by T. N. King
“Oh, please. No, rude ass, I have not landed a girl. Although if you must know I am dating someone new.” She sounded like she was laughing, and looked like it too, her grin only barely being squashed every other few seconds as he watched her. Not that he was watching her for much longer, his eyes cutting down to the now empty bowl in his hand and moving the spoon idly over the ceramic to the sound of metal scraping against it. “He’s… Well. I think he’s different. He moved into town like three months ago and we just clicked.” She wasn’t talking in response to him at all now, the way she was smiling… she was gushing, over some boy. Again. It was hardly the first time. She felt too strongly for her own good and always for those who didn’t deserve it, that hadn’t changed over time either.
Just like the string of boys that had come before him he was probably too loud and obnoxious to actually have spent any time getting to know her, which meant that he was probably a prick. Not that he could say so, doing that only ever resulted in her championing the stupid boy even harder. He could feel the tick in the corner of his jaw, just beneath the skin and barely contained, and so he turned, whole back to her to place that bowl on the counter and keep from grabbing anything too hard and showcasing just how irritated with the entirety of the conversation that he was. He had changed his mind, actually, he would rather go back to the questions she had concerning his romantic life than discuss another one of the imbeciles that she was dating.
“He gets me. As crazy as that sounds. And he gets along with mom and dad.” So she’d brought him home. Wonderful. “He’s got all of these plans, like concrete plans- and he doesn’t act like the rest of the boys at school for the most part.. .And the way he treats me…” The spoon shook too forcefully against that ceramic inside of the bowl, his body stepping back a little more aggressively from the counter than he had meant for it to.
“I’m sure. Just like your exes right?” Too sharp, that venom beneath his words flung at her along with the sharp gaze he turned on her. “They were all different too… at least until they couldn’t get inside of those too tight jeans.” His words were too fluid, one eyebrow lifted on his face and his lips pulling into a sneer despite the hurt quickly covering the sharp plains of her face. “And just like the others he’s going to disappear when it is you won’t let him… unless you’re going to, in which case he’ll just be singing a different tune. No one likes easy girls Nicole.” He would know, it was the quickest way for them to lose all attraction that he’d felt towards them in the first place.
She wasn’t even answering him verbally, lips parted in a soft ‘o’ with her fingers lifting off of the counter and up towards her face as if she could cover it. Not that she even did that, her fingers pressing only into the lower portion of her chin and staring at him with those tears quickly welling in her golden eyes. Like that changed anything. His chest hurt, irritation and jealousy fighting for a dominance that he didn’t even want to examine.
“Nothing?” His voice was quickly transitioning to bored irritation, carefully crafted, just as every muscle was held in tight accordance of that control as he pushed fully off of the counter and away from the island completely. “That’s fine. I was getting tired of listening to that shit anyways. I’m going to bed, make sure and get the dishes.” He didn’t wait around to hear a reply, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to see the hurt he’d inspired… even if he did. He didn’t want to acknowledge wanting to see her hurt either. The way it made him feel like he’d won while at the same time ripping apart at whatever conscious it was he did have. She had a boyfriend. Good for her, he was glad. Another jerk to take up her time and infect her moods. To try and talk her into allowing him to put his hands on her. Which he might or might not succeed at doing- more images he didn’t want to have in his head, making that anger all the brighter behind his lids as he slammed the bedroom door behind him.
Chapter Two
Nicole didn’t know what she had been expecting from that, or why she’d been so insistent on trying to get him to pay attention there when she hadn’t even been one hundred percent sure that he was in a receptive mood in the first place. Just because he’d brought home her favorite Chinese and seemed to be in a good mood didn’t necessarily mean anything, and she knew that. Only Nicole had wanted to tell him about Aaron, she’d wanted to get him ready for this one because he was important to her. Which, maybe he was right, and she did say about everyone she dated- but it wasn’t as if she had a whole long list of exes. It wasn’t as if she were dating someone new every other month. She didn’t actually date anyone unless she felt like it could go somewhere and none of them had been as permanent feeling as Aaron did. None of them had talked so certainly about their futures and included her into them without having to be asked, none of them brought flowers for her mother and a new architecture magazine for her father all without having to be reminded what they liked.
Aaron was special. He was larger than life and wanted to be with her… and she had wanted Mason to see that before she brought him over to face the second third degree her family provided. The Mason test, which no one ever seemed steady enough to pass… Mason hadn’t even asked his name, he hadn’t asked anything about him at all before assuming that he was like the others, or that he was somehow something less than she described.
Nicole was trying not to cry, especially after the look Mason had given her upon seeing how close she was to it. She’d learned years ago that crying when he said something that upset her only made it worse, like a shark with blood he’d poke and poke until she crumbled because that was just how he processed his anger. She felt small, the hand that had been holding her face shifting, turning so she could scrub the backs of her knuckles under her eyes and wipe away whatever moisture had accumulated there.
She wasn’t being silly or naive, whatever he thought. She knew Aaron was different, she knew that he meant something more for her life than just a string of meaningless dates and eventual distancing as had happened in the past. Mason was just being… Mason, but with an extra side of over-judgmental, hypocritical ass thrown in along with it. Which meant, given by the tense way he’d been holding himself that it was an exceptionally bad idea to do what it was she wanted—follow him up to his room and badger him. She wanted to tell him what a jerk he was being and demand he apologize. She wanted to demand he reserve judgment on Aaron, as was fair, until after he met him. Any one of those things with him as snappy as he had been though could have very well resulted in his door jamb or door frame to his bedroom needing to be replaced again.
Which meant that she needed to convince and manipulate herself into staying downstairs for as long as it took to stop those tears still backing up behind the surfaces of her brown eyes. Give him enough time to actually calm down and for her to find something other than an emotional argument to go to him with. Too emotional and she’d only manage to work herself up more and forget half of the points it is she’d wanted to make in the heat of the moment. Which would only make him sneer and her cry more. She needed to approach it rationally, to make her point of view make sense to him…
Only all she wanted to do at that moment was crawl up the stairs to her own room and huddle under the blankets until her tears gave way to sleep. Instead, she was forcing herself off of the bar stool and forcing her hands to close around that still only half eaten ice cream bowl and carrying it to the sink. Grabbing his from beside and turning that water as hot as it could come out of the tap over the both of them. Uneaten ice cream and ice cream residue both melting, running off, out of the bowls and down the drain. Like the last of that conversation, she was still trying to center herself from it. Her throat hurt from the force she’d needed to withhold both those tears and the things that she had wanted to instinctually reply with, like all of those words were backed up just behind her tonsils and still nearly choking her.
If Mason had just listened, even if just for a few moments more he would have been able to actually learn something about Aaron. Possibly learn just how
much in common they really had. It was one of the reasons she’d been so excited to talk to him about it. To get his opinion and share with him what she did know. She knew more about Aaron’s past than she did Mason’s even, and even what she knew about Mason’s wasn’t necessarily from him but what she had been told by her parents or gleaned on her own over the years. Even still, their backgrounds were terribly similar, and the both of them had been placed with their adoptive families much later than her mom said was usually suggested for age purposes. Both of them were success stories, coming from the kinds of places that they had and adapting to live a completely different lifestyle from what they had grown up with…
If Mason would have just listened long enough to hear it, or hear any of Aaron’s story at all, then he would have understood where she was coming from and what she was saying, she knew it, but instead he had worked himself up in his own head and refused to listen to anything she had to say. Again. Like he did every time it was she introduced a new boyfriend. She knew he didn’t do well with people, new people especially, it wasn’t as if that were new news to her, however… she had expected him to get better about it over time instead of worse.
Aaron was personable, relatable, and charming. He got along well with almost everyone in her life and she knew that he could with Mason as well, if only Mason would pull his head out of his butt and listen to her before he actually met him. They had a lot in common, she was pretty positive that was what made her relationship with Aaron so easy, even through what few problems they did have. It was because of Mason that she understood Aaron as well as she did. It was because of Mason that she’d been so accepting of the things it was he had told her about his pasts, and why he had felt comfortable enough to do so. Not that he’d known about Mason’s when he told her, but he’d said the way she handled it was different than most other people he had tried to talk to about it. Her lack of shock and her acceptance of it all was what made it so easy to just spill it to her in the first place. Things that wouldn’t have been possible if she hadn’t grown up with Mason, heard things about his past and dealt with him and his personality shifts.
It was more than just the similar history after all, because like people with backgrounds and harsh and colorful as the two of theirs were they shared some common behaviors from growing up in that type of environment as well. The mood swings and the easy irritability from things most people took for granted as normal, the inability to process affection right or understand when it was meant from a place of goodwill versus negativity and manipulation. The both of them had struggled with that- it was one reason why when Aaron became caught up in his own head and pushed her off of him or her hands away from him in public she didn’t assume that it was something else like some of her friends from school seemed to. Mason had issues with touch, Mason didn’t always allow any one person’s hands on him, so it made sense to her. Brought up like they were touch wasn’t always a comfort.
She understood those things because of Mason, so it was something she wanted to share with him. She wanted his approval, for obvious reasons, and she wanted it to be something she could go to him with like she had done with almost everything else over the years. When she failed a test it wasn’t her mom she called first because as much as she loved her she would only manage to rile her up more over it. When she failed a test to called Mason to call her down and talk her through what happened and why. When she got lost and needed directions, she called Mason. When she was just having an off day and needed to re-center herself, she called Mason. That was what she did, that was what worked, and yet here he was acting like something as important as her relationship- the rest of her life even- wasn’t something he could concern himself with or listen to her about. His temper was something she, while maybe not understood, was at least familiar with. Again, it was just another thing on the list that helped her with Aaron. Those abrupt mood changes and easily shifted and displaced bouts of anger were more manageable because of her familiarity with those similar. When Aaron lost his temper, she didn’t run and hide, because she knew that, like Mason- while he may break things, and while he may be extremely hurtful verbally, his hands would never transfer that violence to her. So she was safe.
He even defended her like Mason and had some of the same complaints about her personality and tendencies. Nicole, herself, hadn’t even noticed when one of the boys at school had begun viewing her differently. She had honestly thought he was just helping her with her homework in calculus, in exchange for her help in their English class. It was all it was supposed to have been, and when he started calling her at odd hours, she didn’t think anything of it because he said he just needed someone to talk to. It was only when Aaron pointed out that he was trying to work towards something else and that she should cease communication with him completely to keep him from getting the wrong idea that things shifted. She did as she was told because she wanted to avoid conflict and avoid hurting Allen any more than she may have already by apparently letting what could have been construed as flirtatious conversation continue. And when Allen confronted her about it in the hallway and she tried explaining Aaron had been right there to clarify and tell him to back the hell up.
Of course he’d done so more confrontationally than Nicole would have, but after seeing how angry Allen had become at the accusations, and seeing how he’d stepped toward Aaron like he had she’d been glad it had been him and not her, she didn’t think she would have done well with that anger turned towards her. Just like she wouldn’t have been able to diffuse anything had it turned physical like Aaron did. She didn’t even remember who had thrown the first punch, all she remembered is that one minute she had been standing next to Aaron and the next she had been forcibly pushed back as the two rolled in the middle of the hallway with their fists flying.
Just like that time that Mason had come to her aid when she was being bullied in elementary school she had only a vague recollection of the fight itself, she had been more focused on Aaron and his temper and her concern that he might do something he would later regret as worked up as he was.
He didn’t, not besides the injuries provided from the fight at least, and while Nicole had to endure two weeks of school without him present due to his suspension, no one so much as looked at her sideways during that time. He was protective, and caring, and a little off balance when it came to emotional processing… but again, it was nothing she hadn’t become accustomed to through her adoptive brother. Which she was trying to remind herself of as she put away the last of the dishes, the dish towel in her hand transferred to rub between her hands and soak up the last of the water there before idly running over the countertop.
Mason wasn’t… emotionally balanced, he couldn’t be expected to just adapt to change so quickly, she needed to introduce it more slowly and on a level on which he could understand and comfortably adapt. Instead of trying to throw it at him all at once… it just hurt, walking up those stairs and standing just outside of his closed bedroom door knowing he was on the other side and no doubt still awake. Angrily doing some task or another instead of admit that they needed to talk and seek her out… and know that she couldn’t knock on that door or go through it to try and mend and discuss things because he had made it abundantly clear that it wasn’t what he wanted currently.
Her hand rested lightly on the grain of that wooden door for half of a moment longer, knuckles curving and running lightly down it before removing herself entirely, broken sigh filtering out of her mouth and her feet turning her instead towards her own room where that disappearing into sleep idea was about to become a reality. A sleep where she controlled her dreams and nothing happened that she didn’t want happening. A sleep where she could make stubborn jerks listen to her even when they didn’t want to…
Chapter Three
“Mason,” that mahogany door opened so much more slowly than he was used to it doing, Dr. Friedrich limping out with one hand on what looked like a cane and the other balanced against the door frame. “Hi, hello,
don’t worry about this,” that cane lifting off of the floor and tapping against the leg it seemed that he wasn’t favoring, “I had a bit of a skiing accident this last weekend, but nothing too serious. Come in, come in.” His form hobbling backwards to make room for Mason to pass him into that office that was as familiar to him as the Carter’s home, and sometimes even more comfortable.
Not today, but most days it was at least as comfortable for him. Today he was too wound up still, aggravation and worry accumulating in a manner that left him more than slightly off of his game. He hadn’t wanted to go to his classes, he wasn’t interested in making it to work on time, all he had wanted to do for the past two and a half weeks roughly was play on his game… although even that, after an hour or so, became annoying. He didn’t respond at all to the greeting as he made his way into the office besides a slight hum to acknowledge that he had even heard him, opting instead to head straight for that cup of coffee that was out and ready for him next to the already going again coffee pot. Sleep, as well, had been generally elusive and varied. The dragging, thumping from behind him was clearly audible as Dr. Friedrich made his way back behind his desk, sitting with some difficulty as Mason finished stirring his mug and attending to getting himself seated on his own chair.
