Wrecker shrugged, like the whole affair wasn’t complicated.“I overheard them talking,” he said.
“When?”Dad demanded.
It was like I hadn’t just spoken.
“You’re probably not going to like the answer to that question,” Alice muttered.
“How did you even find out?”I asked.If it wasn’t Mac, if it wasn’t the cameras, if it wasn’t Alice…my mind chased down every possibility and hit dead ends.
Dad pointed toward Star, who had gone pale and who looked like someone had handed her a live grenade.“She played clips of shit for me and told me to just make comments on what I saw.”Dad lifted both hands as if to show how horrible all of it was.“Imagine my fucking surprise when I’m looking at the screen and I see my daughter being taken advantage of by this creep.”
“Stop!”I shouted.I wasn’t going to stand and have my father paint Mason as some predator in front of our whole family.I wasn’t going to let him treat Mason like something he couldn’t wash off.“Mason hasn’t done anything wrong, and neither have I.”
“You’re my daughter!”Dad hissed, like that absolved him of listening.
“Yeah, I think you’ve made that pint,” Cole muttered loudly from the couch, and a few heads cracked smiles at the edge of ridiculousness.I didn’t have the energy to be amused.
Dad jabbed a finger at Mason.“And he is supposed to be my brother.”
Arlo, who usually had a comment tucked under his tongue, winced and tried to smooth things over.“Good thing we all know that it’s not brother through blood because this would be a whole other conversation we’d be having.”
Mason looked at Mac.“Why did you show him the video?You said you would give me a chance to talk to him!”
Mac held up her hands.“It was an accident.I didn’t realize Star had those clips.She didn’t mean to show him, Mason.”Her voice was steady but hollow.Even she sounded surprised.
This wasn’t anyone’s fault except mine and Mason’s.We’d been the fools playing at secrecy, and now someone else had tripped over the cord.
“I have no idea you liked Mason,” Mom said to me like she’d just been informed of a new tax bracket, as if Dad wasn’t five feet away ready to sink his anger into the man standing across from him.
I closed my eyes and counted.One.Two.Three.Four -but I got to four and the room’s volume turned up again.
“Fourteen years!”Alice shouted at the top of her lungs like she’d been handed a scandal and needed to throw it on the table.“This has been going on for fourteen years!”
My eyes landed on Ender, who was counting on his fingers with a sheepish little grin.I should have known better than to hide the timeline when Ender was in the room.He was precise and annoying like that.I opened my mouth to correct it and then shut it again because truth was a tangled mess.
“Relax,” Ender announced, doing his best to be reasonable.“She was eighteen.”
“You’ve been with my daughter since she was eighteen?”Dad thundered, as if eighteen was an unforgivable number no matter the person or the choice.
“This is not getting better,” Mom snapped.
“Shut up!”I called, louder than I’d intended.The room went mute except for the sound of the refrigerator and the soft buzz of the lights.“The only people who are going to talk for the next two minutes are me and Mason, okay?”
I looked around the room, making sure my glare landed where it needed to land.Cora pinched her fingers together and made a show of zipping her lips shut.A few of the younger ones exchanged looks.I heard Wrecker clear his throat.Somebody laughed, nervous and small.
My pulse felt like it was beating in my throat.I felt the heat under my skin, not just from the argument but from the raw exposure of being the center of a thing that belonged only to me and Mason.
“Good,” I said.“Then shut up and listen.I kissed Mason when I was eighteen.”The room went dead quiet.My voice carried like I’d just dropped a bomb in the middle of the clubhouse.“And he kissed me back,” I continued, my eyes locked on my dad, “but then he told me we couldn’t be together.”
“You think-” Dad started, fury already boiling, but I snapped my glare at him, sharp enough to slice.
“Don’t.”My voice was low but firm.“You don’t get to interrupt me right now.”
His jaw ticked, but for once he shut his mouth.
“And he was right to tell me no.”
“Adley,” Mason’s voice broke through the thick air, low and rough, like gravel dragged across steel.
