Beautiful Dark

by Jordyn White

  I finish the horizontal cuts and am about to cut in the other direction when my phone starts to ring. I’m irritated by the interruption to my potential text chat with Mason, until I see who’s calling.

  My heart leaps into my throat, and I swipe to answer. “Hello?”

  “Hi,” Mason says, his low voice reaching deep into my chest. “I hope it’s okay that I called.”

  “Of course,” I say, my voice sounding kind of giddy and nervous. I pinch my eyes shut and take a deep, silent breath.

  “I wanted to be with you for the big moment. Besides, it seemed better to wish you a Merry Christmas over the phone instead of texting.”

  “Christmas isn’t until tomorrow,” I say, my voice thankfully not sounding like a little schoolgirl anymore. My smile is coming through though, not that I mind.

  “Then Merry Christmas Eve.”

  “Merry Christmas Eve to you, too.”

  “So did I miss it?”

  “Miss what?”

  “Did you try it yet?”

  “Oh!” I’ve been standing here motionless, knife in hand. I jolt into motion. “No, I’m cutting it now.”

  “Good. Get ready for ecstasy.”

  I manage not to moan, and not over the fudge. His voice already sounds so sexy, but throw in the word ‘ecstasy’ and my mind goes to dirty places.

  “I’m cutting it into sixteen pieces,” I say, as I finish the vertical cuts. “Is that how you do it?”

  “Yeah. It’s pretty rich, so twelve comes out a little large.”

  Yep. My mind is still thinking dirty things. But how can I help it after a comment like that? Not for the first time, I wonder if his man part is as oversized as the rest of him. Not that I would get access to it anyway. I’m just curious.

  I start fumbling through the drawer, telling myself to pull it together. I’d like to have a conversation with him without being a little horn dog the whole time. It’s just that he sounds so good, it’s making me remember what it was like to exchange those heated glances with one another.

  “What are you doing?” he asks, probably in response to the noise I’m making digging around in the drawer.

  “Trying to find the little spatula. I know she has one here somewhere. I still can’t find things sometimes— oh, here it is!”

  “Where are you?”

  “Lizzy’s old house. I stay here during breaks.”

  “Oh.”

  “Okay.” I tuck the phone against my ear with my elbow, lifting a little piece of fudge out of the pan, and grabbing it with my free hand. “I’m eating it now.”

  Then I let out the most sinful moan I’ve ever made. Because when I put that little piece of heaven on my tongue, oh my God. “Mmmm.”

  “Yeah?” He sounds a little breathless.

  “Mmmm,” I moan again, letting the smooth caramel and chocolaty texture caress my tongue. “Holy lord.”

  He exhales. “Uh... you’re welcome.”

  I laugh, cheeks burning, licking my lips. “That was fucking amazing.”

  “I’m glad you liked it,” he says, sounding slightly more normal. God, did we just have food sex? Is that a thing? Because if it’s not, it should be.

  I pull another piece out of the pan.

  “Are you having more?”

  “You know it.”

  He laughs.

  I carry the square of fudge to the table and sit down, tearing it in half. I set one half down, trying to pace myself, and put the other in my mouth. It takes a lot of willpower, but I’m silent as I eat this one. We’re not in a relationship. We shouldn’t be having food sex.

  He’s the one to break the silence. “I don’t know why I thought you were staying with your parents. I thought you grew up there.”

  “Mm-hmm.” I lick my fingers again. “I did. But my parents moved to San Francisco for my dad’s job. They got divorced shortly after.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “Eh, it’s better now. Mom’s in Seattle with her new husband. I actually started keeping Swan Pointe as my home base again when I started at Hartman. I stayed with Uncle Grant and Aunt Sharon during breaks up until they passed—”

  I stop abruptly, mortified, realizing who I’m talking to. Did it bother him to hear Uncle Grant’s name?

  “So that’s why you stay with Lizzy now?” he asks, like it didn’t bother him at all.

  I relax a bit. “Yeah. Well, she took over their house so I kept staying there like I always had. Then Brett and Little Max moved in last month, so I now stay at her old house, which she only still had because Connor was living here. When they died, he came back to help at the resort, but didn’t know if that was permanent or what, so he was here temporarily. He and Whitney just barely got their own place. Lizzy says I can stay here till I graduate and decide where I want to live or whatever. I guess her place has kind of turned into the family halfway house.”

  I feel like I’m rambling and making an idiot of myself, but he laughs and I relax again. “That was probably way more information than you wanted.”

  “No, it was nice.”

  I smile, sinking further into my seat and tearing a corner off the second half of the fudge.

  “I like knowing more about you. Or your living arrangements, anyway.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.” I didn’t mean to say that, and immediately regret it. He’s just so easy to talk to, stuff keeps popping out of my mouth.

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  “Actually, never mind.” I eat the little nibble of fudge. Holy hell, this stuff is amazing.

  “Why? What were you going to say?”

  “Oh, it’s...” I lick my fingers again, considering. “Well, it’s kind of on the depressing side and this is Christmas Eve. We should be talking about sleigh rides and reindeer or something.”

  He laughs. “We can talk about that later. What were you going to say?”

  I hesitate, then decide to go with it. “Well, sophomore year of college, after I was first diagnosed, I had to drop out for treatment, so I lived in Seattle with my mom and her husband. It was just outpatient treatments then, so I’d recover at their house. Then the second time, I was down at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale for nine months.”

  “You were in the hospital that whole time?”

  “Yeah.”

  There’s a heavy pause, then, “You must’ve been really sick.”

  “Yeah. I, um... they didn’t think I’d make it.”

  “Your family or the doctors?”

  “Everyone. Well, not Connor.” I smile, remembering. “But he was just delusional, I think.”

  Mason laughs a little.

  “I didn’t mind. He was one of the few people who didn’t look at me like I was dying.” Wow, okay. Way to be cheerful, Corrine. Geez, this will probably be the last time he places a call to me.

  “But... you’re okay now?” His voice has that tone I recognize: hopefulness tinged with fear.

  “My last scan came clean.” What else can I really say?

  “Yeah. That’s good, right?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I say noncommittally. We should probably change the subject. I doubt he wants to talk about this. “Gee, the first time we talk on the phone and I get all serious on you. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry”

  “Okay, but I feel like I’ve totally over shared.”

  “I could tell you something serious. That way you won’t feel alone.”

  Maybe it’s something in his tone of voice, but I immediately think about his father, and my uncle. All that history suddenly seems like it’s filling the space between us, and is a hurdle we need to cross somehow. It hasn’t been a big deal for us not to talk about it before, since we’ve only been talking about safe subjects, but now, I get the feeling that if we let this opportunity slip by, it would change our relationship somehow. And not for the better.

  “Okay,” I say slowly, a little nervous. “You could tell me about your dad.”

  There’s a long p
ause, and I wonder if I haven’t misread the situation. “Sorry. You don’t have to.”

  “No,” he says. “It’s okay. I don’t really remember much about him. I was pretty young.”

  “Yeah.” I already knew the accident happened when he was just six.

  “I do have some memories though, and I have pictures. My mom put together a little photo album that I’ve had ever since he passed. It’s funny though, even though she did talk about him some when I was growing up, it was always...” he pauses.

  I wait, not wanting to interrupt his thoughts.

  “I guess, it was never just about him. It was always this tragic thing, because she’d end up talking about the accident too. So I grew up kind of...” He pauses again. “Not kind of. Really mad at Grant Rivers for taking my dad away and not caring that he did it. Because that’s how she talked about it. Like he did this thing to my dad and our family, but didn’t care.”

  I press my lips together. Lizzy has told us all this, but it’s different hearing it from Mason.

  “But now,” he goes on, “she won’t talk about him at all. I think this whole inheritance thing just brought it all back for her. She’s not dealing with it very well, I don’t think.”

  “She won’t talk to you about it?”

  “No.”

  “Is she mad at you for taking your inheritance?” I know she originally hadn’t wanted him to.

  “No,” he says slowly. “I don’t think so. She told me she understands, but she flat refuses to let me share any of it with her. I think she’s really hurting. That’s why I haven’t talked to her about the accident.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the story I always heard is a lot different from what the newspapers had to say about it. Maybe I just got the idea I had about it because I was so young and misunderstood her, you know? But I don’t think so.”

  I lean on my hand, taking in everything he’s just said. “How do you feel about that?”

  “In some ways better, because it was just an accident. Just... one of those things that happens. But in other ways, it’s hard because I don’t understand—” He stops. “I’m not trying to talk badly about my mother.”

  “No, no,” I say. “Of course not.”

  “She’s done a good job raising me,” he says earnestly. “I don’t know what kind of impression you and Lizzy have of her, since all you know about her is this situation.”

  I ache at the hurt I hear in his voice. “Lizzy doesn’t think anything bad about her, and neither do I. The impression I got is just that your mom was really hurt by everything. And who could blame her? I don’t think she’s a bad person.”

  “She’s not,” he says. “And she was hurt. And so was I, and we’ve had to live all these years without my dad.” His voice is getting more intense now, more animated. “For so many years, I hated Grant Rivers and everything to do with him. When I first found out about the inheritance, I was furious. I couldn’t understand why, after all these years.... What the hell was he trying to prove?”

  The intensity of his emotion floods across the line. I can’t even blink in the face of it.

  “It just brought everything back. When I told my mom about it and watched what it did to her, it was even worse. My mom doesn’t deserve to suffer like that, and my dad didn’t deserve to die, and I didn’t deserve to have a childhood without my father.”

  I swallow past the lump in my throat, wishing I could do something to ease his pain. Wishing I didn’t feel part of it.

  “When Lizzy first showed up on my doorstep, I was pissed. I didn’t want anything to do with Grant Rivers or his family.”

  I swallow hard. I’m part of that family, too.

  “But,” and here Mason laughs a little. “That cousin of yours is something else.”

  I exhale and let out a nervous laugh, too. “She is.”

  “I should hate her,” he says. “I should hate all of you.”

  There’s a thick silence, and my heart is pounding painfully against my chest.

  “But I don’t,” he says quietly.

  “I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say.

  “No,” he says. “I didn’t say any of that to make you feel bad.”

  “I know,” I say and I do. “But I feel bad anyway. I feel badly for you, and your mother. And I hate that my Uncle Grant did that to you.”

  “Corrine,” he says, so gently. Like we’re friends that go back and back. “I was just... telling you my side of things. I was just sharing. I’m not blaming you. I don’t even know if I blame your uncle anymore.”

  “Okay. Please don’t feel bad for sharing. I’m glad you told me.”

  “Are you?” he asks skeptically.

  “Yes. Because I can’t really know you without knowing that stuff, right?”

  “Yes. That’s true.”

  “It’s the One Big Thing.”

  “The one big thing?”

  “Yeah. There are certain things that are such a big part of who we are, that the people who don’t know about it don’t really know us. They only know this less important slice of us.”

  He lets out a soft laugh. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “Thanks for sharing that with me.”

  “Well,” he says, lighter now, “I was just trying to make things even for you. I didn’t want you to feel bad for talking so much.”

  I smile. “How gallant of you.”

  “That’s me. Mr. Gallant.” He lets out a deep breath. “That’s the most I’ve talked to anyone about it since I found out about the inheritance.”

  I smile. “Any time.”

  “I wish I could talk to my mom about it.”

  “I’m sure you will,” I say. “She sounds like a good mom.”

  “She is. The best.”

  God, this guy.

  I take the last bite of the fudge and sigh. “This fudge is so amazing. I’m going to have to make another batch if there’s going to be enough for tomorrow.” Because I’m totally having another piece.

  “I told you.”

  “You were right.” I lick my fingers, then sink down on my arm. “It’s too bad you can’t be here to enjoy it with me.”

  There’s a pause. “Yeah,” Mason says, sounding as regretful as I feel.

  Chapter 10

  Mason

  Things are getting real now. I didn’t mean to dump all that on her, or open up about so much. It just sort of happened. Something about hearing her voice changed things for me. Maybe for her too. I’m not the only one who opened up a bit. Maybe I shouldn’t have called.

  I wish I could say I regret it.

  Corrine

  On Christmas afternoon, Lizzy, Connor, Whitney, and I are gathered around the kitchen island at Lizzy’s house. We’re keeping things small and intimate this time, so it’ll just be us, plus Brett who’s on his way back from dropping Little Max off at his mother’s house, and Rayce who hasn’t arrived yet.

  The house is infused with the aroma of roasted turkey and Lizzy’s famous cornbread and sausage stuffing. I did, in fact, make another batch of Mason’s fudge, and we’re starting to bust into it. Pies have to wait until after dinner, but there are no such restrictions on bite-sized treats like this.

  After everyone moans in approval, Lizzy asks where I got the recipe. I was prepared for this question. I had an easy lie all ready to go. But I look around at the three of them and realize no one here is going to care that I’m talking with Mason, even if it does come as a surprise.

  “Actually, Mason Reeves.”

  Lizzy’s eyebrows shoot up, and Connor just blinks at me. “What?”

  “Okay, I found him on Facebook after Thanksgiving and we’ve been texting, but it’s not a big deal. He’s not mad at us like Rayce thinks. He’s actually a really great guy.”

  Lizzy’s smiling now, clearly pleased, but Connor’s scrutinizing me. “How great?”

  “Not like that. We’re just friends, obviously.”

  Obviou
sly.

  “Well, I think that’s wonderful,” Whitney says.

  “I agree!” Lizzy’s beaming. “I hated it ending like that.”

  “Yeah, me too. But listen, let’s don’t tell Rayce, okay?”

  “You know, Rayce doesn’t get to tell you who you can talk to,” Connor says, reaching for another piece of fudge.

  “Of course not. It isn’t that. I just know it’ll probably upset him and I don’t want to risk it. Or argue, either. There’s no point. It’s really not a big deal anyway.”

  Connor gives me a skeptical look.

  “Really.”

  We hear the garage door open. It’s too soon to be Brett, so it can only be Rayce. He’ll have parked on the side of the drive, but we all still have garage door openers to this house and tend to come in that way even though most of us don’t live here anymore.

  “Please,” I say urgently.

  “Of course,” Lizzy says, looking at the other two pointedly. They both nod in agreement.

  “Thank you.”

  Rayce comes in carrying a shallow, cardboard box with a few bottles of wine and liquor inside. Since he’s not much of a cook, we let him provide the drinks.

  He gives us a broad smile. “Merry Christmas, everyone.”

  We all say Merry Christmas back and he sets the box on the counter. He gives me a warm hug and kisses my cheek. When he pulls away, he bops the tip of my nose with his forefinger. It’s a fond gesture that goes back as far as I can remember, back when I was little enough to think of Rayce as my “big” cousin.

  I lightly slap his arm, pretending to be irritated, and he laughs, going to Lizzy to hug her next.

  I feel a little guilty keeping a secret like this from him—even though it’s kind of his own fault—but that doesn’t explain the tight knot of sadness at the base of my throat. I guess it’s just that Rayce is important to me, and I don’t like the idea of he and Mason being on opposite sides of the fence from each other.

  He unloads the contents of the box onto the counter, then heads back to the garage with the empty box hanging from one hand. “I just need to get the gifts.”