by Jacie Lennon
“You know what I mean. I can’t believe he wouldn’t even say hello to you. Especially after last night.”
“I do vaguely remember making that agreement with him,” I say thoughtfully.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. You were both under the influence and could’ve said anything. Proper etiquette insists that he should at least acknowledge your existence.”
“Proper etiquette? When did you start living in the 1800s?” I laugh, trying to break up the tense feeling inside me.
“Oh God. I sound like my mother,” Hanna says, slapping a hand over her mouth.
“Oh well. I’m leaving in a few days, and I won’t ever have to see him again. Our agreement will stay intact.” I roll my eyes, and I watch as Hanna’s eyes dart over my shoulder and narrow into a glare. “Quit looking at him,” I mutter, my cheeks burning. I’m glad I’m not the one facing his table.
Our food arrives, and we busy ourselves with stuffing bacon, sausage, eggs, and pancakes in as quickly as we can eat them. I didn’t realize how famished I was until the smell of delicious food hit my nose. As soon as we are done, we request the check, eager to go shopping and enjoy our day.
“That gentleman over there has taken care of it,” our waitress says, pointing behind me.
Hanna’s looks back over my shoulder, and her eyes widen.
“Of all the nerve,” she says, standing up and grabbing her purse. Her long blonde ponytail swings over her shoulder with the motion.
As she goes to walk past me, I grab her arm, my pulse jumping in my throat.
“Don’t make a scene,” I hiss.
“He winked at me,” she hisses back. “We don’t need his generosity. Especially after how he treated you.”
“He didn’t treat me bad. He was just faking the whole thing, and I felt like a fool. I mean, he was nice to me before the whole night blew up in our faces … but that was probably just to get in my pants.”
“Well, no one treats my bestie like a fool and gets away with it. Come on.” She stalks over to the table Mason is sitting at.
I couldn’t tell earlier, but now that I’m closer, I can see he’s sitting with an older man.
“Mason Porter, what do you think you are doing?” she says to him.
I stop awkwardly beside Hanna. She’s a force to be reckoned with right now.
“Hanna, may I introduce you to my father?” Mason says, a smirk on his face.
She stops glaring at Mason and turns to smile at the other man.
“Hello, I’m Hanna. My husband is a coworker of your son’s.” She holds out her hand, which the man shakes.
“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Nickoli, but you can call me Nick,” he says warmly before turning to me. “And you are?”
“Hi. Jules. Friend of Hanna’s and mortal enemies with your son,” I joke.
A smile quirks up on the side of Nick’s mouth.
“Wait a minute.” Hanna stops. “Nickoli? As in Nickoli’s Bistro?” She motions to the restaurant around us.
“The one and only,” Mason says, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair with his smirk still in place.
“Your dad owns this restaurant?” Hanna asks Mason, her eyes widening.
“We just established that, yes,” he says.
“So, were you just trying to look good in front of him by paying for our meal?” Hanna crosses her arms over her chest.
“Uh, no. I didn’t buy your meal,” he says while laughing.
Hanna turns to me, and I give her a confused look. I know the waitress pointed at his table. So, if Mason didn’t buy it …
“I did. It seemed like my son was a friend of yours.”
We turn at the sound of Nick’s voice. Then, Mason takes it one step further by continuing the conversation.
“Why would you think I’d buy you and your rude friend a meal?” Mason asks, the mirth evident in his eyes.
“Excuse me? Rude friend?” I say. I feel my face burning at the way he’s flippantly talking to us.
“You heard me,” he says without looking my way.
“Hello?” I wave my hand in front of his face. “I’m over here.”
“Just trying not to anger you by talking directly to you.”
“Don’t you think you are taking this a little too far?” My face is fully on fire by this point, and I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.
“Not at all.”
This is getting ridiculous.
“What exactly is going on between you two?” Nick asks, quirking an eyebrow up.
“Nothing,” Mason and I say together before glaring at each other.
I vaguely notice Nick motioning to someone behind me as Mason and I have our stare-off.
“I see. I hope you ladies won’t let my son’s behavior stop you from coming back to eat here,” he says while shooting a glare at Mason across the table.
“Not at all. We love your food.” Hanna gives him a tight smile before grabbing my arm and squeezing it in a warning to quit my murderous gaze.
“Thank you for the meal, Nick. It was a pleasure to meet you.” I turn my sweetest smile to Mason’s dad.
“The pleasure is all mine,” he says, returning my smile.
We make a quick exit, neither of us breathing until we are back in Hanna’s car.
“Ugh. I can’t stand him. Can you believe he called me rude? He’s the rude one.” My breath is coming out fast, causing my heart to race. I have never before had such confusing and angry feelings coursing through me after knowing someone for a short amount of time.
“I plan to have a long talk with Ezra about the company he keeps. I can’t believe he’s friends with that guy.”
“Am I blowing this out of proportion?” I glance at Hanna, feeling foolish.
“No. I know Mason, and he only agreed to hang out with you because of his selfish motives. I can’t believe he thought it was okay to move in on a woman at a vulnerable time in her life.” Hanna huffs and pounds on the steering wheel to punctuate her sentence.
“Well, it’s over now.” My pulse starts to return to normal.
I try to act natural to show Hanna that it isn’t affecting me like it is.
What have I done to anger the Karma gods? First, my fiancé treated me like shit and cheated on me, and then the first guy I found attractive and flirted with has turned out to be a bigger douche than my ex.
“Let’s go shopping,” I say to Hanna, trying to paste a grin on my face but it feels more like a grimace.
“A little retail therapy never hurt anyone,” Hanna says, pulling out her card with a devilish smirk.
7
Mason
“Care to explain why you were harassing two of my customers?” my dad asks as soon as Hanna and Jules leave.
The waitress, Kristen, brings two to-go boxes over and sets them on the table.
“Not really. It’s all just a misunderstanding.” I shrug, hoping he drops it.
“If I know you—and I do—misunderstanding might be too light of a word,” he says, raising his eyebrows.
“I wasn’t harassing them. I was trying to do a good deed, and it got turned into a bad deed. Now, here we are. Two women mad at me and a coworker mad at me because his wife is mad when it was the coworker’s fault in the first place.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t,” I say with a sigh.
“No, I don’t at all.” Dad laughs. “But I do know you are going to run those two pies out to them before they leave. You’d better hurry.”
He pins me with a dad look, and I stand to my feet, the anger burning through me at being treated like a child.
“I’m not a child.”
“Then, quit acting like one. The tension between all of you is thick enough to cut with a knife. Go bury the hatchet.”
I traipse outside, hoping they already left but my luck isn’t that good. They are sitting in a parking spot in the front, both staring daggers at me through the windshield. I raise my hand in an awkward wa
ve and hold the boxes up. Neither of them moves, and I roll my eyes, contemplating doing an about-face and walking back inside.
“Quit acting like one.” Dad’s voice comes back to me.
As much as I hate to admit it, I am acting like a child. I should be able to let this go. An attractive woman bruised my ego, and I can’t seem to get over it. I take a deep breath and walk to Jules’s window, tapping lightly as she peers at me from inside. My stomach is in knots, and I’m not sure why.
Why do I care what she thinks of me?
“Yes?” Jules asks, rolling down the window, a frown on her face.
“Hey, Dad sent pie.” I stick the boxes through the window and then stuff my sweaty hands in my pockets to covertly wipe them off.
I feel like a teenager, nervous around a pretty girl, and the weird thing is, I’ve never been that way. I’ve always been able to just go for what I want. But there’s something about Jules that throws me off. Maybe it’s the utter loathing in her eyes.
“Thanks,” Hanna says, leaning over to take the boxes.
“Hey, can I talk to you for a moment?” I ask Jules.
We have another stare-off before she relents and reaches to open the door, slightly pushing it and waiting for me to back up.
“What?” she asks as soon as she shuts the door, crossing her arms and cocking a hip against the car.
“Yeah, uh …” I trail off, rubbing the back of my neck before dropping my hand and flexing my fingers. “Do you want to put this behind us? I mean, we are going to see each other a lot between having married friends, and maybe it’s a good idea to bury the hatchet and drop this whole fighting thing we’ve got going on.”
“Are we fighting? I thought you were ignoring me,” Jules says, her lips turning down at the corners.
Fuck me. Those lips. I stare for a moment before realizing she’s expecting me to answer.
“I thought it’s what you wanted.”
“You thought? Maybe you should quit thinking.” She tilts her head to the side as she keeps her gaze pinned to my face.
“Maybe you should calm down for a second. I’m trying to apologize.”
“Is that what you were doing? I haven’t once heard the words I’m sorry come out of your mouth.”
“I’m not really that sorry for anything. I just want to put it behind us.”
“If you don’t think there’s anything to be sorry about, then there’s your answer. This won’t ever be behind us.”
She’s furious with me, and the way her cheeks are red while she talks intrigues me. God, this is like foreplay. A twisted, messed up kind of foreplay, but I start to imagine pushing her up against the car, my mouth on hers, my hands on her hips … pulling her onto my thick erection—
“Mason? Are you even listening to me?”
I wasn’t, but I’m not telling her that. I adjust my stance, trying not to draw attention to how my pants have become a little tighter.
“You know what your problem is? You have way too much tension, and I think you need to work it out before you explode,” I tell her with a grin. I’m getting off on this banter. She stands there, sputtering, and before she can say anything, I lean in and whisper, “I’m available anytime … and you won’t be disappointed.”
I draw myself back. Her whole face is red at this point, but part of me suspects that it’s more of a blush than anger. I walk off before she can punch me in the face. I stop inside the bistro door out of sight before I dare to look back. Jules is still standing against the car, staring straight ahead before Hanna rolls the window down, causing her to jump. I laugh. Good to know I got to her.
“Pies are delivered,” I tell Dad as soon as I sit back down.
“Did you apologize?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Sure did, Dad.” I stress the word like a child would say.
“Look, I know you aren’t a little kid anymore, but since you are grown, shouldn’t you have your shit together?” Dad asks, leaning forward to snatch a fry off my plate.
“I do have my shit together.” I scowl at him for stealing my food and for saying that I don’t have my life together.
“Do you? You work, and when you aren’t working, you are alone or chasing a woman for the night. Don’t you think it’s about time you got serious?”
“Nah. I don’t want to be serious with anyone. I enjoy playing the field. It’s never boring.”
“The right woman won’t be boring.”
“It’s the thrill of the chase, Dad. Once it’s over, there are no more thrills. Time to move on after that.” My mouth suddenly dries at the turn in the conversation, and I gulp down my Coke.
“Sounds like an empty existence,” Dad mutters, pulling his phone out and scrolling through the news app.
It’s not an empty existence. I enjoy my life. The freedom and the excitement of not having to wake up to the same face every single day. I don’t have to do holidays or buy gifts. I don’t have to discuss children or have my life altered in any way. I’m not empty. I’m living to my fullest potential. I work as a firefighter and a contractor. I make good money, and I don’t have to spend it on anyone but myself. No, I don’t want my life to change. I don’t need a woman to fulfill me. Sure, it’s fun to play around, but women expect something from relationships. Something I’m not sure I can deliver. Relationships generally bring marriage and then kids, and I don’t want either. I don’t want an opportunity to mess up a child like my mother messed me up.
“So, you are truly happy with going home to Debra every night?” I ask, curious as to how his life with my stepmom—and only her—is fulfilling. It seems boring to me.
“I am. It’s a deeper connection than you can find in one night,” he says.
I watch as he licks some ketchup off his finger, and I grimace.
“What?”
“That’s disgusting,” I say. “You don’t know what your fingers have touched.”
“What are you, a germaphobe?”
“No, I just don’t want to watch you suck on your fingers. It’s not a pretty sight.”
“Noted,” he says, looking me in the eyes as he licks the rest of it off his thumb. “Like I was saying, you’ve sowed your wild oats. It’s time to stop playing around.”
“Okay, Dad.” I roll my eyes.
I’m still young. I’ve got plenty of time to settle down if I ever want to.
“So, what’s the next business venture?” I ask.
I’m surprised when he claps his hands and rubs them back and forth, a smile quickly taking over his face. Dad is always on to the next big thing, whatever that might be.
“That’s precisely why I asked you here in the first place.”
“Oh? Well, I’m waiting.” I spread my hands out.
“I want to expand the bistro. It’s doing well, but it’s a big building, and I have room to put something else in. I wanted to ask your opinion as a contractor. What would you put in?” he asks.
I lean forward, steepling my hands. “Have you considered a small store? Make merchandise with your logo on it?”
“I don’t know that there is much demand for merchandise from the bistro,” Dad says.
“Never underestimate the power of a great T-shirt. People pay good money for them. And the bistro has become a strong tourist spot.”
Dad nods as I’m talking, his brow furrowing. I can tell he’s not sold on the idea.
“What about walling that section off?” I point to our right. “The large floor of the bistro could be sectioned off and tables moved where you have the main dining room and then a room for private parties.”
“Not a bad idea, son,” Dad says. Looking around, he waves our waitress over. “Bring me a piece of the cheesecake, chocolate sauce drizzled on top. You want anything?” he asks.
“No, I’m good. Thanks, Kristen,” I say to the waitress.
She smiles and walks to the dessert counter.
“I can call Tim, see if he has any ideas. You just let me know if you decide to
go ahead with something.” I check my watch, thinking about calling Tim, my co-contractor, to get the ball rolling. “I’ve got to go. I’m meeting Johnson at the gym.”
“Are you still coming over for dinner tonight? Debra has been looking forward to seeing you.”
He gives me a pointed look, and I sigh.
“Yes, I’ll be there,” I say reluctantly.
I love Debra. She’s been wonderful for my dad and a great stepmom to me, but I know that, going over there, I’ll only get hit with the same questions, and I’m tired of answering them.
Pulling into the gym parking lot, I grab my bag out of the truck and walk inside, hitting the locker room to change. I put my hand on the base of my neck and massage it while tilting my head to each side. I joked about Jules having tension, but the truth is, I’m full of it, too, and I can’t wait to let off some steam in the gym. I throw my stuff in a locker and meet Ben walking in as I’m coming out.
“Legs today?” he asks.
“It’s Saturday, isn’t it?” I wait as he puts his stuff in a locker, and then we head to the squat bar.
“Wild night last night, huh?” Johnson asks.
I roll my eyes.
Why does everyone want to talk about the debacle that was my night?
“Yep, pretty crazy,” I say with a shrug while helping him stack his weights.
“So, the girl,” he says with a grunt as he lowers into a squat.
“What about her?”
“Heard she gave you a run for your money.” He laughs as he places the bar back in the holder.
“More like she’s crazy, and I did well to get out while I could.” I get into position and hope that he can’t see through my nonchalant response.
I don’t think she’s crazy, but I don’t want Ben to know how much she intrigues me. I know she’s going through a breakup, and I’m kind of an asshole, so I don’t blame her for how she reacted. After a few reps, he decides this conversation is worth continuing.
“I think you’re just embarrassed that you finally got turned down, huh, pretty boy?”
“I think you’re just jealous that you don’t look like me,” I fire back. I hate it when the guys call me pretty boy. “Besides, I didn’t get turned down. She just took something the wrong way and went off on me. The end.”
