by Lili Valente
Sniffing the place where Mason’s shoulder meets his neck used to be enough to make me dizzy, to make my entire body ache with wanting him. And when he left, I slept with the tee shirt he’d left in my car after a trip to the lake for weeks, pathetically clinging to the smell of the boy who’d broken my heart.
Chapter Five
Lark
“So, where are we going?” I ask, clearing my throat as I push the troubling thoughts away.
I’m not going to think about how much I want—wanted—Mason or how much he hurt me. I’ll make polite conversation, catch up with a man who was once a good friend, and then go straight home—do not stop on the front stoop to say goodnight, do not make end-of-date mouth mistakes.
That’s what kissing Mason would be—a mouth mistake.
I decide to start calling it that, even in my own head. Whatever it takes to keep this evolution from bitter exes to casual friends on track.
“You’ll see,” Mason says, with a glance my way. “You look beautiful, by the way.”
“Thanks.” I smooth the skirt of my wrap-around jean dress down over my thighs, swallowing the “so do you” on the tip of my tongue. I don’t want to encourage Mason, and he hardly needs any assurance that he looks wonderful.
Even in a simple pair of dark blue jeans and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up to show his muscled forearms, he’s stunning.
It’s disgusting, really. I am repulsed by his flawless man beauty. Flaws are good. Flaws help to reassure the people we love that nobody’s perfect.
A person really ought to have a few flaws, just to be polite.
Sadly, however, other women do not share my perspective. When Mason parks the car at the east end of Main Street and walks around to get my door, all female heads in the vicinity turn to take him in. One pretty woman in a tight black sundress and high-heeled sandals actually stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk to give Mason a once over and drool into her basket full of farmer’s market goodies.
All the attention he attracts would be enough to intimidate me if this were a real date. Or if I hadn’t gotten used to the effect Mason has on the opposite sex years ago.
Mason has always been gorgeous, magnetic, and way hotter for a man than I am for a woman. I have healthy self-esteem, and I don’t think I’m unattractive by any stretch, but I’m also a realist. When it comes to looks, Mason and I aren’t playing in the same league.
But that never bothered me back when we were Mason and Lark. It didn’t matter how many prettier, thinner, big-boobier women ogled my boyfriend. Mason only had eyes for me. To him, I was the most beautiful woman in the world. The way he used to look at me left no doubt about that.
Who am I kidding?
There’s nothing past tense about that look. Mason still looks at me like I’m something magical, a rare enchanted unicorn princess he’s proud to help from his car.
The look used to make me feel like the luckiest woman in the world.
Now, it makes my forehead wrinkle.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I mumble, pulling my hand from his and moving onto the sidewalk as he shuts the door behind me.
“Like what?” he asks as the gentle May breeze ruffles his hair, making him look even more gorgeous, like a guy who should model really manly sweater-vests on a yacht.
The woman in the sundress who stopped to gape is still staring, her gaze darting between us. She’s obviously trying to discern if Mason is taken. I barely resist the urge to step around him and insist she run for her life. Men who look at you like an enchanted unicorn one day and bail on your engagement the next can’t be trusted. Black Sundress would be wise to stay the heck away.
So would I, but I agreed to this week of dates for some stupid reason and I never go back on my word.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t lay down some ground rules. “You know like what,” I say to Mason, my tone cool. “We’re here to get to know the people we are now, not to go walking down memory lane. And that look is straight out of memory lane.”
Mason sighs, seeming so deflated that for a moment I feel guilty.
Then I remember that he’s the one who is a runner and an engagement bailer and a heart destroyer and lift my chin higher in the air. Stay strong. I have to stay strong.
“Got it,” Mason says softly. “No enchanted unicorn look.”
My chest tightens. “You remember that?”
“I remember everything,” he says, in a voice that makes my bare arms prickle and my heart ache.
“Not everything,” I say, trying to lighten the moment. “It was like a unicorn princess. Not just a unicorn because that would be weird. I’m assuming you’re not into unicorns.”
“No, I’m not,” Mason says, shoving his hands into his pockets and wandering toward the east end of downtown. “At least not in that way.”
“Oh?” I arch a brow. “In what way are you into unicorns?”
“In the way most non-perverts are into unicorns,” he says with a straight face. “I respect the gore-potential inherent in their horn and admire their silky manes and propensity for wish granting, but the feelings end there.”
My lips quirk. “Propensity for wish granting. You and your twelve dollar words.”
Mason grins. “I hear some girls like big words. Or they used to, anyway.”
“Nope, now I just like big dong.” I fight a laugh as Mason’s jaw drops, but can’t help myself. “Kidding,” I add with a giggle. “I’m kidding. Sorry. I couldn’t resist the joke. You set me up too perfectly.”
Mason’s eyes flash with appreciation. “Don’t apologize. I like raunchy-joke-making Lark.”
“Yeah, well, I’m older and slightly raunchier than I used to be,” I say, before adding quickly, “But don’t get any ideas. It was just a joke.”
“Obviously,” he says mildly. “And I’ve never had an idea in my life.”
“Right.” I try to stop smiling, but fail. I’ve always loved bantering with Mason, and that he gets my sense of humor so completely.
Before I met him, Melody and Aria were the only people in the world who could make me giggle until my sides hurt. Finding someone outside my family who laughed at all the same things I did, and didn’t judge me when I snorted lemonade through my nose during a giggle attack, was…special.
“So how hungry are you?” Mason asks.
I shrug. “Not starving, but I didn’t have dinner.” I pause at the last street corner before the downtown area gives way to strip malls and bodegas, with a few apartment buildings scattered in between. “We should probably turn around. All the restaurants are still on the other side of downtown.”
“I was thinking something a little less formal.” Mason takes my hand as the sign flickers to “walk.”
“Like what?” I deftly slip my fingers from his as I skip ahead of him and up onto the curb on the other side, determined not to let this “friendly” date become anything too friendly.
“Like bowling with a side of corn dogs and French fries.”
“Bowling,” I repeat, wrinkling my nose. “Do you bowl?”
“I do not. I have never bowled.”
My eyebrows shoot up my forehead. “Never? Not even when you were a kid?”
“Not even when I was a kid.”
“Well, then I say yes. Yes to bowling.” I’m always encouraging my friends to try new things, and nothing is less romantic than bowling.
Sounds like a win-win, if I ever heard of one.
I turn left, heading toward Bliss River Bowl, a slightly saggy building next to the Feed Store a street over. “I totally forgot the bowling alley was over here,” I say, a spring in my step.
This might actually be fun. It should be easy to keep my mind off the past while doing something we’ve never done together.
“I swung by this afternoon to check it out,” Mason says. “It’s got 1960s charm and only a slight foot odor stench, mostly overpowered by the decades of grease soaked into the walls.”
�
��Yummy.” I smile. “Speaking of foot odor, I’m going to have to buy some socks from the vending machine. If I’d known we were bowling, I wouldn’t have worn sandals.”
“Don’t worry, I brought socks for you,” Mason says.
I blink. “You did?”
“I did.” He pulls a pair of thin white ankle socks folded neatly in half from his back pocket. “I stopped by the store on my way to your house.”
“Thank you,” I say, taking the socks as we reach the door to the bowling alley, feeling vaguely uncomfortable for some reason I can’t quite pin down. “That was thoughtful.”
“I’m full of thoughts.” He reaches past me to open the door, leaning close enough that his breath stirs my hair as he adds, “Lots and lots of thoughts.”
I look up, my heart beating faster when I realize our lips are only inches apart. His eyes are even more intense this close, so clear and blue and completely focused on me that I’m betting he can see straight through my cool façade to the secretly frisky horndog within. It’s been months since I’ve been with anyone. A lot of months.
That’s the only reason Mason is making me sizzle like this.
Because I’m basically starved for sexy times. Right?
Willing my stupid heart to stop pounding and my face not to give me away, I say, “The only thoughts I have are about how badly I’m about to kick your butt at bowling.” I duck under his arm and into the decidedly footy-smelling lobby, throwing over my shoulder, “I was on a league when I was seven.”
“You’re kidding.” Mason joins me at the end of the line for admission and shoe rental. “I didn’t know that about you.”
“It was a daddy daughter league, but I played with Pop-pop. Pop-pop loved to bowl. It was his old man crack.” I wink. “He taught me all his tricks.”
“Sounds like I’m in trouble,” Mason says, heaving a dramatic sigh as we reach the front of the line.
I give the man behind the desk my shoe size and wait while Mason pays before starting toward the lanes. It’s quiet for a Sunday night, but there are still a good number of people out for a game.
I do a quick scan of the patrons, relieved not to see anyone I know. I don’t want to have to explain what I’m doing with Mason to any of my friends. I haven’t told anyone except my sisters about our bargain—not even Lisa. I don’t want my best friend fretting over me while she should be enjoying her honeymoon, and I don’t want to deal with the backlash from the people who have hated Mason for years on my behalf.
Better to get this week of “getting to re-know” each other over as secretly as possible and then go back to my life.
My busy, active, fulfilling life, with not a whiff of Mason in it.
Which does not make me sad. At all.
Mason and I play ten frames—Mason rallying after a few disastrous rolls, proving he might not be hopeless as a bowler, after all, though I do beat him by a good thirty points—and then head to the snack bar for a grease feast.
It isn’t gourmet by any stretch of the imagination, but the food is good for what it is. We chat over corn dogs, jalapeño poppers, and the bowling alley’s take on a side salad—iceberg lettuce and dry shredded carrots drowned in Italian dressing—keeping the conversation light. I learn that Mason passed his boards early and I tell him about the weddings I have coming up in June. Mason talks about the practice he’ll be joining in Atlanta, and I tell him how lucky it is that Aria moved home just days before my old pastry chef quit.
After dinner, we play another ten frames—me winning again, a fact I’m sure to rub in as Mason drives me home—and then, suddenly, the date is over and I’m walking back up the path to my parents’ house.
Alone.
Mason doesn’t even try to walk me to the door.
Which is a little…disappointing.
“Not disappointing,” I mumble beneath my breath as I wave goodbye to Mason, watching his car pull away from the curb. “It’s good. It’s exactly what I wanted.”
It is. Which leaves no explanation for why I feel like a balloon with all the air leaking out, or why I hurry up to my old room without ducking into the den to say good night to Aria.
No explanation for why I curl into bed feeling sad and alone in a way I haven’t in a long time.
There is just no explanation.
None at all.
Chapter Six
Mason
They say you can’t go home again.
In my experience, a better quote would be—You could go home again, but why? Why put yourself through that when you could light yourself on fire and walk across a bed of nails instead?
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” I mumble beneath my breath as I slide out of my Audi and start toward my uncle’s shack, a grungy island in a sea of overgrown grass and junk cars my uncle never got around to fixing up.
I should at least see if he’s alive or dead, and offer him help if he needs it. I’m in a position to help now, and helping each other is what family is for. Just because my family has been dysfunctional up to this point, it doesn’t mean that I have to continue the trend.
“Well if it ain’t the big man himself.” The rusted out voice creaks through the shade on the porch, drawing my attention to the right. There, Uncle Parker squints up at me from the swing occupying the one flat spot on his sagging front stoop. “Alive and in the flesh.”
“I just got back in town a couple of days ago.” I stand at the bottom of the porch steps. Given the way things ended the last time we spoke, I’m not inclined to get any closer to my uncle until he proves he’s in a good mood. I’ve put on thirty pounds of muscle since the last time we came to blows, but Parker fights dirty, and I’d really rather not be sporting a black eye my first day at my new job. I’ve still got a few weeks before I start, but my uncle hits hard enough to make bruises linger. “I thought I’d stop by and see if you wanted to get some catfish for lunch.”
“Already ate,” Parker says, not moving from his chair. “Is that all you want?”
So much for a heart-warming reunion.
Good thing I wasn’t expecting one.
I force a smile. “All right, then. Maybe next time. In any case, I figured I’d pick up the boat while I was here.”
Parker grunts. He looks older than the night I left, and certainly older than his forty-six years. He’s lost weight and his sunbaked skin hangs loose on his sharp face, emphasizing the shadows beneath his eyes. But otherwise, he’s the same. Same thinning black hair perpetually in need of a cut, same thin lips and lanky frame, same expression of sour amusement when he looks at his only nephew.
I’m not surprised he isn’t getting out of his chair to welcome home family he hasn’t seen in years. He didn’t bother getting off his ass to attend my graduation, either. Not a single one of them, not even from Bliss River High, and that’s only five miles down the road.
Back when I was an eighteen-year-old kid, still secretly longing for approval, or at least someone to notice that I was graduating at the top of my class, that had hurt.
Now, knowing my uncle isn’t interested in my life is a relief.
I made a move toward reconciliation. If he’s determined to stay estranged from each other, that’s fine with me. Less chance of being embarrassed if our paths happen to cross in town.
Parker doesn’t go to town often, but when he does, he’s usually drunk and looking to get into trouble with his loser friends down at Buddy’s.
“Don’t know why you’d need the boat,” he says after a moment, scraping his thumb across the stubble on his chin. “Didn’t think a fancy doctor like you would have time for fishing.”
“I don’t start work until the middle of June. I took some time off after my residency.”
“Ain’t that nice.” He bares his teeth in another smart ass grin, like my success is a hysterical joke only he can fully understand. “Some time off from all that soft work. Going to take some of your faggot friends out on the lake to celebrate?”
“I’
m going to take Lark fishing later this afternoon,” I say, refusing to give him the reaction he’s looking for. He knows I have gay friends, and he knows I hate it when he talks that way. But I’m not going to get mad or offended or anything else. I refuse to give him the satisfaction.
He’s clearly pissed that I’ve proven him wrong. For as long as I can remember, he’s been telling anyone who would listen that I’d never make it through med school. It must really burn his ass knowing I finally have that M.D. after my name, even after he sent me off to school looking so rough around the edges most of my classmates wouldn’t talk to me until the end of our first semester.
But they eventually realized that I wasn’t trouble.
I just came from trouble, which is a whole different thing. You can’t help where you come from, but you can help where you end up.
My uncle is sitting here alone and miserable in a termite-infested shit hole because he never had the guts to dream of something better. I’ll never sleep on that mildew-scented mattress in his back room again because I did.
“You still seeing that March girl, then?” he asks.
“Yep.”
Parker’s jaw works back and forth, the way it does when he is chewing on something to see if it tastes like the truth. If it doesn’t, it’s grounds to unleash the poison always on the tip of his tongue. “Really? That’s hard to believe.”
“Believe what you want,” I say with a shrug. “It’s the truth.”
“The truth,” he echoes, his flat blue eyes going narrow and mean. “The truth I heard was that girl cried for an entire year after you left. Sobbing until she made herself sick.” His lips hook up on one side. “You sure pulled the wool over her eyes, didn’t you, boy? She thought you were a real decent little bastard.” He chuckles. “Turns out you’re just a bastard.”
