by Lane Hart
“Yeah, I know. Are you all packed up? Have a safe trip and call me when you get to the airport.”
“What?” I ask in confusion. “Aren’t you and Dad takin’ me?”
“Oh, no, sweetie. I thought you knew we decided to stay another day to help clean up and all.”
“Then are you gonna let me take your car?”
“God no! You still don’t have a license.”
“Then what the heck am I supposed to do?”
“Don’t worry,” she says with a smile. “Mason agreed to drive you back.”
“Mason?” I exclaim.
“Uh-huh,” she replies then gives me a quick hug. “Your dad’s out by the pool, so say goodbye before you go.”
“Okay, I will. What about Linc and Claire? I wanted to tell them bye, too.”
“I haven’t seen them in a while and I sure as heck wouldn’t suggest you go looking for them.”
“Oh. Yeah, I’ve had more than enough awkwardness for the day. Just tell them I said bye and I love them.”
“I will. Be careful and have fun.”
I nod as I walk away to look for my dad. I’m not expectin’ to find him talkin’ to Mason, who has his car keys in his hand like he’s waitin’ for me. Nice of him to tell me he’s chauffeurin’ me again today.
“Ready?” my dad asks with a smile when I approach.
“Ah yeah. Mom just told me that you two are stayin’.”
“Yeah, sorry. I thought you knew.”
“Nope. Nobody bothered to tell me,” I say, shootin’ Mason a narrowed eye look.
“We’ve been getting busy,” Mason replies and then coughs when he realizes what he just said. “I mean, everything has been so hectic and busy.”
“Uh-huh,” I mutter. “Bye, Dad.” I give him a hug and he goes through the same be safe, call us when you get there spiel as my mom.
“Take care of her, Mace,” my dad tells him when we start to walk away.
“I will, sir, as much as she’ll let me,” Mason replies softly before guidin’ me around the side of the house with his hand on my lower back.
“Thanks for the heads up on the ride,” I tell him when we reach the front.
“Like I said, we were busy. Now where are your bags?” he asks.
I nod toward the front porch and start in that direction with him right behind me. “I’ve got them,” Mason says as he snatches up the luggage first. “Have you heard from the airport about your lost bags?”
“No,” I sigh. “I guess the sayin’ about lettin’ somethin’ go and if it comes back again it’s yours isn’t necessarily true.”
“It hasn’t been that long, so you shouldn’t give up yet. Some things just take a little more time than others to find their way back.”
I know he’s talkin’ about more than luggage.
“So did you tell Senn goodbye?” Mason asks when we’re both fastenin’ our seatbelts.
The flashback reminder has me gigglin’. Once I start, I can’t stop. I throw my head back and full out belly laugh against the headrest. “You won’t believe it,” I tell him as I wipe my tears away. “I walked in on him fuckin’ a very pregnant Abby, both buck ass naked, goin’ at it doggy style.”
“No shit?” Mason chuckles. “That’s nuts. Were they doing it better than us earlier?”
“Ah, no,” I reply. My cheeks warm at the reminder at the same time that pressure low in my body builds like always when I’m around Mason. “I seriously doubt it was better.”
“Me, too,” he agrees before he starts the car and pulls out of the estate.
“So afterward, Senn and I talked and agreed that the two of us…well, that’s just not gonna happen.”
“Good,” Mason says when we hit the highway. “So any stops to make? Diners? Bed & breakfasts?”
“Not this time,” I tell him. “Straight to the airport so I don’t miss my flight.”
“Maybe I’ll just drive really slowly,” he teases, slumping down in his seat to get more comfortable. “Or pull over in the hopes of some more roadside service.”
“I can’t believe I did that,” I reply, shakin’ my head at the embarrassin’ reminder of suckin’ him off on the side of the road, the day after we met.
“Hell, I couldn’t believe you did either. Shocked the fuck out of me.” Mason chuckles. “I bet you had never done anything like that before then, had you?”
“No, definitely not,” I reply.
“Then why me?” he asks, takin’ his eyes off the road to glance over at me for a quick second before lookin’ straight ahead again.
“Because you’re very lickable,” I tell him honestly. “I couldn’t come right out and ask to lick your tattoos or ass without you thinkin’ I was nuts, but I figured you wouldn’t mind if I sucked your cock.”
“Definitely didn’t mind,” Mason says, noticeably squirmin’ in his seat. “And I would’ve let you lick any part of me from the second we met, as long as I would’ve been given the same opportunity.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure that we both licked every inch of each other over the past week.”
He laughs. “Hell yeah we did.”
“Now stop talkin’, so I can get some sleep. Someone kept me up all night,” I tell him as I rest my head against the window. Today is cloudy with a chance of rain, so the top is unfortunately up on Sally, Mason’s convertible. He wouldn’t dare risk raindrops on his leather seats or precious stereo.
“That sounds horrible,” he teases with a big parenthesis grin. “Some people are just so inconsiderate.”
“Yeah, they are,” I agree. “But thankfully, I had enough orgasms to make it worthwhile. I probably had more orgasms this week than my whole life added together.”
“That’s just sad,” Mason says with a disapprovin’ shake of his head. “I may have had my fair share in the past, but the ones this week were the best I’ve ever had.”
“At least that’s somethin’,” I reply and then close my eyes, pretendin’ to sleep since the more we talk, the more it makes me realize how much I’m gonna miss him. Too bad that when I close my eyes, I keep replayin’ scenes from the night before. I’ve never felt as loved or connected to another soul as I did durin’ those incredible hours. I couldn’t tell you how many times we actually...because there was no end and no beginnin’. Just him inside me, lovin’ me with his body all night. I’ll never forget it, and that’s exactly what worries me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mace
Hailey thinks I don’t know she’s been pretending to sleep for the past two hours. It sucks because the silence has given me too much time to think. My mind has come up with every possible thing I could say to her before she gets on that plane, and not a single thing seems likely to change her mind. I’m frustrated and freaking out and so damn depressed I don’t know what to do.
Each sign that tells me how many miles from Raleigh we are is like another dagger to my heart. My chest is heavier than ever before. I’ve lost people I love, so you would think I would be used to it, but it’s different with Hailey. She doesn’t have to say goodbye, but she wants to. The other times, well my mom and sister didn’t have a choice when they left me. It makes me angry that Hailey could so easily agree to this working out, and she just fucking refuses to do it for whatever idiotic reason. That’s the other thing I’ve tried to figure out without any luck over the past few hours.
All too soon, I’m pulling up at the unloading zone at the airport. It’s nine-forty-five, so I know Hailey needs to hurry up and start trying to get through security.
“Hailey, we’re here,” I tell her with a shake to her shoulder. She actually did fall asleep after pretending for so long.
“Oh, okay,” she says softly, still looking dazed and drowsy when she blinks her eyes open and sits up. My apartment is only a half an hour away; I want more than anything to take her back to it and put her in my bed. That’s not gonna happen, so I climb out and grab her bags from the trunk while she gets out next to th
e car and stretches. Coming around to her side, I set her bags down and thread my fingers in the back of her thick curls to pull her to me, kissing her silly before I let her go for good. After her initial surprise, she holds me just as tightly around my waist, and kisses me back with just as much enthusiasm.
When I feel her palms pushing against my chest, I know it’s time to say goodbye. “Fine,” I pull back and mutter into her hair. “I love you, Hailey, and maybe I’m stupid, but I’ll wait for you; however long it takes. Weeks, months. In three years if you haven’t had babies, I’ll give you babies. I’ll give you anything you want, because there’s no one else I would rather be with-”
“Don’t,” she says as she slips away from my arms. Grabbing her luggage, she walks away without even a backwards glance.
I’m so fucking angry that I can’t follow her onto that plane, it feels like I’m about to snap and lose control. Havoc is closed, which sucks because I need some way to try to work off my frustration.
Nothing left to do, I get in my car and drive back to my apartment. Seeing Sabrina’s black Prius in my driveway usually cheers me up, but not tonight. I want to be alone and she’ll only remind me of the domestic normalcy I’ll never have with Hailey.
When I quietly walk in the door, I avoid my dark bedroom and go straight past it to the kitchen. I might be underage, but there’s still liquor in my cabinet, one of the benefits of dating women older than me. I’m standing with my back against the counter, chugging Jack Daniels when Sabrina finds me. Wearing nothing but one of my white tees, her shoulder-length brown hair is pushed behind her ears, and her sleepy, almond eyes blink from the glare of the overhead lights.
“Hey,” she says softly with her approach. “I didn’t think you would be home until tomorrow night.”
I freeze when her arms wrap around my waist, unable to reciprocate her hug. Instead, I tip the bottle up and chug more Jack.
“You okay?” she asks, pulling back to study my face. I can’t even look her in the eyes. It just feels so wrong for her to be here, so warm and ready to fuck me. All I can think about is that I’ve been cheating on her for a week, and how much I miss Hailey. I should feel guiltier than I do, and I’m an asshole because I don’t.
“No, I’m not okay,” I eventually respond. After almost two years with this woman I care about and even love, I want nothing more than to push her off me. I slip out from underneath Sabrina and go slump into a leather chair in the living room. She follows me.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, climbing up on my lap. “Can I make you feel better?”
I finally touch her then, removing her hand from the button on my pants.
“Mace, baby, what happened? Is Claire okay?”
Hearing the worry in her voice has me thawing slightly. “Claire’s fine,” I assure her. “Married and happy.”
“But you’re not?” she asks.
“Nope,” I reply, taking another swig of Jack. “I’m not married, and I’m definitely not happy.”
“Oh,” she replies at the same time her shoulders slump. “Does this have something to do with the smell of an expensive woman all over you?”
I bark out an unhumorous laugh since her assessment is so spot on. Hailey is an expensive woman that I can’t afford to be with. I can’t even afford to go see her.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her sincerely, finally meeting her gaze. “You’re right, and I shouldn’t have been with her behind your back.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” she agrees, blinking back tears. “So why did you?”
“Because I knew as soon as I saw Hailey that she was supposed to be mine, and nothing else mattered.”
“You mean no one else mattered,” she corrects, wiping away a tear.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her again. “I had no idea this would happen…”
“So, this is it, huh?” she asks with a sniffle. “We’re really done because of someone you were with for a week? After two years of waiting for you, I thought one day you’d feel that way about me.”
Oh fuck. Now I feel guilty and even more depressed. Will I still feel this way about Hailey in two years? Loving her while she lives her life without me? I guess I deserve to feel so shitty. Karma biting me in the ass.
“Yeah, well, isn’t it ironic that she just got on a plane and left because she doesn’t feel the same way about me?”
“But you still don’t want me, do you?”
“Not the way I want her,” I admit honestly.
“So, do you want me to move out?” she asks, climbing off my lap.
“Yeah,” I reply, swirling the brown liquid around in the glass bottle.
“And the others?”
The thought of touching anyone but Hailey makes me feel nauseous.
“I can’t anymore,” I admit to Sabrina. Tomorrow I guess I’ll have to go see Erica, Monica, and Lena to tell them we’re done.
“Okay,” Sabrina says on a sigh. “Just…just give me a few days.”
“Of course,” I agree, cringing at the sound of her sniffling. “I’ll, ah, sleep on the couch until you find a place.”
She nods and then, without another word, she walks back to my bedroom without me.
…
Hailey
I didn’t sleep a wink on the plane, and when I got home around two a.m. I woke my roommate Elle up and cried on her shoulder while I told her about the entire crazy week. The longer I’m away from Mason, the more I miss him. Like when I opened one of my suitcases and found a big slice of wedding cake wrapped in saran wrap. There was also a note tellin’ me that he loved me, and that I was “perfect and beautiful, so just eat the fucking cake and enjoy it.”
So, I sat on the sofa with my phone in my hand, starin’ at his name in my contact list for hours after my interview. The interview for exactly what I had guessed, a wrinkle cream ad that I immediately turned down. I thought I was makin’ progress on lettin’ go of Mason when I put the phone aside to fix dinner, healthy veggies that I didn’t throw up. But when I was headin’ to bed, I saw a text from him. Just three words, “I miss you.” So here it is, nine p.m., twenty-four hours since the last time I saw him, and my stupid finger is hoverin’ over his name. I press it, and it starts ringin’.
“Hello? Mace’s phone,” a woman answers. Why is a woman answerin’ his phone?
“Um, is Mason around?” I ask.
“No, he had a sorority birthday party tonight and left his phone on the charger. Is this Hailey?”
“A sorority party?” I ask. “Who is this?”
“Oh, I’m Sabrina. Mace told me about you when he got home last night.”
“He-he did?” She was at his house last night? After tellin’ me he loved me at the airport, he went home and was with her?
“Yeah. Do you want me to have him call you when he gets home? It’ll probably be after midnight before he can escape all those horny, drunken girls.”
“Right. No, that’s okay,” I say before I hang up, hatin’ myself for callin’ him in the first place.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mace
God, what a long fucking night. Ready to head home, I pull my sweats back on and search around for my wife beater, not sure where the hell it was tossed to in the dimly lit room. Sure, there’s a wad of cash in my hand, on top of a flat fee I was paid when they scheduled two weeks ago, but I’ve never felt so dirty for it as I do now. I’m just doing what I can to try to earn enough money to go see Hailey. Even driving up to New York will take money for gas that I don’t currently have.
“Aww, no, are you leaving?” Vanessa Clark, the Delta Gamma President, asks over the blaring music when she saunters up to me, tossing her long, stick straight blonde hair over her shoulder.
“Ah, yeah,” I say, spotting my shirt haphazardly thrown on a chair across the room. I manage to maneuver through the sweaty, gyrating partygoers with only a few grabby hands rubbing on my chest and abs. After I slip the fabric over my head, I turn around and Vanessa is right i
n front me.
“I hate you have to go,” she says with a stupid, fake pout. When she yanks on the elastic waistband of my sweats, I look down and watch as she crams a folded green bill down the front of my tight, black briefs. Hell no, I don’t wear a G-string. Wait, is that a hundred-dollar bill? I don’t have time to figure it out before Vanessa’s hand wraps around my cock. “Are you sure you can’t stay a little longer?” she asks, stroking my shaft. “We could go up to my room.”
Well, I can’t say it’s the first time I’m been propositioned for sex after stripping, but unlike other times when I may have been somewhat tempted before turning a girl down, I don’t want anything to do with the slut this time.
“Sorry, but I’ve gotta go,” I tell her as I grab her hand and remove it from my cock before getting the hell out of dodge. Fuck if I offer back the Benjamin, either. I would say an inappropriate sexual assault is worth a hundred dollars. Besides, that one bill puts me a little closer to New York.
Glad to be back in the house after spending six hours in the gym, coming home only long enough to grab dinner and a shower before shaking my dick for the sorority girls for three hours, I am beat.
I have to take another shower because I just feel dirty, and then I sack out on the sofa, my new bed until Sabrina gets an apartment. My phone is on the end table charging since the battery keeps dying on me. I need to buy a new one, but that’s not in my budget right now. Leaving it on the charger, I scroll through spam emails and respond to text messages from Monica and Erica telling me that they’re free for tomorrow night. This morning before the gym, I broke things off with Lena who took it pretty well, so by this time tomorrow, I’ll be a single man for the first time in over two years. I figured that’s the first step in convincing Hailey to be with me.
When I pull up my call log, I see that there was an incoming call from her. Tonight. Two hours ago. What the fuck? She actually wanted to talk to me? I call her but it goes straight to voicemail. Fucking hell. Hold the phone. The log says the call was answered and a two-minute conversation took place, but I wasn’t even home.