While I could hold her and comfort her and kiss her.
"Emma said something to me," she said.
"What did Emma say?" I asked.
"She said something that made me think you might've gone to see your mom?" she asked.
"How about this? We make tonight about you, and then tomorrow over breakfast in bed, we'll talk about me."
"Promise?" she asked.
"I promise. Sarah?"
"Yeah?"
"Have you ever told anyone this? Besides Emma, that is. About your son," I said.
"No. This is the first time I've ever told anyone besides her. Honestly, it's the only time I ever wanted to."
"Thank you for telling me," I said as I looked down at her. "It means a great deal that you let me in like that."
"Are you sure you don't want to talk about your mother?" she asked.
I wanted to make this moment all about her. Her emotions and how she was feeling. I wanted to hold her through everything and make her feel like I could be a safe place to fall. She was opening up in ways I could tell she never had before, but there was something deep inside that was yelling at me.
Yelling at me to tell her.
"Emma and I did go to see my mother," I said.
I watched her sit up as she turned her body fully toward me.
"What happened?" she asked.
"My mother has cancer," I said. "Battling it for the second time."
"Oh, Mason. I'm so sorry."
"She's withering away, and I don't know what to do about it."
"What happened when you got there?" she asked as she cupped my cheek.
"We talked. I found out so many things."
"Like what?" she asked.
"She left because she was unhappy. Apparently, my father and she started having problems. Problems he didn't want to fix with therapy or anything like that. She didn't want to pull me out of school or yank me away from my friends, so she left me with my father, and they agreed to split everything fifty-fifty."
"Sounds like an impossibly hard decision for her," she said.
"She could only find a third-shift position working in a factory, which was why she never picked up the phone for me. She said she wrote me letters every morning and sent them off before she went to sleep, but I never fucking got any of them. Our guess is that my father was intercepting them and doing something with them."
"Have you called him?" she asked.
"I can't. Not right now. I'm still too … angry. I don't want any more anger in this situation. Just the truth," I said. "She admitted she could've done more. Sacrificed her sleep to come see me. Taken vacation time and taken us somewhere. But looking into your eyes and seeing the toll your sacrifice took on you, I can't-"
She leaned forward and kissed my lips softly as I tried to choke back tears of my own. My arms wrapped around her and pulled her close, rolling her on top of me as my face tucked right into the crook of her neck. I took in her scent as her lips traced over my skin, and I could feel my pent-up emotions bubbling to the top.
I began to sob into her skin as years and years of questions and anger came pouring forth, and all Sarah did was hold me until I was finished.
"Mason, I'm so proud of you. You went your entire life not knowing her. Now, you can get to know her. Stick around and spend time with her," she said.
"And you, too. I want to see you as much as I can," I said as our eyes connected again.
"You can see as much of me as you wish. There's just one question."
"What's that?" I asked.
"The media. Where do we go from here?"
"I don't give a shit about the media frenzy. All I want is to be with you. I just don't want you suffering any more losses to your fan base or the reputation of your show by being seen with me."
"I couldn't care less about any of that now if I wanted to," she said. "I'm tired of sneaking around. I want you to be able to hold my hand while we walk down the street. I want to be able to kiss you on the streets of the city I love most. I want you to visit me at work and have no one get upset. I want you to surprise me in my dressing room. I want us to be able to cruise with the top down in Dallas and not feel weird about it."
She smiled, and my entire world lit up like the sun. I cupped her cheek and brought her lips back to mine as her body sank between my legs. She tasted of sweat and love and adoration, and the moment she pressed her cheek to my chest, I could feel her heave a sigh of relief.
"I love you, Sarah," I said, "and we'll navigate this together."
"I couldn't think of anyone else I'd want to navigate this with," she said. "Except maybe Hugh Jackman."
"It's always Hugh Jackman," I said breathlessly. "What is it about that guy?"
"It's the Wolverine thing," she said. "The claws and the muscles and the fighting and the strength. Oh, and the body hair."
"You like his body hair?" I asked.
"It's manly! Don't shoot the messenger," she said.
"I don't think that phrase means what you think it means," I said, grinning.
"Well, anyway. There's your answer," she said as she snuggled deep into my body.
"I could grow body hair, you know," I said.
"Don't you dare change a thing about yourself," she said as she looked up at me. "I love you just the way you are."
We held each other all night as we slept the evening away. Our bodies kept finding one another's as we gravitated toward each other's heat, like two magnets desperately searching for their counterparts. I woke up with her softness beneath my fingers and her light snores landing in my ear, and as I looked at her, I saw the rest of my life etched in her relaxed features.
I was in love with Sarah Williams, and I wanted her by my side forever.
Epilogue
Sarah
One Year Later
"Come on, Sarah! Get up! I wanna go shopping!"
I groaned as I listened to Emma shout out into my apartment. She'd had a key to my place forever, but she rarely ever used it. We preferred her townhome because it snuck back into a cozy little place where the paparazzi could never find us. But this morning was different.
This morning, she was intent on ruining me.
"What time is it?" I asked.
"Ten in the morning. Get up. I've got you coffee. Throw on some deodorant and perfume and let's get going."
"Oh, no. I'm showering first," I said.
"No, you're not," she said as she thrust a cup of coffee into my hand. "Come on. You've got thirty minutes."
"I could shower in five," I said.
"We all know that's a boldfaced lie. Come on."
She dragged me out of the house thirty minutes later and tossed me into her car. I knew I promised her we'd spend the day together, but I figured the day wouldn't start until our usual time. Emma was never out of bed before eleven in the morning, so there was a part of me that was wondering what the fuck was going on.
"Come on. This store's got a sale going on," she said.
After a couple of stores and one more cup of coffee, I started to wake up. We dipped into jewelry stores and clothing stores. We went into a candle store and came out with headaches that prompted us to slip into a drug store. We stopped for lunch and had wonderful sandwiches before getting smoothies to go. Then we decided to pamper ourselves and get our feet done.
We threw all our bags into the trunk of her car and started for the salon.
"I haven't had this done in weeks," Emma said. "It feels so good."
"It always tickles when they start in on the loofah sponge," I said as my feet jumped.
"You've always been overly ticklish. Is that something my brother knows yet?" she asked.
"Yes," I said. "He does. I wonder who told him?"
Emma started giggling as the owner of the salon brought of glasses of wine.
"A complimentary glass for the heart of Dallas," she said.
In the past year, my career had taken off. They gave my show the lunchtime hour, and my ratings were higher than they'd ever been. I got to continue doing the hard-hitting interviews I wanted that educated Dallas, but I also got to throw my little spin on it as well. Emma would come in and co-host with me on occasion when she could pull away from her own job, and she was doing fantastic. Having two powerful women with headstrong opinions on the show bolstered the ratings, and I wanted to see if I could groom her to be my regular co-host one day.
And this time, I didn't have to worry about my host making out with my boyfriend.
"Emma, how are you feeling about the show?" I asked.
"Oh, I love doing that thing with you. I don't know how you do it every single day, but I can see why you love it."
"You wouldn't want to do it every day?" I asked.
"I mean, I'd have to quit my job obviously."