Adam shocked me tonight. He shocked me by showing up in the first place. But as strange as it sounds, what he said didn’t surprise me at all. Maybe it’s because I wrote his parenting rights off in my own mind years ago, or maybe it’s because he was always selfish and worried about what people think.

Adam’s words hurt—they hurt to hear because they were about Max. But they didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me were my instincts. Adam was busy doling out fake apologies, talking about how this is all for the best, and how he’ll still pay his child support, but that we have to make it seem like a business venture. And all I wanted to do was run home—to Mason.

“You want me to play something?” his voice startles me.

“Huh? Oh…if you want…I guess,” I say, my eyes trained on his fingers, and how they grip his guitar.

“Nah, that’s okay. I only thought it might distract you,” he says. He starts to put the guitar back on the floor, but I grab his forearm to stop him. When I touch his skin, I hear him gulp, and his eyes flicker to my hand.

“I’d like that. Play something…anything,” I keep my voice soft, almost like we’re sneaking around. It’s barely nine at night, but here behind Mason’s closed door, it feels like the wee hours of the morning.

“Anything…hmmmm? Okay, well…I was sort of messing around with this; let me know what you think. I thought I’d play it with the band this weekend,” he says, tuning lightly and dampening his strings to play quietly. I recognize the song instantly. It’s Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You.” My dad played a lot of Otis records when we were kids, and he and Mason used to play those songs together in the garage. But they never sounded anything like this.

I spend the first half of the song just watching his hands—the way they move, the careful selections they make, and the perfectly timed moments. When he hits the chorus, I’m drawn to his face. His eyes are closed; he’s feeling this so much. That’s how Mason sings—he feels every word, his lips breathing life into each lyric. It’s a song I’ve heard a thousand times, maybe more, yet when Mason sings, it feels entirely different.

He opens his eyes for the last verse, and I look right into them. I know it’s an act—when Mason sings, especially on the stage, he has this power of singling you out and making you feel like he’s making this poetry, and it’s just for you, and you alone. But tonight, I’m the only one in the room. There’s nowhere else for his eyes to go, but I think even if there were, they’d still be here, in this place, with me.

When the song is over, the air feels thicker, and I can tell it’s making him uncomfortable. I straighten my legs for a stretch, and then bend my knees to stand, but Mason halts me.

“You don’t have to go. I mean…unless you want to. We can talk. We can talk about stupid pointless stuff, I mean. Not the heavy shit,” he shrugs and flashes a single dimple that has me back on the floor again.

“Okay. What do you want to talk about?” I ask, grabbing an old sweatshirt I find on the floor, and folding it up into a ball behind my neck.

“Come here,” Mason says, moving to the far side of his blow-up mattress and laying back with his arm out. I’m weighing this one, everything inside me screaming for me to curl up into his arms, but this tiny voice warning me not to. “Stop trying to find my damn angle, Avery. I feel bad you’re lying on the floor is all.”

He’s right, so I crawl over to the mattress and slide in next to him, my weight making the mattress bounce and shake like a birthday fun house. “Gee, yeah, Mason. This is so much better than the floor. You’re a real gentleman,” I joke, and he pokes me in the side.

I kick the straps of my sandals loose from my ankles, letting them fall to the floor. Reaching down for his blanket, I pull it over my knees, mostly because I’m still wearing a dress, and the quilt makes me feel less exposed somehow.

“All right, Miss Abbot. Let’s see—why don’t you tell me about something I don’t know. Like…oh, I know! What’s with Max and the planet book? Like, seriously—I learned something from that bedtime story tonight,” Mason asks. I love that he’s asking about Max, and I love the details he notices about him, like how unbelievably smart he is.

“Okay. Well, it’s pretty clear he likes science,” I start. I turn my head to face him, twisting my body ever-so-slightly to the side when I do, and I feel his fingers curl around my shoulder blade, almost cradling me—like he’s hovering. His barely-there touch sends the tiniest chill down my spine, and I find myself wanting him to hold me harder, and I mentally wish for it.