Restraint (Mason Family 1)

Walker’s eyes slide over me and land squarely on Holt.

Holt doesn’t budge. He doesn’t flinch. He squares his shoulders to my brother.

“That’s my sister,” Walker tells him. “She’s the only one I have. If you do anything stupid—even a little bit, I will take your body apart piece by piece. Got it?”

“Walker!” I say as Sienna shoves her elbow into his ribs.

He doesn’t flinch.

I look up at Holt to see his reaction. He takes a long, deep breath and blows it out slowly.

“I absolutely understand,” Holt says as if this mountain of a man didn’t just threaten to murder him. “My brothers and I say the same thing to the guys our little cousin, Riss, dates. Better to put them on notice early on. It might stop stupidity down the line.”

Walker nods. “You get it then.”

“Oh, yes. I get it. We’re on the same page.” Holt looks at Sienna, still cool as a cucumber. “Do you guys want to come in and sit down?”

Please say no. Please say no. Please say no.

“We’re actually heading to pick up some fabric from the fabric shop downtown,” Sienna says. “We just wanted to swing by and check on you, Blaire.”

“I’m fine.”

She smiles. “Okay. Well, Walker, let’s get out of here so Blaire and Holt can—.”

“All right. I got it,” he says before she can complete her line of thought.

It makes me laugh. “I love you, Walk.”

“Love ya, too.”

“And thanks for coming by, Sienna. And for … everything,” I say, pulling her into a quick hug. Because apparently, I’m a hugger now.

“You know it. That’s why I’m here.” She releases me. “Holt, it was good to see you.”

“Likewise, Sienna. Be safe, you guys.”

“Call me,” Walker says to me before firing one last warning glance at Holt.

They slip out the door, and Holt wastes no time locking it behind them. He spins around to face me.

“That was fun,” he deadpans.

“He will ease up. I’m his only sister.”

“I hope he never eases up.”

“Really? Why? Because he’s a little much.”

Holt grins. “Well, for one, he’s a very large man. I’m certain that no one will fuck with you if he’s around.”

My laugh is loud and free. It fills my apartment in a way my laughter never has in the four years I’ve lived in this building.

Holt pulls me onto the couch and across his lap. His hands lock together at my hip. He holds me tight as if I might get up and dart out the door.

Again.

I reach up and touch the side of his face.

“We need to talk about what this looks like,” he says. “There are a lot of moving parts that we don’t know.”

“I know.”

Fear flickers in my gut. I don’t know what he’s expecting.

I think about my life and what it is and what I want it to be. I’ve worked really hard to get to where I am in my firm, and I’m not ready to give that up. Not even for him. Not yet.

His stubble is rough and bites against my fingers. I wonder if he forgot to shave this morning or didn’t bother. Did he stay awake all night like me? Or was he able to find sleep despite the circumstances?

I’ll never know. And I don’t want to ask because it just reminds me of the pain of not being with him.

He grins at me softly.

It’s good to remember your sources of pain. I know that from my life experiences. It’s just as important to give yourself grace and allow yourself the peace to move on. And right now, moving on is just as much about me and my growth independent of Holt as it is about our life together.

“My life is here,” I tell him.

“And my life is in Savannah.”

“What does that mean for us?”

I look around my cramped apartment and think about the stinky office twenty floors above. The city smells like sewage in the summer and is bitterly cold in the winters.

But my family lives not too far away in the sleepy town of Linton. And Yancy, someone who has tried to be my friend for two years comes in the office despite my cantankerous attitude, shows up for me every day.

There are things here that I’m not ready to part with. Maybe someday, but not yet. I have to finish this chapter of my life before I start a new one. The end has not been written.

“I’m not ready to leave Chicago,” I admit.

He doesn’t miss a beat. He bends forward and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Okay. We will figure it out.”

“You don’t expect me to move to Savannah?”

“I mean, at some point in our lives, I hope you do,” he says. “Or I’ll have to move to Illinois, but it’s fucking cold here. We need to consider that.”

I grin.

“But, yeah, we will have to live in the same place to grow old together,” he says. “And if we want to make babies.”