Page 53 of Game Plan

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

He watched me with an intensity I’d never seen before. “I’ll wait for the right moment to sweep you off your feet, then.”

I blinked twice. “You can’t say things like that… It-it’s wrong.”

“No. Nothing feels more right than you and me together, Shepard. I’ll wait until you have your guard down, and you won’t have a choice but to admit I was right all along. When you are brave enough to admit it to yourself.”

“Mase, that ego. We’ve talked about how it’s in the way many times before.”

“It’s not my ego talking, Mel. It’s my heart. The one beating inside your chest. It’s just waiting to be unleashed.”

“Mase.”

“Mel.”

We lost ourselves in yet another staring contest.

Without another word, Mason leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead, the same way he used to. My entire being vibrated at the contact. “I have to go, but this conversation isn’t over. We are not over. I’ll see you later.”

I nodded and climbed out of the car, scurrying to the front door, doing my best not to get drenched a second time.

With my back pressing against the entryway wall, I caught my breath for what felt like the first time in the last hour, trying to make sense of everything we had shared.

Once the pounding of my heart slowed to a steady thump, I took the steps up to the fourth floor to quiet the voices in my head, not sure how I would ever be able to go to work and focus tonight, knowing that my head was far away in Masonland.

15

I’m not doing that shit anymore

It was a little over midnight when I finished my shift that night and walked out of Lola’s.

My eyes went wide when I noticed Mason standing on the sidewalk dressed in a pair of charcoal sweatpants, wearing his letterman jacket over a cream sweater, and a burnt-orange beanie hiding most of the dark strands of his hair.

“Mase? What are you doing here?” I zipped up my light down jacket, creating an invisible barrier between us.

After our earlier conversation—and the confessions I’d made despite myself—I still felt a bit uneasy about our budding relationship. All evening, every time I had just a few minutes to myself, the gears of my brain worked overtime trying to make sense of all we had said. Most of it still didn’t compute in my head hours later. I told Mason I never had sex with my boyfriend during the length of our relationship, and yet I’d let him touch me one night when we were not even dating. Jayden and I…he…we never slept together… Because he wasn’t you… Every time I thought about those words slipping out, I wanted to facepalm. Or have the ground swallow me whole. This was so humiliating. Why did Mason always make me say things out loud I didn’t wanna share? I swore he possessed some special power over me.

“Waiting for you, actually.”

His words snapped me out of my racing thoughts and mortification.

“Oh.” I tried to remember what we were talking about. I nibbled on my lower lip, studying his expression and waiting for the pieces of the puzzle to move around inside my head. Oh yes, I’d asked him why he was here. “Why?”

He shrugged. “No way am I letting you walk to your dorm by yourself at this hour. If I recall correctly, we’ve been over this a few times already.” He was repeating my own words to me.

I lifted a hand to stop him from reaching me when he stepped forward. “I also remember telling you I do it all the time. I’m a big girl. I can fend for myself.”

“I know. Never thought less of you, Mel. I just don’t like the idea of your being on your own with drunken people lurking around.”

“And you think you’re my rescuer because?” I raised one brow, waiting for him to explain himself.

He flexed his arms just for show. The ruse worked because a smile spread across my face at his antics—a genuine one.

“Mase, you don’t have to feel obligated to anything. Go back to your friends or whoever else you spend your time with.”

“My friends have gone to a party. I’m not doing that shit anymore.”