Falling for the Fling

by Lili Valente

  Chapter Eight

  Mason

  I look up.

  Into the eyes of a vengeful Viking warrior princess thirsty for my blood.

  Lark’s big sister is known for shooting looks that kill, but this is the first time I’ve ever been a target. Mentally, I vow to do whatever it takes to get back in her good graces.

  Or invest in glare-blocking body armor. One or the other.

  “She’s sick.” Aria hitches the adorable redheaded baby in her arms higher on her hip, as Lark pulls away with a nervous cough. “She shouldn’t be getting that close to anyone.”

  “So you threw a…” I glance down to see a bright red plastic hammer with a yellow squeaker at one end lying on the stoop by my feet. “A baby hammer. Good choice.”

  “I didn’t want you to get sick,” Aria says in a tone that makes it clear she couldn’t care less if I catch the plague and die. Slowly. While in great, great torturous pain. “And it was Felicity who threw the hammer. She doesn’t trust men with facial hair.”

  “Mason doesn’t have facial hair.” Lark deliberately avoids looking my way, her cheeks still flushed with embarrassment.

  “Must be his face she doesn’t trust then.” Aria doesn’t crack a smile. “You’d better come in, Lark. We wouldn’t want you to get any sicker.”

  “She’s not sick,” I say, forcing a smile. I don’t want to get on Aria’s bad side, at least not any more than I am already.

  “Yes, she is.”

  “No, I’m not,” Lark says with a sigh.

  “Yes, you are,” Aria says through gritted teeth. “Now come inside, get in bed, and go to sleep before you do something you’ll regret.”

  Lark looks up at me for a long moment before turning back to her sister. “It’s okay, Ra,” she says, resting a gentle hand on Aria’s arm. The two women stare at each other for a long moment, speaking without words the way the March girls do.

  I’ve always been a little envious of those conversations, wondering what it would be like to be so close to someone that you could communicate without uttering a sound.

  Finally Aria blows air out through her pursed lips and shrugs as if to say “it’s your funeral,” and Lark turns back to me.

  “I’ll be down in fifteen minutes. Just let me change and get my swim bag together.”

  She disappears into the house and I’m left with Aria, who clearly isn’t inclined to invite me in. Instead, she leans against the doorframe, her baby still on her hip, glaring a hole through my forehead while Felicity bats at her mother’s feather earrings.

  “So...” I say after a long, uncomfortable silence, broken only by Felicity’s baby chatter and a bird squawking in the tree behind me that I swear sounds like it’s telling me to run. “How’s it going?”

  “I’m a divorced single mother whose ex refuses to pay child support, living with my parents, Mason,” Aria says in a flat tone. “How do you think it’s going?”

  “Not easy,” I say, feeling like an ass.

  “No, not easy.” Aria smoothes Felicity’s whispy hair from her forehead.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Like what?” She doesn’t blink.

  “My friend Chris Mathis from high school is in family law in Atlanta,” I say. “If you have any questions you’d like to ask a lawyer off the clock, I could ask him to get in touch with you. I know the fees can get pretty crazy when they’re billing you for ten minute phone calls and every piece of paper they print out.”

  “Thank you, but that’s okay. I don’t need a lawyer. I don’t care about the support. All I care about is having Felicity here with me.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, I’m happy to make the call.”

  Aria glances back at me, her green eyes sad, but clear and strong. “That’s very sweet, but some things are unforgiveable, Mason. No matter how sweet you are afterward. I’m not sure if what you did falls under that category for Lark, or not, but it sure would for me.”

  “I made a mistake, Aria.” I meet her hard look with a penitent one. “I wish like hell I could take it back, but I can’t. But I can promise that it’s one I won’t be repeating. I would never hurt Lark or anyone else like that again. Not ever.”

  Aria reaches up, gently pulling her earring from Felicity’s fist before the baby can draw it into her mouth. “Maybe you can convince her that’s true Mason, but I’m a little more familiar with people who swear they’re not going to make the same mistake twice. And guess what?” The baby starts to fuss, but Aria shushes her with a tummy rub and a bounce on her hip. “They always make the same mistake. Always. Sometimes three or four or five times. All that giving them another chance does is make you feel like a fool.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve been through that, but—”

  “But nothing,” Aria says, the harsh note creeping back into her tone. “I learned my lesson the hard way, but I hope to God my sister won’t have to. I’m not on your side, Mason, so you can stop trying to win me over. I don’t need your favors, and Lark needs you back in her life like an octopus needs a hang glider.”

  I open my mouth, but before I can speak, I hear Lark’s footsteps pounding down the stairs. A second later, she’s at the door, her filmy black cover-up swirling around her legs as she breezes by Aria with only a slight pause to kiss the top of Felicity’s head.

  “Ready to go?” she asks in a breathless rush, her brown eyes searching mine.

  I force a smile. “Ready.” I glance back at Aria. “See you later, Aria.”

  “Not if I can help it,” she says.

  Lark frowns, but before she can turn around, Aria closes the door with a firm thunk.

  Lark sighs. “Sorry about that,” she whispers as we start down the walk toward my car. “She’s just…protective. And cranky. Crankily protective.”

  “It’s all right. I understand. Sounds like she’s going through a hard time. I can be patient… Wait for her to come around.”

  Lark hesitates at the end of the walk before turning to me with a panicked expression.

  Before she can speak, I cup her face in my hands, brushing my thumb across her lips to keep her protest from entering the world. “We’re going fishing, and I’m going to answer every question you can think to ask me,” I say softly. “And then we’re going to talk about what I need to do to start regaining your trust. Think it over while I drive. Whatever you need, I’ll do it. I’ll learn to stand on my head and juggle flaming bowling pins if that’s what it takes.”

  Her lips part. “All right,” she whispers. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Good.” I smile.

  “I’m not saying I’ll come up with an answer, let alone an easy answer,” she warns. “Certainly not something as easy as upside down fire juggling, but…”

  But that’s a step in the right direction, I think as I help her into the car and trot around to the driver’s side, ignoring the redhead peering out the March’s front window with a frown on her face.

  I’ll have to win Aria over eventually—the March sisters are closer than most and I don’t want to be a source of friction between them—but for now I’m focused on Lark.

  If she can’t get past what I did, it doesn’t matter if the town of Bliss River declares me a hero and holds a parade in my honor, I’ll still be out of luck.

  Chapter Nine

  Lark

  It’s a beautiful day—hot enough for the breeze to feel delicious, cool enough that the sun warms without summoning a sweat. Spring is my favorite season in Georgia, but I know perfect spring days like this are numbered. Soon, it will be so hot and humid that my neck will be perpetually damp and my hair frizzed into a blond fluff ball until cooler weather comes back around in the fall.

  I lie in the plastic recliner Mason has rigged into one side of his old boat, the sun warm on my legs, a bottle of lemonade cold in my hand, and the crisp mineral smell of the water a sweet prickle at my nose.

  If anyone else were sitting across from me, I’d be drifti
ng off into a catnap with a smile on my face, thankful for a little taste of paradise.

  Instead, my body is humming, every inch of my skin sizzling with awareness as Mason’s eyes move between where his red and white float bobs in the water, and my bikini clad self. I hunted for one of my old one-piece suits, but the only thing I found was a two-piece from when I was nineteen and still living at home.

  I threw it on and dashed, not wanting to leave Mason alone with Aria for too long for fear of bloodshed. But now I wish I’d taken the time to hunt down that one piece I know is hiding somewhere in my old room.

  There’s a lot more of me for this bikini to wrangle into place than there was six years ago. I’ve gained twenty-five pounds and gone up a cup size since then, and the top of the suit is downright scandalous. I also have a pooch below my belly button that wasn’t there before—a testimony to my love of cheese in all its wondrous forms—but Mason doesn’t seem to mind that there’s more of me to love.

  Quite the opposite, in fact.

  The look in his eyes is enough to make my heart race.

  He’s not looking at me like a unicorn princess anymore. He’s looking at me like something he wants to taste, to savor, and, eventually, to devour. His eyes skim down my body from my lips to the tips of my toes, setting every inch of me on fire. I swear I can feel that look, like soft, hot lips trailing over my skin, leaving me breathless and wanting more.

  It’s that darned almost-kiss that’s done this to me, made it impossible to think about anything but how much I want to pounce on Mason. I’m sure his kisses can’t be nearly as wonderful as I remember.

  But then…what if they are?

  Stop thinking about kissing, psycho!

  I shift my legs, trying to ignore the ache building between them; Mason makes a pained sound low in his throat and jerks his attention back to the water.

  “So?” he asks, his voice rougher than it was a few minutes ago, making me think he’s finding all this “not touching” as torturous as I am. “Anything else you’d like to ask me?”

  I take a long, cold drink of lemonade, hoping it will clear my head. We’ve already talked about the girls he dated in New York while he was in med school. If he’s to be believed, there were three total, all of whom he only dated for a few months each, and none of the relationships evolved beyond the friends-with-benefits stage.

  Learning Mason has been intimate with other women wasn’t easy to hear, but it wasn’t a surprise either. He wasn’t a virgin when we met. He never pressured me to do more than I was comfortable doing when we dated, but I knew how much he wanted things to progress to the next level. I wanted the same thing, but years of promising my mother I’d wait until marriage had left their mark on my psyche. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with sex before marriage, personally, but I can’t stand lying to anyone, let alone someone I love and respect as much as my sweet mama.

  Still, there were nights, back when Mason and I were dating, when it wasn’t easy to tell him to pump the brakes. Nights when I wanted to pull him close and beg him to floor it. To keep going until we were as close as two people could get.

  I almost suggested we take that final step the night he proposed, in fact.

  Instead, I went home to tell my family, and thank God I did. It was hard enough dealing with Mason’s abandonment as things stood. If I’d lost my virginity to him the night before, it would have been even more soul-crushing.

  I hum low in my throat and take another pull on my lemonade.

  “Is that a thinking hum or a ‘no more questions’ hum?” Mason asks.

  “A thinking hum,” I say, shifting my legs again. Not even memories of the morning Mason left town are enough to kill the ache building inside me. I’m going to have to do something drastic to divert my thoughts, to keep from imagining Mason’s big hands circling my waist, his lips hot on my bare stomach as he—

  “I’m not a virgin anymore,” I blurt out because apparently I really suck at not thinking—and talking— about sex right now.

  “Oh.” Mason blinks. “Well, I… That’s good.”

  “Is it?” I challenge.

  “Well, no. I mean, I hope it was good…for your sake,” he says, clearing his throat awkwardly.

  “It was acceptable. Could have been worse.”

  He nods and the knot forming between his brows gets knottier. “Right. Well, I wish it had been better.” He clears his throat again and moves his tackle box to the other side of his seat for absolutely no reason. “And I mean, of course I wish I…” He swallows. “But you’re twenty-five. It makes sense that you would have crossed that bridge.”

  “I am twenty-five,” I say. Being twenty-five and not married feels strange enough—when I was growing up, I always assumed I’d be married with a baby on the way by this point in my life—but twenty-five and still a virgin would have been downright sad. Not that there’s anything wrong with women who truly want to wait, but I didn’t.

  Like Mason said, I was ready to cross that bridge.

  Past ready.

  “Why did you tell me?” Mason asks.

  I shrug. “I don’t know. It just…slipped out.”

  Mason nods, staring at the water for a long moment before turning his soulful blue eyes back to mine. “I wish it had been me.”

  My chest goes tight, and I suddenly wish I hadn’t started this conversation.

  I wish it had been him, too. I wish it was Mason’s smell I remember swirling around me the first time I was with someone that way, Mason’s hands that had smoothed over my body, making me ache and want and long for him to take the ache away.

  “Don’t say that.” I fight the desire simmering beneath my skin, hoping Mason can’t see me getting emotional behind my sunglasses.

  “I can’t help it,” he says. “It’s the truth.”

  The truth…

  Fine, if he wants to get to the truth, let’s go for it.

  “All right.” I take off my sunglasses, blinking away the wetness in my eyes as I pin him with a no bullshit look. “Here’s another question for you: Why didn’t you call or write?” He starts to reply, but I hurry on, “I know why you didn’t when you first left, but after a year or so, when you’d been in therapy and were feeling better. Why not call then?”

  Mason holds my gaze. “I wasn’t sure I was going to get my shit together and keep it together until early last year. By then, so much time had passed I thought… Well, I thought it was better to finish my residency first.”

  I snort. “Just waiting until it was convenient for you, is that it?”

  “Not at all, I…” Mason sighs. “I told myself it would be better if I was back here for good and settled with a job, but I think… Honestly, I think I was afraid.”

  I frown. “Of what?”

  “That you’d be in love with someone else,” he says. “Or that you hated me to the depths of your being. I was afraid you’d put me so far in your rearview that there wouldn’t be even the ghost of a chance of getting you back.”

  I’m quiet for a moment.

  A part of me is tempted to tell Mason that he doesn’t have a ghost of a chance. Even last night, I probably would have, but there’s no denying how much I’m enjoying his company. Or how much I want him.

  And though it’s probably a no good, very bad idea, I can’t stop thinking about what he said at my parents’ house.

  What would it take to make me trust him again?

  To get past how miserable and lonely and foolish I felt in the months after he left?

  A part of me wants to forgive and forget, to put aside my hurt and shame and give this thing with Mason a real chance. But how can I? When what he did loomed so large in my heart and mind for so long, casting a shadow so big I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely free of it?

  “What are you thinking?” Mason asks softly.

  “Who says I’m thinking anything?” I stare into my bottle, swirling the last of my lemonade around the bottom.

  “You’
ve got your hamster wheel face on.”

  It’s another one of our old sayings—Mason always knew when I was chewing on a problem by the face I made—but I don’t smile.

  The comment only makes me think harder.

  Here is a man who knows me, really knows me. He’s committed my facial expressions to memory and can still read me like I can read a steak about to hit medium rare.

  And I can read him with the same accuracy.

  I can tell that this conversation is making him nervous, and I know he’s sincere about how much he wants a second chance. Mason and I have always shared a special connection. Four years apart damaged our bond, but it didn’t sever it. With a little work, we could fix this.

  Fix us.

  I just have to drop my guard and let him in. The thought is terrifying, but not as impossible to imagine as it was this morning, let alone last night.

  I glance at Mason, watching him watch me with those blue, blue eyes, unable to deny the attraction that lives and breathes in the space between us, becoming a third person in the boat, a being too big and loud to ignore.

  I want to touch him. So much.

  Mason is the only man who’s ever made me drunk and wild with wanting him. I want to feel that way again, to let Mason take me there, to that place where I’m shot through with starlight and his hands are everywhere I need them to be.

  The chances that I’ll be able to resist giving in to this attraction for five more dates are slim to none.

  Either I end things and run from Mason as fast as my legs will carry me—after I jump out of the boat and swim to shore, of course—or I accept that I’m taking the first step down a dangerous road. If I let myself touch Mason, let myself kiss him, taste him, remember how good it feels to be in his arms, it will only be a matter of time before my defenses crumble.

  I will fall for him all over again, and end up with my head and my heart at odds, tearing me in two different directions.