AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I didn’t like the way he’d just decided this for me. “No.”
“Come on,” he said with a subtle eyeroll. “Don’t have Owen take you.”
“What’s it matter to you?” I crossed my arms with a scowl. This wasn’t the first time Mason had shown me his possessive side, and it was more unnecessary now than it had been at the apple orchard that day.
“It doesn’t. I—” He stopped, lifting his hand to his forehead in frustration. “Damn it, I’m sorry. My jealousy of Owen just manifested itself in a really ugly way, and I wish I could take that back—among everything else I’ve said tonight.”
“Jealousy of Owen?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, look at this house. He’s got the six-figure business. The Volvo. The fiancée. The fucking… golden retriever.” He really emphasized the dog comment, which would have made me laugh if he hadn’t seemed so distressed about it. He shook his head, eyeing Finley in the backseat before turning back to me. “And once upon a time… he even had you.”
Now I could laugh. “Barely. He barely had me, Mason.”
His hand returned to the door handle. I tried to get him to look at me, but he was suddenly afraid of making eye contact. “Look, I’m sorry, Kendall. I didn’t mean to sound all possessive a minute ago. I had no right. This isn’t my proudest moment.”
I searched for a way to let him know there was no comparison. None at all. He’d already shown me more attention than Owen Gardner ever had, and he couldn’t even call me his.
I wished he could.
“‘Kay, well, I’m going to go put Finley to bed before I dig this hole even deeper,” he mumbled, lifting up his door handle. But the second the door opened, I reached up again to close it, a motion so sudden it finally got him to look at me. I knew what I wanted to say.
“Would a goodnight hug be totally out of the question?”
Mason inhaled, giving this careful consideration. “You’re so drunk.” But he turned his body toward mine and held his arms out to the side to accept my embrace. I wrapped my arms around his middle, attempting to pull him into me—but his feet were planted firmly on the ground. He was resisting this, either because he thought I was too drunk to realize what I was doing or because he didn’t want to be tempted. I couldn’t be sure. Either way, his body was as stiff as a board. Since he wasn’t budging, I’d have to come to him. I pulled myself against his chest, shuffling my feet forward, and I waited for him to relax. For him to give me more than this bullshit, half-hearted, half-embrace.
After a few seconds, he delicately placed his hands on my back like I was something he might break if he applied too much pressure. I felt his body loosen as he exhaled, finally surrendering to the hug. Surrendering to me. He wrapped his arms all the way around my body, bowing his head forward over my shoulder. There you go. He wanted this as much as I did.
One of his hands slid up my back, getting entangled in my hair at the base of my neck. I knew I was running out of time to say what I wanted for it still to be relevant. I pulled back from him slightly, holding onto his arms as I pressed my mouth up to his ear, our cheeks barely touching. I almost couldn’t say the words.
What was the number one thing men compared?
“At least your dick is bigger,” I whispered.
And then I released him, stepping back far enough that I could see his entire face. And what a sight that was. His jaw dropped, and he stared straight ahead, fixating on the shrubbery behind me as he processed my words. His hands remained in the exact position they were in when we hugged, frozen in midair. I’d broken him. At the very least, my words had rendered the man completely speechless.
I had to give him something. Even if I couldn’t be sure it was true, it only mattered that he thought it was.
Tucking my hair behind my ears, I paused to enjoy Mason’s shocked and perplexed expression for a few more seconds before I turned to go. “Anyway, goodnight!” I left him with that thought and ran up the driveway in my bare feet without looking back.
chapter twenty-two
kendall
I woke up the morning of the fall festival with a stomachache. It could have just been my nerves, or it could have been the Taco Bell Sarah and I insisted on having Owen get for us late the night before. I had a vague, blurry memory of Sarah holding both of my hands in Owen’s backseat, tearing up as she told me, “I should’ve asked you to be in my wedding, but I didn’t want you to feel weird.”
And Owen, annoyed and exhausted in the driver’s seat, glanced over his shoulder and said, “Pretty sure you’re making her feel weird right now, babe.”
I pulled my blanket up to my chin and rolled over, reaching for my phone on my nightstand. I opened it up to see an unsent message to Mason.
Kendall: I may need a new pic to make sure that was an accurate statement
“Oh my god,” I said, sitting up. Thank God I hadn’t sent it. I couldn’t believe I’d even typed it in the first place! I quickly backspaced so there was no chance I’d accidentally send it to him, and that’s when I saw what he’d texted me around midnight:
Mason: Let me know when you’ve made it home safe.
But just above that, there was another message—a photo. I tapped on it to get the full view.
It was the naked illustration of me. I held my breath the second it loaded, stunned at how accurately he’d captured my features. If he hadn't mentioned drawing it from memory, I would've sworn he’d used the actual photo as a side-by-side reference. It looked exactly like me.
