by Lili Valente
She smiles. “Then pick me up at ten, silly. We’ll go get a late breakfast.”
“I get the whole day?” I ask, feeling like I just won the lottery.
Something better than the lottery.
Something no amount of money can buy.
“We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.” She smiles a wide, unguarded smile, with no secret sadness in it. “See you at ten.”
“At ten.” I slam the door and she pulls away, but for the first time watching her go doesn’t make me uneasy.
I’m going to see her in less than eleven hours, and I get the entire day with her.
And now we’re on our way back to each other. For real.
And hopefully, for keeps.
Chapter 13
Lark
By the time I creep quietly into my parents’ house, it’s almost midnight. I expect Aria and the baby to be asleep and the house to be dark.
Instead, I find Melody and Aria in pajamas at the kitchen table with mugs of cocoa, two open laptops, and papers scattered across the red tablecloth. I close the door with a soft knick, and both my sisters’ heads pop up, revealing matching guilty expressions.
“What’s going on?” I ask, kicking my shoes off by the front door.
“Nothing,” Melody says, reaching over and closing the nearest laptop. “How was your date?”
“It was fine. Great, actually.” I wander across the family room, while Aria gathers the papers, folds them in half, and shoves them under the second laptop before snapping it closed.
“What have you two been up to?” I ask, shooting the laptops a pointed look.
“Just hanging out. Researching things and…things,” Melody says, with a nervous glance Aria’s way.
“Things and things,” I repeat, raising an eyebrow at my little sister. “What are you hiding, Mel?”
“Nothing.” Melody blinks too fast.
“She’s helping me with something,” Aria says. “You know I don’t like being alone in the house when Mom and Dad are gone. Melody offered to come hang out and sleep over, just in case you didn’t come back tonight.”
“Why wouldn’t I come back?” I know Aria is trying to throw me off the scent of whatever she’s up to, but I can’t resist responding to the jab. “I told you I would be home before midnight, and I’m home before midnight.”
“Barely,” Aria says with a sniff.
I cross my arms and nod at the kitchen table. “What’s all this?”
“Just doing some research,” Aria says.
“Research on what?”
“I’m not sure yet, but when I am, I’ll let you know.” Aria picks up her mug. “I’m going to get more cocoa. Anyone else want some? Lark?”
“No thanks,” I mumble.
Something is definitely up, but Aria obviously doesn’t want to tell me what it is.
“So the date was good?” Melody asks, still sounding nervous. Melody is a terrible liar and hates hiding things from the people she loves, even good things. She was twitchy and weird for days before our mom’s surprise fiftieth birthday party.
It could be Aria and Melody are planning some kind of pleasant surprise for me, but I don’t think so. My birthday isn’t for another three months and my gut is telling me that whatever my sisters are up to, I’m not going to approve.
Which is why they’re keeping their mouths, and laptops, shut.
“Mason still on his best behavior?” Melody adds after a moment.
“Yeah,” I say, unable to keep my lips from curving up at the edges. “He was great. I think… I think we’ve turned a corner.”
“What kind of corner?” Aria asks, emerging from the kitchen with a fresh mug of steaming cocoa.
“A trust corner,” I say, ignoring the tightening around her lips. “He really understands what I went through when he left now, and I… I don’t know. I don’t feel angry or afraid anymore. I trust him never to do something like that again.”
“You do?” Aria’s brows shoot up. “And why is that? People don’t change overnight, you know.”
“It hasn’t been overnight,” I say, doing my best to remain calm, not wanting to get sucked into an argument right before bed. “It’s been four years.”
“And who knows what he’s been up to for four years,” Aria says. “He could have slept with every woman in Manhattan. Or been arrested. Or joined a cult. Or become a vegetarian who will never eat bacon with you again. You have no idea.”
“He hasn’t done any of those things,” I say. “And we talked about the other people we dated yesterday. There’s been nothing serious for either one of us.”
“So he says.” Aria sets her cocoa down on the table with a thunk and props her hands on her hips. “You can’t know that’s the truth.”
I lift one shoulder. “I guess I can’t, Aria, but I trust him. He freaked out and left me, but he’s not a liar. He never was.”
Aria sniffs. “We’ll see about that.”
I freeze, my gaze drifting between Melody, Aria, and the table, the computers and papers suddenly making sense. “You’re looking for dirt on Mason?”
“We’re just checking into some things,” Melody says in a placating voice, clearly reading the outrage in my expression. “It’s no big deal. We just want to make sure he’s not going to hurt you again.”
I take a deep breath, doing my best to rein in my anger. “Listen, I know you both mean well, but this isn’t right. This is between Mason and me. I’m the one who has to decide whether or not to trust him again, and what it will take for that to happen.”
“All it takes is a few dates, apparently,” Aria says. “You’re starry eyed after three days, Lark. At this rate, you’ll be pregnant by the end of the week.”
“That’s not fair.” I scowl, barely resisting the urge to say something mean in response.
But you don’t kick someone when they are down, and for all her bluster, Aria is down. Down on men, down on life, and down on hope, which is exactly why she’s so afraid for me to start hoping with Mason.
She isn’t trying to hurt me; she’s trying to protect me.
Even if I’m not asking for protection.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” Aria says in a softer tone. “I’m just worried you’re not thinking clearly.”
“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 fightin
g,” 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.
So many of my friends in high school daydreamed about getting married and having babies, but, though I wasn’t opposed to getting married and having kids, I never thought about settling down right out of high school. It seemed like such a far-away thing, something to consider once I graduated with my business degree and started down the road to making my dream come true.
It wasn’t until I met Mason that I started to imagine myself with a new last name, to think about a future with someone else in it, a forever someone, someone I would grow up with and grow old with, who would share my life and help me bring new lives into the world.
Not long before he left, we talked about kids, about how many we wanted—three for me, four for him—and when we might be able to start a family. We agreed we should wait until Mason was finished with his residency, but that if a baby surprised us a little earlier, well…that wouldn’t be the end of the world, either.
We were so in love, a baby had seemed like the natural next step, even though I was only twenty-one and Mason twenty-five.
When he left, I mourned the death of more than our relationship. I mourned the babies we would never have, and all the other dreams we’d dreamed together that would never come true.
But now…
Now…
I fall onto my double bed with the frilly white comforter with a giddy sigh. My hope is still so new that it makes my heart beat faster every time I think about it.
Mason and I are going to give this a shot. A real shot. A shot that might very well end in the resurrection of every buried dream, the fulfillment of every deferred hope.
It is...a heady thought.
So heady, I don’t know how I’ll be able to fall asleep, not with tomorrow and the day after and the day after rolling out before me like a rainbow leading to treasure.
But eventually I do sleep, and dream of a big wedding of my own, one with lots of friends and family and flowers, and Mason waiting for me at the end of the aisle.
Chapter 14
Mason
Date Four
“Pancakes, or waffles?” Lark scrunches her nose and puckers her lips, making her thinking face.
“Or maybe we should order two of each to share?” she muses. “Or maybe two pancakes, and one waffle, since waffles are bigger? What do you think? And where do we stand on side dishes today? Sausage is a yes, obviously, but maybe we need grits, too? With cheese on top?” She shoots me a serious look over the edge of her menu that makes me laugh.
“What? Don’t laugh,” she says, grinning. “This is a serious decision!”
“Sorry, I’m just...” I trail off with a smile, admiring the way the morning light streaming through the diner window makes her hair glow a soft gold, the way her smile lights up t
he restaurant, drawing people’s attention as they drift by our booth in search of a table.
“Just what?” she asks, her eyes shining.
“I’m happy. So happy. Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” she says, taking a slow sip of her coffee, watching me over the rim the entire time, making my pulse leap. And then she murmurs, “It’s my pleasure,” and it starts to pound.
“I really like the way you say that word.”
“What word?” she asks. “It’s?”
I shake my head.
“My?” she teases. I narrow my eyes and she grins before adding in a husky voice. “Oh, you mean…pleasure.”
“Or we could get breakfast to go,” I say, making her laugh.
“Of course not. Eating in is part of the fun. You can’t get endless coffee refills at home, and we have many adventures to adventure today before we rest.” Lark sets her cup back onto its saucer. “So seriously, it’s time to get serious.”
“Seriously serious?”
She nods. “Yes. I need your feedback to select the perfect breakfast.”
“Let’s order one of everything and eat until our stomachs explode.” I push my menu to the edge of the table. “Happiness makes me hungry.”
“Happiness makes me hungry, too, but there will be no exploding stomachs. We’ll stop just shy of that point,” she says, setting her menu on top of mine. “I need your stomach intact for the next phase of my plan to make you even happier than you are already.”
“Oh?” I lift an eyebrow.
“Aria’s going to pick up some flank steak at the store today for—”
“Flank steak with avocado sauce,” I finish, with a foodie groan of anticipation. It’s Lark’s first original recipe and was my favorite back when we were dating. “You’re a unicorn princess. Or something even better. A unicorn princess goddess of flame-kissed meat.”
She beams. “I figured we could have a cookout at my parents’ house tonight, and give Melody and Aria a chance to get to know you again. We can play badminton in the backyard, let Felicity crawl around in the grass and be adorable, that sort of thing.”