Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88218 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88218 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Sure thing. I was about to head home anyway. It was great seeing you again, Denver. You boys talk, and I’ll bring up some food for dinner later.”
“He won’t be here for dinner,” Mason says.
I knew he wasn’t going to make this easy on me, but by the sound of it, he’s not even going to hear me out.
I’ve apologized a million times in my head, but now the moment’s here, I have no clue what to say.
His mom’s gaze flits between us before she plasters on a smile. “I’ll make extra just in case. If you aren’t here when I get back, Mason won’t let it go to waste.” She pats her son’s stomach on her way past, and he winces.
I’m starting to see how he piled on the weight so fast. He might have a bit of extra padding, but if I’m honest with myself, I find him even more attractive now than ever before. And that’s saying something because I’ve always thought he was gorgeous.
Don’t start that shit again, Denny.
Not even in his presence for more than a few minutes, and my thoughts are already drifting back to all those times on tour where I caught myself staring at my best friend a little too intently and pushing every confusing thought back down into a box labeled I don’t want to deal with that.
“Coffee?” Mason asks.
“Thanks.”
We move toward the kitchen, and he gestures for me to sit at the table. There’s this weird tension between us that never used to be there, and I have no idea where to start or what to say.
Maybe we should start with small talk.
Yeah. I can do that. “What did your mom mean when she said she was going home? She lives here.”
“When I came home for good, she moved back into her house. She’s still close by.”
I frown. “You live up here all by yourself?”
Mason presses the button on the coffee grinder and holds his hand up to his ear as the whirring noise fills the space to say he can’t hear me. Or he doesn’t want to hear me.
I guess I don’t have a right to know about his life anymore. The thought of some beautiful woman with long, flowing brown hair coming down the stairs at any moment makes my gut twist.
Mason always had a thing for brunettes. After his blonde fiancée—she who shall not be named—cheated on him and they broke up, he swore off blondes. Actually, he swore off relationships. He was twenty when it happened. Well, according to the public he was nineteen, but that’s neither here nor there. When Mason signed to Joystar, just like they changed Harley’s and my names, they changed Mason’s birth year. Apparently, a nineteen-year-old serenading young teen girls was too creepy. If you ask me, making sure we were all underage was creepier to me, but we did a lot of things that didn’t make sense thanks to the label.
Harley and Ryder hid their sexualities. We all played our own assigned part.
Why are we thinking about going back to that? For money? Harley says his new label will be different, but will it?
Mason makes our coffees while all the millions of memories fill my head. When he slides over a cup, I take a sip and moan.
I’m hungover as fuck, my head hurts, and part of me can’t believe after two and a half years we’re finally face-to-face.
“Rough night?” Mason asks.
“Apparently. I can’t really remember, though.”
He nods knowingly. “Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve spilled a secret while drinking. I should’ve changed my gate code, huh?”
The gate code is his birth year—his real one, not the manufactured one.
I go to argue, but I can’t. Apparently, I did sell him out even if I don’t remember it. “I’m so sorry.”
“Are you, though?”
“Definitely. If I’d kept my mouth shut, I wouldn’t be here doing something I should’ve done a long time ago but haven’t had the guts.”
“I don’t understand, Denny.”
My name is weighted with disappointment and hurt. Like I wasn’t feeling horrible enough already.
“You and me both,” I mutter.
“Can you at least tell me why you disappeared from my life immediately after promising you wouldn’t?”
Is he kidding me? “You mean apart from making a fool of myself by kissing you?”
“It has to be more than a stupid kiss.”
That’s what he doesn’t understand. He didn’t that night either. It wasn’t just some stupid kiss to me.
It was all the confusion that had been building over months—no, years. It came down to two quick seconds of his lips on mine followed by the crushing reality of rejection.
“I …” I have no idea what to say to that.
“Was it because you didn’t think I’d be supportive of your sexuality? Or that I’d try to convince you to keep it a secret or … that I’d disapprove? You know I have absolutely no issues with people living their truth.”