Open Case File [COMPLETED]

Mason's Wedding

So I started this chapter when I was feeling well and finished it was I wasn't, so we'll see how the quality of it turns out. I hope you can still enjoy it.

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"You nervous?" Link asked.

Mason met Link's gaze in the reflection of the mirror as he casually straightened his shirt cuffs.

"Do I look nervous?" Mason asked.

Link eyed his brother and slowly shook his head.

"No, which is weird to me."

Mason's calm was a lie. But it was a lie only he knew about. Having grown up under a politician he knew how to present a front to the world that hid his emotions. He felt grateful because he didn't want to show Link how inside he fought the urge to find the nearest window, leap from it and run away.

After all, he was about to marry a girl who knew all the rough sides of him and still loved him. It didn't make sense. He'd known himself for twenty-three years and even he didn't love all of himself. How could she?

"Don't worry," Mason said, grinning at Link. "You won't have to give me a pep talk."

"I had one all written out too."

Mason raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

"No, I didn't think you'd need one. You're always in control."

Mason chuckled and fixed his cuffs again because he was about to marry the girl who made him not feel in control. Was he an idiot? Possibly.

A quick knock came on the door and one of the assistants to the wedding coordinator stuck his head inside the room.

"Mason, your mother wanted to say hi," he said.

"I'll be right out." Mason clapped a hand on Link's shoulder. "Make sure they don't break anything."

With that comment, Link looked to the other groomsmen. They were laughing and already passing around drinks. Yvette had needed seven of them to match her amount of bridesmaids. They were all friends of Mason's, but they were those type of friends he wasn't sure that they were friends because they liked each other or because they'd known each for their whole lives.

As he stepped out of the side room of the church, Mason spotted his mother waiting in a quiet hall lined with arched windows. She was the type of woman who would have looked like the First Lady even if she had never been one: tall, beautiful, confident, compassionate. When she saw Mason, she smiled.

"Hello, darling," she said, hugging him.

She smelled of French perfume. Mason pulled back and glanced over her shoulder. His mother smiled and straightened his tie.

"No, your father didn't come with me," she said. "But he is here."

With a huff, Mason turned away from his mother, staring out a window onto the reception tent.

"Does he know that I didn't invite him but Yvette did," he said.

His mother let out a low sigh, tilting her head. "Mason, when are you going to forgive your father?"

"I was thinking on his deathbed," he said. "There's a certain poetry in that, don't you think?"

For a long moment, his mother simply studied him.

"Do you know why I forgave him?"

"To be honest, I don't. I find the fact that you did to be your one flaw."