by T. N. King
“Then I’ll tell her that it’s as good as forgotten and that we never have to discuss or think about it again.” The words were short and clipped, his thumbnail twisting and pushing hard enough to indent that leather cover over his steering wheel. “It won’t be any different than I had been planning before two weeks ago, it will just … require more effort.” And very possibly, a much longer separation which he wouldn’t be able to explain to her parents or her when it was they questioned it. “However, I can’t do the not knowing any longer…” He couldn’t spend another week trying to figure out in his own head where she stood on the subject without any acknowledgement or hint even from her at all.
“And are you prepared for that outcome, should it become an eventuality?” He had already looked up what vacation days he’d saved at work, trying to fit in where it was he could go to escape all of it. He had priced hotels and gas prices to several different destinations that would give him enough breathing space and separation both to orient himself in the direction he would need to go should that be the case… He was fiscally prepared. He was prepared as far as the planning of the details. He wasn’t emotionally prepared, but then he didn’t think that was a possibility at this point.
“I am resigned to accept whatever answer it is that she gives me,” the sentence was carefully worded, even by his standards, and the light chuff of air that masked a laugh over the line was Dr. Friedrich’s only indication of amusement over it. Mason wanted to pretend that he cared more, or that it offended him, he actually wanted to lighten the tone of their conversation some, no matter how marginally. For once in his life, he wished he was equipped with the ability and the patience to craft small talk instead of what it was they normally discussed. Because no, he wasn’t ready, not for the emotional backlash that would follow if that were indeed the eventuality. He wasn’t ready, however he was making plans to ready himself as much as possible for how completely unready he would be. The whole thing sounded like a contradiction, his mind trying to rephrase things to make them fit better, and yet he was still driving towards her new apartment.
“I think Mason… that is all that you can expect yourself to be.”
The words were kind, as was the intention behind them, but they did nothing to alleviate that nervous energy that was beginning to build within him, whole body shifting in that driver’s seat as he turned off of the highway and into the residential areas surrounding the campus. It may have been all he could expect himself to be… however, he wished there was a way to make the whole thing more rational. To be able to approach it from a logical standpoint. Emotions were messy though, and his emotions for Nicole had always been even just that much messier than the average scope.
“I understand I’m cutting this short Dr. Friedrich, however, I’m pulling into what looks like the apartment complex now, and I’d really rather do so without another voice in the car with me.” His voice was distant, even to his own ears, whole of his focus shifted from what they had been discussing to the girl who lived here and what all he was coming to discuss with her. He was an intelligent man, more so even than many who labeled themselves such. He might not have been social, he might not have accomplished anything of note in his life, but he was reasonably good looking. He had things in his favor, just like he had things that weren’t in his favor. It wasn’t as if this was some new girl who he was trying to present a face towards, this was Nicole, and she’d known him since his formative years… which made things all the more complicated.
He didn’t know if Dr. Friedrich ever answered, he didn’t know if he hung up or if the call was disconnected mutually, because pulling into that parking space felt like the longest two minutes of his life, staring at the numbers on the door in front of him and double checking them against his phone before turning the car off. It was now or never, he would leave here with an answer, the question just became which answer it would be that he was leaving with.
Chapter Sixteen
The world spun and then spun again, Nicole pushing herself off of the floor and trying to ignore the way her head was pounding, the hammer falling idly from her fingers and back to the half-put-together bookshelf that had been in front of her while seated. She didn’t have the brain power for this right now. She could barely string two competent sentences back to back, much less follow the instructions on this book that seemed like it was on level with building a rocket ship instead of a simple bookshelf for her apartment. She didn’t build things. She didn’t put things together. She normally had help doing those kinds of things. Either her father or … Mason. Neither of which she could call right now and for two totally separate reasons. Mason was… not an option. Not an option for her to even think about, in any context, her palms scrubbing against her face as if she could scrub his very name out of her brain. Her father… was asking a lot of questions now that she didn’t know how to answer, or how to even process.
It’d been two weeks and yet, she felt like her entire universe had been spun on its axis at least three separate times, and it had all started with…. Her aggravated grunt escaped through her fingers as they ran down her face again, trying to banish the thought of hot hands and hungry lips out of her subconscious. And her dad was smart. He was the man who had raised her, the man who was even more emotionally in tune with her than her own mother. He was her steady rock and safe place… and he knew something was wrong, and from the way he was talking and the questions he’d been asking, he’d known something was wrong for a while now, he ‘d just been waiting for her to talk to him about it. Which apparently—he wasn’t doing any longer.
The questions had started out simple, just little comments about how he knew she was going through more than she was letting on and he was there if she needed to talk. Eventually, they’d evolved to him asking if he should at all be concerned with maybe Mason’s accusations towards Aaron’s actions months ago maybe not being as far off base as she had pretended. Then he’d asked if everything were all right between she and Mason. She didn’t even remember how she’d gotten out of all of it last time, or what all she’d said. She knew most of it had been her in histrionics, sobbing and hiccupping at him that she wasn’t ready to talk about it until he’d dropped it, but… she couldn’t remember the details… which seemed to be a problem plaguing her life all too much lately.
Her world had stopped two weeks ago in that living room with Mason, with his hands only just recently off of her and all of that laid bare between them, but the rest of the world had kept on going and she was finding it harder and harder to keep up. The first night back had been easy. Showing up at her apartment to find Aaron in bed with another woman, presumably the same one that Mason had caught him with. It had made her packing her things and calling the neighborhood police to come stand guard while she did so bearable. She hadn’t even really been as focused on it as she should have, even with Aaron yelling in the background she only felt… numb. Numb to his anger, numb to the hurt that should have been there walking in on her fiancé with another woman in their shared home… the only thing she hadn’t felt numb over was Mason. The only time she felt any kind of alive was when she thought of Mason…
Which she needed to stop doing. She needed to get past it and move on, set up her life in this apartment and start fresh but… she couldn’t. When she’d moved last time, everything had been unpacked that same day, everything found its home in an organized system within the apartment. She had cleaned and cleaned every surface what had to be at least twelve times in that first day alone… after two weeks of living here in this apartment… there were half emptied boxes littering the floor and nearly every available surface. The only piece of furniture that she had successfully put together was her bedframe, and that was only out of necessity. She had maybe three more packets of ramen and a jug of bottled water left… and that was it. Her dirty clothes hamper was overflowing, there were two bags of trash bagged up and not taken out in the kitchen.
She was a wreck. She couldn’t stop thinking about ho
w her decisions had ruined everything, how she’d sent both she and Mason into an inescapable hole of awkwardness. She had practically forced herself on him and he—she didn’t know what to think, but she knew that somehow she must have accidentally manipulated the situation, made him react to her, or possibly even just done something to encourage an attention he never would have given on his own. She had hurt him, and even with him trying to contact her, she couldn’t face it. It’d been one thing when her relationship with Aaron was destroying things in her own life, but to have transcended to Mason of all people, who didn’t need any outside help making his life any harder than it already was, was unforgivable. And the worst part of it? It had been mainly her fault, not her failing relationship, not her upset over anything else going on in her life, not even the stress of the jobs she had been working…because that night had forced her to realize that those feelings weren’t new and her desire concerning him wasn’t…something that had just happened.
It was something that had been there for years, under the surface, festering and growing without her acknowledgment. Now that she had acknowledged it, it was only so much worse. Her hands finally left her face, body turning in the direction of the sink to splash water over herself or wash her hands… something to get her moving again and not back stuck in her own head where she might just sit for hours. Anything to distract her for Mason, she was almost desperate enough to wish that the cable install-man who’d been by two days previous would come back again to try fixing that wire he’d accidentally pulled out of the wall. Literally anything for her to occupy her mind with that didn’t involve Mason, or Aaron, or her family and all of the stressors she couldn’t escape from mentally.
Almost like an answered prayer the doorbell sounded, her body immediately shifting course, looking down to verify that she had actual clothes on and not just pajamas on that time. She didn’t think she could face the cable guy again in just her pajama shorts and a tank top without face planting from embarrassment alone. “Coming!” she called out as an afterthought, aware that her having to try and navigate through the half-put together furniture was making her take longer than normal, finally sidling around the couch base and unlocking the multiple locks with what almost looked like practiced ease. “Sorry I…”
The words died in her throat, eyes widening and her mouth going dry before the door was even half open, whole body jerking to a stop that nearly sent her reeling into the doorframe itself. “Mason.” His name was almost a sigh, half reverence and half absolute terror at the sight of him there. He wasn’t supposed to be here. She wasn’t ready. She hadn’t thought of how to apologize to him, she didn’t know how she was supposed to explain herself, she couldn’t handle looking at him with him this near, shirt half untucked from his jeans and the collar popped open with his tie hanging half off. He made her—weak. Weak and hot, her skin flushing in a way that had nothing to do with the weather outside and everything instead to do with the man who stood in her doorway. She didn’t have the words, or the actions, she had nothing, frozen there like some kind of half posed mannequin, her fingers just barely on that door knob and hovering like she was considering shutting it. Or considering throwing it wide open and throwing herself at him.
One sounded really good while the other sounded like what she was supposed to be doing. What she should have done for self preservation and common decency. It was just hard to differentiate which was which when his mouth was opening like it was, her eyes dropping to it and waiting for the words to actually leave it. In the meantime, she would stare, that heat in her belly circling and tightening until it felt like her abdomen had somehow locked up.
Mason. Was here. And he wasn’t talking, mouth poised like he’d been about to and then he stopped completely.
Her eyes jerked back up to his, the only movement she had as warning before there were hands on either side of her face, fingers widening to encompass the whole of it- and she was being pushed back, Mason’s face lowered to her own and his lips pressing against hers more territorially than they had the last time.
There was no pause or question this time, there was no gentle testing of whether or not she was going to pull away. There was only his lips against hers, breaking them apart at the seams and his body ushering her further back through the door so he could close it behind them with what she assumed was his foot. She wasn’t opening her eyes to find out, she wasn’t… doing anything, her whole body reacting to him just touching her, arching up into those hands on either side of her face and pushing her lips urgently back into his. It didn’t even feel real, half sob caught in the back of her throat and her fingers scrabbling against his shoulders like she was trying to climb up him to get closer. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think, she could barely rationalize what was actually happening. That Mason was here, his mouth was back against hers like she’d been fantasizing about for weeks.
“Wait,” her voice was small, face turning to break the contact of their lips to try and allow herself to see reason, to try and get him to see reason, a moment's respite to try and do anything at all but respond. “Mason this is wrong,” but she didn’t sound convinced even to her own ears, her voice small and breathy as his lips, denied her own, turned to move down the line of her jaw, placing hard open mouthed kisses along the line there, his teeth pulling at the sensitive flesh and her breath catching with every graze. “Mason we should stop…” She tried again, but her hands were pulling his shoulders closer to her instead of further away, those lips moving down her jaw and along the edge of her throat, those teeth becoming harder, his tongue flicking out every few seconds to soothe that quickly bruising flesh. He was marking her and she could feel it, feel the bruises that were already lifting up along her skin in response, and she couldn’t… even try to push him away, even if she knew that she ought to be.
“Tell me you don’t want to.”
His voice sent gooseflesh along every inch of exposed flesh on her person, hair standing on end and her breath coming all the more embarrassingly quickly for it.
“Tell me you want me to stop.” His tone remained deep, lower of an octave than she’d ever heard from him before, each word drawn out like he was teasing her, like he was daring her to actually repeat the words he was near growling into her throat. “Tell me you haven’t been thinking about this, about us, about me fitting between those pretty little thighs of yours.”
Whatever response she might have had to the first was lost in the moan he pulled out of her throat between the words grumbled against it and the harsh bite of his teeth into her collarbone following it. It was dirty, it was wrong, and her whole body was on edge begging for him to say anything even half similar one more time.
“I’ve been thinking about it Nic. I’ve been thinking about the way you clenched and shook around my fingers, about how much tighter you would have been if I had been given just five more fucking minutes. I’ve been thinking about it for two goddamn weeks.” His groan was audible, vibrating through her skin and down into her core, eyes almost fluttering in their desperate attempt to stay open, but like magic her brain finally registered two words. Two weeks.
She was awful. Her fingers stopped pulling at his shirt, pushing just barely against him because even though she should have been able to, she still wasn’t able to push him fully away. Just like she wasn’t able to avoid his navigating the both of them back through that apartment again, past all of that half-put-together furniture, through the living room and down into the hallway… “Mason,” his name had more censorship in it then, the tears building further behind her eyes and her throat catching around her next words. “I’m sorry. Fuck. I’m so sorry, this is wrong. I don’t know what I did, I don’t know how, I never should have made you do anything, I never should have forced this or… manipulated you like that or,” her voice caught again, all the more because of how those hands had stilled on her for a moment. But no sooner had she started lamenting it before they were moving, his palms rolling down the side of her face and
along that recently bruised flesh of her neck.
He was laughing, and she didn’t know why, just like she didn’t know why his hands were still moving further down, one running down the length of her right arm to her wrist, fingers encircling it and lifting it back against his person, his hand pressing her palm further into his chest, while the other twisted, his knuckles brushing down her opposite side. He was still touching her, but he was laughing, smaller, open mouthed kisses being placed softly back up the skin that they had just marked up. “You didn’t make me do a goddamn thing.” He sounded so sure, words wrapped in heat and promise both, his body walking hers further backwards until the back of her knees hit something solid. The only solid thing in this apartment, that bedframe nearly forcing her legs to buckle entirely just from the realization of where they were and being alone. “Do you even know how long I’ve wanted you little girl?”
She didn’t even know how to describe that voice, so very close to the way it sounded when he was being intentionally mean … but different, lower and more promising, like he had something just beyond what she could see…
“So goddamn long,” his lips were up by her ear again, heated breath ghosting over the shell of it and his hands pushing her back, forcing her to fall back into that mattress and further, shuffling her body up along it until he could fit one of his knees between the both of hers, pushing them out and both of his hands moving to the fabric of the skirt wrapped about her hips, untangling it from her legs and sliding it slowly up her thighs. “You remember when you punched that O’Conner kid in the throat for calling Marie a slut? I knew it then. Fourteen goddamn years old and you looked like a fucking avenging goddess, blood all over your knuckles and that glare…” his voice trailed off in a laugh again, but this one sounded almost sinister, palms of his hands sliding slowly up that same path her skirt had taken. “I’ve been fucking obsessed with you nearly my whole goddamn life.” He sounded sincere, but it sounded wrong, like she couldn’t wrap her head around what he was telling her, what he was confessing. He’d never… said.