Page 70 of The Golden Hour

The answer comes immediately.

No.

He cannot waste any more time. Not a single second. Life is too precious and too short, and he wants to spend every second he can with his wife and daughter. But to do that, he needs to choose them. He needs to move.

He sits down in the chair beside Honey, keeping one hand on Daisy’s bassinet, the other resting on the bed only millimeters from Honey’s hand.

He can protect her.

He can protect them.

And as he watches over his girls, Mason puts a plan together.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MASON

Mason places his cellphone back in his pocket, anticipation rushing through his veins the closer the time gets to seven. This is when the first of HR will trickle in. They’ll walk in with a coffee and a bagel, with hopes of an easy day, and he plans to catch them before they can even sit down at their desks.

He hasn’t slept. His body’s been wired ever since last night.

When Honey had said she was cold, it was like a lightbulb moment.

I can fix that.

Something to do. Some way that he can ease his wife’s discomfort. Finally some way he can help her, because what he’s been doing for Daisy is fatherhood, equal partnership. It is caring for his daughter, and it is the absolute bare minimum of what Daisy deserves from the man whose blood runs through her tiny body.

He’s doing all he can for their daughter, but he wants to help Honey specifically. He wants to do something that makes her feel cared for, seen, and appreciated.

There’s a Wawa right across the street, so he sprinted across the street and picked up some of Honey’s favorite snacks—Tastykake Coffee Cakes, gummy bears, a big chocolate bar, and a bag of Chex Mix.

Then he ran toward his car, parked in the garage, where he grabbed the blanket from Ellen out of the backseat. His spirit was so high when he walked back into that room, thinking he was doing something good, only to see Honey’s glistening, angry eyes.

He felt himself almost sink to the floor when she asked if he had an affair.

Because he had curated an image of himself with his actions, and lack thereof, that Honey could actually believe he would do that. Because, as Ellen said, certain things, from certain angles, can create a narrative, and the narrative was that he was unhappy at home and spending time at the hospital to escape. This place had more of him than Honey did.

So while Dr. Lewis is fucking vile for coming into his wife’s hospital room to imply something, Mason is the one at fault for fostering and enabling the conditions that made her words land. He is the one who did not report her sooner. He is the one who let people at this hospital believe that his marriage was some distant, theoretical part of him instead of the center of his entire fucking life.

He needs to fix it, and he spent all night, one hand on Daisy, eyes on Honey sleeping, planning how to do so.

Melissa shows up at a quarter of seven, and he’s not entirely sure how she managed it, since visiting hours aren’t until eight. Melissa Hayes has a very "move, or you will be moved" energy about her, especially when it comes to her only child.

She walks into the room quietly, a duffel bag over her shoulder and a Wawa coffee in her other hand. There is a small smile on her face when she looks at Honey and Daisy, but it drops the second she looks at him.

Her brows pinch and her eyes narrow.

Guess he’s not hiding his anger very well.

“What happened?” she whispers.

With one last lingering look at his sleeping girls, Mason stands and gestures for Melissa to follow him out of the room. As soon as they are outside, with the door pulled almost all the way closed behind them, he explains what happened and watches as Melissa’s face twists into rage.

“Your little mistress approached my daughter?” Melissa hisses.

His whole body experiences a physical reaction to her angry words, like she just sucker punched him right in the gut. All the wind gets knocked out of him, and he has to take a few deep, painful breaths to be able to speak.

“She’s not my mistress,” Mason says firmly, mouth curling in disgust. “I would never⁠⁠—”