The Moment We Began (A Fairhope New Adult Romance) (25 page)

“Look, Penny, I’m sure everything is
going to be fine,” he says. “If it’s just a little
bit of spotting, it’s nothing to be concerned about. It will
probably go away overnight. If it continues for a few days or becomes
heavier, or if you have any severe cramping, you need to get in to
see a doctor right away.”

Movement catches my eye outside and I see Mason
walking toward the store.

“Thank you, Dr. Mallory,” I say. “I’ve
got to go.”

“Please call me if you need help, okay?”

“I will,” I say. “And Dr.
Mallory? Please don’t tell anyone I called, okay?”

He hesitates, but finally says yes.

I hang up and hand the phone to the clerk just as
Mason walks through the door.

I barely sleep that night.

We stop at a campsite that has small cabins for
rent and I convince Mason to splurge for the night. It’s still
modest, but there’s a private bathroom. I keep getting up
throughout the night to check for more spotting, but other than that
little bit at the gas station, I don’t see any more blood.

In the morning, I tell Mason I’m not feeling
well and we decide to stay in the cabin for a few more days.

We take it easy, playing board games that were
left in the cabin and taking turns reading from a few old romance
novels with tattered pages. I laugh when Mason reads, because he adds
some real theater to it, giving a different voice to each character.
The sex scenes are the best part. Not because they’re so sexy,
but because he’s so dramatic about it.

At night, he holds me in his arms and strokes my
hair.

On our second night there, we’re laying in
bed when I notice a faded Polaroid sticking out of one corner of his
open duffel bag on the floor. I recognize it from the first night he
showed me his truck and told me he was leaving Fairhope.

I walk over and pick it up, studying the two blond
children in the photo. I bring the picture back to bed and lay back
against his chest. His body tenses as I hold it up.

“Tell me about her,” I say.

He’s quiet for a long moment, and at first I
think he’s not going to say anything.

Finally, he reaches up and takes the photo from my
hand. His thumb moves along the bottom tenderly.

“Her name was Rachel,” he says. “She
was my sister.”

I sit up so I can see his face. He’s wearing
a pained expression, sadness and regret in his eyes.

“I didn’t know you had a sister.”

He props the picture up against a lamp on the side
table by the bed. “She died when I was seven.”

I draw in a breath, my heart aching for him. I
move closer to him on the bed and put my hand on his leg. “What
happened to her?”

He clears his throat and when I look up, there are
tears in his eyes. “She had leukemia,” he says. “She
was eight when she was diagnosed and six months later, she was gone.
It was like one day she was fine and the next, she was too sick to
stand. My parents didn’t have much money back then and my dad
was between jobs so we didn’t have health insurance. They
couldn’t afford the treatments and by the time they were able
to find a hospital that would help her, it was too late. When you
told me you’ve given money to families like that. Kids without
insurance? That really means a lot to me, Penny.”

I don’t know what to say. My chest tightens
and my eye sting with tears. I blink and they fall down my cheeks and
drop onto the sheets. Mason swipes at his eyes and looks away. I move
up next to him and put my arms around him. His shoulders are shaking
slightly.

“I had no idea,” I say in a whisper.
“I’m so sorry.”

“She was my best friend growing up,”
he says, his voice cracking. “Sometimes I still can’t
believe she’s gone, you know?”

I have no words to comfort him. All I can do is
hold him tight in my arms and let him talk.

“You’re so lucky to have Preston,”
he says. “I watch you guys sometimes and think about what it
would have been like if she hadn’t died. What she would have
been like. How my life might have been different.”

So many thoughts swim through my brain. I can’t
believe I’ve known him for all this time—grown up beside
him all these years—and never once heard anyone in his family
mention Rachel. I always assumed he was an only child.

How could he have carried this pain around inside
of him for so long and never shared it with anyone?

“Why don’t you ever talk about her?”
I ask.

He shrugs and wipes the rest of the tears from his
eyes. “My parents don’t like to be reminded of that time
in our lives,” he says. “It was a really hard time for
all of us.”

“Yeah, but isn’t it hard to keep that
inside?”

“I used to think it made things easier,”
he says. “Like if we didn’t talk about it or keep her
pictures out where people could ask about her, then maybe it didn’t
happen. Maybe it was just a dream.”

I hug him tighter, wishing I knew how to comfort
him.

“I know it sounds stupid, but I think that’s
why I never really let myself love anyone completely,” he says.
“It hurts too damn much when you have to say goodbye.”

He lets go, then, and the tears begin to flow. He
clings to me, his shoulders shaking with sobs. I lean back against
the headboard on the bed and pull him against my chest, our earlier
roles reversed.

I realize as I hold him that the walls he’s
always put between us are higher and thicker than I ever imagined.
All this time I thought he was putting those walls up to keep me out,
but in this moment, I see that what he was really doing was hiding
his own broken heart.

In the morning, we pack up and continue on our way
toward Texas.

Something has changed between us, though. It’s
a change that no one would ever see from the outside, but I know we
both feel it. We trust each other in a way we never did before, and
it gives my heart hope for the future.

On the drive, he tells me stories about his
sister. Things they did growing up, like camping and fishing and
playing games. He tells me how they used to sing together all the
time and I mention again that I want to hear him sing. He just smiles
and says no one ever gets to hear him sing these days.

Now I finally see why this trip was so important
to him, though. I see why he needed to get away from the parties and
the money. To get back to a life beyond those things when he may not
have had money, but he had more than that.

When we finally get to Beaumont a few days later,
it’s well after midnight and both of us are exhausted.

“There’s no way we’re going to
find a campsite this late at night,” Mason says. “I think
we should just splurge and get a hotel room. A nice one this time
with hot water and everything.”

I nearly scream in excitement. “Oh, thank
you Jesus,” I say, clapping my hands. The exhaustion is gone
and now all I can think about is a comfortable bed and being able to
take a shower in a room where I don’t have to keep one eye open
in case a spider decides to jump down and attack my face. “You
are my favorite person on earth right now,” I say, planting a
huge kiss on his cheek.

Mason tries to hide a smile. He makes an
exaggerated show of looking at his watch. “Let’s see, you
lasted almost three full weeks in the wild,” he says. “I
think you deserve one night of luxury.”

“Hey, I didn’t say we had to stay at
the Ritz or anything,” I say. “Not that I would complain
about it if we did, though. I just want a bed comfortable enough to
sleep in without waking up twelve times a night.”

“If we have a comfortable bed, is that
really what you want to be doing in it?”

I punch his shoulder. “Is that all you ever
think about?”

“When you’re around me, yes. Yes it
is,” he says with a smile. “I can’t help it if
you’re the sexiest woman alive. I’m the victim here.”

I scoot back down in the seat, putting my feet up
on the dashboard. “I guess after nearly three weeks straight of
sleeping on the ground or in extreme budget hotels and cabins, we’d
really be crazy not to at least take advantage of a nice, comfortable
bed before we actually sleep in it,” I say, a huge smile
spreading across my face as he takes the next exit and pulls into the
parking lot of a Hilton.

The next morning, we sleep in for the first time
in weeks.

“I think we missed the free breakfast,”
Mason says, stretching.

We got a room with a king-size bed, but we’re
snuggled together tight on one side.

“Screw breakfast,” I say. “I
just want to stay in bed all day.”

“Done,” he says, pulling me into his
arms and rolling over until he’s on top of me.

He leans down and kisses me softly.

“I don’t care how many days pass,”
he says. “I’ll never get enough of seeing you like this.”

“Like what?”

He smiles and twists a strand of my hair around
his finger. “Your wild hair. Your slightly puffy and kissable
lips.” He runs the back of his hand across my check. “Not
a drop of makeup on your gorgeous face.”

I sink back into the pillow and scrunch my nose.
“I hate the way I look in the mornings.”

“You’re so naturally beautiful,”
he says. “There’s no one in the world I’d rather
wake up next to.”

I suck in a breath and meet his eyes. My heart
aches at his words. They sound like the words of someone who is in
love, but something is still holding him back. After all we’ve
shared, what could still be standing between us?

I wish I could ask him. I wish I could ask him if
he’s falling in love with me. But I’m too scared.

So I let my eyes ask for me. And instead of
getting up or running away from me like he used to, he stays. He
caresses my hair, his eyes never wavering from mine.

And for now, it’s enough.

Mason and I spend the day in bed. We order room
service for lunch, watch bad TV, and stay wrapped in each other’s
arms for the entire afternoon. Around six, I finally get out of bed
and into the shower.

I stay in a long time, just letting the hot water
run over my aching body.

Most of the campsites had showers, but depending
on the time of day and how many campers there were, hot water was
never a guarantee. I’ve never taken so many cold showers in my
life.

It’s amazing how fast you can get used to
something, though. Even the most uncomfortable things like sleeping
on the ground and taking cold showers can begin to feel normal. And
really, as long as you’ve got a hot guy to snuggle up to at
night, it’s all worth it.

I’ve held up my end of the bargain by not
complaining along the way. Well, not too much, anyway. But damn, this
shower feels amazing. I turn and lean my head back, letting the water
run through my hair.

I think about the past few weeks of my life and
how much things have changed for me. Not just because of Mason, but
because of all the people we’ve met along the way. All the
things I’ve tried that I never would have imagined myself doing
before this trip.

I think about the baby that Mason and I created
and wonder if it’s a boy or a girl. I wonder if the little one
is doing okay in there and how long it will be before I get to see
his little heartbeat again. The scrape along my side is healing fast
and there hasn’t been any cramping or bleeding, so I think I’m
in the clear. I have no idea how or when to tell Mason about the
baby, though. Will he be mad at me for keeping it a secret all this
time?

And I still can’t shake the feeling that
he’s still keeping some secret of his own. Something that holds
the key to the last of the walls around his heart.

We’re so close now, I know it. So close to a
real commitment that would change both of our lives forever.

All three of our lives, really.

When I get out of the shower, Mason is gone, but
there’s a pink gift bag sitting on the bed with a note.

My eyes grow wide and I rush over, pull the tissue
paper out and reach inside. My hand connects with soft fabric and as
I hold it up, I realize it’s a dress. I nearly collapse onto
the bed in a fit of happy giggles. For someone who has a walk-in
closet that’s bigger than this room, it’s been so hard
for me to live out of a tiny little bag the past few weeks. A new
dress—even one with no recognizable brand—is like heaven
right now.

How did he possibly have time to go buy this? Was
I really in the shower that long?

And where has he gone now?

I open the note he left for me and all it says is:

Get dressed, baby. I’m taking you out
tonight.

I run my hand along the scrawled words. Baby. It
makes my heart soar. And a real date? This is something we haven’t
done yet on our trip and it fills my stomach with butterflies. Why is
he going to all this trouble to make tonight special?

We’ve been on such a strict budget this
entire trip. This hotel stay alone is costing a fortune compared to
the campsites, and now the dress? I hope this doesn’t mean he’s
almost ready to go home and is spending what’s left of the
money so that we can have a fun last few days on the road.

I push the thoughts away. I don’t want to
think about what might happen to us when we go home. I know I can’t
go back to the way things were. I can’t go back to being his
piece on the side while he parades a new girl in my face every
weekend. There are only two choices now.

Either we’re together or we’re not.
There can be no in between for us. Not anymore.

Behind me, the door opens and Mason walks in. He’s
carrying a large brown paper bag.

“Thank you for the dress,” I say,
holding it up to my body again. “It’s beautiful.”

He laughs and touches my wet hair. “Did you
just get out of the shower?”

I make a face. “Yes? Was I really in there
that long?”