“I am thinking clearly, and I’ve done what I needed to do to make me feel good about moving ahead with Mason.” I didn’t tell my sisters what I had planned for Mason tonight before I left for the date, and I don’t want to tell them now. It’s private, between Mason and me. “I trust him, and now I need you two to trust me and quit nosing into Mason’s business.”
Melody nods, looking ashamed, but Aria only crosses her arms and says, “We’ll stop when we get all the facts.”
“No, you’ll stop now. What happens or doesn’t happen between Mason and me is our business, no one else’s.”
Aria huffs. “Well, it was certainly our business when he left you the last time.”
“Aria, don’t,” Melody says, but Aria pushes on.
“How many nights did we sit up with you while you cried over him?” she asks. “Picking apart every detail of your relationship and his proposal and the last night you spent together, looking for some sign, some clue you’d overlooked that would have let you know he was going to run?”
I close my eyes. “That was different.”
“The only thing that’s different is that you’re under his spell again,” Aria says. “But what happens when he leaves the next time, and you’re even more broken than you were before? Are you still going to tell us your relationship with Mason, or lack of relationship with Mason, is none of our business?”
“I won’t come crying to you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I say, opening my eyes, meeting Aria’s hard gaze with one of my own.
“You can always come crying to us,” Melody says, a quiver in her voice. “Come on, y’all, let’s not fight. I hate it when we fight.”
“I’m not fighting,” Aria says. “I’m doing what I think is right for my sister, because I love her and I wish someone had done the same for me before I screwed everything up by trusting a man who didn’t deserve it.”
It’s the first time I’ve heard Aria even hint at what happened with her and Liam, Felicity’s father, and enough to make me hold the verbal dart on the tip of my tongue. Aria has been very tight-lipped when it comes to Liam, saying “it didn’t work out,” and leaving it at that. Even Dad hasn’t been able to get any more information out of her, and Aria has always been a daddy’s girl.
“So, let me snoop. Please,” Aria continues, eyes pleading with mine. “You need someone with a clear head looking out for you. I’ll keep checking up on Mason, and if I don’t find anything, then we won’t have to talk about this ever again. But if I do…”
Aria doesn’t finish her sentence.
She doesn’t have to.
I know what will happen if Aria finds something on Mason. She will try not to gloat about being right. But secretly, she’ll be happy, or at least grimly justified that she was correct in her suspicions.
“Do you want this to fail?” I whisper, tears rising unexpectedly in my eyes. “Just to prove that all men are awful or something? Do you really think that’s true?”
Aria sighs and her eyes begin to shine. “No, babe, of course not. I want you to have everything you’ve dreamed about—an amazing husband and babies and years of wedded bliss. I just…” She presses her lips together. “I know how easy it is to have the wool pulled over your eyes. I just want you to be careful.”
“It’s too late to be careful,” I say, sniffing, trying not to break out in full-fledged sobs.
I haven’t even admitted it to myself until now, but it’s true.
The second I laid eyes on Mason Stewart, it was too late to resist. He is it, the one. A part of me has been waiting for him to come back since the moment he left, a part that knows no other man will ever touch my heart the way Mason has.
“It’s not too late,” Aria says. “You just need to—”
“It is,” I say firmly. “It was too late the night I saw him at Lisa’s wedding. There is never going to be anyone else for me, Aria. Mason is it. He’s the only man who’s ever made me feel this way.”
“Addicted?” Aria supplies.
“No!” I remember the baby is asleep and lower my voice as I add, “Not addicted. Hopeful. And happy. And understood. He gets me, Ra.” I meet my older sister’s gaze, hoping she’ll understand. “He knows me, inside and out. He’s the only man who has ever made me feel loved for exactly who I am, warts and all.”
“You don’t have any warts. You’re gorgeous, Sissy,” Melody says, using the old nickname from when she was too little to say ‘Lark.’ “You could have any man in Bliss River. Any man in Atlanta!”
“But I don’t want any man,” I say. “It’s Mason or no one. If things don’t work out this time, then that’s it. I’m done dating. I’m done looking for someone to fill the Mason-shaped place inside of me because no one ever will.”
Aria sighs again and slowly shakes her head. “Okay. If that’s the way you feel.” She pulls out a kitchen chair and sinks down into it, hands coming to cup her cocoa.
“Does that mean you’ll stop looking for dirt on Mason?”
“Yes, fine,” Aria mumbles, staring into her mug.
“And could you maybe be a little nicer to him when he comes to pick me up tomorrow morning?” I know I’m pushing it, but if things work out the way I’m hoping they will, then…
Well, then Aria will have to learn to be civil to Mason, sooner or later, because Mason is going to be around for a long, long time.
The thought makes me smile.
“Felicity and I are going to the store tomorrow morning,” Aria says.
“What time?” I ask.
“In the morning,” she says. “The entire morning. Especially whatever time Mason is coming to pick you up.”
“Oh come on, Aria, be nice,” Melody snaps in a rare burst of temper. She raises her voice so rarely even Aria tends to pay attention when she does.
“Fine!” Aria rolls her eyes. “I’ll be nicer to him.” She takes a sip of her cocoa, grimacing as she swallows. “But for the record, I think Mason should stay on the suspicious list for at least another month. You’re making this entirely too easy for him.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” I say, silently thinking that tonight was anything but easy for Mason. “But that’s my choice to make.” I back away from the table. “See you two in the morning.”
“Night, Lark,” Melody calls after me as I move toward the stairs.
I wave and head up to my old bedroom, the one I lived in when I first met Mason. It’s still decorated the way I left it, with light blue paint and old restaurant signs I’ve collected since I was a kid nailed to the walls.
I decided I was going to run a fancy restaurant—not a string of BBQ shacks like my dad and mom—when I was five. I started my first imaginary café when I was six, designing a sign and a menu and forcing Melody and Aria to play “out to dinner” for hours every weekend. I always dreamed of being a cook, and of having my own restaurant someday. It used to be my one, all consuming, “when I’m grown up” fantasy.