Breaking Perfect (10 page)

The bizarre faith Sean had in her
honesty surprised him. There was something quite genuine about Liberty. Perhaps
it was in her eyes, or the tone she used when giving him her word. Either way,
Sean believed her for some reason—believed she would tell Mason what she’d done—which
astounded him since he usually didn’t trust anyone to keep their promises.

This woman was a lot of things, but
definitely not
Rain Man
. She was
smart and nurturing and he could already tell she had a heart that was built
for loving others with a fierceness that was meant to be treasured.

The next few hours passed without
incident. If Sean hadn’t witnessed the entire episode that had unwound in the
kitchen he would never think there was anything quirky about Libby. She showed
him his room and then said she had to go finish doing something with shoes.

The shower he took refreshed him
enough to wait up for Mase. When he did finally sleep, he had no doubt he was
going to sleep like the dead. His bones were already aching for rest. It was
only his unsettled mind and desire to see Mason that kept him upright.

Libby told him which room was ‘the
entertainment room’. He supposed that was what rich folk called the living
room. He expected they’d watch some TV there or something, but when he came out
of his room the chiming echo of the piano filled the home once more. It was a
different song from earlier, but equally beautiful.

He followed the sound of music down
the stairs and just before the first landing he realized where the music was
coming from. Across the foyer was a large open room with nothing but a white
piano set before the large window. He stared in awe as Libby’s fingers worked
over the keys.
 
Her eyes were closed and
what she was doing wasn’t what he would describe as simply playing an
instrument. No. It was too natural, too meant to be. It was as if she and that
large piano were one. She was a woman making love to the instrument and she was
breathtaking.

He sat on the step in the foyer for
over an hour just listening to her play. He didn’t want to be anywhere but
there. When the front door softly clicked open he turned, forgetting where he
was. His heart seized when his eyes met the dark brown stare he had gazed at a
million times before. How was it that Mason still looked exactly the same? If
anything he had gotten more handsome.

Mase smiled. “Hey you.”

“Hey,” Sean said in a hoarse
whisper, his voice and confidence escaping him.

Mase tilted his head toward the
other room. “How long has she been playing?”

“Pretty much since after she hung
up with you.”

“Good. You look good. How’s life
been?”

“Fuckin’ sucks.”

“That why you’re here?” So like
Mase to be out in the open in every way possible.

Sean shook his head sadly. “No. I
guess I’m here because it’s the one thing I said I would do when that bastard
died and I didn’t want to break my word. I see you kept your word too. She’s
something spectacular, man.”

Mase looked toward his wife who
still played without realizing she had an audience. “She is that.” The
affection in his voice plucked at a jealous chord buried somewhere in Sean’s
heart. “You couldn’t have expected me to wait. I told you I wouldn’t.”

“I know. I’ll be out of here in the
morning.”

Mase’s eyes met his, the familiar
edge of accusation in their dark depths. “You can stay. No one asked you to
leave. No matter what, Sean, you’ll always be someone I consider my friend.”

“Mase—”

“Stay.” Sean had always been
helpless against that commanding tone in his voice. “For at least a little
while.”

He hesitated for a moment, knowing
if he agreed to stay and be a voyeur of Mason and Liberty’s perfect world it
would likely be the most torturous experience of his life. He sighed. He was
his own worst enemy. “Yes. Okay. I’ll stay.”

Chapter Four

Mason hung up his coat and placed
his keys on the table by the door. His stomach had been in knots since he
received Libby’s message saying that Sean was at the house. The last thing he
ever expected was for him to come to their home. Complicated didn’t begin to
explain the situation. And to see him now… One would think thirteen years would
age a person. Well, Sean had definitely aged, but in a way that agreed with him
more than anything else. Mason ignored the jolt of familiar longing.

He still had a full head of light
brown hair naturally streaked with various shades of blonde. His eyes weren’t
as bright as they once were, but still riveting as hell. The small creases in
the corners only made him seem softer. He’d certainly grown into himself.
Seeing the man who was no longer a boy brought back pain Mason had long ago
buried. He wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with such memories, but he also
wasn’t ready to watch him walk out of his life again.

He turned and Sean stood from the
step. “I’ll let you two talk. I gotta get some sleep. See you in the morning?”
Sean said from the landing just as the piano stopped playing.

Mason sensed Libby approaching. Without
taking his eyes off Sean he held his hand out to his left and said, “In the
morning.”

Libby’s small hand, warm from
playing, filled his. Sean’s eyes moved over their intertwined fingers. The soft
weight of Liberty’s head on his arm was a welcome one. He glanced away from his
old friend to kiss the top of her head and when he looked back to Sean there
was something in his expression that made Mason so sad for him and angry with
him all at the same time.

“Are you going to bed, Sean?” Libby
asked.

Sean looked to his wife and Mason
held his breath. There was no way of predicting how the two would interact, but
he wouldn’t tolerate any kind of disrespect to his wife in their home or
anywhere else. If Sean was carrying any old baggage he better have checked it
at the door.

“I am. Thank you so much for
everything, Liberty. You’re a gracious host along with many other fine
qualities. I can see why Mase chose you.”

Mason let out a sigh of relief and
pulled Liberty closer to his side. Interesting that Sean phrased his pairing
with Liberty as a choice. To Mason’s way of thinking, Sean removed any sense of
choice the moment he walked out on him thirteen years ago.

Mason recalled the sharp stab of
rejection he suffered the moment Sean actually pulled away. He knew he had
planned to leave, heard all the pathetic excuses Sean enlisted to explain why.
But seeing Sean go, actually watching him drive away forever had been a blade
slicing through his heart that left wounds too large to ever fully heal.

Liberty’s voice and soft laughter
brought him back to the present. “It’ll be fun having one of Mason’s old
college friends here for a visit. We don’t get out much and I don’t think I’ve
ever met anyone from that time in his life.” She smiled cheekily. “I bet you
could tell me all sorts of things about my husband I never would’ve been able
to pry out of him. I can’t wait to trade stories.”

Sean looked speechless and Mason
had to laugh. He looked down at Libby, shamelessly teasing her for her ever
curious nature. “Oh, sweetie, I don’t think you realize that fraternal brothers
share a loyalty that cannot be betrayed. It would take some seriously
persuasive tactics to break that bond. But I will tell you, Sean is a sucker
for apple pie. Maybe you should make another one and see if you can get him to
talk.”

She gaped at his obvious
self-serving motive and playfully swatted him on the stomach. “Oh no, Mr. I Ate
a Pie in Two Days. I’m not falling for that. Birthday’s over—”

“I don’t like pie anyway,” Sean
added. “But for chocolate cake I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Still a choc-a-holic, I see,”
Mason teased.

“Still obsessed with pie?”

There was a moment where no one
spoke, a split second, perhaps a tad more. Sean was likely remembering the same
moment in time that filled Mason’s mind. Soft echoes of laughter colored the
memory sepia in his mind. Naked limbs tangled around one another bathed in
sweet, sticky smears of chocolate, other confections forming a muddy paste,
making their hard bodies slick and delicious. The vision snagged on one
specific image of Sean’s gaze hooking his own as their laughter fell away like
the weightless snow that had been coming down outside their apartment. He still
remembered his exact thought in that moment when Sean stared at him.
I will
never stop wanting you.

He turned in Sean’s direction and
sensed that he was there in his mind too. Thankfully, Libby broke the fleeting
trance by cheering, “Finally, someone else who loves chocolate! Tomorrow night
I’m going to make lava cakes then!”

Mason shook away the images of his
broken past and scoffed. “You have some nerve commenting on my diet. Those lava
things you make are way worse than an innocent apple pie!”

“A slice is innocent. An empty pie
dish in the sink the morning after it was baked is a trace of a deviant.”

“I’ll show you deviant,” he teased
as he leaned down and tickled her belly and quickly kissed her neck.

Liberty squealed and then, just as
he turned away, mindful of their audience, her eyes met his and energy surged
between them. So potent, he might as well have been punched in the gut. He
caught his breath on a near gasp.

If he and Libby had been alone he
would have kissed her right then and there and perhaps made love to her in the
foyer. Memories of their morning still fresh in his mind. He turned back to
Sean and saw the same longing in his eyes.

Sean cleared his throat and the
spell was broken. “I’ll see you two in the a.m.”

“Goodnight, Sean,” Libby called as
he already started walking away. The rush of guilt that cut through Mason in
that moment was something new and not at all pleasant. Guilt was quickly
replaced with defensiveness. He had no reason to feel guilty for kissing his
wife in his own home. And if Sean was uncomfortable with the way Mason was
living his life, well, that was his own damn fault.

* * * *

Liberty climbed into bed just as
Mason entered their bedroom after locking up the house. When he began removing
his clothing she sat up, a ripple disturbing her tranquil mood.

“What is it?”

“You didn’t hit the dimmer switch,”
she reminded him, knowing Mason always turned on the timed dimmer after locking
up the house and before coming into bed. It was their routine.

“What if we left the lights on for
a while?”

“But…then they’ll be on when we
fall asleep. We’ll have to get out of bed to turn them off and then…I just
think you…I mean I think it would be best if we did things the way we always
do.” She tried not to sound panicked, but why wasn’t he doing what he always
did?

He sighed and sat down on the bed.
“Talk to me about today, Libby.”

Heat rushed to her face and she
looked away from him. “Why?”

“What happened when Sean came
here?”

“I told him you couldn’t come to
the door.”

“Good girl. Then what?”

“Well, he told me how far he had
come and how you two used to be friends in college and that his dad had just
passed away on Tuesday and I couldn’t just send him away. I thought, if he were
telling me the truth, you would have wanted me to invite him in, but I wasn’t
sure so I called you, but you weren’t there. I didn’t know what to do. I only
wanted to do what you would have wanted. I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“You didn’t disappoint me.” He
looked at her with such an understanding about how hard that decision had been
for her that her tension immediately eased. He gave her leg a squeeze through
the blankets. “You have better instincts then you give yourself credit for,
Lib. You would have known if Sean was a stranger lying to you. Try to trust
yourself.”

She looked down at her hands and
nodded. Mason always promoted her autonomy. It was she who chose to be
dependent on his final decisions. It was laughable how much she remained a
child. Sometimes she could be so pathetic.

“Tell me what happened next,” Mason
said, as if purposely trying to detour her self-deprecating thoughts that were
probably written across her face.

“I made him something to eat.”

“Did he say anything to upset you?”

“No, of course not. He was
perfectly polite.”

“So you weren’t upset at all?”

“Why are you asking this?”

“I just imagine that it was a
little difficult for you to have an unexpected visitor suddenly come to the
house and then to have him inform you he was a friend of mine, a friend you
never heard me speak of. Was it?”

She didn’t answer. It hurt that
Mason rarely spoke to her about his friendships from that part of his life. At
the same time she feared he hadn’t omitted Sean’s presence in his past so much
as her own crap overshadowed the moments for such little anecdotes. Five years
seemed like an eternity, but it was amazing how many things could still go
unattended when things were far from perfect. She’d do better from now on.