Chapter 122
Emily's POV
I looked up to find Alex leaning against the wall, fully dressed in dark slacks and a crisp white shirt that meant he'd been awake long enough to go through his entire morning routine, and the expression on his face was arctic.
His eyes swept over the table, lingering on the elaborate breakfast spread, then moved to where Mason and I were still sitting pressed together, and I watched his jaw tighten as he took in the physical intimacy of our position.
"Alex," I started, but he cut me off with a sharp gesture.
"No, please," he said, his voice carrying that particular edge that meant he was furious but maintaining control through sheer force of will. "Don't let me interrupt this heartwarming performance. I'm sure Mason worked very hard on his little production this morning."
Mason flinched under my hands like he'd been struck, his entire body going tense and small, and I felt rage spike hot and immediate in my chest at the casual cruelty in Alex's tone.
"That's enough," I said sharply, dropping my hands. "He made breakfast. That's it. There's no performance, no manipulation, just a kid trying to do something nice."
Alex's laugh was short and bitter, and he pushed off from the doorframe to cross the living space with predatory grace, his eyes never leaving Mason's hunched form.
"A kid," he repeated, his tone making the word sound like an accusation. "Right. An eighteen-year-old who just happens to know exactly which buttons to push, exactly how to present himself to trigger your protective instincts, exactly what kind of vulnerability will make you forget basic caution and bring a complete stranger into our home."
"He was bleeding in the rain," I shot back, my voice rising despite my best efforts to keep this from escalating into a full confrontation. "What was I supposed to do, just leave him there?"
"Yes," Alex said flatly, and the word landed like a slap. "Because that's what normal people do when they find random injured teenagers on the street—they call emergency services and let professionals handle it. They don't bring them home and tuck them into the study."
Mason made a sound—small and choked and wounded—and when I looked at him his face had gone white, his eyes too wide and too bright with the kind of humiliation that came from having your worst fears confirmed by someone saying out loud what you'd always suspected people thought about you.
"Get out," I said to Alex, my voice shaking with fury. "Go to your office or wherever the hell you're going, but get out of this room right now before you do any more damage."
Alex's eyes finally left Mason and locked onto mine, and I saw something flicker in their depths—hurt, maybe, or betrayal, like I'd chosen a side in a war he'd been fighting and hadn't realized I was the enemy until just this moment.
"Fine," he said after a long, tense moment. "I have meetings anyway. But don't say I didn't warn you when this blows up in your face."
He turned on his heel and strode toward the door, grabbing his jacket and briefcase with sharp, angry movements, and then he was gone, the door closing behind him with a controlled precision that was somehow worse than if he'd slammed it.
The silence he left behind was suffocating.
I turned back to Mason, who was staring at his folded hands in his lap with an expression of such complete defeat that it made my chest ache, and reached out to touch his shoulder only to have him flinch away from the contact.
"Mason," I said gently. "Look at me."
He shook his head once, a jerky movement, and I saw his throat working as he tried to swallow around whatever emotion was threatening to choke him.
"I should go," he said quietly, his voice rough. "He's right. I shouldn't be here. I'm—I'm causing problems and I don't—I don't want to—"
"No," I said firmly, catching his chin again and forcing him to look at me even as he tried to pull away. "You're not going anywhere. Alex is wrong, and he's being an asshole, and you didn't do anything to deserve that."
"But I did," Mason said, and there were tears tracking down his face now, silent and devastating. "I did exactly what he said. I knew—I knew if I made breakfast, if I made myself useful, you'd—you'd feel like you had to keep me, and that's manipulation, that's—"
"That's survival," I interrupted, my own voice rough with emotion. "That's what people do when they've learned that love is conditional and has to be earned. And yeah, maybe part of you was thinking strategically this morning, but that doesn't make the gesture less real or less meaningful, and it definitely doesn't mean you deserve to be spoken to like that."
Mason was shaking now, his whole body trembling with the force of trying to hold himself together, and I made the decision to stop asking permission and just pulled him into my arms, ignoring his initial resistance until he collapsed against me and let himself cry in harsh, broken sobs that sounded like they were tearing him apart from the inside.
"I've got you," I said quietly, stroking his hair and rocking him slightly like he was much younger than eighteen. "You're safe. I've got you."
Over his shaking shoulder, I met Ethan's eyes and saw my own anger and protectiveness reflected back at me, along with something else—a kind of resigned understanding that we'd just crossed some kind of line and there was no going back from it now.
Mason was ours to protect now.
Whether Alex liked it or not.
We finished the rest of breakfast in relative quiet, Mason slowly relaxing enough to actually eat a few bites when I kept pushing food onto his plate and refusing to let him deflect, and Ethan keeping up a steady stream of gentle commentary about practice schedules and game stats that required no real response but filled the silence with something other than tension.
I was clearing the plates when Ethan stood and stretched, his shoulders rolling in that unconscious athlete's gesture, and caught my eye with an expression that said he needed to tell me something I probably wasn't going to like.
"So," he said, his tone carefully casual in a way that immediately put me on alert, "I meant to mention this last night but everything got kind of chaotic. The team's heading out Monday for that away series in Portland. Coach wants us there early to adjust to the time zone and get some practice in at their facility."
I felt something tighten in my chest, an unexpected flutter of anxiety that caught me off guard.
"How long?" I asked, keeping my voice level.