AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“But—” Aurnia’s phone went off. She held up a polite finger, cheeks reddening as she said, “Sorry, sorry, I have to take this real quick.”
Mason and I both smiled like the goddamn queen of England and nodded like obedient dogs and said, “Sure, sure, of course. Take it. Take it.”
But the second she was gone we were scooting our chairs in toward one another’s, fingers getting pinched as we got as close as our chairs would allow. And then we got closer.
“Don’t lie to Aurnia about what happened,” I hissed, face right up to Mason’s.
His was twisted with as much frustration as I was sure mine was. He whispered harshly back, “The truth hurts, baby.”
I glared at him. “No, your fucking boot hurts.”
Mason smiled wickedly. “Why don’t we save the bruise-measuring competition till we get home, dear?”
I laughed bitterly. “I’m not sure it’s much of a competition, dear.”
Across the fine white tablecloth, across the romantic flickering candlelight, across the reflection of red wine that danced seductively, Conor pinched the bridge of his nose with a tired sigh and muttered, “Well, this is going just about as well as I expected.”
Aurnia returned just as the big plates of spaghetti and meatballs did. I stabbed the plate so hard that I thought it might crack in two.
Aurnia adjusted herself back in her seat. “What did I miss?”
“Mason and Rachel kissed and made up, baby,” Conor said, eyeing the two of us like naughty children. “Didn’t they?”
I made a big show of patting Mason’s thigh only to sink my fingertips into that sensitive inner flesh when Aurnia looked down to twist pasta round her fork.
“We’ll, of course, give it a try, hun,” I said. “I mean, things were so terrible when Mason bailed all those years ago. Who can blame him? It wasn’t like we were madly in love or anything, and he just up and left.”
Mason patted my back kindly only to then clamp his hand down too tightly around the back of my neck. I bit back a hiss and smiled around my bite of meatball.
“And don’t worry, Aurnia, Rachel here has such a terrible memory that she can easily forget all the pain she caused,” he said. “Overwhelming guilt and shame will never, ever be a problem for her.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, help me,” Conor muttered into his whiskey glass.
“Believe me,” Aurnia said, “nobody forgets. Scars make us, you know? The ones we have ourselves. The ones we gave ourselves.”
Conor smiled down at Aurnia, and that just about broke my heart. I knew little of Conor. Less than little really. But I did know this: Conor didn’t smile. So to find the one thing that made him do so and to find that it was Aurnia with her origami flowers and persistent faith in love, well…it sucked.
Mason’s fingers weren’t clamped so tightly around the back of my neck anymore, but the sting of his words still hurt.
I wanted to hurt him back. It was our “thing”, apparently.
My hand, the one that had been on his leg, fingers brushing his inner thigh, moved slowly but determinedly as I said, “Aurnia, we don’t have scars. A scar comes from a big wound. A gaping wound. But Mason and I, well, we got drunk, had some fun, did something stupid, and parted ways. If he sliced me at all, which he didn’t, it was surface level. It was a mere paper cut. It was nothing. Nothing.”
Mason had hold of my neck, but I had hold of his cock. I squeezed it till Mason leaned forward for his glass of water. I was trying to hurt him, to really, really hurt him, so why was it turning me on? His cock in my hands. Why was it bringing me back to The Jar? To that mistake?
I forced myself to grip him harder because otherwise I was going to start stroking him. Otherwise I was going to slip beneath that fancy white tablecloth. Otherwise I was going to do things that would get me banned from the restaurant, hell, banned from the whole fucking city.
It certainly didn’t help matters that Mason was getting hard. And fast. I flicked his cockhead with an angry scowl and he hissed, hiding it with a quick cough, pounding at his chest.
Conor’s eyes were suspicious as he glanced between the two of us, but Aurnia was preoccupied with her spaghetti and meatballs.
“I’ve seen the way you two are together,” she said around a big bite, “and nothing about you two is surface level. There’s a bond. I can see it. I know it.”
I had to wrench Mason’s hand from the back of my neck, he was clamping down so hard. I patted his fingers which I laid flat on the tablecloth between us.
“Rachel doesn’t want to see it, Aurnia,” Mason said with clenched teeth as he tried to pry my fingers from his dick. “All she wants to see is a lie. This perfect little life for herself. This stupid role for herself. She doesn’t even want to see her own fucking self. So why would she want to see us? See me?”
We were slapping each other’s hands in Mason’s lap. Trying not to make it obvious as we fake-smiled. Smiled angrily.
