I rub my eyes and flop onto my bed. “I know, I know. I’m going out with him tomorrow and I think it’s best I tell him.”

Aiden sits down beside me and rubs my back. “It’s for the best, Thea. He deserves to know.”

Mason’s going to hate me. For not telling him. For destroying his vision of his perfect father. For ruining his family life. For my mom being the other woman. For everything. “How pissed at me do you think he’ll be?”

Aiden tilts my chin up to look at him. “He cares about you. I’m sure he’ll be upset for a bit, but he’ll get over it. He’d be much more upset finding out some other way, like your mom going to his house and announcing she’s pregnant.”

Could I even imagine that scenario? What would happen if my mom was pregnant? Would Mason’s dad embrace it? Leave his family? Would he say it wasn’t his? Would he want nothing to do with it?

Thank goodness we don’t have to find out, but it could happen down the line. And Mason needs to know before it ever gets to that point. I just hope I don’t lose one of my best friends.

“This is going to be the easiest free ice cream I’ve ever gotten,” Mason says as I miss the first shot at the third hole in mini-golf, again.

We’re at the only mini-golf place in town for our rematch. It’s glow in the dark and every couple of holes there’s a room with a different theme. The theme of the room we’re currently in is dinosaurs, and Mason’s white shirt glows neon blue under the black light.

“Hey, don’t get your hopes up yet,” I say, getting the ball straight in on the second shot.

My mind is off today. I don’t want to tell him right away—the plan is to have some fun with him first, then before we get out of the car to get our ice cream, I’ll break the news to him as gently as possible in private.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m already beating you by two shots, so maybe you should just call it quits right now.” He lines up his shot and misses.

“Looks like you’re only beating me by one now,” I tease, laughing even harder when he shoots me a face but misses his shot again.

We play a pretty evenly matched game, and by the time we’re almost done, I’m leading by three shots. It’s fun. We’ve been laughing nonstop, and I’m reminded how much fun Mason is to be around. I feel bad for avoiding him this whole time, and even worse that he might avoid me for a while after I tell him.

Mason pauses from taking his shot.

“Are you sure Aiden is okay with us hanging out alone together?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

Mason rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “This is the first time we’ve hung out alone together since, you know, my outburst about the two of you at the beach house.”