my world." Papa is lost in that haze of the past. "Your life orbits around each other, but the moment you stop and realize what's happening, you run away. Gabe only learned this after we reconciled months ago, Ainse—that I loved him for longer than he thought. Longer than he loved me. I suppressed everything because I had no idea what I had in my hands or what to do with it."

It's like my parents' story will never end. Every time something huge happens, there's a new addition to the book they wrote. Papa tells me that during the last tour of Dreadful Souls , he and Dad had threesomes with some lucky girl each night.

Nothing new, there are gossip magazines bringing their old articles about my parents' sex lives—as if it's something they just discovered. Yes, they were wild. That was too many years ago.

"One night the girl left, and we stayed in the same bed—we were too tired. Waking up in each other's arms completed my life. I watched him for hours. This was the first person I wanted to do anything for. Take a bullet, make him smile. You name it, I'd do it for Gabe. But it hit me.

"I couldn't do it because I wasn't like him or into guys. I had never been happy or had a family who cared for me. Then he took me to your grandparents and less than two weeks after, I disappeared from his life. He deserved to be happy. A happiness I wasn't able or wanting to give him."

"You make Dad happy," I remind him. "How could you think…?"

"I was an idiot, but I came around," Papa interrupts me. "Mason might come back too, be patient. His parents scared him shitless. I witnessed some of it. They always fought in front of him."

His story is touching. My parents' magical love is forever the best I've ever known and that I may ever know. The one-sided love I have for Mason is huge. An unexpected feeling that, unsurprisingly, complicated my life and yet filled it with joy. But I know what I saw.

The unloving eyes, the regretful stare that he led me into something that would never become real. My friend knew he hurt me, and though he regretted it, he couldn't do anything to take away the pain.

Dad opens the door. He looks from Papa to me and then checks his watch before looking at us again.

"Babe, you said only five minutes." He points at the grandfather clock in front of us. "We have to go, Chris."

"Can we take her with us?" Papa asks. "She's kind of cute."

"Adorable," Dad responds. "My favorite of the three, but that's mostly because she has your eyes. Though we can't bring her with us, our baby girl is no longer a little kid. In fact, she's an independent woman who is currently busy with her own life."

"If your sons hear that…"

"I'll brush them off, sweetheart. You're their favorite, too," Gabe answers. "For the last time, and be honest, are you sure you are okay?"

I nod. As soon as I told them Mason and I broke up, they rushed home to check on me. They pampered me last night, and sadly they had to head back to their own busy life today.

"Call if you need us, please," he implores. "At any time."

I head to where he stands and hug him, then hug Papa and usher them outside my house before they get into an accident because they can't make it on time.

As for me, I close the Mason chapter and am ready for the next adventure. Rereading is so yesterday.