few glances from people around us.
“I’m not offering you money or anything like that,” he said, hesitantly pulling a small black item from his pocket. “I wanted to give you this.”
I watched in embarrassment and shock as the shiny, offensive looking phone came toward me.
“I…um…wow.” I don’t think I’d ever been speechless before.
Mason noticed I was uncomfortable. “It’s just a prepaid phone. That’s all. I just think it’s safer…what I mean to say is, you’ll be safer with a phone.”
“You and I,” I waved my hand back and forth between us, “don’t know each other well enough for you to be giving me a cell phone. I can’t take this.” I shoved the phone back.
“It doesn’t matter how well we know each other. What I do know is that LA is full of assholes and you never know. Just take the phone.”
The cell phone was tossed back in my direction and I caught it easily. “Why do I feel like a damn animal who’s just been tagged?”
Mason laughed loudly, louder than I’d heard him laugh ever. When his outburst subsided he grinned at me. “Sometimes, even the wildest animals are caught and tamed.”
What the fuck does he mean by that?
Chapter 4
I flipped my new phone around in between my right and left hand. I’d spent ten minutes going through all the numbers Mason had programmed in ahead of time. I could literally call every emergency service in the Los Angeles area, along with Mason and one of his band mates. Still, I had no clue why he would provide some random homeless girl, me, with a telephone.
“Let me see that,” my usual shelter neighbor said forcefully.
“It has important numbers inside,” I said, clutching it to my chest.
“He wants to keep track of you, I bet. Is he nice looking?”
The woman was annoying as shit but I couldn’t blame her. There was little excitement in our environment and her thrill for the day was my new found friendship with, in her words, a movie star. Mason was not a movie star to me. He was frustrating and arrogant but, after our lunch, I had seen a bit of him that was genuine.
My cot neighbor continued to eye my new phone and I began to get nervous. If I fell asleep and the crazy bitch stole my phone I would have to hunt her down.
“Where are you going?” she asked as I began to throw my things back into my backpack.
I ignored her question, checked out of the shelter and headed toward the bright lights of West Hollywood. I’d stay up all night if I had to. The feelings I was having were new to me. That little obnoxious electronic was my connection to someone.
My eyes burned from exhaustion but I kept walking until I was standing in front of the tiny art gallery with the bleeding girl in the front window. The parking meter served as a brace for my back when I sat down, facing the glass. I studied the odd angles of the painting. She could have easily been any woman I’ve known in my life, bleeding, which translated to losing one’s self in my opinion.
It was then I did something that changed the entire course of my life. Everyone has those huge moments and this one was mine. I searched my backpack for the phone and pulled it out without hesitation. I speed dialed the number for Mason and waited.
Voicemail.
“Hi, Mason…It’s Fallyn. Um, I don’t know why I called you because I don’t normally feel that calling a strange guy is a good idea but here I am, rambling on your voicemail. The thing is, I was thinking. I’m sitting on the sidewalk thinking and I realized that I’m practically alone, but I had this phone that you gave me. No one has ever given me a phone.”
I flipped the phone closed after that, feeling like the biggest ass in the world. Rambling into a voicemail for Mason Jennings was a low point for me. How could I have been so damn desperate for attention and not known it. My brain told me daily that bringing in new people would just make shit complicated but my brain was wrong. I wanted someone to care and at that point I didn’t care if it was genuine or not. I craved acceptance.
The phone rang in my hand, startling me. Mason. I didn’t answer it and he didn’t leave a message. The pattern continued about three more times. I shoved the