19. Mason
Chapter 19
Mason
W hat’s for dinner? After all this time apart, I should’ve said something less moronic. Maybe rehearsed a speech. Instead, I kept imagining the indignant wrath that would be written all over her beautiful face when she realized what I’d done, and in that, I was spot on because the expression is there, only sexier than I anticipated.
“What are you doing here?” she demands when her delicate jaw returns from the floor.
I shrug as nonchalantly as I can. “I needed a vacation, so I booked a cruise.”
For a few moments, she seems to be at a loss for words—probably mentally circling through all the angry rebuttals in her repertoire. “But this is my cruise,” she finally says, and out of all the possible responses, this one makes me feel a pang of guilt.
The woman wanted to get away, and I’ve kind of ruined it for her. Oh, well. If she’d just talked to me at any point in the last few weeks, this would’ve been avoided.
I raise an eyebrow while keeping a poker face. “Between the two of us, this is more my cruise than yours.”
She blinks at me in confusion.
I gesture at the empty seats surrounding our table and others nearby. “To make sure we could have privacy, I got myself a few extra tickets.”
Yeah, “a few” is an understatement. I bought so many tickets for this cruise that I probably could’ve purchased myself a private yacht instead.
“Hold on.” Her eyes narrow. “You’ve booked all these rooms?” She waves around our table.
“Those and a couple of others,” I reply, continuing the business of understating.
Again, she seems at a loss for words, but my attention is diverted by our waiter… or more specifically, by a row of giant white pustule-like buttons adorning his uniform.
Fuck me. I was ravenous a second ago, but now my appetite is but a distant memory, similar to how it would be if someone brought the feces of maggots or the deep-fried poo of a dung-beetle to our dinner table.
I frantically scan the room and spot one of the waitresses. Thanks to her dress, I’m spared the horror show that are the buttons.
“Good evening, Mr. Tugev,” our waiter says to me. “Good evening, Miss… Papa-Christ-Almighty-birth-doula-Lou.”
“Hello,” Sophia says, completely unfazed by the butchery of her name.
“We’re going to be served by a female member of your staff,” I state tersely. “Leave. Now.”
The waiter blinks, and Sophia looks on the verge of exploding.
“I assure you I can do as good a job as any of my female colleagues,” the hapless waiter says. “Also, sir, you should know that Royal Ruskovian is an equal-opportunity employer that?—”
“You can stay if you ditch that.” I point at the jacket while trying to avoid looking at the buttons on it.
“I don’t understand,” he says.
“This is beyond rude,” Sophia hisses at me.
Fuck. If she was going to run back to her room before, she’s doubly likely to do that now.
I grit my teeth. No choice but to fess up. “I have koumpounophobia.”
Sophia and the waiter gape at me with incomprehension.
“A fear of male waiters?” he suggests tentatively.
“Or is it their jackets?” Sophia offers.
“Neither.” I gingerly point at one of the vomit-inducing white circles of hell. “Those.”
“Buttons?” Sophia asks.
I nod, keeping my gaze away from the damned things.
The waiter looks down at his jacket with a horrified expression. “I can’t take it off. I’m not decent underneath.”
Sophia meets my gaze, and I could swear that for the first time, we agree on something. Namely, an unspoken question of, “What could he possibly have under there that wouldn’t be considered ‘decent?’”
“I’m going to switch with Helena,” the waiter says before we can delve deeper into the mystery. Running for the matronly-looking waitress nearby, he whispers something to her. There’s a lot of pointing at his outfit and at our table.
“Fucking hell,” I mutter under my breath. “This is going to be in the tabloids, isn’t it?”
“Is it actually true?” Sophia asks, her brow furrowing. “You’re afraid of buttons?”
“Not afraid. I merely see them for the disgusting petri dishes of germs that they are.” Also, what has possessed me to admit this, of all things?
“Germs?” She cocks her head.
“They’ve got all those holes for microbes and dust mites to crawl into,” I explain.
Sometimes, it’s up to four fucking holes.
Way too many holes.
She looks at me as if for the first time. “Did something happen to make you feel this way?”
I force my tense shoulders to unclench. As much as I hate this topic, at least we’re talking. “I’m not sure,” I say. “My father did once button my dress shirt too tight, and I thought I would suffocate, but I think I was already not a fan of the fucking things and that was just another example of how they can kill you.”
Sophia’s gaze looks peculiarly soft. Must be those long, sooty lashes of hers. “That sucks,” she murmurs, and I could swear her hand moves toward mine—only in that moment, Helena arrives at our table, smiling as manically as if she were auditioning for the role of the Joker.
“Hello,” she chirps in a hoarse voice that hints at two packs of cigarettes a day. “Let me tell you about your menu options tonight.”
She slowly recites the menu. When she gets to the sides, she looks at me solemnly. “In your case, I’d recommend skipping the sides altogether, though if you’d like, we can offer you hummus as a substitute.”
“Why?” I ask. I mean, I was likely to skip the sides and get something healthier anyway, but how does she know that?
“The options are mashed potato with mushrooms, or pasta,” she says, even more solemnly.
“And that’s a problem, why?” As she asks this, Sophia’s boobs bob up and down most distractingly.
“The pasta is wagon wheels,” Helena says, as though that explains anything. “And I’m so sorry about that. The chef didn’t know about your situation; otherwise?—”
“What are you talking about?” I glance at Sophia in case she has any clue, but she looks as puzzled as I feel.
“Rotelle pasta,” Helena clarifies. Seeing our continued blank stares, she blurts, “It kind of looks like buttons.”
I clench and unclench my fists, an action that draws a rapt stare from Sophia. “Doesn’t that kind of pasta look like the wheels of a wagon , which is why people call it wagon wheels ?” Did someone hire Helena to ruin pasta for me… and wagons?
“My apologies,” Helena says. “So you’ll be getting the pasta then? It’s definitely a better choice than the potatoes, on account of… the young cremini mushrooms.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Sophia asks, nose wrinkling in more confusion.
“They’re also known as button mushrooms,” Helena explains.
I exhale an annoyed breath. “Helena, if you’re trying to be helpful, please stop. I don’t usually eat things like that anyway, but unless your chef is insane enough to deep-fry up some actual buttons, there’s no need for you to ruin perfectly fine foods for me by making associations that aren’t there.”
“I’m sorry,” Helena says.
“It’s fine,” I say. “You said hummus was an option, right?”
Helena nods.
“Do you make it here, on board?”
Another nod, but more uncertain this time.
“I’d like the chickpeas you make the hummus from, just the chickpeas themselves, with five of your side salads without the dressing, and four sides of steamed broccoli—also unadulterated.”
As I go on, Sophia’s eyebrows turn into question marks.
I answer her unasked question. “I’m an athlete. We have to watch what we eat.” I also eat like this in the hopes of aging slower and more gracefully, but I don’t mention that because it will make me sound ancient in the eyes of twenty-four-year-old Sophia.
Helena looks at me pityingly. “I take it you won’t be having dessert?”
“Bring me whatever fruit you have in the kitchen,” I say. “Berries are particularly welcome.” I mention that last part because berries are extra healthy, and in case Helena thinks they look too much like buttons for my liking.
After nodding solemnly, Helena turns to Sophia. “What about you, dear?”
“Oh, I’m not staying,” Sophia says, but tellingly, she isn’t getting to her feet—which means I might have a chance here.
I turn my best puppy eyes on her. “Please, Ladybug, don’t go. I promise not to talk about the team or anything else you don’t want to talk about.”
Sophia sighs. “Do you realize that you’ve ruined my chance to meet people from around the world? I was looking forward to that.”
“Well, I’m first-generation Estonian,” I say. “I can tell you all about the fatherland.” And by all about it, I mean the little bit my parents told me, not much of it flattering.
“Fine,” Sophia says to me before addressing the waitress. “I’ll have the Vidalia onion tart as a starter, the surf and turf for the main course, and dessert.”
“Which dessert?” Helena asks.
“Can I try all of them?” Sophia meets my gaze challengingly, but I’m not about to lose my advantage by wincing, even if the temptation is strong.
“Of course,” Helena says. “There just might be a small surcharge.”
“Put that on my room,” I say—even if that makes me an accomplice to the resulting harm to Sophia’s health.
“Any drinks?” Helena asks.
“No,” Sophia and I say in unison.
“At least no alcohol,” I clarify. “I’ll have some tomato juice if you’ve got that.”
“And a soda for me,” Sophia says, and this time, I must cringe enough for her to notice because she huffs and adds, “Make that an ice cream float.”
Does she think she’s punishing me instead of her pancreas?
“I’ll get right on it,” Helena says and hurries away.
“Go ahead.” Sophia pouts, bringing my cock’s attention to her lips. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“‘The food you ordered isn’t healthy,’” she says in what she must think is an imitation of my voice. To my ears, it sounds more like that of an ogre.
In response, I shrug. “You’re twenty-four. You could probably eat deep-fried chips of lead paint, and your body would survive it… for a while, anyway.”
She rolls her eyes. “You sound like you’re ninety.”
Fuck. She’s right, and I was trying to avoid this very thing. “I’m thirty-seven,” I admit. “Which means I need to be more careful, especially if I want to play… or not have a heart attack.”
Sophia studies me with a peculiar expression. “You don’t look thirty-seven.”
“Thank you.” I raise my water to her.
“Who said it was a compliment?” she grumbles. “I could mean you look like a grandpa, to match the lectures.”
Helena comes back with our drinks, sparing me from having to reply.
When we’re alone again, Sophia licks the ice cream on her float in a way that makes my already-overzealous cock go into overdrive. “At thirty-seven, aren’t you too old for hockey?”
“Showing claws?” I drop a napkin into my lap to hide the bulge, but the napkin tents, so I just move closer to the table.
“Just curious,” she says.
“In that case, you have a point. Usually, the retirement age in hockey depends on your position. For goalies, age isn’t so relevant, and they actually get better later in their careers. For forwards and defensemen, our performance does tend to decline in our late twenties to early thirties… but I’m fighting against that with all the means at my disposal.” And if I live longer as a result, all the better.
“So, when do you think you’ll retire?” she asks.
“This is getting too close to the topic I promised to avoid.”
“How so?”
I pick up my tomato juice. “The reason I want to own the team is so that they’re in my life after I retire.”
“Oh.” Sophia shifts in her seat. “I?—”
“Here’s your onion tart.” Helena sets the cake-like appetizer in front of Sophia. “And your starter salad.” She gives me a plate with two pieces of romaine lettuce and a single cherry tomato.
“What were you saying?” I ask Sophia as soon as we’re alone again. I have a feeling that maybe she’s started feeling bad about keeping the team from me, especially since we both know it’s not a financial decision on her part, but pure spite.
“Nothing,” she says, grabbing a piece of her appetizer. “I believe you owe me some interesting facts about Estonia.”
I inhale my “salad” in half a bite. “Estonia is the birthplace of the Christmas Tree,” I tell her. “Did you know that?”
“It is?”
I smile. “Unless you ask a Latvian. They believe it’s their country, but they’re wrong.”
She grins. “Yeah. Sure. What else?”
I scratch the back of my head. “Taxes are flat in Estonia. That makes filing them so simple you can do it in ten minutes.” Or so my parents would lament every time they had to do the same thing here in the States—but I don’t mention that part because I don’t want her to ask about my family.
“Flat taxes.” Sophia fakes a yawn. “How fascinating… if I were an accountant.”
I shrug. “It’s one of the least religious countries in the world.” Which makes the situation with my parents tragically ironic, but there’s no way I’ll go into that.
“That’s a little more interesting,” she says teasingly. “Especially if I were running a census.”
What would be considered an interesting fact? “Estonia has the cleanest air in the world?”
Sophia shakes her head.
“There are tons of forests that have wolves, lynxes, and brown bears.”
“That’s a little better. But not much.”
“Estonia was the birthplace of Skype,” I offer.
She frowns. “Skype didn’t originate in Silicon Valley?”
“Nope. It was Estonia—which is also the country with the highest number of good-looking people in the world.”
“Is that so?” she says with an eyeroll.
I give her a cocky grin. “I didn’t say I was included in that, but yeah, Estonia has the highest ratio of supermodels in the world.”
“No, no way.” She demands my phone, types something in, and frowns at the result. “Huh,” she says, looking up. “Makes me wonder why you aren’t dating an Estonian supermodel.”
“I don’t date,” I say, repossessing my phone. “But if I did, it wouldn’t be someone from the fatherland, that’s for sure.” It’s what my parents would have wanted if we still spoke, so fuck that.
“I don’t date either,” she says challengingly.
I’m torn between a weird sense of relief and concern. “Why not?”
“Men can’t be trusted,” she says with evident sincerity. “Present company very much included.”
I cock my head. “I approve of the attitude toward others, but what did I do to you to warrant mistrust?”
“All you want is your team,” she says. “I doubt you’d be here otherwise.”
I open my mouth to reply, but Helena shows up with our main courses.
After she leaves, Sophia narrows her eyes at me. “What were you about to say?”
What indeed? Maybe I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the team, but maybe I would be. I’m not yet sure about this myself. There’s definitely something magnetic about Sophia, and I mean beyond her gorgeous looks and those divine tits. Something about her is?—
“I thought so,” she says. “But hey, at least you’re honest.”
I am?
“Are you going to put some dressing on that?” She gestures at my plates—plural.
I examine my food. The appetizer salad had me worried the rest of it would be tiny, but the chef didn’t skimp. There are at least two jars’ worth of chickpeas here, as well as a couple of pounds of vegetables. “If I were at home, I’d sprinkle some hemp seeds on this,” I reply. “But I doubt they have that on the ship.”
“Hemp seeds?” She blows out an exasperated breath. “Of course, you’d consume cannabis but without any of the fun.”
She takes a lump of the lobster tail, drowns it in butter, and puts it into her mouth.
Fuck me. The expression on her face is eerily similar to when she comes.
I move my chair even closer to the table and do my best to focus on the conversation. “You are high as we speak, aren’t you?”
She shakes her head. “Weed isn’t allowed on the cruise.”
Since when did that stop anyone? Also… “Why did you check?”
She shrugs. “I don’t use it that often, but we’re stopping in Jamaica so I was wondering if I could get some there and take it home to celebrate my return with Abigail.”
“Ah. So you’re the bad influence,” I say this with a smile to make sure she doesn’t take offense.
“She’s a much worse influence on me than I am on her,” Sophia says. “I never would have tried alcohol if it weren’t for her, or weed for that matter.”
“How long have you guys been friends?”
If I had to guess, I’d say many years.
“Since seventh grade.” Sophia cuts her steak into small pieces. “She was wearing a skirt, and a bully stole her panties in the locker room. I was wearing jeans, so I gave her mine. She invited me to her house that same day, and the rest is history.”
“Wow. That was kind of you—and at an age when kids are pretty much monsters.”
“Boys are,” she says. “With girls, it’s more of a mixed bag.”
“You might have a point. I can’t picture giving another guy my underwear… or him wearing it for that matter.”
She snorts. “I bet he’d wear it if he wore a skirt in an environment with pre-teen boys who like to lift said skirts.”
“Maybe. Though he would just as likely give the skirt-lifters a black eye—or a broken nose.”
“Like you said.” She spears a chunk of her steak. “Kids are monsters.”
Am I a monster to her too? I’m a grown up, but if someone tried to lift my skirt—metaphorically speaking—I’d still give them a black eye or even break some bones.
“In any case,” Sophia says. “Now that I know weed isn’t allowed on the ship, we’ll have to celebrate the old-fashioned way—with shots.”
I nod. “That’s smart. Don’t do drugs.” It’s the one rule that my parents drilled into me that I follow.
She rolls her eyes. “Alcohol is a drug, just a legal one. I saw you partake in that .”
“Alcohol is a drink,” I say. “It’s not a drug.”
She cocks her head. “You can get high with gummies—and that’s food.”
“Right, but THC is a drug.”
“So is ethanol,” she counters.
I cross my arms. “I don’t think so.”
“It can lead to addiction, right?”
“Sure. But so can cheese—and you don’t think that’s a drug, do you?”
“Cheese addiction?” She picks up the big shaker of parmesan and sprinkles a good dose on her next piece of steak.
“At least you’re not snorting that,” I say with a grin.
She rolls her eyes once more. “Alcohol produces endorphins, just like some of the worst drugs.”
“Fucking produces endorphins, but that’s not a drug, is it?” Then again, maybe that’s not the best example. Fucking Sophia might just be the most addictive drug of them all, one that I got hopelessly hooked on from the first try.
Ladybug blushes, then snatches my phone and does a search.
Should I tell her she keeps breaking her digital detox?
“Here.” She waves the screen at me. “Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant.”
I take the phone from her, read the screen, and frown. “I can tell you’re a philosophy major,” I grumble in defeat. “You’re very good at sophistry.”
She looks at me suspiciously, and I belatedly realize that she might not have told me about her major.
As luck would have it, Helena returns at that moment. She’s holding a tray of desserts, and helping her is a burly busboy who thankfully isn’t wearing the horrible jacket with buttons.
Helena puts a fruit bowl in front of me, then arranges Sophia’s desserts around the rest of the rather-large table and hurries away.
I gesture at all the sweets. “Are those drugs?”
“No.” Sophia gives an éclair a longing glance that makes my cock very jealous. “Well, maybe.” She gestures at the tiramisu. “This one has caffeine, which is a drug.”
I scan the table, amazed at how inventive people can get in their quest to consume as much sugar as possible. “I bet you I could forgo alcohol for longer than you can forgo dessert.”
She grabs the phallic-looking éclair. “I’ll take that bet… after the cruise.”
“Yeah. Sure.” I pick up one of the strawberries on my plate. “I don’t know if you realize this, but when you crave something sweet, you’re really craving fruit.” I bite into the strawberry and find it rather sour and therefore unsupportive of the point I’m trying to make.
Sophia sensuously nibbles on the fucking éclair. “Maybe when you crave fruit, what you really want is sugar—and the fruit comes up short.”
“Fruit is delicious,” I say firmly. “A good ripe mango tastes sweeter than anything you have on this table.”
The problem is, fruit needs to be in season, while sugar is by definition saccharine sweet year-round.
“In philosophy, we call this sort of thing qualia,” she says. “What the color green looks like to you might be different from what it looks like to me. Same with tastes. Maybe a ripe mango really does taste like a dessert to you, but it sure doesn’t to me.”
I resist making another comment about her major and dig into my fruit instead. She attacks the desserts, taking a bite of each one but not finishing any.
“Which was your favorite?” I ask when she pushes her chair away from the table.
“The panna cotta.” She gestures at a white concoction in a glass. “And I dare you to try it.”
I take the proffered tiny spoon and dip it into the fruity part of the concoction.
“That’s cheating,” she says. “Try the white stuff, without a hint of fruit.”
Fine. I fish around for the white stuff in question, all the while wondering what it’s made from.
Whatever it is, I doubt it was whole food or plant based.
“Geesh,” Sophia says. “It won’t bite.”
Gritting my teeth, I slip the panna cotta into my mouth.
Hmm. Interesting.
“Thoughts?” Sophia says.
Well, my first impression is that the texture reminds me of the silky smoothness of her pussy, but I’ve got a feeling that comparison isn’t going to be welcome. “It’s less sweet than I expected.”
“Right, and?”
“A ripe Ataulfo mango has a similar texture,” I say. “And if you like this, you’d like leechee nut and cherimoya.”
She blows out an exasperated breath. “I give up.” She finishes the rest of the panna cotta. Then, as if offhandedly, she asks me where she can get the fruit I mentioned.
“How about I tell you as I walk you to your suite?” I offer as I get to my feet.
Shit. I’m definitely not supposed to know she got herself a suite instead of a cabin, but I guess the idea of us walking together has distracted her enough that she doesn’t question my odd omniscience.
So, we walk and I talk, and it might be my imagination, but I catch her looking at my hand a few times, as though she is on the verge of holding it, like she did on the way from that bar to my bed.
Fuck me. I’m glad Sophia is facing forward and that I bought out all the surrounding suites. It’s made our chances of bumping into someone—and therefore someone seeing how hard I am—negligible.
“—and the season for leechee starts around May,” I say as we reach her door. “Just like with the others, you can find the best ones in Chinatown.”
When she notices that I’ve stopped by the correct door, she frowns, so I pretend to want to go further. She visibly relaxes and says, “Wait. This is my door.”
“Ah,” I say, feigning surprise. “I’m right next door.” I point at the suite that I carefully chose to occupy—one that I now think might be too close to hers for my sanity.
“Oh.” She frowns at this “coincidence.”
“I asked the agent for the suite with the most panoramic view,” I say. “He told me that that one was already booked, but that mine would be the next best thing.”
This seems to mollify her, or at least I assume that’s why she doesn’t look suspicious anymore.
In fact, I don’t understand her current expression. Or I do, but I must be mistaken.
The hooded eyes.
The parted lips.
The blush and the subtle flicker of her tongue wetting said lips.
My cock, already at attention, gives her a salute worthy of a five-star general.
“I guess I’d better head in,” she murmurs but doesn’t move.
I face her, which is a mistake because I get caught by the gravity exuded by her… and her delicious breasts. “Thank you for having dinner with me.”
“No problem,” she says breathily. “Strangely, I had a good time.”
“Me too. Except I don’t think there was anything strange about it.”
“Well, I’d better head in,” she says again… but still doesn’t move.
She moistens those lips one time too many, and something inside me snaps.
Leaning down, I claim her lips in a kiss that I’ve been dreaming about for weeks.