by Whitley Cox
Mason would remember that afternoon, that moment and those words every day for the rest of his life. Angus Nordman was one of the most honorable, hardworking men in the city. And he’d trusted Mason, only for Mason to do a deal behind his back with Angus’s son Gus and sell the man’s business—his legacy—out from under him. A furniture-making company that had started out in Angus’s woodshop forty years ago was now a multi-million-dollar business with a warehouse and over thirty master carpenters that Gus wanted to franchise and outsource to China. And Mason helped make it happen.
Angus died six months later of a heart attack, and Gus was now living with a trophy wife on Bainbridge Island, spending his days on the golf course while a factory in China produced all his father’s old furniture designs.
Mason still felt sick to his stomach every time he thought about Angus Nordman and what he’d done to his company, what he’d done to the man’s life. Perhaps he’d still be alive if Mason hadn’t helped Gus sell out.
Or would Gus have just found someone else to close the deal?
“So then you what? Gave all your money away to the poor?” Lowenna’s brittle voice brought him back to the present, and he shook himself mentally to clear his head and the haunting of Angus Nordman. He couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not. Either way, the look she was giving him made the bottom of his stomach feel extra heavy.
He shook his head. “Shortly after, I quit my job. I kept my condo, and a friend of mine managed it for me, rented it out—mostly to celebrities in town for movie shoots—and I went off traveling. I spent a lot of time in India and Thailand, did some yoga and meditation retreats, spent some time on Bali with the monks. I took a monthlong vow of silence while there, learning a lot about myself.”
“I don’t think I could handle a vow of silence. I’d maybe make an hour. Even at home, at the shop, I talk to myself.” She laughed at herself, smiling and shaking her head. “I don’t know how the monks do it.”
Mason joined in her laughter. “Yeah, it was tough at first, not being able to speak to anybody, to get my point across without words. But it didn’t take long until I welcomed the calm and the quiet. Welcomed the thoughts in my own head and the sound of the birds and the rustle of the breeze through the trees. I’ve never slept better in my life than I did in that month.”
She frowned in thought. He loved how rosy her cheeks were after her shower, all fresh-faced without any makeup. Just Lowenna, pure, beautiful Lowenna. “Makes sense, I guess. Still not sure I could do it.”
Still chuckling, he continued. “But even with the vow of silence and all the volunteering and giving back, it was a friend I met along the way who put it all into perspective for me.”
Her brows lifted before she stifled a yawn. “Must have been some friend.”
“Oh, he was.” He smiled and glanced off toward the corner of the room, where a picture of him and Paul sat on his bookcase. “I was in Thailand at a bar one night, minding my own business, taking in the craziness that is the tourist scene. There was a band on stage, and people were dancing, but there were also people sitting in the booths and at tables just enjoying the music and atmosphere. Everybody was having a great time until a white man in his late sixties with a thick accent yelled across the bar at the bartender. He used the N-word and demanded the guy bring him another beer.”
Lowenna’s mouth form a surprised O. “He didn’t?”
Mason nodded. “He did. The bartender was a big, black guy. And by big, I mean tall as fuck and built like a brick shithouse. He stalked his way out from behind the bar.” Mason paused and tapped his lip with one finger. “I’m going to say ambled is a better word. Took his time. Smooth gait, calm demeanor. The whole bar turned dead quiet though, watching to see what happened. The music even stopped as he walked straight up to the drunk guy … ”
She lurched forward where she sat. “Did he punch him?” Her gray eyes were huge, her face full of anticipation, almost giddy. “He punched him, right? Please tell me the bartender punched that racist jackass.”
He chuckled. He loved how invested she’d suddenly become in his story. “Not quite. The man did get a black eye though.”
Her brows pinched. “Wh-what? How?”
“Paul, that’s the name of the bartender, he walked right up to the racist jackass customer, pulled down his zipper, pulled out his cock and bopped the man right in the eye. Prince Albert penis piercing and all.”
He hadn’t timed that quite right, because just as he told her about the penis ring, she’d taken a sip of her wine, and now that wine was all over her screen. Red droplets dripped down over the image of her face.
He loved how reactive she was to things. Her face, her body language, all of it.
It made him wonder if she was this easily stimulated, this responsive in the bedroom as well.
“He had a penis ring?” Her voice was a high-pitched squeak as she used the sleeve of her housecoat to wipe the screen of her phone, giving Mason a view up her nose but also of her breasts. The sides of her robe had slipped open to reveal a low-cut tank top and definitely NO BRA.
Once she finished wiping the screen of her phone and corrected the angle, Mason continued. “Yes, he had a penis ring.”
“And then what happened?”
“He told the guy to get out of his bar and said if he saw him back in there again, he’d hit him in the other eye.”
“He didn’t!”
Mason chuckled. “He did. And that’s how I met my friend Paul, one of the greatest human beings on this earth.”
Shaking her head, she was all smiles. “And he’s the one who helped rid you of your demons?”
“He did. Paul was just like me back in the UK. He worked for a big investment firm, made a lot of money, ruined a lot of lives doing it. Then he got sick, had an aneurysm in his brain and had to go to the hospital, nearly died. He fell in love with his doctor, a Thai woman doing a surgery fellowship in London. They got married, and he followed her back to Thailand, where she works as the chief of surgery at a big hospital in Bangkok and he runs the bar and takes care of their two kids.”
“Wow. What a story. What a life.”
Mason nodded.
“Why’d he have a penis ring?”
It was hilarious that that was where her mind still was. It had taken Mason a bit of time to come to terms with it too and then finally work up the nerve to ask Paul about it.
He lifted one shoulder and adjusted his position on the couch. “He wanted it. Said it was a whim back in his college years but that he’d never had a complaint from a woman, so he kept it.”
Lowenna’s face got all scrunched up. “Did … he … did he … ”
“Did he what?”
“Did he convince you to get one?” She chomped down hard on her bottom lip, her face going an even rosier red in embarrassment.
Mason tossed his head back and began to laugh. “Uh, no,” he finally said. “He did not. Not that he tried to convince me. I would never dream of putting a steel rod through my favorite body part. It’s big and beautiful enough as it is without bling.”
There it was. Just the reaction he was hoping for.
Her eyes went wide, her gasp loud, her cheeks practically scarlet.
Now, he needed to just drive it all home.
“He did, however, convince me to get these … ” He reached behind him and pulled his shirt off over his head. Another gasp from Lowenna made him smile beneath his shirt.
“Your nipples are pierced?” Her voice once again went high-pitched.
“They are.”
Her fingers touched the screen as if she were trying to reach out and touch him, touch his chest, touch his nipples and the barbells that went through them. Her tongue slid across her bottom lip as her fingers slid across the screen. “And your tattoos?”
“One for each country I visited. Twenty-six in total. Lucky number thirteen on each arm.” He lifted up his left arm and twisted it around to reveal the big tattoo on his forear
m that said Willow. “Except this makes number twenty-seven. I got it the week after Willow was born.”
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. “They all are.”
Their eyes locked, and her tongue once again darted out and coated her lips in a shine he wanted to lick off himself.
“Thank you,” he replied, his heart rate suddenly picking up. “Do you want me to put my shirt back on?”
She didn’t say anything, but that was undoubtedly a head shake.
He grinned. “Okay then. It’s a bit chilly in here though. My nipples are a bit … ”
She exhaled through her mouth. “Hard.”
Man, she was cute when she was flustered and obviously turned on.
This was going just as he’d planned. Better, in fact.
“Continue with your story,” she said, reaching for her wine. “How did Paul help you with your demons?”
He thought she might have forgotten what they were talking about. Wouldn’t be the first time his nipples, tats and abs made a woman forget what she was talking about.
Snickering at the same time he made his pecs bounce, he continued with his story. “After that night with the racist bastard, I went back to Paul’s bar every day, got to know him, his wife and kids. It was Paul who showed me what I was missing in my life, what I was missing in my heart. And that was a family, that was Willow. Paul had an aneurysm, high cholesterol and blood pressure as well as a debilitating ulcer in his gut before he quit his job and moved to Thailand with Boonsri. When I met him, the man couldn’t stop smiling, said he was in the best shape and health of his life. He was happy. He was content. He was fulfilled.
“Paul hired me as a bartender for a few months and taught me the ropes of mixing drinks and running a bar, and that’s when I realized that I wanted his life. I wanted to run a business, be around people and have a family.”
“I traveled the world for a little bit longer, met some more incredible people, and then I returned home to Seattle, sold my condo, bought the bar and a townhouse in a great school district. I thought about waiting for the perfect woman to come along and doing the whole family thing the traditional way, but fuck traditional. Traditions are just peer pressure from dead people. We make our own traditions. We blaze our own trails.”
“I love that,” she whispered. “Fuck tradition. Fuck Brody and wanting to have a family the traditional way.”
“Right!” He lifted his hand and pointed at her. “You get it. Fuck tradition. Totally. And fuck Brody.”
Her smile and the relief and freeing look that came over her made Mason want to reach into the phone, grab her and haul her into his lap so they could say fuck tradition together.
But instead, he simply continued with his story. “I wasn’t willing to wait, to go through all the dating BS and shit. I’m a thirty-eight-year-old man. I don’t have all the time in the world anymore if I don’t want to be a geriatric dad. So I approached my friends with the egg and womb, and ten months later, Willow came along, chasing away the last of my demons, and now I couldn’t be happier. I’m demon-free.”
“Demon-free,” she breathed. “That sounds amazing.”
“You could be too, you know. You don’t have to go to the wedding. You don’t have to make the chocolate centerpiece or give a speech. Sometimes being the bigger person isn’t the best route. Sometimes you have to be the absent person. Sometimes you have to walk away. To save your sanity, to save yourself, you have to walk away completely. It’s called self-care.”
She snorted, the expression on her face saying she wasn’t at all convinced.
“It doesn’t make you the weak person or the selfish person, Lowenna. It makes you the person who loves herself enough to know when she needs to get out, when she needs to take care of herself first. We don’t do that enough. We’re always worried about others, often forsaking ourselves in the process. It comes back to the airplane oxygen mask. Yours first. You can’t help anybody else if you’re dead. Whether it be literally or simply on the inside.”
She blinked a few times, her expression becoming almost blank. “It’s easier said than done,” she whispered.
“Maybe. But you have to start somewhere. You’re continuing to let them take from you. Take your energy, take your happiness. And I know you hate them for what they’ve done, yet for some reason, you just keep going back. Hate is poison. A poison we take ourselves, hoping the other person dies from it.” Whoa, that was deep. Did a monk tell him that? He couldn’t remember. Probably, though. “The only real person who suffers from hate is the person who hates.”
Her bottom lip trembled, and the cords in her throat grew tight.
“Look, I know you won’t be able to have any babies of your own, but there is always adoption or—”
“I can have babies of my own,” she said, cutting him off. “I just can’t carry them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I froze my eggs.”
He much preferred this vein of conversation. It sparked an unmistakable glimmer of hope into her beautiful gray eyes.
“I didn’t think I was going to be able to afford it,” she went on, “but then one day I showed up to work and there was a cashier’s check waiting for me. Waiting for The woman with cancer who needs to freeze her eggs. It was the most bizarre thing in the world.”
What?
It couldn’t be her, could it? What were the odds?
Mason’s chest began to rise and fall erratically at the same time his brain went fuzzy and an icy chill sprinted down the length of his back. “Where … where did you work?”
Oblivious to his change in body temperature, irregular breathing or rapidly beating heart, she shrugged. “The Sandpiper Pub.”
Holy shit.
A ringing started in his ears, and her face on the screen went all blurry. She was still talking, but all the words seem garbled together. He blinked and squeezed his eyes shut to try and focus, but he couldn’t.
Was this some kind of joke?
Once again, he was transported back to that afternoon at the pub. Angus had just left, and Mason was drowning himself and his ulcer in scotch and pity.
A conversation between two of the waitresses behind him piqued his interest, and he strained his ears to listen.
“Did you hear about … ” The name was muffled so he hadn’t been able to hear it.
“No, what, is she okay?”
“No, came in crying the other day. It’s stage three,” the first waitress said, sympathy in her tone.
“Shit,” the second waitress said. “Is she getting it removed?”
“Yeah. But first she wants to freeze her eggs. Asked anybody and everybody to let her know if they need a shift covered. The procedure isn’t cheap. Add on top of that all her medical bills for surgery and chemo, poor girl is going to be broke. And all to simply be able to survive. I tell you this country’s medical system is so fucked up. Only those who can pay survive.”
“Yeah, but doesn’t her hubby have a decent job with medical insurance?”
“His plan doesn’t cover it. Hardly covers her medical expenses.”
“How much does it cost?”
“I think she said the egg freezing alone was like eighteen grand or something after everything was said and done. You have to pay each year to rent space in the facility freezer. And what with the surgery and chemo, she won’t be wanting to have kids for the next few years. Not until she’s at least in remission.”
If she survived at all.
They didn’t need to say it out loud for it to be said.
“I wouldn’t want kids with her husband anyway. Even if he is good-looking, he’s a jerk.”
“Agreed.”
The softer-spoken waitress whimpered. “The poor thing. Why do shitty things have to happen to good people?”
“I know, right? Working her ass off at that fancy bakery all day, then coming here at night, and now cancer. Life is not fucking fair.”
“No kidding.”
No
t only was life not fucking fair, life was fucking weird as shit.
Of all the bars in the entire city … first the Sandpiper and then Mason’s bar. What were the fucking odds?
The ringing in his ears had finally ebbed and his vision cleared, though the sweat on his brow was new, as was the whirling vortex of dread he felt in his gut.
Lowenna was still chatting away, oblivious to his weird epiphany.
“Yeah, it was crazy,” she went on, her words drawing him out of his spiraling thoughts. “I only told a few people at work that I had cancer. Told even fewer that I wanted to freeze my eggs. And I certainly didn’t tell any customers, but one day I show up to work and there is a two-hundred-thousand-dollar cashier’s check waiting for me.”
Oh, he knew how much it was for.
“Did you ever find out who gave it to you?”
She shook her head, her bright silver-gray eyes hitting him so hard, he felt that to his very toes.
He shook off their effect. He needed to keep his head on straight.
Had his executive assistant done what he’d asked and kept everything a secret? Nobody was supposed to know about his anonymous gesture. He wasn’t doing it for the gratitude or the warm fuzzy feelings that came from doing something bigger than himself—he did it because his life was coming up roses compared with hers and she needed to catch a break. She needed the opportunity to have a family of her own if she wanted one, money be damned. He did it because it was the right thing to do. Those with less should be helped by those with more. It was a simple concept that not enough people in the world understood.
Who would have thought that five years later, he would meet that same woman in his bar, she’d hire him to be her date and he would fall hard for her?
“Believe me, I tried to find my benefactor. I wanted to thank my mysterious fairy godmother or godfather. They … whoever they are, saved me. Brody’s benefits covered a bit of my medical bills but not everything. And because of my mystery benefactor, I was able to have sixteen eggs harvested, and they are currently sitting in a freezer facility at the fertility clinic across town.” Her eyes glittered once again. “Maybe I knew that things with Brody and I were headed south, because I never told him I froze my eggs. Something in me, something in the back of my mind told me not to tell him, so I didn’t. I kept it a secret. Took the hormones in secret, and now I’m glad I did.”