Chapter Thirty Mason
Chapter Thirty
Mason
I bend over the sink, allowing cool water to trickle into my hands before patting it gently against my face to alleviate my heightened body heat. I gaze at the empty stalls and urinals behind me as I try centering myself.
I was ready for tonight. I had everything I wanted to say rehearsed. Why am I falling apart? The more people I talk to, the more tense I feel. I know I’m overthinking, but the sensation of eyes scrutinizing my every movement is overwhelming.
The bathroom door swings open. That’s my cue to quit panicking and return to the table so I can save Cameron from awkward interactions with my parents.
I turn to the exit and my feet scrape to a halt. The panic lying in wait reels through me in full throttle. My heart plunges through my body and into my wobbly legs, pinning them to the tile.
“I’m glad you made it.” Liam ambles closer in his white suit, a smile painted on his handsome face. “I wasn’t sure you’d come—”
“Don’t.” I barely have the strength to utter the word. It’s frustrating. I know what I want now, and it’s not him. This is a good time to tell him. Isn’t it?
“Don’t what?” Liam cocks his head, dark curls fluttering against his forehead.
“Don’t…come closer.”
His eyes glint with astonishment, I guess because I’ve never had the gall to say that.
Then he sighs and massages the bridge of his nose.
“That boy has done a number on you,” he says, and he steps sideways, giving me a clear path to the door.
“Leaving me for a kid who can’t even hold down a crab puff. Miserable idiot.”
I furrow my brows. “What?”
“Your boy toy just ran outside to puke.”
Oh no. Did he eat too quickly again? We’ve been dating a month and he’s nearly made himself sick at least twice because of how he inhales his food. I stride to the door, and Liam watches with an expression I don’t care to analyze, because he’s not my priority.
“The necklace,” he says suddenly.
I stumble to a stop. “What?”
“I want it back.”
It’s a simple ask, but it startles me. Even when I threw the ring in his face, Liam insisted I should keep it for whenever I changed my mind. This is the first time he’s asking me to return a gift. Does this mean…he’s prepared to let me go?
I fumble through my breast pocket and pull the aquamarine necklace free.
I was fully intending on returning it, so his request gets this part out of the way.
I allow it to spill into his open palm, and without another word, I’m through the bathroom door, through the banquet room, and into the hall with the paintings.
I decide to try the back exit first, pushing through the glass door into the night.
I’ve entered the dimly lit employee parking lot, which is devoid of people and sprinkled with dumpsters and dark, empty cars.
“Cameron?” I call, straining my ears for retching or groaning. It’s deathly quiet—all I can hear is the whish of wintry wind through stripped branches.
He must’ve exited through the front after all.
Though, why leave the building rather than run to the bathroom?
Probably because he knew I was in there, collecting myself, and he didn’t want me to fly into a sobbing mess by bursting inside and hurling his guts.
I spin around to reenter the building, hands extending toward the door.
There’s someone leaning against it. Calm, frigid eyes tear through the dim parking lot like pinpricks of light. I stare vacantly, trying to understand before it hits me.
Cameron isn’t outside at all, is he? He’s probably not even sick.
My fingers fumble along my pockets, seeking my phone. It’s on the table.
“Finally, peace and quiet,” Liam says, donning that familiar smile that softens his face. “I can’t believe you left like that. You didn’t greet me, hug me, congratulate me for making it through my hellish college career, wish me luck with my father’s company…It’s like I wasn’t even there.”
I stare at him.
“You knew the stress I went through during college. I thought you would’ve been happy to see me make it to this point.
You said you’d always be there to support me.
But, you also said you’d marry me. I guess promises don’t mean much to you.
” He clicks his tongue with disappointment.
“Then you’re shameless enough to come to my celebration with a dipshit jock who somehow won your heart.
Tell me, did you show your face here just to mock me?
Is a few months all it takes for you to forget you loved someone? ”
His half step forward awakens me. I mirror it, slowly, hoping he won’t notice. I don’t know what to do. I don’t…
“Can we drop this?” Liam asks. The hum of the streetlamp on the curb is an incessant bug in my ears. “You brought him to make me jealous. To make me realize how much I fucked up.”
“That’s not true,” I breathe. My eyes flick around the parking lot, seeking routes, but there’s only the nearby street and banquet hall door. I can’t outrun him. “Cameron’s here to support me…It’s nothing to do with jealousy…”
I try desperately to steady my voice. This is it. I’m confronting Liam like I said I would. But I didn’t anticipate that it would be here now. Under the elongated shadows of streetlights without another soul nearby to see.
“Come here,” Liam says flatly.
I stay rooted to the asphalt, ten feet away.
“Come. Here,” he repeats.
The first order glanced off my skin, but the second one pierces, poking into my chest like a fishing hook. He’s at the other end, trying to draw me forward with his frustrated stare. Somehow, I manage to keep my feet planted.
“Is your brain-dead jock rubbing off on you?” he whispers, inching toward me.
Again, I mirror him, though I’m fully aware this movement is putting me farther from the door.
“Why are you looking at me like you think I’m going to attack you?
Quit being dramatic. I told you I’ve changed.
But you won’t give me the chance to show you how. ”
“I don’t owe you anything,” I snap. Chills claw up my arms, freezing me alongside the biting evening air.
“All I’m asking is that you give me a chance.
” It’s an aching plea, and it stirs the remnants of guilt floating around my chest, causing my eyes to water.
“I worked on myself for you. I bettered my mental health so you’d take me back.
I’ve apologized. And finally I’m at the point where I know how to treat you and care for you. But you don’t even want to look at me.”
Liam’s fists quiver. My body pulls me backward, though he closes the gap immediately, driving me to the curb.
“Really?” he whispers. “You have nothing to say? After everything I’ve been through for you, you’re okay with tossing me to the curb? Like trash?”
There’s a familiar tremor in his voice that churns nausea in my stomach.
“I…I’m glad you’re a better man,” I whisper, heel smacking the curve of the parking lot.
There’s nothing behind me now, but a strip of grass and a wire fence.
“I hope you can treat your next partner better than you treated me.”
“There is no next partner.” Liam’s eyes become more desperate. “It’s you, Mason. Didn’t we decide that years ago? Why did you accept my proposal if you didn’t believe in us?”
“I thought it was us,” I croak, eyeing the door behind him.
I’m not fast enough to dodge him and grab the handle, am I?
I’ve been working out with Cameron, trying to gain muscle, weight, and stamina.
But one month on the elliptical doesn’t amount to much against someone like Liam. “I just…don’t think we’re compatible.”
“But why?” he demands. “I thought you loved me.”
“I’ve moved on, so you should, too…” I can barely utter the words—each one gets quieter as Liam stalks closer, separating the gap between us. The angry speech I prepared to hurl at him has disintegrated. Casually, I tack on, “It’s cold. We should talk inside.”
Liam stops in his tracks. He tightens his fists, breathing deeply, eyes flickering with ire.
Is this my chance? “I’m sorry,” I say softly, trekking sideways, rounding his position toward the door.
There’s so much I want to say. I want to yell at him, shove my finger in his face, call him out for the pain and emotional torment he’s caused me.
But despite the rehearsal and my own angry, flared emotions, one fact remains, more powerful than my own intentions.
I’m still scared of him.
I stride toward the door, heart hammering. It’s right there. Nine feet away. Eight. Seven. I can’t quicken my pace. It’s like the morning after I blacked out. I have to pretend everything’s fine and I’m not ready to peel my skin off because the agony of this situation is too much.
Five. Four.
He’s changed. He’s better. He’s letting me go.
Three. Two.
A hand seizes my wrist, hard enough to make my bones throb, and heaves me away from the door with such strength that I feel the ache in my shoulder. “Really?” Liam’s voice is a low, dangerous snarl in my ear. “You think you can just move on, Mason?”
His grip is so tight that I squirm despite my instincts to stay still. I try shoving, but he merely seizes my other arm, yanking me face-to-face with him.
“All the work I put into undoing my personality to make you happy.” He pins me against the rough brick wall, his fingers bone white around my wrists.
His irises are frigid flames, searing into mine with such spite that tears glass my eyes.
“You’re going to give me another chance.
Because you told me to put in the work, and I did.
You can’t decide you don’t love me anymore. ”
“…Okay.”
“I have a house waiting for us. I took a position in my father’s company to support you—so you could pursue whatever dreams or hobbies you wanted. I gave you everything, and this is how you’re going to treat me?”
…