Sam Knight
The sound of my brother's voice calling out to me caused me to spring awake. I pulled myself from Mason and sat up in complete shock. Jonah stared at me with a look of confusion and embarrassment. My mouth parted, not knowing what to say.
"Um," I uttered, looking down at Mason who had pulled the covers over his head.
"I'll give you a minute," Jonah said, moving to leave my bedroom. "But I'd like to talk to you, Sam."
I nodded, not able to look him in the eye. Jonah left the room and tightly shut my door. As soon as he was gone, I buried my face in my hands and Mason threw the covers off, sitting up to stare at me.
"What the fuck," Mason said exasperatedly, looking stressed out as his hands held his head between them.
"I know," I muttered. "I have no idea what I'm going to say to him." I shook my head, looking down at the scrunched up blanket in my lap.
Mason brought his hand to mine, pulling it down from my face and into his lap. He rubbed his thumb on the top of my hand comfortingly. I looked down at our hands and then back up at his face.
"It'll be fine," Mason assured me. "It's embarrassing as fuck, but it'll be fine."
I laughed and nodded in agreement before looking toward the door and letting out a sigh.
"I should probably go talk to him," I said, getting up from the bed in search for my discarded clothes. Mason sat up, the blanket pooled over his hips.
I pulled on my boxers and some sweats along with the white t-shirt I was wearing the night before, then left the room to find Jonah downstairs at the kitchen table with two cups of coffee in front of him. Wordlessly, I sat down across from him and took a cup in my hands, the heat burning my skin.
"So," Jonah started, taking a sip of his coffee. "Is... is Mason the one you were talking about?"
"What?" I asked.
"When you said you like someone, you were talking about Mason, weren't you?" Jonah repeated. I didn't even notice myself start nodding until Jonah mirrored my action.
"I know it's weird–" I started.
Jonah shook his head. "It's not weird," he cut me off.
I gave him a look of disbelief.
"It's unexpected," Jonah said. "Not weird."
I thought for a moment before saying anything. I didn't know how I expected Jonah to react to seeing me with a guy and I didn't know how I felt about his reaction. He was obviously uncomfortable. I could tell by his stiff stature and the firm grip he had on his coffee cup, but his face was oddly calm and casual.
"So, are you two together?" Jonah asked, sounding genuinely interested.
I smiled slightly down at my coffee. "Yeah, I think so."
"You think so?"
"I asked him to be with me, but we haven't put a title on it," I explained, looking up at my brother.
Jonah nodded. "You don't need a title, being together is enough."
"Yeah, I guess so," I answered, taking a sip of coffee, the steaming liquid nearly burning my throat.
"I'm happy for you," Jonah said, surprising me.
"You are?" I asked, astonished.
Jonah let out a loud laugh, throwing his head back. "Of course, I'm happy for you! You make it sound like I've never been happy for you in my life."
I chuckled lightly. "I just didn't think you'd want your brother to be gay or whatever I am. I don't even know."
His face contorted into a serious expression. "I don't care what you are, Sam, as long as you're happy."
It was new for Jonah and me to be having heart-to-heart conversations. The two of us usually only discussed football and had random small talk, so to have him be interested in my life and my happiness was a bit overwhelming. It wasn't a bad thing, it was just different. Neither of us were very sappy guys so this was probably the closest thing I would get to an "I love you" from him. I would take it.
"You know," he said after a few moments of silence. "If you two are going to be together, you're going to have to tell him about Mom."
I groaned, looking down at the table. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to Mason about my mother.
"I doubt it's a deal breaker for him, but you should be honest with him," Jonah told me in a serious tone. I liked to call it his dad voice.
"I will," I said. "Just not yet."
Jonah gave me a serious look, but didn't press the matter any further.
"We need to leave in half an hour," Jonah said, standing up from the table with his empty coffee cup.
I nodded and stood up with him, turning to leave the kitchen and go back to my room. When I entered my bedroom, Mason was pacing around the room in my flannel from last night and his boxers, talking angrily on the phone with who I could only assume was his brother.
Mason looked up at me as he answered Nathan. "Oh my God, chill out. I'll be home soon."
I sat on my bed, patting the spot next to me for Mason to take. He sat down and rested his head on my shoulder while I wrapped an arm around him.
"I'm telling you I'll be home soon," Mason argued into the phone. "I don't know! Like, within an hour maybe."
I could faintly hear Nathan's angry voice as he chastised his twin.
"Okay, I'm hanging up," Mason said before doing what he promised.
He sighed heavily and brought himself closer to me.
"How was your talk with Jonah?" he asked.
"Fine, he's cool," I answered, not wanting to get into the details. "Was that Nathan on the phone?"
"Yeah, he was freaking out because I left last night without telling him and then he went home this morning and I wasn't there," Mason explained. "He can act like my dad sometimes."
I laughed, holding him tighter. "So can Jonah."
Mason laughed with me before the two of us lapsed in silence for a few moments.
"I have to get going," I told him, causing him to pick his head up from my shoulder.
"You're the type to leave the morning after?" Mason asked teasingly.
I smirked and shoved his shoulder. "Fuck off."
Mason stood up, a smirk on his face. "Just saying, that's not very gentleman-like."
"You're annoying," I responded as he bent down to pick up his jeans from the night before.
He quickly pulled them on. "So are you, yet I still hang around with you."
"Oh please," I said, walking to him and placing my hand on his hip. "You think I'm charming."
"No," Mason said, point his finger at my chest and pushing me. "You think you're charming. The rest of the world knows you're annoying."
"You didn't think that last night," I teased with a smirk.
"Oh no, I did," he assured me. "You just also happen to be extremely sexy and that's hard to ignore."
I threw my head back and let out a loud laugh as Mason copied my actions. I moved away from him to change into jeans and a sweatshirt before the two of us went downstairs where Jonah and Mae were waiting for me in the living room.
"Hi, Mason," Mae greeted him with a hug. "I didn't know you were here."
I looked to Jonah, surprised he hadn't told Mae about what happened this morning.
"Mae," I called out as she released Mason. Everyone turned to me. "Mason is my boyfriend."
Mason smiled widely at me while Mae's mouth hung open in shock. She was silent for a few moments as if wondering if she heard me correctly. When I nodded at her, her shocked face turned to one of excitement.
"That's..." she started. "That's great! Is he coming with us today?"
"No," I quickly answered. "We are just going to drop him off at home."
The four of us got into Jonah's car and he started driving toward Mason's house with my directions.
"Nathan can't see you drop me off," Mason reminded me in a whisper.
"He won't recognize the car," I said, trying to calm him.
Mason contemplated for a moment before nodding.
"Where are you going today?" Mason asked the question I had hoped he wouldn't.
I sighed. "It's just a family thing. Don't worry about it."
He didn't look convinced but didn't say anything else. Eventually, we pulled up to his house and Mason was quick to try and get out of the car. Before he could leave, I grabbed him and pulled him in for a kiss.
"I'll see you later," I said, pulling away from him.
"Yeah..." he said. "Thanks for the ride."
And with that he scurried up his driveway and into his house before Jonah pulled away from the curb, luckily not being caught by Nathan.
"So, you and Mason, huh?" Mae teased, turning around in her seat and raising her eyebrows suggestively.
I rolled my eyes. "None of your business. We're not talking about it."
"We have an hour-long car ride to talk about it," she pointed out. "When did that even happen?"
"Last night," I answered.
"And you two had se–"
"Mae, I really don't want to hear about my brother's sex life," Jonah complained, cutting off his wife.
"But I'm so curious," she whined, facing him before turning back to me. "Anyway, Mason is super cute."
I chuckled and nodded in agreement. "He is."
Mae dropped the subject for the rest of the ride until we reached our destination.
"Are you going to tell her about Mason?" Mae asked as Jonah parked the car.
I thought about it for a moment before answering.
"Not yet."
***
Mason Maloney
"Where the hell have you been?" Nathan asked as soon as I walked in the door.
He stood against the doorway leading to the living room with his arms crossed as if he had been waiting for me to come home. He probably had been.
"I just stayed at a friend's house," I answered. "Stop freaking out."
"Don't tell me to stop freaking out!" he yelled. "I know you weren't with Ross or Pete so I had no idea where you went."
"I don't need to tell you everywhere I go!" I argued, trying to walk by him. Nathan caught me by the shoulder and held me in place.
"You can't just disappear like that," he said softly.
"You mean like how you disappear all the time and leave me stranded at work?" I shot back sarcastically, shrugging his hand off my shoulder.
"That's different," Nathan said.
"I'm failing to see how," I responded, crossing my arms over my chest.
"It's different because last night we were at a party with a bunch of drunk people," he started. "And a bunch of Knights were there. I didn't know if you got jumped by them or something."
Nathan's face showed concern which caused my annoyance to die down a bit. He was only worried about me, so I should probably stop being such an asshole about it.
"Sam took care of that, remember?" I reminded him.
Nathan rolled his eyes. "Excuse me for not completely trusting Sam Knight."
"He's not as bad as you think," I said before I could stop myself. The last thing I needed was for Nathan to get suspicious. God only knows what he would do if he found out about Sam and me. I don't think I would make it out of this house alive if he were to find out.
"Whatever, just don't disappear on me again," Nathan said.
"And you do the same," I said with my eyebrows raised.
Nathan rolled his eyes again. "Fine, whatever."
I tried to walk by Nathan, but he stopped me again. I gave him an annoyed, questioning look.
"So who were you with last night?" he asked. "Were you with your man?"
I scoffed, pushing past Nathan to make my way up to my room to which he followed me close to my heels. Once I arrived at my room, I tried to shut the door as quickly as possible to keep Nathan out, but he pushed his way through and took a seat on my bed.
"I don't remember inviting you in here," I said in an annoyed tone, standing in front of Nathan where he sat.
"You have an open-door policy," he reminded me with his eyebrows raised.
"Not for when you're going to just ask me questions that I'm not going to answer," I replied, gesturing toward the door to try and get him to leave.
Nathan rolled his eyes. "I just want to know if you were with your guy."
"None of your business," I said, sitting beside him on the bed.
"I'm going to take that as a yes," he warned, a slight smirk on his face.
"Take it how you want," I told him casually.
"Did you get lucky?" Nathan asked teasingly.
"Shut up," I muttered, lying back on my bed.
"I'm taking that as a yes too," he said, looking down at me.
"I don't care," I said.
The truth of the matter was Nathan would believe whatever he wanted, regardless of what I told him. There was no point in trying to convince him otherwise, although he was right in assuming I "got lucky."
"I bet you have a ton of hickeys on your chest like last time," Nathan joked teasingly, letting out a chuckle.
I sat up, giving him a deadpanned look before crossing my arms over my chest.
"I'm done talking to you," I said, leaning over to grab my copy of Pride and Prejudice.
Nathan took the book from me and flipped through the pages, shaking his head.
"I should've known you were gay when I saw the amount of girly books you read," he said, looking at the back cover.
I snatched the book from his hands. "Being able to read past a fifth grade level is not an indicator of being gay."
Nathan shot me an annoyed look, his eyes slightly squinted. "You're hilarious," he said sarcastically, standing up from my bed.
I sent him a questioning look as he made his way to my door to exit the room.
"I'm leaving," he said as he reached the door.
"Where are you going?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Nathan looked at me with an expression of annoyance, tilting his head slightly to the side.
"Are you really going to start this?" he asked as if in disbelief.
"You're the one that started it when you flipped out at me for disappearing," I pointed out. "Where are you going?"
He rolled his eyes and leaned against the doorway. "I'm hanging out with Rick and Hayden," he answered.
"No Tony?"
"He's going to have such a bad hangover, I would be surprised to see him functioning by Monday," Nathan said before leaving my room and tightly shutting the door.
Instead of dwelling on my conversation with Nathan, I opened my book and quickly got lost in Jane Austen's words.
**
Hi everyone! Sorry this update is a little later than usual!
Thanks for all of the reads, comments, and votes!
What did you think about Jonah's reaction? Any theories about where Sam and his family went afterwards?
Let me know what you think!