Page 296 of Tell Me I'm Enough

“Don’t bother coming home this summer. You aren’t welcome here. Nor will you be seeing Easton or Asher.”

The reality of that hits—hard.

I still don’t back down, though. I can’t, no matter what he tries to use.

“You can cut me off,” I say. “You can take everything away. I don’t care. Just leave the boys out of it.”

“No.”

My chest tightens. The thought of losing them feels worse than anything else he could take.

“That’s the choice you’re making,”he continues.“You don’t get to see them.”

My pulse spikes, anger taking over my nerves.

“Don’t do that,” I say, voice low.

“You think I won’t?”

“I know you will. You’re spiteful and evil. But…” I pause, searching for any kind of leverage here, “don’t think I won’t shout all your little dirty secrets from the rooftop if you try to.”

He scoffs.“You don’t have shit on me, Mason.”

“How about the bruises I have pictures of on my phone from the boys? How about everyone finding out the kind of man you really are?” The silence stretches, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. “I’ll burn your perfect image to the ground if you try to keep them from me. You think I’m bluffing? Try to keep me from them. I’ll hit you every place it hurts, especially your image. And I’ve made it perfectly clear to every single one of your nannies and housekeepers and even fucking Henry that if you lay a finger on one of those boys again, they let me know.”

“Whatever,”he mutters finally.“You can see them…but only when we’re out of town. I don’t want to see your face ever again.”

“Back at you,” I say. “And at least that means I’ll get to see them a lot. Seeing as you’re never home anyway.”

The line goes dead. He doesn’t even say goodbye. He never does.

I sit there for a second.

Then I realize how bad my hands are shaking. Not from the alcohol, but from adrenaline, from grief, from the fact that I just blew up my entire safety net in life.

After sitting there for what feels like forever, trying to force myself not to grab another bottle, I grab my phone from the bed instead.

After telling Bash everything about the conversation with my dad, he lets out a sigh, like he’s proud of me, but also…sad.

“What are you gonna do for the summer?”he asks, genuinely concerned.

“I have no idea. Honestly, I didn’t think anything through. I’m so stupid.”

There’s silence on his side for a while, like he’s thinking. He’s always thinking, always trying to figure out how to help, even when it’s not his job to.

“Come stay with me,”he says, catching me off guard.

“What?”

“We’ve got an empty room. It’s only a couple of hours from campus. Easy to come back for football. Easy to figure stuff out.”

“No. No, I can’t. I don’t want to intrude.”

“You wouldn’t,”he says firmly.“I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want you to take me up on it. Now, seriously—just say you will.”

I let out a weak laugh. “You just wanna play sleepover with me.”

“Shut up.”