by Erin Noelle
He turned and looked at me. “He wants to be with you. I know he does.” I closed my eyes and shook my head, remaining silent. Max continued, “Rat and I became close last year, and we’ve stayed tight since everything happened… so I know what he wants. He was really starting to fall for you when you left. It tore him up. He’s been struggling.”
“Yeah, it looks like he’s really been struggling.”
“Well, what did you expect, Scarlett? For him to sit around forever and wait for you to come back? None of us have heard from you in over eight months; he had no idea if he’d ever see you again. You just disappeared.”
I winced, recalling the events of that horrific night.
“No… I know,” I begrudgingly agreed. I wasn’t stupid enough to think he’d been celibate while I was gone. I just didn’t expect him to get into a relationship so soon. “Who is she? Why is he moving to Austin to be near her?”
He snapped his head up and looked at me. “He’s moving to Austin?”
I shrugged. “I guess so.” The rage began to simmer, and I was quickly slipping into the “I don’t care about anything” mode. Difficult situations were much easier to handle when I turned the pain sensors off. “That’s what she said. I don’t know; he really didn’t say anything.”
“What do you mean he didn’t say anything?”
As we continued to sit in the parked car, I gave Max the short version of what happened. I hoped he could share some insight or advice or anything that would make me feel just a little bit better, but instead, he played Switzerland.
“Scarlett, you and Rat have a lot y’all need to talk about. Like I said earlier, it’s not my place to tell you his story. I don’t want you to think I’m hiding things from you, so I’m going to give him his chance tonight to tell you everything. After tonight, I won’t hold back or lie to you, but I think he deserves that.”
I just sat there, staring off into space, wondering what in the world I was doing. I knew it would be tough returning, but I had only been back in Houston a week and was emotionally drained. And all of it for what? He apparently had a girlfriend or a crazy ex-girlfriend he was about to move to Austin to be with.
“That’s fine, Max. You’re right; it’s not your place to tell me. It’s his. Well, it was his.” It was my turn to lay my head back on the seat. There were no words to describe what I was feeling.
The engine came to life as he turned the key in the ignition, and we took off out of the parking lot. Thankfully, Max knew the way to Mason’s place, so I could just quietly lay with my head back with my eyes closed. It wasn’t until we pulled into the parking lot that I remembered I didn’t have any way to get inside the apartment. I forgot to ask Mason for his key.
“I can’t get in,” I stated flatly. “I didn’t even think about it. Do you mind taking me to my place instead?”
“Rat will be here in just a couple minutes. He left a few minutes after us,” he answered.
“What?” I asked, confused. He lifted up his cell phone and smiled sheepishly. “He messaged that he was on his way a little bit ago.”
“Great. I can’t wait,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “This should be loads of fun.”
“Please just listen to what he has to say, Scarlett.” Max wrinkled his forehead in frustration. He reached over the center console and grabbed my hand, making me look in his pleading eyes. “Look, you know I don’t want you to hurt anymore, but from what you told me, he wasn’t responding to her and then basically told her to fuck off.”
“But he didn’t do anything to stop her before he knew I was watching!” I interjected.
“She’s his manager. It’s not like he can just push her away like some stupid-ass groupie girl!”
“His manager?” His words punched me in the gut. I immediately realized Bentley wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Mason would be working closely with her on a daily basis, and apparently living near her as well. Awesome.
“Shit… see? That’s why I don’t need to discuss this with you until after the two of y’all talk.” He released my hand and rubbed his face in his hands. “All I can say is I know what you mean to him, and I know how you feel about him, and I really think y’all are good for each other. I would hate to see something that has real potential never really get a chance because of a misunderstanding.”
I was just about to tell him that I didn’t misunderstand the fact that Mason was moving away to be near some bitch who was apparently his manager, but the deep growl of a motorcycle pulling into the parking space next to us distracted me. I watched out the window as Mason got off his Harley and approached the passenger door. He opened the door and held his hand out to me.
I turned to Max and gave him a quick hug. “Thank you for everything. Wish us luck; we’re going to need it.”
Mason
Scarlett didn’t say a word to me upon entering the apartment. It was obviously going to be my show, and rightfully so, since I was the one with all of the explaining to do.
“Come back to my room. Let’s get comfortable so we can talk,” I said to her.
“I’m good out here,” she replied in an ice-cold tone. “Will you be able to take me back to my car when we’re finished whatever it is we’re doing here?”
Her words cut through me like a knife, and I hated myself for making her hurt. She had lived through enough pain in the last year; she sure as hell didn’t need me adding to it.
“Scarlett, please give me a chance to explain. I meant to tell you. I really did. There just hasn’t been a good time.”
“A good time? A good fucking time?” she shouted. “Maybe a good time would’ve been before you brought me back here last Friday and fucked me all weekend. Or maybe when I told you the only way things were going to work with us is if we were completely honest. Or better yet… maybe before you told me that you had never stopped loving me while I was gone.
“Any of those times would’ve been a good time to tell me that you’re currently fucking your manager and about to move to Austin to live near her!”
She was shaking with anger, and I desperately wanted to wrap her in my arms to console her, but I refrained.
Hanging my head in shame, I knew there was a good chance I may never see her again, and my chest tightened at the mere thought.
“Angel, you haven’t even been back a week, and I meant to tell you. I really did. I’m not trying to hurt you. I just wanted you to see this can work between us before clouding it with all of the reasons why it can’t,” I tried to explain.
“You are moving away, Mason! You are involved with someone else! You lied to me!”
God, I couldn’t take much more of watching her hurt without touching her.
“Please, Scarlett,” I begged. “Please just let me explain.” I could almost hear the inner struggle in her head about whether or not to grant my request.
She walked over to the couch and plopped down. “Enlighten me,” she said flatly.
Not wasting a moment that she could possibly change her mind, I flew to her side on the couch.
“Okay,” I began tentatively. “Last spring, Jobu’s Rum played at the SXSW music festival in Austin, which is where we met Bentley and her brother Jag. They are the co-owners of a reputable talent agency. They fell in love with the band and offered to represent us. Shortly after that, things really picked up for us.”
“For who, Jobu’s Rum or you and Bentley?”
I turned on the couch so I was facing her completely. “Look, Scarlett, I’m not trying to make you feel bad or say this is your doing, but I was in a pretty shitty place in my life. I was head-over-heels for you and thought you were on the same page, and you just fucking disappeared. I’ve already told you that I don’t want to relive everything that happened. It’s the past. We both made some bad decisions, we both apologized, and we both want to try to make this work now.”
“It’s not that simple, Mase. You are sleeping with someone else, and you are moving away,” she argued.
However, she had begun to calm down a bit.
“I’m not sleeping with anyone else.”
“As of when? Last Friday? When was the last time you fucked her?”
As much as I wanted to lie to her, I couldn’t. “Last Thursday.”
Scarlett stood up to leave, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her back down next to me on the couch. “I didn’t know if you were ever coming back. I was moving forward with my life. What else was I supposed to do?” I looked straight into her sad brown eyes. “The minute you walked back into my life, it all changed. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do, but it’s only been a week, angel. Bentley has been on tour with VanderBlue since then, and I haven’t had a chance to tell her, so when she showed up tonight, she didn’t know. Tell me you saw me. Tell me you saw I was not responding to her advances… not even a little bit. I kept telling her to back off, but she’s not a woman used to hearing no.
“I promise you that I don’t want to be with her. My relationship with her has always been purely physical. I was just trying to fill a void.”
“Oh, well that makes me feel so much better,” she retorted. “And I’m supposed to believe that when you’re living down the hall from her there and I’m living here, you won’t get the urge to ‘fill your void’ every so often? I’m not stupid, Mason. I saw the way she was acting toward you tonight. She’s not going to give you up easily.”
“I’ll take care of it,” I assured her.
I decided to press my luck and reach out to grab her hands. Thankfully, she didn’t tear them from my grasp.
“When are you moving?” The anger in her voice had mostly subsided, but instead, it was replaced with sorrow and uncertainty.
“The beginning of November.”
“Do you have to go still? Can’t you do your music thing from here?”
“The entire band has made arrangements to move there. I can’t back out on them now. If it was just me, of course. I would just say fuck it, but I can’t do that to my friends.”
“So what happens to us then, Mase?”
Relief washed through me to hear her still refer to us as “us.”
I brought her hands up to my face and kissed each set of knuckles. “I don’t know, angel, but we will figure it out. For now, I just want to make the best of the time we have together. I feel like this first week with you back has been such a roller coaster, and I know that’s to be expected as we work through everything that happened. But now that everything is out on the table, we can move past all of the other bullshit and focus on building our relationship. I can’t make any promises about the future, Scarlett, but I can promise you that right here, right now, I am crazy in love with you and want to be with you—just you. Please stay with me.”
She smiled softly and stared deep in my eyes. “This is your last warning, Mason Templeton. There better not be any more secrets or I’m done, no questions asked. I agree that we can figure out November when November gets here. Who knows what could happen between now and then. I’m willing to fight for us to have a chance, so let’s see where the next two months take us. But I’m telling you right now, I’m not afraid to tell that bitch Bentley exactly where she can go and what she can do when she gets there if she fucks with me again. I don’t care how important she thinks she is to you; you better tell her I come first, and she best not forget it.”
Wow. Before then, I had never seen the possessive and protective side of Scarlett, and I liked it. It turned me on like crazy knowing she wanted to fight for me. I needed to be inside her. I needed to remind her why we were so good together and how much she meant to me. I leaned forward and captured her lips with mine in a forceful kiss. She responded with the same vigor, and I knew that she wanted the same thing I did.
“So you’ll stay?” I mumbled, not moving my mouth from hers.
“For as long as you’ll have me,” she whispered in response. Her words were sweet music to my ears. I just had to figure out how to get her to move to Austin with me. I still had hope we could make this work.
Eight
Fate
Begin Again—Taylor Swift
Gravity—Sara Bareilles
Broken—Lifehouse
Scarlett
Over the next several weeks, Mason and I settled into a comfortable routine. He and Jobu’s Rum continued their exhausting rehearsal schedule when they weren’t playing at the bar. I had classes in the mornings and spent the afternoons reading and studying. Mason helped me get a part-time job in the evenings at a local music supply store where a friend of his was the manager. I absolutely loved it, because the people I worked with all loved music as much as I did, and when we weren’t busy, I got to play both guitar and keyboard. Between school and spending time with Mason, I had very little time for my music, so the job was perfect. I got paid to do something I loved.
Mina and I talked to each other daily, and we met at least once a week for lunch. The wedding was approaching quickly, and she was dealing with all the final decision-making while trying to keep up in her studies. She often just needed an ear to vent to, and I was happy to oblige. She cracked me up—I loved her ability to make fun of herself and the crazy world we lived in on a daily basis. Her favorite saying was “sane is boring.”
Max and I continued our Thursday evening gluttonous get-togethers at The Chocolate Bar. He was thrilled Mason and I had worked things out and were giving it a go. He was in his first year of graduate school at University of Houston for social work, and I loved hearing him talk about how he wanted to travel the world to help the underprivileged. The passion he had for wanting to make a difference and to leave a positive imprint on the world was awe-inspiring and reinforced what I already knew about him—he was truly one of the good guys.
After filling up on sweets and reenergizing on coffee with Max, I would head over to Mason’s place and we would go to Empty’s together. Thursday through Sunday nights, I stayed at his apartment. Jobu’s Rum played on Thursdays and Saturdays, but we would usually end up at the bar on Friday nights as well. Friday’s were still open mic nights, so occasionally I would perform something I had been practicing at work that week. Mase loved when I played and sang for him. He would always get the goofiest grin on his face when I was on stage. When I asked him about it, he told me that he was just proud of me and didn’t deserve me. I argued it was the other way around, but nonetheless, my heart filled with happiness and joy.
Jess, Meg, and their crew had been at the bar a few times, and when they came in, I would spend a while hanging out and catching up. Much like when I first saw Max, it was hard to not think about Evie when I was with them, but it got easier each time. The only awkwardness that remained between us was the issue of their missing roommate. I wasn’t sure if it was out of respect or hatred for me, but Ash never came with them. Everyone was always very careful not to mention his name, and I greatly appreciated their regard for my feelings. Thoughts of him ran through my head often enough; I didn’t need to actually hear his name to encourage my subconscious to dwell on him any more than it did.
Things between Mason and me were going great. It seemed once everything about Bentley and the move had come out in the open, he could completely relax and enjoy our time together. When he explained everything to me, I was hurt he kept it from me, but I understood why he had. It was easy for me to forgive him; I believed in my heart he was being honest with me about how he felt and what he wanted. He had given me a second chance when I intentionally kept information from him in order to be with him, so I felt I owed him the same. I still didn’t know what would happen to us come November, but I tried not to think about it.
Mason rarely discussed the move either. I kept hoping he would ask me to join him at the end of the semester or the end of the school year, even though that was months away, but he didn’t. I wasn’t about to invite myself to live with him, even though we were already practically doing that more than half the time.
Mason had bought me a slew of girly bath products and m
y own toothbrush he set up in his bathroom, so I wouldn’t have to bring a suitcase each weekend I came. I had moved over some clothes that earned their own spot in a drawer and in the closet. Every Sunday when it was time for me to go back to my apartment, he would try different seduction techniques to get me to stay, and as much as I wanted to do just that, I knew we needed breathing room so we didn’t suffocate each other. It was extremely hard for me to say no to him, especially knowing the days I had to spend with him were numbered, but that was exactly why I needed to spend time without him. Soon, I would have to spend every day without him.
Bentley called and texted regularly, but Mason assured me it was regarding work and that she was keeping their conversations strictly professional. He told me that he had talked to her about me and their current/future relationship, and there was no confusion or misunderstanding about how she was to conduct herself around either of us. I really didn’t believe she had backed off so easily, and even if she had, I knew it was only temporary. However, I trusted Mason and had faith he wouldn’t succumb to her advances. He also knew as well as I did that if something did happen, I would find out quickly. She wouldn’t be able to wait to gloat in my face about how she was right and she got him back.
Before I knew it, October was upon us, and the dreaded November 1st date was quickly approaching. The rest of the band was excited, and I couldn’t blame them. Not only were they moving to a new place, but there was a really good chance things were about to get going for them musically. I felt guilty Mase wasn’t looking forward to the move like they were; I knew our relationship was the only thing holding him back. I tried being encouraging and supportive when he did talk about it, but it was forced from both of us.
All the members of Jobu’s Rum had planned to forgo practice for a few days to make a trip to Austin to purchase furniture for their new apartments and tie up some other loose ends for their relocation. In total, they had three apartments to outfit—Aaron and Sophie in one, Cruz and Sebastian in another, and Mason had his own place. They were all in the same building, and coincidentally, Sophie had gotten a job in their leasing office. Unfortunately, it was the same place Bentley lived as well. I wanted to go with him for numerous reasons, but they had gone during the week and I couldn’t miss class or work. He promised me that Bentley would not be there, that she was still on tour, but I didn’t put it past her to make a surprise trip home knowing he was going to be there. But what was I going to do? Soon, he’d be there all the time.
