15. Mason
MASON
Lilah scrambled down the bleachers like a serial killer was after her.
A couple of guys looked at me with questions in their eyes, prepared to get in her way.
With one glare, they backed off, hands raised, and everyone else jumped out of her path.
The bass-heavy, echoing rumble of the gym music vibrated the bleachers beneath my feet, but all I could feel were Lilah’s footsteps running away from me—again.
Not my best idea with the jersey, but I couldn’t stop myself from trying to give it to her. To have her wear my name and number. She wasn’t ready for that yet.
I could be patient.
Hell, I’d always wanted her to wear it. Even when I’d convinced myself I hated her, a deep, possessive streak knew this was Lilah’s.
A few other senior girls sent me cloying looks. I gripped the fabric tighter on my way back to the Havoc lineup at the center of the gym.
A handful of games into the season and I hadn’t given out my jersey. Most of the team chalked it up to being uninterested, but not in a Galen way. After our five-game streak and the win over the Verona Vipers, it became another good luck ritual, so no one got on me about it.
And until Lilah was ready to wear it, no one else would.
The back of my neck heated at the confused looks that tracked me to my spot between Calder and Erik. I locked my hands behind my back, jersey still in my grasp.
Heat crept up the back of my neck, not at the humiliation of Lilah rejecting me in front of the school, but knowing this was only a sliver of what I’d put her through.
When the pep rally was over, I checked for Lilah at her locker. No luck. She wasn’t in the sewing room either, which I hadn’t been back to since the night Ryker picked her up.
My phone chirped and vibrated with incoming texts. I was late for the team bus.
Hockey had never felt in the way of anything, but fuck, was it in the way of seeing Lilah. Before I’d found her last night in the pool house, she’d somehow made herself a ghost at school, even more than when I’d been gunning for her.
Now I itched to see her. Wanted to knock on her front door instead of dropping off her homework and sneaking away like a mouth-breathing creeper. Funny now was when I toyed with the idea of knocking on her door until she let me in.
I was still at least a little bit of an asshole when it came to her, although I was sure Lilah would argue with the percentage but definitely not use the word asshole. I’d never even heard her curse.
If she decided to unload a slew of f-bombs on me, I wouldn’t be mad. I’d grin at her fire. At this point, I’d let her full-on horse kick me in the dick if that would make it better. But that wasn’t Lilah. Another reason that treating her like I had made me a fucking asshole.
Her sweetness, her kindness, her strength. I’d been blinded by my own jealousy and inability to have a damn conversation. Because it had been so easy to believe she wouldn’t choose me. That her care and attention had been toying with me to get something out of me.
I’d never been good enough, always a step behind, so that version of our summer when she’d been laughing behind my back was much easier to believe. I’d expected deep down that the only reason she’d been with me was as a trick. Turned out, all I’d managed to do was trick myself.
On every bus ride to our games, surrounded by the twitchy restlessness of my teammates, my thoughts never left Lilah.
And this game was no different. Our winning streak was still intact and I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Not during the first period when Erik jumped over one of the Edgewater defensemen to score before the buzzer.
Not in the second when I landed a clean backhander into the net.
Or in the third, when Calder hit a breakaway on the inside and shut out the game 3-0.
As much as Lilah had invaded my thoughts before, I wanted to know everything now. Be close to her. Know what she was thinking. Make her smile. I no longer had to deny myself. All I had to do was convince Lilah.
At other schools, athletes were lucky enough not to have to deal with PE bullshit.
Too bad Hawthorne Prep didn’t subscribe to that way of doing things.
Another Hawthorne Prep win hadn’t been enough to save us from Mr. Bonara, the only gym teacher who saw it as his mission to prove he was just as good a coach as any heading up the athletic teams.
Our gym teacher’s three sharp whistle bursts signaled the end of our torture. The temperature outside hurt my lungs. The November midday air felt colder than on any rink. My fingers ached, highlighting every single healed fracture. At least on the rink I had my gloves.
My head was slushy, fuzzy like an overheated rink with no Zamboni, as I tried to figure out how to get Lilah to even look at me again. If it were up to her, she’d probably dodge me until graduation. Dropping into her sewing lab session a few times a week made me feel like an intruder.
Before I hadn’t cared about trampling over whatever walls she’d tried to put up between us. But now the need to be near her warred with not wanting to hurt her more. Part of me wanted her pissed, angry, something—anything other than evasive.
I flexed my hands, trying to warm them up, and dragged my fingers through my hair, then bit back a bitter laugh. I’d screwed myself so thoroughly that it was almost as if I’d designed this sabotage from the beginning.
Erik hung on the edge of his open locker door. “You look like shit.”
Galen shook his head at Erik and buttoned his blazer. “Do you have the ability to keep any of your intrusive thoughts to yourself?”
Erik stared up at the ceiling for a second and shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“One too many hits to the head.” Galen closed his locker, walked over to me and dropped a hand on my shoulder. “You good?”
Words caught in my throat. My head throbbed.
All the hurt, all the anger, all the sadness I’d reveled in seeing from Lilah continued to grind me down. I could barely keep myself standing knowing I’d been the one to tighten the screws on her. Gleefully pushed her to the brink.
Chemical burns of rage seared my insides with self-loathing.
Lilah’s new trick was showing up to English class late to have her choice of empty seats as long as it wasn’t beside me and ignore me the rest of the period.
A voice in my head that got louder over time shouted that I didn’t even deserve to be near her.
But the stubborn asshole in me shoved it aside.
I needed to see her, even if all I got was a “fuck you.” Hell, I’d even take a glare rather than her looking through me like I was a ghost.
Galen exhaled deeply and shook his head. “What are you going to do?”
Calder shoved his beat-to-hell black gym shoes right back on, never adhering to the uniform regs. “Do about what?”
“You know.” Galen buttoned his shirt.
Calder’s head bobbed, face grimmer, if that were possible. “Ah.”
Erik pulled his buttoned shirt over his head, arms getting stuck, and spoke through the fabric. “You hate her one day and the next you’re giving her your jersey? Are we ever going to get the full story on that?” He freed his head, hair sticking up all over, and stared at me expectantly.
“Leave him alone.” Galen tossed Erik’s blazer at him.
I grabbed my bag and charged out of the locker room.
“Just curious,” Erik grumbled as the door closed behind me.
I got to class and, instead of going inside, waited outside. The bell rang and Mrs. Turner opened the classroom door. “Will you be joining us, Mr. Shaw?”
“Yeah.” But I made no motion to move.
Mrs. Turner peered down the empty hall. “When you’re ready.” She closed the door, leaving me in the almost silence of the hallway.
A full two minutes after the bell rang, hurried footsteps approached.
Lilah rounded the corner and froze. A quick step back the way she came, like she’d rather cut class than sit beside me.
But she didn’t run. Her fingers tightened around both straps of her backpack.
With a white-knuckled grip and neutral face, eyes avoiding mine, she walked the rest of the way to the door.
Instead of letting her go inside, I wrapped my hand around her arm and tugged her with me.
She struggled to yank her arm free. “What the—Mason, we’re already late.”
I pulled her into the nearest unlocked door—the women’s bathroom.
“Let go.” Lilah jerked her arm away, elbowing me in the side. “Why the hell are you doing this?”
I winced at the jab, but my lips twitched in a small smile at the anger crackling in her eyes. “You know why. You’ve been avoiding me.”
She sucked in a deep breath, blowing it out through her mouth, and straightened her shoulders. “For good reason.”
My smile widened. “Not even going to deny it?”
“Why would I deny it? I’ve been avoiding you since you turned on me on the first day of school. Why would that stop now?”
“Things are different now.”
“Are they? The only thing that’s different is how you feel.
It’s all you care about. What you want. What about what I want?
” Her clenched hands and fiery eyes fanned the flames of hunger in me.
She wasn’t indifferent. She was fighting this as hard as I was.
Fighting herself and the feelings that had never died between us.
I stepped closer. “What do you want, Lilah?”
She didn’t back up. Her nostrils flared. “I’ve told you.”
Another step. We were less than a foot apart. “Tell me you don’t think about me.”
She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut, eyes blazing with defiance.
“Tell me you don’t listen to the chapters, even though you’ve been back to school for weeks now.” I got closer, until the tips of my shoes touched hers.
She met my gaze, challenging me. “I haven’t had time to get the book.”
“Tell me you don’t look up at my window to see if I’m there.”
Her defiant glare crackled the air between us. “Only to make sure you’re not spying on me.”
I leaned near enough that our noses almost touched. My heart leapt in my chest, soaring at the high of being this close. I ran the back of one finger along the column of her neck. “Tell me you don’t think about our nights together.”
She shuddered and her lips parted.
The bathroom door swung open. “Mr. Shaw, you can’t be in here.”
“One second,” I called over my shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter if I think any of that.” The air sizzled with sparks of satisfaction at the confirmation I’d been looking for.
Fury burning in her eyes, she shoved at my chest with both hands and shouldered past me so hard that I couldn’t help but be proud.
“None of it means I can ever trust you again.” Her harsh whisper set off a flare of hope in the center of my chest. She hadn’t said fuck you. She hadn’t said those nights didn’t haunt her too.
She had no idea of the depths of my patience when the winning goal was her back in my arms. I’d rebuild her trust brick by brick.