by Tia Siren
“Hey, I take care of myself,” Ava said.
“Yeah, sure.” Blair smiled. “It’s nice to finally meet you, too, Mason. I have heard a lot about you.”
“You know about me?”
“I know a lot about you actually,” she said, ignoring Ava’s worried face. “I know you’re the heir to the York Hotels conglomerate. I know you and Ava used to be lovey-dovey when you were teenagers. I know you kissed her randomly on a mattress and then paid her a whole lot of money to talk to you in a studio. I know you’re confusing the hell out of my friend here, and I know she thinks the world of you.”
“Wow,” I said, sitting back. “I guess you got the full rundown.”
“Oh, and paparazzi like to wreak havoc on unsuspecting women at your father’s hotel,” Blair said. “But that’s as up to speed on everything as I could get before coming over.”
“That’s pretty good.” I chuckled.
To be honest, I was only semi-surprised that Ava’s best friend knew all about me. Ava was the kind of girl who had few friends, but the friends she did have, they were like family to her. It was obvious she went to Blair about the things going on in her life, and it made me feel better knowing she had someone there for her through all of it. I wanted to be the person who was there for her, but I knew I was part of the issue that was going on in the first place.
“Ava has moved up in the class ranking,” Blair said, looking at Ava. “The results came out this morning, pending any last final test results that trickle in.”
“Really?” Ava said happily. “I should be way more excited about that than I am. Everything has sucked the life out of me over the last couple days. I almost feel numb to everything at this point, even the good stuff. I’m sure it will hit me later and I’ll be excited.”
“You should be excited,” I said, looking at her. “That’s amazing. Don’t let everything else get in the way of celebrating the good stuff.”
“Yeah,” Blair said. “Have you figured out what you guys are going to do? You can’t just sit there and let everything pass by without a thought. And I know you, Ava. Sitting in your apartment watching movies and eating ice cream is not going to change anything.”
Ava groaned. “I know.”
I had no idea what they were talking about, and I wasn’t sure if it was even directed at me. Maybe I was missing something, or maybe they were talking about me and Ava. I didn’t know Blair well, but I could tell she was the kind of woman who didn’t care about who was in the room when she spoke. She was straightforward and open about everything she wanted to say.
“I’m not sure,” Ava said, looking at her. “I’m lost.”
“I’m the one who kind of feels lost here,” I said. “What are you not sure about?”
“I’m not sure about anything,” she said, looking at me.
My stomach dropped slightly, and I felt exposed while sitting in front of her best friend. I wasn’t quite sure what the right response to that was, but I definitely wasn’t going to come up with it while Blair was staring me down across the living room. I knew Ava didn’t keep things from Blair, but I was an incredibly private person and always had been. If I had known Blair for more than five minutes, I might have felt more comfortable having this conversation, but at that moment, I felt completely out of my element.
“I know things are confusing right now,” I said. “And I mean no offense to you, Blair, but maybe we should have this conversation in private.”
“Sorry,” Blair said. “I don’t have manners. I didn’t even think about it being awkward for you.”
“No. Don’t be sorry. You were looking out for Ava and asking the question I’m pretty sure it would have taken another decade for Ava and me to ask each other.” I chuckled. “Still, I’d kind of like it to be between her and me before she tells you everything, which I know she will.”
“At least you know that and are willing to accept it,” she said, smiling. “That’s a step above most guys.”
“Of course,” Ava said, snapping out of her trance. “I’m sorry. Of course we can discuss that in private. I’m so used to being around Blair that I didn’t even think of the fact that you’ve only known her for ten minutes.”
“Twelve if your counting,” Blair said. “Which is sadly longer than most men know me for.”
“I really want to laugh, but I don’t know if that’s appropriate,” I said with a smirk.
“Go ahead,” she said, waving her hand. “I laugh at my sad little love life all the time, right before I cry and eat an entire bin of cheese puffs. It’s always nice to not be alone in your misery.”
“Blair is a serial dater,” Ava said. “Just ignore her snark.”
“I will,” I said, laughing. “But I like it. It fits her.”
“Thank you,” she said, sitting up and then furrowing her brow. “I think.”
“As far as talking,” Ava said, looking at me, “Blair came over to get me for our coffee date. We planned it forever ago.”
“It’s a post-finals tradition,” Blair said. “It used to be mimosas, but that always ended badly, so we decided that coffee might be better.”
“Yeah, I don’t want a repeat of senior year,” Ava said. “I think I puked in every trash can in Time’s Square.”
“Wow,” I said, stretching. “That sounds like my cue to get going. You girls have fun, and you text me later.”
“Okay,” she said, smiling sweetly.
I kissed her on the cheek and nodded at Blair before making my exit. I could take the hint, and I was okay with that. It was obvious Ava was confused, and maybe a day with her friend would help her get her thoughts in line. I hailed a cab and headed back to John’s, knowing I had my own music to face.
Chapter 30
Ava
“Well,” Blair said as soon as the door closed behind Mason. “That was an awkward but oddly enjoyable meet and greet. He’s taller than I imagined him. And I like that beard. It’s much better than the pictures of him online looking like the spoiled rich kid of New York.”
“Yeah,” I said. “So, you ready to go?”
“I am, but I would prefer you wear something other than a robe to the coffee shop,” she said.
“Oh,” I said, chuckling and looking down at myself. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I’ll support the trend if you’re making a statement,” she yelled after me as I walked into my bedroom.
I looked at my bed and the tangled blankets and my cheeks got warm. I ignored the feeling and got dressed quickly. Blair and I headed out to the cafe by our school, finding it pleasantly back to normal since almost everyone had left for break already. We went inside, ordered our coffees, and plopped down on the couches near the back.
“Okay, how are you really doing?” Blair said. “Now that lover boy isn’t sitting in front of you.”
“Terrible,” I said, drinking my coffee.
“That bad, huh?”
“My mom saw the same video you saw,” I said.
“Hot Guys on Spring Break ’09?”
“No.” I threw a pillow at her. “The paparazzi tape.”
“Ohh, that one.” She smiled. “And how did she take it? Did her eyes pop out?”
“I’m sure they did, but she called me, and I never got to see her face to face,” I said. “They disowned me, telling me I was never welcome at their house again.”
“Ouch,” Blair said. “I knew they would be upset, but you’re, like, their third musketeer.”
“I know. I miss them already.”
“It won’t be forever,” she said. “When everything blows over, they’ll eventually call you back into the fold. They love you too much to be without you forever.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said.
“And what about Mason?” she asked. “How do you feel about him?”
“I wish I could say my feelings were complicated, but they aren’t,” I said. “I really care about him and love being around him. I can’t stay away from him
in fact.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“I don’t know what to do about my feelings,” I said. “It’s an impossible situation.”
“No situation is impossible,” Blair said. “You just aren’t opening your eyes and looking at it. You have a fog of demise over you right now, and you think there’s no way out of it.”
“I don’t know. It seems kind of dismal to me,” I said.
“What about his family?”
“They kicked him out of the penthouse. His father won’t speak to him, and his mother has to sneak around in order to call him,” I said. “We have both been disowned by our parents. To top that off, being with Mason is hard also because his family has done so much damage to mine. His father wanted him to tell the press I was a crazy stalker to save face. He refused to do it, thank God, which is why he got kicked out, but his father has no mercy when it comes to me. He is fixated on ruining my life. Being with Mason only makes it worse. It’s the whole reason he stole my father’s company in the first place—to keep me and Mason apart because he found out we did it.”
“God, he is creepy,” she said. “How did he even know that? Did he have secret cameras in Mason’s bedroom when he was growing up?”
“Ew, please, don’t even say that,” I said. “And I doubt it, or he would have known we were fooling around a lot longer than that.”
“You guys are like the modern-day Romeo and Juliet, written in the stars but always fighting to be together despite your families’ decade-long rivalry,” she said enthusiastically. “The only things missing are duels and sword fights. Or guns and high-speed chases if you want to go with the Leonardo DiCaprio version of the story. Either way, it is so very romantic.”
“You do remember that Romeo and Juliet kill themselves at the end of that story, right?” I looked at her with one eyebrow raised.
She laughed. “That is not the point I was trying to make. Obviously, I don’t want you two killing yourselves. Though I have to say, if you think about it, their fate at the end of that story brought the two of them together again, and there was no one who could break them apart at that point. They were free to love each other without anyone trying to keep them apart. It may not be what we all wanted to see when Leo drank the poison and Claire blew her brains out, but it’s very poetic.”
“You seriously need to lay off the chick flicks,” I said. “I have told you this, like, a hundred times.”
She groaned. “I can’t help it. I am addicted to love, and the only place I find it is in my DVD player. It speaks to me, Ava.”
I laughed. “That is really sad.”
“In all seriousness, none of this is healthy for you, Mason, your parents, or anyone really,” she said. “One thing you can take away from any story like that is that when you get soaked up in revenge, it never turns out okay for the main character. There is a moral to this whole thing that you are completely ignoring because you have immersed yourself in revenge pretty much your entire adult life. If it had been medieval times, you would have already stormed the castle and pillaged everything, leaving heads on stakes. Then you would have gone on and been completely miserable because once you have the revenge, you will still have a hole there that needs to be filled. You need to let the revenge go and live your life. Live it fully, do what you want, be with whoever you want. I promise that when you let it go, you will feel so much better.”
“Right, and do what? Never speak to my parents again?” I asked. “I know their anger is theirs alone, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect me. I can’t walk away and be okay with them never talking to me again. They’re my family, and they’re all I’ve had my entire life. It just can’t go down like that.”
“No. I’m not saying abandon your family,” she said. “But I am saying become an adult. You need to sit them down and explain how you feel about Mason. Tell them everything you want to say, be open with your feelings for him. And if they still can’t comprehend what you’re saying, you sternly let them know you’re an adult and they cannot control you anymore. If they decide to cut you out, that is completely on them, not you because you’re trying to share your life with them.”
I sat there on the couch looking down at my coffee, listening to the words Blair was saying. The idea of sitting down with my parents and admitting my feelings for Mason was terrifying, but I didn’t know if it was because of my parents or because it would open me up to the idea of something more with Mason. Obviously, I wanted my parents to be in my life. They were my family, and I loved them very much, but I really did want Mason to be there every day of it. I didn’t want to give up either of them. They both were an important part of who I was, who I had become, and who I wanted to be in the future. I was tired of fighting everyone and everything around me, including myself. I was tired of forcing myself to be someone I really didn’t want to be.
Blair was right. I needed to do this for myself and for them. Maybe if I could let go of the pain of the past, they could too. I had lost out on ten years of my life, studying, researching, planning for something that wouldn’t make me feel better even if I accomplished it. I had been so stuck on revenge that I didn’t even take the time to realize the Yorks weren’t worth my time. I had lost myself somewhere in everything that had happened. I had become someone I had never wanted to be. I was angry all the time, and I’d forced myself out of being happy, thinking I had to so that I could fulfill this revenge plot that would be useless in the end. Money wouldn’t make things better for my father. Only his hotel would, and that was gone. He had let go of that for the most part, but I was still holding on to it with force.
“You know, I think you’re right,” I said. “I have been holding on to this for so long, and it has turned me into a person I don’t even recognize anymore. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize how miserable I really was.”
“I should get paid for what I do,” Blair said. “So, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to call my mother and tell her I want to meet with her and my dad,” I said. “Then I am going to open up to them like you said and remind them that I’m an adult who is capable of making my own choices. I’m going to remind them I would never do anything to intentionally hurt them. They know me better than that.”
I picked up my phone and dialed my mom, feeling resolute. It rang and rang until her voice mail finally picked up. I hung up before the beep and sighed, putting the phone in my lap and looking up at Blair.
“She didn’t answer,” I said. “She hasn’t answered since she disowned me.”
“Your mom has been a stubborn woman for as long as I have known her,” Blair said. “She is hurt, confused, unsure of what to think about the fact that she just told her daughter to never come back to her house. She doesn’t know what to do or say, but she knows she’s hurting.”
“I hate that,” I said, sighing.
“Stop.” Blair raised her eyebrows. “You have got to let yourself off the hook for all this. It’s not your fault that your father lost the hotel. It’s not your fault they’re in the position they’re in, and it’s not your fault Mason’s father hates you. None of this is your fault. Your parents made that choice instead of listening to you. That is not your fault.”
“It may not be my fault, but I think I should at least try to make amends,” I said.
“And you are,” Blair said. “She will see you called and that means something. These things are not going to be fixed in the blink of an eye. You need to give her some time. She will come around; I promise. She loves you too much to let you drift out of her life. Let her figure her own head out, and then you can talk to her.”
I sighed. “Okay. Thank you for talking to me about all of this.”
“Of course,” Blair said. “I’m your best friend. It’s my duty.”
“I’m going to head out and take a nap,” I said, kissing her cheek. “I’ll call you later.”
“You better,” Blaire said.
I turned and walk
ed out of the shop, hoping I was making the right choice.
Chapter 31
Mason
I paid my lawyers and pretty much everyone else extra to work with me for the entire weekend. We were trying to get the business license pushed through and everything else in order for my new company. It was more important than ever that I got everything up and running the way I wanted it to be. We had worked through everything beautifully, and I was starting to get excited about everything again. John and I had barely spoken, so it was a good thing I was locked away in my bedroom taking conference call after conference call, trying to get everything accomplished. At the rate we were going, I would have my business open and ready to go by the end of the next week. I could start bringing the furnishing into the building since we got the contract signed and everything from there would flow right together.
I leaned back in my chair and tapped my pen on the table, smiling. It was really exciting to be making so much headway, but I felt like something was missing. I didn’t have the one person with me who I wanted to share my excitement with. I picked up my cell and called Ava.
“I have some good news,” I said when she answered.
“Oh, good,” she said. “I like good news.”
“We got the license pushed through and the contract signed for my company, and I should be up and running by the end of next week,” I said. “We worked all weekend on it.”
“Congratulations,” she said before clearing her throat. “I’m sure that’s really exciting for you.”
She was congratulating me, and her tone of voice was cheery, but I could tell it was forced. There was something going on with Ava. She wasn’t acting like herself. I had been around her long enough to know when she was faking her way through a conversation, and this was one of those times. I could only assume it was everything going on with us and with our families. I didn’t want to call her out, but I also didn’t want this conversation to be an awkward waste.
“I’m very excited,” I said. “How are you?”