Falling for the Fling

by Lili Valente

  Unless…

  What do you need, brain? I ask myself. What would it take for you to sign on the “Give Mason Another Chance” line?

  I think. And think. And think some more, while Mason sits quietly on the other side of the boat, reeling in his line and tossing it into another patch of shade beneath the trees on this side of the lake.

  He’s always known when to push and when to let me be, when to wrap his arms around me and pull me close, and when to sit back and wait for me to come to him. He’s a master of reading people, especially me.

  Aria calls him manipulative, but he isn’t, not really. He’s simply excellent at helping people get out of their own way and get along. He always said it was a side effect of being raised by a moody, unpredictable mom with even moodier, more unpredictable boyfriends. It’s also one of the reasons I always thought he would be a wonderful doctor. He’s empathetic, a natural leader, and absolutely worthy of the trust people will place in him when they put their health in his hands.

  But what if Mason wasn’t in charge for once?

  What if I was the one calling the shots for the next date? Would he be as willing to follow as he’s always been to lead? And would taking my turn in the driver’s seat satisfy my need to feel in control, to feel like giving Mason another chance is a logical choice I’m making instead of a bog of Mason quicksand I’m being sucked into against my will?

  The answer is…maybe.

  Definitely maybe.

  And that’s enough to make a smile curve my lips.

  “Worked things out?” Mason peeks at me out of the corners of his eyes.

  “I think so.” I stretch my legs, pointing my toes, my smile inching a little wider.

  “And…” Mason prods.

  “I’ll be organizing date number three,” I say breezily. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night.”

  Mason doesn’t miss a beat, just grins and says, “Okay. Where are we going?”

  “That’s on a need to know basis,” I say, wrinkling my nose and sniffing. “And you don’t have the need to know. Just wear something you don’t mind getting dirty and plan on going with the flow.”

  “Getting dirty, eh?” Mason asks, obviously intrigued. “All right. I’m staying at the Motor Lodge east of downtown. Room 214.”

  I pause, surprised. “Oh. So you and Parker aren’t…”

  “No we aren’t. We’re on the outs. Permanently,” Mason says, but the rage that so often simmers in his voice when he talks about his uncle is noticeably absent.

  “Good,” I say, proud of him. “Parker doesn’t deserve a nephew like you.”

  “Thanks.” Mason’s smile makes my chest feel tight in the best way.

  “You’re welcome. So, I’ll pick you up at the hotel tomorrow. At seven o’clock.”

  “Sounds perfect.” Mason cocks his head, and reaches out to capture one of my happily wiggling toes between his fingers, sending a shiver of awareness across my skin. “Does this have anything to do with what we talked about? About earning your trust?”

  “You’ll have to wait and see.” I take another sip of lemonade, not surprised to find it suddenly tasting sweeter.

  Mood affects the taste buds. I realized that not long after I started catering. An unhappy bride isn’t going to like the cake, no matter how moist and delicious the insides or how perfectly light and fluffy the frosting, and a happy bride won’t even notice that the chicken is a little dry or the tomatoes in the salad have begun to pucker.

  The lemonade tastes sweeter because, for the first time in four years, I’m going to have a chance to make Mason Stewart play by my rules.

  And if he plays nice…

  Well, maybe then I’ll have a chance at something even better than calling the shots.

  Chapter Ten

  Mason

  Date Three

  * * *

  I answer a knock on the door to my hotel room the next night to reveal Lark, looking beautiful and…determined.

  “Turn around and close your eyes,” she says, spinning her pointer finger.

  “Good to see you, too.” I pause, taking in her tight jeans and fitted brown tank top. Seeing her in a bikini yesterday nearly killed me, but this woman in jeans…

  Damn.

  “Are you turning?” she asks, propping a hand on her hip.

  “Jeans,” I say, with a sigh.

  She arches a brow. “What about them?”

  “Jeans good. Me like.”

  Her lips quirk up. “Thanks, Caveman Mason. Now turn around.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we agreed I’m calling the shots tonight.” Lark gives a stern nod that makes her ponytail bounce. “So let me call ‘em, Caveman.”

  I put on my most serious expression. “Yes, ma’am. Just let me…” I dart back inside, grabbing my wallet from the table by the door and slipping it into my pocket. I took her order to dress in something I could get dirty seriously and am wearing my oldest jeans and a blue t-shirt made whisper soft with repeated washings.

  I emerge, shutting the door behind me with a clap of my palms. “Ready.”

  Lark holds up a hand, stopping me before I can step off the small patio in front of the room. “No, you’re not. You’ll be ready as soon as you turn around and close your eyes.”

  I frown. “Why do I—”

  “Seriously, Mason,” she cuts in. “Tonight is about following directions, and so far, you stink at it.” She props her fists on her hips, drawing my attention to the red bandana in her right hand.

  A blindfold?

  It has to be. Why else would she want me to close my eyes?

  I hesitate. I don’t like surprises. When you grow up never knowing if there will be food in the fridge, you learn to appreciate routine. Afternoons spent pacing the carpet inside our trailer after school, wondering if my mom was coming home from work or bailing for the weekend with whatever loser she was dating, leaving me to fend for myself when I was barely tall enough to reach the kitchen cabinets, soured me on surprises at a young age.

  I like routine.

  I like predictable things and predictable people.

  It’s one of the reasons I fell so hard and fast for Lark. She’s silly and playful when it comes to jokes and conversation, but in her real, day-to-day life she’s a creature of habit. She has a routine and she sticks to it religiously. She has a moral code and high standards for herself, and there’s rarely any doubt how she’ll respond in a given situation.

  At least, that’s how Lark used to be.

  But now…

  “Where are we going that I need to be blindfolded?” I ask, doing my best to keep my reservations out of my tone.

  “We’re going wherever I want to go,” she says. “I’m in control tonight. Can you handle that, Mason? Or should I go home alone?”

  I don’t say a word. I simply force a smile, turn around, and close my eyes, bending my knees a little to make it easier for her to reach my head as she ties the bandana snuggly over my face.

  I’m not about to give her an excuse to go anywhere alone. I want to spend as much time with her as possible, even if I can’t see where I’m going for part of it.

  “How’s that?” she asks, smoothing my hair down around the knot she’s tied. “Too tight?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. It’s good.”

  It isn’t good. I’m not a fan of being blindfolded, either, but it’s clearly something that matters to Lark. And if wearing a blindfold and obeying orders is what it takes to regain her trust, then I’ll do it.

  With a smile, if possible.

  At the very least, I won’t let on that so far I’m not enjoying a single second of “Not In Control” date night.

  “Good.” She slips her hand into mine. “Let me help you to the car.”

  I force myself to take slow easy breaths, ignoring the anxiety that skitters across my skin as she leads me off the patio and across the grass to her car. I can trust Lark.

  Which is probably the point of
all this.

  Maybe she’s testing me to see how much trust I’m willing to give before she decides what she’s able to invest in return. That makes sense in a way, I guess, though I’m not sure trust is as transactional as that kind of thinking would assume it to be.

  Trust is something you have to choose to give, not something you barter for.

  But in any event, I choose to trust Lark. I always have, and I can’t imagine that changing any time soon.

  “We’re at the door. I’m going to help you in and buckle your seat belt,” she says. “And then I’m going to drive, and I don’t want you to say another word until I give you permission. Not even when I stop the car once we get where we’re going. Okay?”

  Anxiety knots in my throat again.

  “Can you do that?” she presses.

  I swallow hard. “Yep.”

  “Great,” she says, a tremble in her voice that makes me wish I could see her face.

  Is she nervous? Scared?

  Second-guessing her decision to play kidnapper for the night?

  I have no idea, but as I allow myself to be strapped in and wait for her to join me in the car, I hope it’s the last option. I’d be thrilled to learn this is a one-time thing.

  She starts the car and pulls out of the motel parking lot, heading south, away from town and Atlanta, out into the countryside. For the first several miles, I’m able to keep track of our general location, but after twenty minutes or so, I have to admit I have no idea where she’s taking me.

  I don’t even have a firm grasp on how much time has passed. I’m guessing twenty minutes, but it may have been only ten or fifteen.

  With my eyesight taken away and not a sound in the car but Lark’s soft breath and the hum of the wheels on the road beneath us, time seems to stretch out forever. More than once, I’m tempted to ask where we’re going, but I sensed she was serious about following her directions.

  So I hold my tongue and do my best to ignore how uneasy this is making me.

  We drive on and on, the road hum becoming a grumble as Lark turns off onto a gravel road. The terrain tips up sharply, but that doesn’t help me guess where we’re going. We’ve gone hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills lots of times, but I don’t think we’ve driven far enough to reach any of our favorite spots and the park roads close at sunset, anyway, which won’t be long now.

  I felt sun shining through the car windows onto my lap for the first part of the drive, but now the inside of the car is cooling down.

  Cooling, cooling, and the small amount of yellow light seeping through my blindfold fades to blue…

  Lark cracks the windows, letting in a breeze and the calls of night insects, and still we drive. Up, up, up, turning three more times before she finally pulls to a stop and shuts off the engine.

  I sag with relief and let out a long breath.

  Finally. We’re here.

  Wherever here is.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mason

  I’m so curious it’s all I can do to keep my tongue still in my mouth. But I haven’t kept my peace all this time to fail Lark’s test now. I thread my fingers together in my lap, bite my tongue, and sit tight as she slams out of the driver’s side and fetches something from the trunk.

  I turn toward my door, expecting her to open it, but nothing happens.

  After several more minutes pass, I realize she must intend to leave me in the car for a while.

  I sit in silence, my ears straining for a sign of where she went. Once or twice, I think I hear footsteps and the crack of a twig underfoot, but another thirty minutes—or ten or twenty, I have no idea—passes and the night goes quiet except for the buzzing of insects and the occasional call of a night bird.

  My anxiety turns to irritation, and then back to anxiety again, as the smell of campfire smoke drifts to my nose.

  Someone lit a fire.

  Was it Lark? Or are there other people nearby?

  I fidget in my seat, dying to get out and stretch my legs, my throat aching with the effort it’s taking to stay quiet. I want to shout her name more than I can remember wanting anything in a long, long time, but I force myself to keep my damned mouth shut.

  More time passes, minutes that spin around and around my heart like fishing line pulled tight, cutting off my circulation. Time bleeds on until my stomach cramps with hunger and my muscles ache from sitting still for too long and my pulse races with a mixture of nerves, fear, and anger.

  I’m angry now. So angry the back of my neck breaks out in a light sweat.

  What the hell is she doing? What’s the point of this? What is forcing me to sit in a car for hours going to prove?

  It proves you’re a fool, that’s what it proves.

  I fight the urge to punch the dashboard, or reach up and yank the blindfold from my eyes. If I’m going to be a fool for anyone, it’s Lark.

  Another half hour or more passes and my rage gradually fades away, replaced by resignation. And sadness.

  She isn’t coming back.

  If she were, surely she would have come to get me by now. It has to be after nine o’clock. She must have decided to leave me here all night. Maybe she had a friend, or one of her sisters, come pick her up farther down the mountain. Maybe she’s safe in Bliss River right now, laughing about the prank she pulled on the man who broke her heart.

  I reach across the car, feeling for the steering wheel and the ignition.

  She took the keys with her. So if she is gone, then I’m truly trapped here.

  Trapped with no idea where I am. Hopefully my cell will have service and I’ll be able to GPS my way back to my hotel, but I know that’s not a given. Service is notoriously spotty in the foothills.

  I rub a fist across my forehead, and sigh.

  What should I do? Wait here until morning and hope she comes back to get me? Start walking and hope I run into someone willing to give a hitchhiker a ride in the middle of the night?

  And what if this isn’t a prank, and Lark is out there somewhere, needing my help? What if she’s lost or hurt, and that’s the reason she hasn’t come back to the car?

  I don’t know what’s going on, but I know I’m not going to make it another minute like this. I reach for the door handle and pull, swinging my feet onto the ground as I wrench the blindfold from my eyes.

  “Three hours,” a soft voice says, making me flinch with surprise.

  I blink, waiting for my eyes to adjust. When they do, I see Lark sitting in a lawn chair a few feet away, holding a book with a reading light clipped to the top of it in her lap.

  “What the hell is going on?” I demand, standing on stiff legs as I throw the blindfold to the dirt at my feet.

  We’re parked on a blanket of pine needles about fifty feet from a campsite where a fire burns. Looking around, I expect to see other campers, but we’re alone. Wherever she’s taken me, it isn’t a public campground.

  “You made it three hours,” she repeats in a calm voice. “I made it thirty thousand.”

  I shake my head, unable to hide my frustration. “What?”

  “Four years. That’s over a thousand days, and over thirty thousand hours.” She closes her book but keeps the light on. It illuminates just enough of her face for me to see the tightness in her jaw and the emotion in her eyes.

  It isn’t one I can easily place. It lives somewhere between anger and hope, in the no man’s land of emotion where people so often find themselves when relationships go wrong. It’s a hard feeling to name, but not a hard one to empathize with.

  It’s the same way I felt sitting in that car—miserable and abandoned, but with a tiny voice beneath it all praying for a miracle, for Lark to come back and take the pain away.

  My bunched shoulders drop away from my ears. My hands unclench at my sides. I understand now.

  I should have understood all along.

  “You wanted me to know how you felt.” I stare at the ground near her feet, not ready to look her in the eye.

 
“No, there’s no way you could know how I felt,” she says. “Three hours can’t teach you everything there is to know about thirty thousand, but I hoped it might at least give you a taste.”

  I nod. “It did.”

  “You were angry.”

  “I was,” I whisper.

  “And sad.”

  “And pretty sure I’d been throw away,” I finish, a fresh wave of shame washing over me. I think of the misery I felt and multiply it times ten thousand.

  That is what I did to her. I knew I’d hurt her, but it isn’t until this moment that I understand it in a visceral way.

  “You can’t forgive me,” I force out.

  That has to be the reason for this. Lark is trying to pierce my stubborn resolve and make me see why she can’t give me a second chance, no matter what.

  And I do understand, and I can’t blame her, not even a little bit. But the loss of her, of even the hope of her, is still crushing.

  “No,” she whispers, making my next breath freeze in my lungs. “I think I can. I think maybe I already have.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Mason

  My head jerks up in surprise.

  This time, when I meet Lark’s gaze it’s gentle, hopeful.

  “You have?” I ask, my voice cracking.

  “I didn’t think you’d last an hour,” she says. “But you did. And the longer I sat here watching you wait for me, the more I realized I don’t want to stay angry. Holding onto a grudge never made anyone happy, and I don’t want to be one of those bitter people who looks back on their lives and wishes I’d been brave enough to forgive the people who really mattered to me.” She presses her lips together for a moment before she continues, “You matter to me, Mason, and…I want to give this a chance.”

  “You do?” My relief is so profound my hands shake with it.

  “I do,” she says with a shy grin. “Still up for four more dates after a night like this?”