Chapter 29 – Mason
It took everything I had, but when Leslie was feeling better, I let her leave on her own. I didn’t pretend to let her go, only to follow her back to her dorm and break in while she was sleeping—although I considered it. I didn’t have cameras in her room anymore (I hadn’t been lying), so I had no idea what she was doing. But she’d softened toward me so much while she’d been hungover, I didn’t want to destroy the new softness by forcing or sneaking my way in.
Emory and Matt had approved.
“She needs to know she’s free to make her own choices, bro,” Emory had said.
She wasn’t. If I didn’t think that I was this close to her admitting she loved me, if I wasn’t positive that she was going to choose me, I would never have let her leave.
And.
If I were honest with myself, I wanted, no, needed that from her. I needed her to choose me. I’d keep her even if she didn’t, but my stupid heart, the masochistic fucking thing, wanted her to tell me she loved me, to decide to be with me, despite the way it would affect her reputation or fuck with her idea of right and wrong.
So I’d let her leave with a kiss on her forehead and a promise to come to hockey practice later that day.
Now it was later, and I was regretting my words. We were in the middle of a scrimmage, first string against second string. And we were kicking ass. The puck was mine, and I was skating toward the other team’s net, 90% of my focus on scoring, 10% on Leslie’s absence. This was my moment to prove myself—to the team, to Coach. I wanted her here to witness it.
So far, she was nowhere to be seen.
Where was she?
“Head in the game, Calloway!” Coach called.
Fuck.
He was right.
The first string goalie was watching, eyes on the puck, on me. If I was a more basic player, I’d try to fool him with a single deke, or some amateur head fake. But I wasn’t some basic player, and I was going to perform as if Leslie was in the stadium.
Approaching the net at a slower speed, I faked a shot to the left. The goalie raised a glove to intercept it, but I’d already pulled the puck back across my body before flicking it into the net. It sailed right past him.
The Datsyuk Deke. It was my favorite move, and it had worked.
There was cheering from the stands.
“Fuck yeah!” I said, proud, but my heart wasn’t in it, because as I scanned the rink, I didn’t see Leslie anywhere.
Dejected and angry, I lined up and congratulated the first string on the team. The center pulled me in. “Play like that, and I’m going to have to watch out for my spot,” he said, before clapping me on the back.
“Thanks, man,” I said.
A woman whistled. I looked up, and there was…Emily, walking down the stairs toward the ice, wearing a jersey with my number, 42, on it.
It was how old my mom was when she’d died.
“Mason?”
Emily pouted, I guess sexily, her hands running through her red hair.
Jesus, this was the last thing I wanted to deal with. What I really wanted to do was call Emily out for being a bitch to Leslie and warning her off me, but I knew if I said anything, it would drive her toward vengeance. And I knew Leslie would be pissed if I hit the redhead with my car or something, no matter how much of a bitch she’d been.
“Emily,” I said easily, pulling my helmet off.
She smiled, relieved. She hadn’t known how I’d react, after all. “I haven’t seen you in a while.” She approached me and attempted to touch my sweaty face, but I grabbed her wrist. Not painfully—I wasn’t a dick—but hard enough to make my disapproval clear.
“Emily, no.”
“What? Why?” she blushed, embarrassed.
“Emily, we’ve never fucked. I don’t know why you act like you have some claim to me.”
Her soft blush turned to an angry maroon. “I thought you liked me. You did, until she got in your head and fucked around in there. Seriously, Mace, what do you see in her?”
I shook my head. “Don’t call me Mace. And don’t ever touch me again. I mean it, Emily. You won’t like what happens.”
Only one person got to call me that from now on.
A person who was making her way down the stands, her own cheeks a pretty pink.
I dropped Emily’s wrist, standing up straight but not defending myself. This would be a test. Would Leslie trust me? Would she believe I hadn’t been hitting on Emily? Would she defend her territory—me—or would she run away again?
Be brave, butterfly, I thought.
Lucy stood at Leslie’s side, her eyes narrowed on Emily. I was glad to see that Leslie had a real friend. She deserved all the friends. She deserved the whole world, and I would give it to her—she just had to ask.
And to trust me.
C’mon, butterfly.
“Emily,” she said calmly. “I know we’re never going to be friends, but I’m happy to try to get along if you are. But that means you need to stop harassing my…harassing Mason.”
Emily turned bright red.
I, on the other hand, was disappointed. Had Leslie been about to call me her boyfriend? Or admit publicly I was her stepbrother, even though it was pretty clear to everyone on campus we were so much more? I’d take either, but I wouldn’t accept this shying away from the truth of us.
I caught Leslie’s gaze. Held out my hand. She stared at it.
And as she considered, Emily made the decision for us. For her.
“Who are you calling a harasser, brotherfucker?” she said, the word echoing through the stadium.