by Kendall Ryan
“So, spill. What’s the real reason you’re still in bed?” she asked.
“Jeez, can’t a girl sleep in every now and then?” I muttered.
“A girl can. Just not you.” Mandy raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t have morning sickness or anything, right?”
I shook my head. “No, no. Nothing like that. I’ve just got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”
“Mason stuff?” Mandy pressed.
“Wow, three seconds after I wake up and I’m already being interrogated.” She waited expectantly and I knew she wasn’t going to get off my back unless I told her, so finally I blurted, “Fine, yes, if you must know. Mason stuff.”
“What happened? He confessed his love?” Mandy asked, taking another nonchalant sip of her coffee.
“What? No.” My cheeks flamed as renewed terror consumed me. “God, what would make you say that?”
“Because that’s always when I find you in bed like this,” Mandy shot back.
“I’ve never done this before,” I said, taking another sip from my cup and glaring at her.
“Haven’t you?” she sniffed. “What about two years ago with that Venezuelan guy…what was his name? Don?”
I rolled my eyes again. “That was nothing. He moved way too fast. Buying me a new computer for my birthday? Who did he think he was, fucking Christian Grey, for crying out loud? Take it easy, am I right?” I asked with a snort.
Mandy frowned. “And Devon from work?”
“That wasn’t even a thing,” I protested. “We went on three dates.”
“Until he told you how gorgeous you were in the moonlight and you wigged out and told him you never wanted to see him again.”
“What?” I scowled at her through narrowed eyes. “Who told you that?” I recalled specifically not detailing that little breakup to her because I knew she’d judge me over it.
Maybe because you deserve her judgment? a little voice in my head whispered. I wanted to fire that damn voice of reason and tell it to get lost.
“He did,” Mandy said. “I was waiting for you to finish your evening rounds and he was on his way out. He stopped and asked me what he’d done to turn you into a psycho.”
A psycho?
Ouch.
“And what did you tell him?” I asked, my stomach feeling queasy.
“That you have a habit of picking guys you can’t get emotionally attached to and he shouldn’t take it personally. You’re just broken inside.” She shrugged as if spilling my personal dirt to the world meant nothing.
“Jesus, Mandy. Tell me how you really feel.”
“I always do. That’s why you keep me around,” she said with a smug smile. “Don’t get me wrong, though. I still love you.”
“Good, because you’re wrong,” I said.
She laughed. “Is that so? So, you’re going to tell me the Mason thing that has you lying in bed like an invalid has nothing to do with the fact that you maybe actually like him and he tried to get close to you?”
“I let him get close to me,” I said. “We…did some stuff that was—”
Scary.
“Romantic,” I finished.
“Okay, so did he then introduce you to his toenail collection? Or punch you in the face?”
“Well, no…”
“Did he drop to one knee and ask you to marry him? Because that might be rushing things and that I could see,” she said, taking a big bite of a chocolate glazed donut and chewing while she waited for my response.
“Not exactly.” But it was close. “He offered me a drawer.”
“A drawer?”
“Yeah, you know, like to leave stuff at his place or whatever,” I said, trying not to fidget as she stared me down.
“Oh my God. Did you call the police? Get a restraining order?” she demanded, eyes wide in faux shock.
“Okay, okay, I hear it now as I say it out loud. Not that big of a deal,” I admitted, which sent her off into a fit of laughter.
“Not a big deal at all. Especially since you agreed to spend some time with him and slept with him. Which only goes to prove my point that you have commitment issues. After all, you’re lying in your own bed instead of his right now.”
“It’s complicated,” I tried again.
“It’s not. You like him but you’re doing what you always do. You know, I’ve been handling this with kid gloves for a long time now, but considering everything with the baby, I think it’s time for some tough love, kid.”
“Meaning what?” I asked, inwardly cringing at what I knew would come next.
“It’s time to face facts. You are not your mother.”
“I know that,” I shot back reflexively.
“Do you?” she challenged me. “Because last I checked, you were still emotionally closed off. You know, just because you love someone doesn’t mean you have to be in constant fear of losing them or that, if you do, you will never be able to grieve and find a new normal again. What happened with your dad—”
“I get your point,” I said. “But I don’t agree with you. It might look that way, maybe, from the outside, but I don’t think that’s the problem. I just don’t like being rushed.”
“Fine, you want to prove you’re not closed off? Let’s take it to the Lady’s Journal.” She whipped her phone out of her pocket and thumbed the screen menacingly.
I raised my eyebrows. “What’s a magazine going to tell us about whether I’m emotionally available? I mean, you’re an amazing friend. You know that I’m there for you emotionally, right? I’m not a person who doesn’t know how to love or something.”
“For me, yes.” Mandy nodded. “But with men, it’s another story, and last month’s personality quiz, ‘Are You an Ice Princess?,’ is going to prove it.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Really? An ice princess?”
“Their words, not mine.”
“Gee, thanks. I’m starting to think you only brought the donuts to soften the blow here.” I dug in the brown bag and pulled out a glazed confection, then closed my eyes to focus on the sugary goodness in the hope of blocking out the carbohydrate carrying torture I’d just invited inside my private sanctuary.
“If I did, then it only goes to show how my master plan is working.” She cleared her throat. “Okay, now, question one. When was the last time you told someone you loved them?” she asked.
“The last time I called my mother. So, a week ago,” I said with not a little triumph.
She gave me the dead eyes and shook her head slowly. “Your mother obviously doesn’t count.”
“Where is that in the question?” I challenged her.
“It goes unspoken. Now, come on, get serious.” Mandy shot back.
“Isn’t this multiple choice?” I groaned.
“Not for you, it isn’t. Stop stalling.”
“What if I told you I love you right now?” I tried, desperate.
Mandy rolled her eyes. “A man, then. When was the last time you told a man you loved him?”
I bit down on my bottom lip. Before he died, I used to tell my father I loved him nearly every day. It had been one of the most important rules of growing up in my family. The world was a crazy place and anything could happen, so before it did, you made sure you told the people you loved that you loved them often and loudly. Before I left the house, whenever I called, whenever I went to bed, I told him. And then, when he’d gotten sick, those words had become a plea.
“I love you, Dad” became “Please don’t go” or “Don’t leave us.”
And for my mother? She could hardly speak without bursting into tears during that time.
My own eyes burned as I shoved the memory away.
“Hello?” Mandy cleared her throat again. “You there?”
“Just thinking. I don’t think this question counts for me. What if I have never been in love?”
Mandy pursed her lips. “Seems like a cop-out.”
“Fine, fine. So, I told a boy in middle school that I loved him. I th
ink that was the last time if you’re not counting, you know, my dad or anything,” I rushed through the second half of my sentence but it didn’t matter—Mandy knew me too well to let it pass unnoticed.
“You haven’t told a man you loved him since before your father died?” She raised her eyebrows.
“Maybe we should move on to the next question.”
“Fine.” Mandy glanced down at her phone, clicked something, then read, “How many dates does it take before you share personal details about your past?”
“I already told Mason about my past. He knows what my favorite childhood toy was and everything.”
“Then he already knows about your mom and dad?” Mandy asked.
“Well, that’s not fair. The specifics of it haven’t really come up.”
“Really? There was never an opening for you to tell him—the man who might be the father of your child—about your family? Not a single moment?”
I focused aggressively on my donut and licked at a bit of the glaze. “I don’t think I like this pushy side of you.”
“I’m your boss.”
“Only at work,” I reminded her. “And I don’t think it’s that important for Mason to know all my baggage so quickly. It’s good to keep a little bit of mystery.”
“Meaning you don’t know any of his?”
I thought back to our night—the way he’d spoken about his mother’s illness, the way some of his dreams had been snatched from him. “I know some of his history. I don’t know that it counts as baggage.”
“Right. So I’m guessing you want to skip this question too?” Mandy asked.
I took another bite of my donut, then washed it down with some latte. “I’m seriously not digging your tone.”
Mandy shrugged. “You’ll live. Now, come on, question three. How comfortable are you with sexual intimacy?”
“What kind of question is that?” I scoffed.
“A good one,” Mandy said. “Now answer it.”
“Well, I’ve already slept with him, so that sort of speaks for itself.”
“It doesn’t say how comfortable are you with sexuality. It says sexual intimacy,” she pointed out.
“You know what? This quiz is stupid. You know me,” I pleaded. “I’m not an ice princess.”
“I see we’ve struck a nerve. Does this have anything to do with why you’re still lying in bed?”
I took a sip of my coffee, opting not to answer.
Again, though, Mandy outsmarted me. “So you got intimate with him again and it was too much for you? Just say it.”
“It wasn’t that,” I said, and the words poured from me like water breaking through a dam. “I told you. He wanted to give me a drawer at his place and after everything that’s happened, it’s just not something I’m ready for. I mean, I might have to get ready to be a mother. I don’t think I can really handle falling in love on top of everything else. There’s too much happening.”
“So you think you’re falling in love?” Mandy asked.
I set my coffee down, then leaned back against my pillows before huffing out a sigh. “That’s not the point. The point is that I’m overwhelmed and he keeps pushing for more. I could have handled myself better but—”
“But you think you’re falling for him?” Mandy asked again.
I leveled her with a stare. “I don’t think. I know.”
“And that scares you?”
“Scares me? It terrifies me.” I shook my head. “But that’s still not the important part. Mandy, what if I really am pregnant? I’ll love my baby more than life itself. And if I love him, too – think about how much that is for someone like me to lose.”
She closed her hand over mine and offered a gentle smile. “Then I’ll remind you again. You’re not your mother. And even if you were? Would it be so bad?”
I picked up my coffee, lost for words. “I’m done with this quiz.”
Yup. Ice Princess it is. I may not admit it to Mandy but I have to admit it to myself. Now I have to figure out what to do with that knowledge.
“Fine,” Mandy said. “But just…remember what we talked about, okay? The next time you see Mason?”
I nodded. “I will.”
If there was a next time, at least. Because I was pretty sure if poor Devon thought I was a psycho, Mason had at least as much reason. If fact, I was starting to wonder if he’d ever want to talk to me again.
But what was even more worrisome was how awful that thought made me feel…
Broken and a little lost inside.
Chapter Eighteen
Mason
I swallowed hard, shifting the bag in my hands carefully before knocking on the door.
To be fair, I didn’t know if she was home—she hadn’t answered my text, and in light of my new discovery, I thought it was best not to send another. Instead, I opted to go straight to the source, readying to make things as right as I could.
If only Bren would let me.
A moment passed and I knocked again. I waited as I heard the muffled creak of floorboards and then, finally, met Bren’s gaze as she opened the door. Her hair was covered by a fluffy white towel and she wore nothing but a silky robe that clung to her wet skin so that I could see the pert outlines of her nipples.
The look of her alone sent my mind reeling back to yesterday as she writhed in my arms.
Clearing my throat, I forced myself to focus, thrusting the bag in my hand toward her.
“Look, I think I messed up and I get it if you’re not ready to talk, but I wanted you to know that I’m sorry. I was moving too fast and with everything else…I can see why it would have freaked you out.”
She was quiet, her gaze locked on my outstretched hand, and she cocked her head.
“What’s this?” she asked, then took the bag from me.
“It’s candy.”
“Did you rob a convenience store?” She rustled the bag, dipped in a hand and pulled out three different kinds of chocolate bars.
“I didn’t know what you liked or if you were allergic to anything, so I just got everything and figured your favorite would be in there.”
She fished through, taking her time, finally pulling out a package of Twizzlers. “You were right.”
“Not a chocolate girl?”
She shook her head. “I mean, I like it, but not if there’s licorice in the room. Uh”—she scrubbed a hand over the back of her neck as she stepped to the side—“did you want to come in?”
“I would love that.” I entered her little foyer, then glanced around. The layout of her apartment was actually similar to my own, even if her little loft favored exposed brick to wide glass windows.
She closed the door behind me and led me to the khaki-colored sofa. Her lips tilted into a strained smile as she handed me the remote. “Turn on whatever you want. I’m going to put on some pants.”
Part of me—the part I needed to keep a tight rein on—wanted to tell her not to. To ask her to stay here until she was ready for me to peel away that robe again. But instead I nodded and reached in my pocket, waiting until she had left the room to look at the envelope in my hands.
This, too, had been part of my plan. Maybe if the uncertainty of the baby was eliminated from the picture, we would be able to move forward like two rational adults. We would know how serious to be—how fast to move.
Maybe it had all been a dumb idea in the first place.
I ran over in my mind what I wanted to say, but then Bren reappeared and the words died in my throat. Even in gray yoga pants and a baggy T-shirt, she made my blood run hot, and I had to tear my gaze away. I couldn’t even help the way my gaze traveled to her abdomen, struggling to see the tiniest hint of a bump.
“You didn’t turn the TV on,” she said.
“No,” I said. “Look, I’ve been thinking and there are some things I want to tell you.”
She crossed her arms over her tiny frame, her face wary again.
Shit.
Exactly the opposite of what
I’d been going for here.
“Like what?” she asked.
“All we’ve got is this one life and mistakes are inevitable. We’re going to fall short, we’re going to fall flat on our ass sometimes, but the thing I don’t want to do is be too afraid to say yes to something that makes me happy.” I reached for the envelope again. “I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I know I messed up, but I don’t want us to just walk away from each other like that and I think the real problem here is that we don’t know how seriously to take any of this.”
“So what do you think we should do?” she asked, her tone tentative.
“I think we should know, really know, whether you’re pregnant or not.”
For a long moment, she didn’t say anything, and then she sighed and sank into a seat opposite me. “I’ve been thinking too. I flipped out when I shouldn’t have. The whole…intimacy thing can get to me sometimes. And I have to admit, I don’t like the uncertainty with regard to the baby question.”
“Then let’s take the uncertainty away. Let’s open the envelope.”
She looked from the envelope to me, then gave me one quick nod. “Yeah, you’re probably right. We should know.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
“But maybe first, let’s make it special or something.”
She walked toward the mantel and snagged a large multicolored candle and a book of matches, then lit the match and made the candle glow. Taking the remote from me, she switched the channel to an indie folk station that hummed gently behind us.
“I should probably wear a dress in case we have to tell this story to our child one day, but I’m not going to change again,” she said, running a self-conscious hand over her T-shirt.
“You look great just the way you are,” I told her, and in the soft glow of the candle I could see her blush. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s find out.”
I started to swipe my thumb under the flap, but she held out her hand, panic in her eyes.
“Over here, over near the candle. And…can you hold my hand?”
I ripped open the envelope, then moved toward her, closing my eyes as I took her hand. She squeezed so tight, I nearly let out a low whistle, marveling at her strength.
“Come on, already!” she whispered harshly.