Pretend

Page 43

He paid no attention to the speed limit and it still felt like it took too long to get to Denver. By the time he ran through the doors of the hospital, he saw it had been less than an hour since the call.
He turned down the wrong hallway once before finally making his way to the ER waiting room. “I’m looking for my father, Ted Alexander. He—”
“Mase.”
Mason turned at the sound of Isaac’s voice. His ex pulled him into a hug that made Mason’s heart stop beating. “He’s okay?” What if something happened on the drive over?
“Yeah, they think so. We were in his office, talking about Boulder and Durango, when he went over. I wasn’t sure if it was heart attack or stroke but he’s been taking aspirin daily, so I gave him one—”
Mason pulled back. “He’s on an aspirin a day?” Which meant they worried about the fear of a heart attack. Which meant they’d been worried about health issues that Mason didn’t know about.
“Mase…”
“Christ, Isaac. How do you know more about my family than I do? What happened? How long has he been on them?”
“Not long, and it’s not a big deal. His doctor decided he needed to be on an aspirin. That’s all. They didn’t ask me to keep this from you. I guess they just figured since they only ordered him to take one pill a day, and to exercise, he didn’t think there was a reason to bring it up. We both would have done the same thing.”
But it was a big deal. The comment about his dad’s treadmill and the way his mom cooked the other day made more sense now. They’d worried about his health, and Mason had been too selfish to notice what was going on. He’d been too wrapped up in a past that shouldn’t matter to pay attention to the future. His bar had become more important than anything else. The pressure of the restaurants and Mason himself had to have played a role in his dad’s stress level. He left his family out to dry—the people who’d wanted him. Who’d chosen him. Who’d loved him.
It wasn’t a mistake he would make again.
***
Gavin checked his cell for what had to be the hundredth time today. He closed the bar a few minutes before. With his phone again not indicating any calls, he had nothing much to do except go home.
He’d called Mason once, without a reply. The silence made his gut weigh down like an anchor, but he couldn’t harass the man, either. He had to be dealing with a lot. All Gavin could do is hope everything was okay.
He slept fitfully all night. Thoughts of Mason, his parents and Gavin’s own blocked out much chance of him sleeping. It was an easy reminder how quickly life could change. It always took a major event to remind people of that.
Gavin had just been thinking about how good things were going—that they were looking up. They spent their days fucking, laughing and working. How much better could it get? One phone call later, he discovered Mason could have lost his father. And Gavin’s own dad hadn’t been healthy for a while. His mother, either, yet he hadn’t as much as called her since their fight.
Gavin rolled over just as the sun teased with coming morning. He reached for his cell off his bedside table and opened a text message. Everything okay?
A minute later his phone rang, Mason’s name on the screen. “Hey.”
Mason’s voice was all gravel when he responded with, “Hey.”
“Is he doing okay?”
Mason sighed and Gavin imagined him rubbing a hand over his face in frustration.
“Yeah, he seems to be. He’s awake. They’ve been worried about his heart, Gav. Told him to take aspirin and exercise and to lower stress, and the whole time I’ve kept my fucking distance like a goddamned child and left the business up to him and Isaac.”
He heard the pain in Mason’s voice. Understood it because he would feel the same, yet, “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. Even if you had, some things are out of our control. You were hurt. You dealt with it the only way you knew how.”
He could have sworn he heard Mason say, I didn’t deal with it at all, but when he asked Mason to repeat it, the man only said, “Never mind.”
“You didn’t have any problems at the bar last night, right? We get those random busy weeknights from time to time. And the front door, it sticks sometimes, and feels like it’s locked when it’s not. Did you check it?”
Why was he not surprised that’s where Mason’s mind would go? Sex and the bar were the two things he thought about the most. “It’s fine. I have it under control. You worry about your dad. I’m here. Whatever you need, I’ll help.” He was sincere about that. Mason meant a lot to him, and he wanted to be there for the man.