“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.
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?”