He brought his own coffee from home. He’d gone out of his way for me…why?
“You look tired,” he went on, able to read me too well. I didn’t like it. I liked having my walls up, no one paying any attention to me or giving me a second glance. Mason was just…I didn’t even know how to describe him. Too intuitive. Too watchful of me. Too caring?
I ran my finger around the lid of the hot chocolate. We still had about five minutes before class started, so there was plenty of time to talk. The problem was I didn’t want to talk to him, not about what kept me up at night.
“You can talk to me, you know,” he whispered as the room slowly got more packed. “About anything. We’re partners—that means we stick together through thick and thin, sickness and health, till death do us part.” His tone oozed sarcasm, like he knew he was talking about marriage and not psychology partners, and yet he still went ahead and said it anyway.
I’d realized a while ago Mason liked to hear himself talk. It was somewhat off-putting, at first, but now…what could I say? I guess I’d grown used to it.
Heaving a sigh, I muttered, “My sister reminded me I have a date this Friday.”
Mason’s eyes widened, and he could not hide his shock, “A date? Another? I thought you said you don’t do dates.”
“I don’t.” I really didn’t, so the fact that I had another with Calum truly was something out of the ordinary. “It’s a makeup date, for how horrible the last one went.” I squirmed a bit, feeling weird talking about this with Mason. He stared at me a tad too intently for my liking, almost like…well, almost like he was jealous, like he himself wished he was the one going on the date with me.
That was stupid, a hormonal teenage fantasy that I had no idea why it popped into my head to begin with.
“Huh,” Mason spoke, though, for once, he didn’t say much besides that. He did not appear to be his usual, happy-go-lucky self.
“What?” I didn’t know why I asked, why I cared, but…damn it, I did. I did, even though I shouldn’t. In the last week and a half, somehow Mason had become a staple in my life. When I lied away in bed at night—when I wasn’t lost in my own head wondering how I could possibly cancel Friday’s date—he occasionally crossed my thoughts. His dimpled smile, his inviting eyes, the leanness of his body and his easygoing demeanor.
He shot me a smile. “It’s nothing.”
It certainly didn’t seem like nothing.
“I just…I was going to see if you wanted to get together Friday to work on the questionnaire.” He shrugged. “It’s fine, though. I know how much you love going on dates.” The dimples appeared in his cheeks, and whatever slight jealous undertone that had been in his voice before faded. “There’s always Saturday or Sunday—and then you can feel free to tell me how awful the date was.”
I knew he was joking, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “You think it’s going to be awful?” Silly how I looked for reassurance from him, like I wanted someone else’s opinion that it truly would be awful so I wouldn’t feel bad about canceling.
My mind was a strange place.
Mason grew serious. Class was set to start, and the last thing he told me was: “I think any guy who doesn’t treat you right the first time doesn’t deserve a second chance.”
The professor began to talk in the front of the class, which meant I couldn’t ask him exactly what he meant by that. But, you know, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. When he told me those words, when he spoke them so earnestly, I felt my cheeks flare up, and I had to look away. Suddenly it wasn’t just my hand holding onto the hot chocolate Mason bought me that was overheating. It was all of me.
How could he say those words and mean them? He didn’t know me. Before last Monday, he never even said one word to me in passing. Things didn’t change that fast. They couldn’t. I wasn’t the type of girl anyone fell head over heels for, so I knew better than to think he had some kind of crush on me.
I was afraid I was starting to feel for Mason. It was impossible not to let his personality rub off on me, especially when we spent so