5. Lilah #2
Every part of the garden required care and attention.
Glad to see Dad had it in him…when it came to plants.
I never got even half the attention they did.
Maybe if Mom hadn’t always been there for me—for the celebrations, the anger, the tears, the rainy days when you stayed inside to read—it wouldn’t feel as lonely as it did.
My head buzzed. Focus. Breathe, Lilah. I took each emotion and folded them away, one by one.
I shook my head. Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Lilah.
You’re going to a fancy prep school, have a warm, safe bed, a parent, and food in the cabinets, when Dad remembers to go shopping.
Be grateful. Plants weren’t a traumatized twelve-year-old who’d just lost her mom.
Of course they were easier for him to handle.
I’d had a sobbing breakdown after moving into his apartment, and he’d left for thirty-six hours.
Walked straight out while I could barely breathe.
Fear struck a chord deep inside me that he might never come back.
I’d cleaned the apartment, organized it as best as I could.
Made some food with what he had at the time.
And when the keys jingled in the door a day and a half later, I wiped away the last of my tears and smiled for him when he walked through the door.
His relief was so sharp, I could taste it.
So I just kept doing that every single day.
Dad walked around a garden hedge and tugged off his work gloves. He raked a hand across his slowly graying hair and crouched closer to a bed of hydrangea.
“Hey, Dad.”
He jumped and whipped around.
“Oh, Lilah. I didn’t know you’d still be awake.”
I released a dry chuckle and stood. “It’s only seven.”
He checked his watch, then the sky. “Huh, I thought it was later.” Still covered in soil and sweat, he patted my shoulder. “Good day?”
“Nothing to worry about. How’d it go for you?”
“Not too bad. We’re on a tight timeline with all that needs to be done for the spring.”
“It’s the end of September.”
He flashed a big grin. “All the best planting planning starts when the season’s all finished.” He loved his job and was good at it. Gardening had his full attention and used his skills. He wiped his sweaty face with his shirt.
“There’s dinner in the kitchen.”
“You’re the best, Lilah.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder for a sidelong version of a hug.
Six years later and it was the best I could hope for.
Trying my best to be as helpful as possible, never causing any trouble, never needing too much, never being a burden.
“You’re always thinking ten steps ahead. I don’t think I’ve eaten all day.”
“Have as much as you like.” Not like Kel-iza were going to eat any of it. I’d take whatever was left to school and not worry about grabbing food from the overpriced coffee cart.
I gave myself a few more minutes of cricket-accented silence, breathing in the sweet floral scents, before readying myself for the loud, busy, overstuffedness that would unfold from the minute I walked back inside.
Kelsey or Eliza would be jockeying for the bathroom after Dad showered, even though they had one all to themselves in their room.
Music, video calls to friends, dirt tracks leading to Dad’s boots in the kitchen, laundry piles appearing out of nowhere. My head sizzled with overwhelm in seconds. Please give me a day of quiet and solitude where the only things to do are sleep and do nothing. An impossible wish.
Even now, all I wanted to do was crawl under my covers and fall asleep, but there were still college essays to draft and a pattern I needed to tape together for tomorrow’s sewing room tutoring. I pressed my hands against my forehead and walked back toward the house.
The crush of responsibility swelled up inside my chest, making it hard to breathe.
Hand on my chest, I inhaled deeply, held it and counted to five before releasing it, then started all over again. The therapist at the hospital told me to do it after my mom coded for the first time. There was no danger, but my body didn’t know that.
My heart pounded like a lion was one second from wrapping its jagged teeth around my neck.
A flicker of light caught my attention. And there in the dark, Mason sat on one of the two chairs on his balcony, a phone glow lighting his face. Only Mason could still look good lit from below. The intensity of his stare cut across the space between us.
Never mind, sorry for doubting you, body. You were completely right. Prickles of anticipation ran along my arms and my stomach flip-flopped.
What the hell was wrong with me? Getting stomach flutters for a wolf? I was disproving my 3.98 weighted GPA with these stupid feelings.
That squeeze in my heart to remember who he’d been. I needed to take these feelings, fold them up and set them on fire. That wasn’t Summer Mason. And forgetting that would only turn my heart into a pincushion all over again.
Mason hadn’t shown up to the sewing room all week, but my luck had finally ended.
He strode in like he belonged here, not me. His gaze struck mine like flint—sharp, sparking the second he crossed the threshold.
My stomach somersaulted immediately through five different emotions and none could be pinned down.
But even on the days he wasn’t here, I’d been on edge anticipating him showing up.
“You know the final book comes out in October?”
“What the hell? How am I supposed to wait that long?” He flipped the page to the epilogue back and forth like there were more pages after the cliffhanger in the book we’d read to each other through July and August. Although I’d read and reread it at least a dozen times since I’d snagged my own thrift store copy with the missing back cover two years ago, experiencing it all over again with Mason had made me love the story in a different way.
Tonight was nothing like that first night I’d been wandering around our new house. The latch to the six-foot pool privacy fence had been unlocked, so I snuck in to get a peek at the water. I’d only wanted to dip my fingers in but ended up sitting on the edge with my feet gliding through the water.
That was where I’d found Mason. Or more like he found me. But here with me now, he wasn’t on the verge of throwing up, harsh breaths escaping through teeth clenched against the pain ricocheting through his body.
We were still on the soft-rug-covered floor with my back against the couch and Mason’s head in my lap, but no longer for comfort—at least not the kind of comfort he’d needed from me initially. Now, it was just as much for me as it was for him.
He dropped the book against his chest, while I brushed my fingers through his soft hair, those chestnut curls tickling my skin. “Two damn months?”
“Yes, two whole months! You think it’s bad for you—I’ve been waiting three years for the last book.”
I traced my fingers over his skin, avoiding those impossibly long eyelashes that only seemed to be gifted to guys, trailing them along his cheek to his jaw, which had filled out since the beginning of the summer, then up and back down the center of his straight nose, and down to his lips.
With his eyes closed, he parted his lips and pressed them against the pad of my finger.
A stirring grew and bloomed. I forced myself not to squirm. My dreams were filled with all sorts of scenarios involving Mason’s lips. I tried to focus on his words and not the pulse between my thighs.
“You’re not reading it without me,” he declared.
“What? No way, I’m bingeing it the second I get my hands on a copy.”
He spun off my lap, got to his knees and dropped both hands on the couch cushions behind my shoulders, bringing his face close to mine.
There were sky-blue and cerulean variations in his irises, but right now they were locked onto me with playful determination. “You have to wait.”
Mason Shaw was nothing like I’d expected.
Havoc were the kings of campus. Students—hell, even teachers—worshiped at their feet with every win, turning the hallways into a mini-parade after each game.
Every girls’ locker room and bathroom was filled with chatter on who would get a jersey from the guys this season and what they’d do to them while wearing nothing but that jersey at whatever game after-party they were lucky enough to get into.
The guy staring at me with such tender affection that it stalled my breathing making me promise we’d read the final Irish vampire werewolf romance I’d devoured for nights on end was a surprise.
“And if I don’t…” I dropped my gaze away from him before glancing back up, meeting his eyes and feeling bolder, braver, than I truly was.
He flashed me the lazy, trademark half smile and sent the blood rushing through my veins so fast I got lightheaded.
“There’s so many ways I could make you pay.” He leaned forward until his forehead rested against mine, his breath tickled my lips.
I wanted to kiss him. I’d wanted to kiss him for longer than I’d ever admit. But I’d never expected to have the chance, let alone nightly chances. But I hadn’t gone for it, and neither had he.
He was Mason Shaw. I was a nameless scholarship girl who he’d probably never even have noticed if I hadn’t literally moved onto his property.
Was this a game to him? Entertainment? He hadn’t pushed things further than touches like tonight, not even a kiss, although his minty breath was certainly kiss-worthy. He’d never been one to hold back, from what I’d overheard from the gloating Brookes and Morgans of the school.
They were in a different league, but he hadn’t so much as gone for an under-the-shirt caress in the weeks we’d been out here.
Was this how things went before he dropped a girl?
Did they all feel this special before he got what he wanted and then they spent the next months or years pining for another taste?
“Lilah?” he asked, and the softness of his lips grazed mine.
An electric thrill rushed through me.
“Yeah?”
The sharp ping and buzz of his phone rumbling across the tile floor shattered the moment.