Chapter 12 Beth
Beth
My shoulder is about six inches from his on the passenger seat, and every time he shifts gears, the muscle in his forearm rolls under the worn flannel—a slow, heavy swell that strains the fabric and makes me briefly forget what peripheral vision is for.
He drives one-handed, easy and unhurried, like he's got nowhere to be.
Which is strange, because Mason always seems like he's got somewhere to be.
"Everything okay?" he asks without looking over.
My cheeks turn pink. "Oh—yeah, I'm just—uh, observing."
"Uh-huh." The corner of his mouth twitches. "What've you observed so far?"
"You're not wearing a jacket and it's only like sixty degrees," I retort.
"Depending on the day, I can be quite hot-blooded." And then he almost-smiles, and it does something reckless to his face, softening the hard lines, shaving off about five years.
This does nothing to make my cheeks less pink. In fact, I'm somehow reminded of the jacket he wore that night at Carlo's. The one that ended up draped over my desk chair for three days before I returned it.
"You mean you're not a reptile?" I ask, leaning just a fraction closer to the center console.
"Only on alternate Tuesdays." He adjusts the rearview mirror like that's a perfectly normal thing to have said. "Rest of the week I'm warm-blooded. Ran around in a t-shirt every January as a kid. My mother thought I was broken."
We drive past the center of town, past the library, Maren's bakery, Elena's Creations. We keep going, past the rows of lake houses, toward the mountains. The road begins to curve, the truck tires humming a low pitch against the asphalt.
"Are we leaving Lakeview?" I ask.
"Nope."
"Are you kidnapping me?"
"Not today."
"Phewww." I swipe the back of my hand across my forehead theatrically. "Good to know you've ruled it out for now."
He makes a right turn onto a narrow road lined with mature oaks. The canopy is so thick it blocks the sun, casting everything in dappled green light. And then, tucked between the trees, I see something.
A small wooden building with a slate-blue roof and a gravel path leading to the entrance. No sign out front. Just a painted wooden panel beside the door with a single Asian character.
I turn to Mason. "What is this?"
He pulls into a small parking area made of gravel and grass and kills the engine. "It's a tea house."
I stare at the building. Then at him. Then at the building again.
"A tea house," I repeat.
"Yep."
I'm trying to reconcile this with the man sitting beside me. Mason, who tackled my ex-fiancé at Harper's engagement party. Who communicates primarily through monosyllables and the occasional grunt.
"This is not where I thought you were taking me," I admit, fiddling with the strap of my purse.
He rubs the back of his head. "Sorry—I know you like tea so—"
"I really do, I'm just—" I gesture at the building. "Trying to picture you in there with a tiny cup and I keep getting an error message."
"Well," he gets out of the truck. I follow. "You're about to see why it's very special."
The path to the entrance is lined with smooth river stones and moss. It's quiet here, the kind that makes you aware of your own footsteps. When we reach the door, Mason slides it open, and there's a neat row of bamboo slippers on a low shelf just inside.
Mason toes off his shoes. I kick off mine and step into a pair of slippers, and immediately lose about an inch and a half of height. Mason notices. His gaze travels from my feet to the top of my head, slow and deliberate.
He presses his lips together, and I can tell the almost-smile is fighting for its life in there.
"Don't do it," I warn him.
"Wasn't going to," he replies, a cheeky glint in his eyes.
Inside, the light is warm and dim. There's a long wooden counter in the back where an older woman in a deep green apron is arranging ceramic cups, and the air smells earthy, slightly sweet.
The woman looks up. Her face breaks into a smile.
"Mason." She says his name like she's been expecting him. "It's been a minute."
"Hi, Meika." He ducks his head slightly, his posture softening. "Been busy the past week."
She looks at me, then back at him, and her smile deepens. "You brought someone."
"She's... newish to town," he says, clearing his throat. "Hasn't seen nearly enough of the best spots. Meika, this is Beth."
"Welcome, Beth." Meika comes around the counter and gestures toward a table in the corner, near a window that looks out onto a small garden, meticulously raked stone.
I follow them in silence, trying to process what I'm seeing. Mason moves through this place like he belongs here. Quietly. Comfortably. He knows where to step, where to put his hands, how to fold himself onto the cushion without jostling the table.
I lower myself onto the cushion across from him. The table between us is small enough that our feet would touch if I stretched my legs out just a little.
Meika sets two cups in front of us: small, cream-colored, no handles. Then she brings a ceramic teapot, steam curling from its spout, and a small plate of what look like rice crackers.
"The house blend today," she tells Mason. "You'll like it."
"Thanks."
She leaves us alone.
I look at Mason across the table. The warm light softens his features. His shoulders, which seem permanently braced for something, have dropped about two inches. He's rolled the flannel sleeves up to his forearms, and his hands rest on his thighs.
I've never seen him like this.
"So you come here a lot," I say, exhaling a long breath.
"Once a week, usually." He reaches for the teapot and begins to pour. The motion is careful, deliberate. "Sometimes more, if things get loud."
"Loud?"
He doesn't answer. He finishes pouring, sets the pot down, and slides my cup toward me with one finger. The tea is pale green, almost gold.
"Drink," he says. "Before it cools."
I lift the cup. It's warm but not hot against my palms. I take a sip. The flavor is delicate, grassy and sweet, with a faint bitterness that fades into something softer.
"This is really good," I say.
Something in his face loosens with a satisfaction grin. "I had a feeling you'd appreciate this, you know, given you drink Oolong and all." He takes another sip from his own cup and sets it down.
For a while, we just sit. The tea house is quiet around us with just the faint sound of water from somewhere in the garden and the occasional clink of ceramic from the back. I find myself matching my breathing to the stillness, watching the steam rise and vanish between us.
"How did you find this place?" I ask.
Mason turns his cup on the table, watching the liquid shift. "A few years back. I was driving around after—" He stops. His jaw tightens. "After a bad day. Saw the building, didn't know what it was, which was baffling to me since I grew up here. So I pulled in."
He takes another sip.
"Meika made me tea, and since then I just—" He shrugs, "kept coming back. The place is discreet by design. She encourages her customers to talk about it only to people who actually want the quiet."
He sets the cup down and meets my gaze. "Which is perfect for me."
"Surprising, since you're famously chatty," I say, ignoring the small, inconvenient heat that climbs up my neck when his eyes hold mine a beat too long.
The corner of his mouth tugs sideways.
I lean back on the cushion, tracing the rim of my empty cup. The quiet settles around us again.
"Can I ask you something?" I say.
He nods.
"When you said things get loud—what did you mean?"
"I've always had... a lot of energy. Protective instinct, whatever you want to call it. But it's not always useful. Sometimes it's just—" He exhales. "Since Jessica left, all that energy has lacked places to land. It's been curling up inside."
He looks at me directly, his eyes entirely bare. "This is one of the only places that makes it quiet."
I set my cup down, my heart performing a painful little twist in my ribs.
"I get that," I say quietly. "The having-something-inside-with-nowhere-to-go part."
His eyes stay on mine.
"I know I kind of touched on this the other night," I continue, "but when Grant left... I had this entire life built up. All these plans, a completely mapped-out future. And then it just vanished overnight. It left me with all this forward momentum, and absolutely nowhere to go."
I take a breath.
"Grant is an idiot," he says, his voice dropping to a gravelly rumble.
"You mentioned that before," I say.
"Because it's true." He picks up his cup, his knuckles briefly turning white. "You moved here for him and he—"
He stops. Shakes his head.
"I could go all day," he says. "But this place doesn't bring that out in me. So I'll leave it there."
"Noted. Twice," I say, keeping my voice easy even though my stomach does a slow, traitorous flip at the protectiveness in his tone.
We sit with that for a moment, then I reach for the teapot and pour myself another cup.
"Does Meika do the full tea ceremony here?" I ask, nodding toward the counter where she's arranging a bamboo whisk and a row of small ceramic bowls.
"She does. Private sessions, usually." He watches me watch the bowls. "I thought I'd ease you in first, though. Start you on the basics before I throw you into the advanced stuff."
I look at him. "Did you just imply I couldn't handle a tea ceremony?"
"I implied I was being considerate." His mouth tugs sideways.
We spend the next hour exactly like that.
He tells me about the carpentry jobs he's managed to take on since the altercation at the engagement party, restoring old furniture, building bookshelves for the Lakeview library.
I tell him about the flower shop, the chaos of wedding season, the specific joy of watching a bride's face when she sees the bouquet for the first time.
At some point, Meika brings a second pot of tea, something darker this time, with a smoky edge, and a plate of dusted mochi.
I helplessly track the movement of Mason’s jaw as he chews.
He catches my stare, pausing as he swipes a thumb over his bottom lip to catch a stray dusting of sugar.
For a second, that spark of want that’s been humming in my chest since the clearing suddenly flares up.
I catch myself staring at his mouth, wishing he’d use it on me.
I force my eyes away, desperately trying to arrange my face into an expression that doesn't scream horny.
The afternoon light has shifted by the time we leave. The shadows are longer, the air cooler. I swap the bamboo slippers for my shoes, regaining my inch and a half. Mason slides the door for me, and I step out into the quiet of the garden path.
He falls into step beside me, our shoulders brushing and neither of us moving away.
"Thank you," I say. "For bringing me here."
He stops walking. I stop too, turning to face him.
"Beth," he says.
"Yeah?"
He doesn't say anything else. The wind rustles the oak canopy above us, casting moving shadows across his face as he just holds my gaze.
I realize, with a sudden, sharp clarity, that I don't want him to say anything else. I just want him to close the two feet of distance between us and—
"I had a great time," he finally says, his voice low.
***
Mason's phone buzzes in the cupholder as he pulls near our apartment and kills the engine. He glances down.
I don't mean to look. But it's right there, the screen lit up between us, and I catch the name glowing aggressively in the dim cab...
Jessica.
Mason stares at the phone for a beat too long. The relaxed, open posture he'd carried all the way from the tea house vanishes. His shoulders lock. His jaw clenches.
He picks up the phone, then puts it back, screen face-down.
"Everything okay?" I ask.
"Yeah." He exhales through his nose. "Yeah, it's nothing."
It is visibly not fine, though, seeing how his body is tensing up.
"Hey," I say, turning fully in my seat to face him.
He looks at me.
"You know you can tell anything to your girlfriend, right?" I tease.
His brow creases. Then it smooths.
"Jessica just wants to pick up some of her stuff from the apartment." He rubs his jaw. "It's not a big deal. It's just—every time I stop thinking about her, she finds a way to remind me she exists."
Something about watching him tense up because of her triggers something territorial to a part of my brain, and my omega whispers: how dare she?
Before I can examine that impulse too closely, I hear myself say: "I might know a good way to not think about her."
He looks at me, all vulnerable and entirely unprepared, and before I can run a cost-benefit analysis, I unbuckle my seatbelt, lean across the console, and kiss him.
I come in hot, and he's clearly not expecting it. So basically I collide with his mouth at full enthusiasm. My elbow jams awkwardly into the center console, my nose bumping his, my teeth catching his bottom lip, and for one mortifying second I'm just clamped onto him like a stapler.
He laughs into my mouth. A startled, low sound that vibrates against my lips.
Which makes me flush and I start to pull back. This was a mistake, this was insane, I'm going to go now and never make eye contact with him again and—
Except his hand comes up to the side of my neck, his large fingers sliding into my hair to anchor me, and he's now kissing me back, matching my previous intensity.
His mouth still tastes like mochi and smoke and the darker blend Meika brought us in the second pot.
His other hand finds my hip and grips, pulling me toward him across the console until I'm at an angle that should be uncomfortable but isn't, because the discomfort is being processed by a completely different part of my brain right now.
Heat is pooling low in my stomach, dropping lower, and when his hand slides from my hip to the small of my back and pulls me flush against him, my spine arches into it. His tongue grazes my bottom lip, testing, and then deeper, slow, deliberate, and a shameful, breathy whimper escapes me.
I don't remember putting my hands in his hair, but the soft strands are between my fingers now, and I can feel his breathing change against my mouth, more ragged, and my nipples harden tight against my bra. He pulls back slowly, his forehead resting against mine.
We stay like that for a few seconds, foreheads touching, breathing each other's air, the ghost of the text completely incinerated between us.