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Ugh. Caught red-handed. I shrug it off. “I might have…seen bits and pieces.”
“The whole thing is so insane,” Jason says. “I never wanted to be on TV, and now they’re talking about giving me my own segment. The episode kinda blew up, I guess.”
I blink at that. “Like…you’d have your own show?”
He shrugs. “Sort of. I went in for a photoshoot like a week ago—totally bizarre experience. They had me put on my surgeon gown and operate on a dummy to take promo pictures.” The way he says it, it’s like it’s nothing. Dr. Mazie has millions of viewers. It’s a very big deal, yet Jason looks shy about it.
“So you’re going for it, huh?” I ask.
Jason shrugs. “My dad says it’s good PR for Lighthouse Medical. So. Probably.”
Inside me, I feel my knot of guilt loosen a little. Jason has changed—yes. But he’s still his father’s lapdog. I don’t trust Leonard King for a second, and if Jason is still eating out of the palm of his hand…well. Maybe I made the right choice to keep him out of Otto’s life, after all.
I turn around so I can face Jason, leaning my back against the wall. “You don’t drink. You don’t jerk off. You meditate. You do yoga. I have to ask…are you a good guy now, Jason King?”
His ice-blue eyes look up at me from under a bed of black hair. “I always was. You just didn’t look hard enough.”
“Mmm, I distinctly remember a couple severely asshole-y moments from our childhood.”
He lets out a low, half-hearted chuckle. “Okay. Maybe.”
“So what changed you?”
He shrugs. “You did.”
I blink. “Me?”
“That summer was the first time I let myself be vulnerable. Open. Found out I liked it. Figured it was time to change some things.”
“What…just in case we run into each other some ten years later?”
A grin sneaks up his mouth. “Yeah. Something like that.”
I notice how close he is now. My fingers twitch with the urge to touch his chest and feel the muscles there. Or kiss his mouth and feel the tickle of his beard. His blue eyes drop to my lips briefly before returning to meet my gaze, and I wonder—is he thinking the same thing?
Feeling dangerously close to making a bad mistake, I push off the wall and take a couple of steps away, distancing myself. I turn my back to him and glance around the house aimlessly. “God, this is a beautiful house,” I say. I do actually mean that.
“Yeah, Donovan renovated it himself. He did great.” Silence lingers between us for a second. “It’s really close to the beach,” Jason continues after a moment, just to fill the vacuum. “You’ve can walk there from here.”
I swivel around to face him again. “Can I see it?”
He blinks. “Huh?”
“The beach,” I clarify. “I haven’t been yet.”
“It’s freezing,” Jason counters.
“Yeah, but it’s still the beach,” I protest.
Finally, a grin draws over Jason’s mouth.
“What’d I miss?” Donovan asks as he rejoins us in the living room.
“Polar bear party!” Jason shouts, which I guess is the last word on that.
40
Jason
