Chapter Eighteen Cam #2
“Water boy?” I squawk.
“Quarterback,” he mumbles into my jacket.
My heart swoops into my stomach before skyrocketing into my throat, clearly uncertain of how to handle this. His head is an inch below my chin and smells like crisp apples. Does he have fall-themed shower products? Probably. Definitely.
Do I hug him back? The thought of holding him against me makes my body temperature scorch hot, even after everything that happened last night.
By the time I decide, Mason is drawing backward, his lanky arms sliding away. The corners of his eyes are swelling and scarlet. “I don’t get it,” he whispers. “You go out of your way to bring me my necklace…buy me my favorite coffee…paint me a picture you hate just so I’ll feel better…”
It sounds sappy when he says it like that.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I claim, because I’m not some soft, squishy little boy.
“I was bored. Then I grabbed you coffee because I was already in the wrong place, so I figured I might as well, since you’re a caffeine enthusiast. And you had a breakdown when your necklace was damaged, so I drove it here. ”
Mason smiles faintly at my pathetic ramble.
“Cameron Morelli,” he says, so frail and broken that I want to reach inside of him and put his shattered pieces together with my bare hands, regardless of how many times they might nick my fingers.
“If you keep doing things like this, I might start to regret rejecting you.”
My brain latches onto the word “regret.” Is he serious? “Then I’ll ask you out again,” I say, donning an impish smile.
Mason’s eyes glow with faded amusement. “Oh? And when will that be?”
“Whenever you least expect it.”
“Planning on jump scaring me into saying yes?”
I shrug. “If that’s the only way I can date you.”
A flush works through Mason’s cheeks, and he gives a small indignant scoff. “You don’t have to pretend you’re interested,” he mutters, shifting away from me, his fingertips grazing the edges of my painting. “You’ll get bored of my face eventually.”
His hand wanders toward the aquamarine necklace pooled on the countertop. I snag his fingers before he can poison himself on its surface. “Sit on the counter,” I snap. “Shorty.”
“Huh?”
“Just do it.”
Mason pinches his brows with puzzlement but does as commanded, hopping onto the edge of the cashier counter so he’s raised a few inches higher.
I can look him in the eye now without bending over.
I step toward him, but his knees are in the way, so I nudge them apart and wheedle my waist between them.
“Cameron?” Mason’s voice cracks over the word. The faint, lingering blush in his cheeks spreads farther as he leans back, but I snatch his head, forcing him to look at me.
“Stop with the self-deprecation,” I say sharply.
The hearth in his captivating brown eyes has started to rekindle, but it’s not the intensity of flickering firelight that should be dancing against his irises while he’s in his favorite place.
“I asked you out because of how you look, yeah. But you’re more than a pretty face.
I don’t know why you hate yourself, but I like being around you.
Even though you’d rather suffer a thousand deaths than date me. ”
Mason’s face twists with mystification, brows arching, lip flinching down. I try not to notice the way his kneecaps rise to frame my hips, like he wants to wrap his legs around me. Like he’s falling into a new habit.
“Then I’ll ask you again,” he says, digging his index finger into the break of my chest. Like always, his touch is a cooling serum, relaxing the tension in my limbs. “What about me, exactly, has bewitched you, body and soul?”
I can faintly recall my previous answer.
Your face. I fuck with it. Please go out with me.
Not my wisest moment. “You want a laundry list of reasons I sort of like you?” I ask skeptically. “I’m not poetic, so that’s the best I can do.”
Mason looks like he’s trying to smile, but there’s a film of ice still stiffening his features. “Laundry list is fine,” he says softly.
I can still feel the sharpness of his index finger against my chest. It’s pumping me with low doses of electricity, increasing my awareness of this situation.
Mason Gray’s cute face is a foot from mine, allowing me to see each of his dark lashes, the purplish tone beneath his eyes, the feathery softness of his hair.
The way his chest shifts with each breath. The snugness of his turtleneck.
You have bewitched me, body and soul. Mason said that was from a Jane Austen movie.
I didn’t fully grasp its meaning, but I’m starting to get it.
Thinking about Mason has become indescribably magnetic, damn near impossible to resist. When I dropped him off last night, the emptiness of my car became consuming.
I lay in bed, making adjustments to his workout regimen over and over because I wanted an excuse to keep thinking about him.
And here I am now, and he’s in the most kissable position I’ve ever seen, the insides of his thighs bracing my waist, his other hand flat against the countertop behind him, fingertips splayed over the tip of my shitty painting.
It’s confusing. I’ve never yearned for anyone.
Kissing, wandering hands, shortened breaths… I’ve never cared much for it.
But I want to overwhelm Mason Gray. I feel like he’s wrapped in chain mail, impervious to anything that requires him to bare his heart, deflecting any warmth people want to share with him.
Every so often, though, if he moves at the right angle, I notice a chink in his armor.
If I don’t slide in quickly enough, it disappears, and he returns to being fully hidden.
Within those glimpses, I catch sight of someone else.
Someone warmer, happier, more expressive and openhearted.
He feels like a fragile decoy of himself, and I want to see what he’s like when he’s not hiding.
His expressions, movements, and words are the distant echoes of another person.
What would it take to make him feel like himself?
I guess I’ll give him the laundry list.
“You think you’re boring because your personality isn’t loud and annoying like mine,” I say, setting my hands casually atop his thighs.
“But you’re ignoring everything else that makes you worth being around.
You’re compassionate, and kind, and witty, and intelligent.
You make people feel calm, and you go out of your way for others without needing a reward.
Also, I don’t know what kind of deal you made with the devil, but she gave you a smile so fucking beautiful it makes me feel like I might as well die because there’s nothing else worth seeing in this world. ”
I shrug again, embarrassment warming my face.
“But don’t let it get to your head. I know you’re capable of assholery. Especially toward me. It’s just that, I guess…I don’t know. If bewitching is a real power that exists in this world, the way you smile and laugh would probably be proof of it. Or something.”
Mason stares at me, unresponsive. I wait, patient, hoping my words will shred some of that spiky armor.
I notice the barest twinkle come ablaze within his honey-brown irises.
It flickers in and out, like it’s attempting to stay lit against a frigid breeze.
I want to cup my hands protectively around that little flame—to shield and nurture it until it’s a wildfire.
“I’m sorry about yesterday,” I say, flinching. “I should’ve asked before sticking my lips on you. I thought…it seemed like…anyway.” I clear my throat. “It’s probably bad taste to bring that up and then ask again, but I really, really want to kiss you on this counter. Is that okay?”
Mason looks lethargically between my eyes, like he’s trying to decipher my intentions. His slender fingers are still nestled against the break of my chest. “I rejected you,” he says, as if reminding me will stir some underlying hatred to make me shove him away.
“You did,” I agree.
He blinks slowly, his impassive, level expression never wavering. “If you want,” he says.
That’s not good enough. “Do you?” I ask sternly.
“Do I what?”
“Want.”
Uncertainty pulls his brows together, like he’s not sure why I asked, or why his own interest matters. After a torturously long moment, in which his knees are still barely framed on my hips, and his face is inches away, he says, “One.”
I shift forward. He’s unbearably still, but I can feel the warmth of his exhales against my chin. Tentatively, I lean my lips against his cool ones, the rest of my body as unmoving as his own. I linger for two seconds before drawing away to observe him.
It’s simple and quick and elementary. I don’t think he wants anything more intense.
His hand, which has been sprawled on the counter behind him, lifts so he can graze his index finger against his lower lip.
It’s like he saw the kiss happen but didn’t feel it.
That wouldn’t be surprising—his mouth is probably as numb as the rest of him.
“What are you feeling?” I ask quietly.
Once again, he looks at me with faint mystification, like I surprised him. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Nothing.”
“What can I do to make it something?” I hope I don’t sound as desperate as I am. Why does he feel so unreachable right now? What’s changed since last night? At least in my basement, he reacted to me—he was nervous, flustered, conflicted. But this?
Is he even conscious?
“You can try again,” he says listlessly. “If you want.”
“Tell me what you want,” I plead.
That flame in his eyes is wavering again despite my attempt to kindle it. “I ruined something good by wanting too much from it,” he breathes. “So I just. Don’t anymore. It’s fine.”
“It’s not,” I snap, scooping his face up. I notch my thumbs in his temples, hoping the warmth in my palms will melt some of his ice. Hoping he’ll look at me, rather than through me. “Tell me what you want. There must be something.”