AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He called before he could talk himself out of it or get too nervous.
"Hello?" she said.
His heart skipped a beat and his throat closed. He choked out, "Lucy, it's Mason."
She gasped. "Mason?"
He tossed his whiskey back and slammed it on the bar too hard. "Yeah, Mason. I have a question about your dad."
She paused, and he thought she might've hung up. He looked at the phone, saw it was still connected, and asked, "Hello?"
"I'm here. What do you want to ask?" Her voice was curt, and he frowned.
He frowned as nerves swarmed his stomach like a hornets nest. "Your dad was dealing in Fort Worth when you were in high school, right? But you haven't seen or heard from him since your mom died, so you wouldn't know if he's still doing that, right?"
He rubbed his forehead and sighed.
She said, "I actually saw him in May."
Mason sucked in a breath, pain in his chest as fear gripped him. "How did that go? Did you find him and reach out?"
The bartender refilled his drink as she answered.
"It was purely by accident, and it went as well as expected, I suppose. I ran into him at Billy Bob's after Taylor's graduation. I punched him in the face. Fractured my hand and had a splint for a month."
He sucked in a breath and looked at his own right hand. "Your thumb or a finger?" he asked. Why had he not talked to her at all in the past five months? He could've. His hours weren't regular, but he'd had at least one down evening a week.
She'd broken a bone while he'd been gone, and he hadn't known anything about it.
"One of these little bones under the pinky, on the side of the palm."
He rubbed his forehead and sipped his drink. "I'm sorry I wasn't there, little bird. I wish I had been."
She gasped. "You—you do?"
He nodded even though she couldn't see him. "Of course I do. I want to be with you every day."
She paused, and he waited. Had he just made a fool of himself? He didn't want to ask her out over the phone, but he wanted her to know he'd been thinking of her.
She cleared her throat. "Is that all you wanted? To talk about my dad?"
He shifted on the bar stool and took a deep breath. "I was kind of hoping you'd be at the fish fry this weekend? I'd love to see you."
She paused again, longer. He heard soft music playing in the background, then she said, "I plan on it, yes. I was going to go fishing with Ray tomorrow, since you're probably working and won't make it."
His brows rose. "You fish?"
There were so many things he didn't know about her. He felt like he'd wasted so much time. He wanted to know everything about her.
"I used to go with my grandpa when I was really little. Ray took me a few times last summer, and we've gone a few times this summer already too," she said. Her voice was like a balm to his soul. It offered him hope.
Maybe he'd be able to talk her into a proper date tomorrow. One where she wasn't forced to accept because they were stuck rooming together in Hawaii.
He cleared his throat. "He hasn't told me about that. He didn't tell me about your broken hand, either."
"Eh, I didn't tell either Ray or Nana about running into dad. It was too raw and painful."
"I'm sorry I asked about it tonight, but thanks for sharing, Lucy. It means a lot."
