29. Lilah #2
Now, it was his turn to roll his eyes and shove books into his backpack, bending the green notebook cover, which barely fit with all the other crumpled and mangled paper stuffed inside.
I looked away from the massacre. “Do you ever take anything out of there? How do you find what you need?”
He looked down at his open bag. “I’ve got a careful and meticulous filing system in here. This is my trigonometry test from a week ago.” He tugged out stapled and scrunched sheets of paper, unfolded them and revealed the title.
“An Analysis of Puck in Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’” I laughed, finishing my cookie. “You were saying…”
A knock disrupted Rye’s grumbling and fumbling in his bag.
There was only one person who knocked. I raced for the door and yanked it open.
Mason stood on the doorstep and hit me with a thigh-squeezing look. Before I could say anything, he pulled me to him while his fingers danced against the small of my back.
“Missed me,” he said against my lips as he pressed me to the doorframe.
My sigh and shudder weren’t selling the indifference. “Not even a little bit.”
“You taste like cookies.”
“Rye’s mom baked some and Rye brought them over.”
“I saw his car,” he said it flatly, like he was fighting hard to keep it neutral.
“Her cookies are amazing.” I tugged him toward the kitchen. “Try one.”
“She made them for you.” Rye jerked the zipper closed on his backpack.
“And I’m sure she won’t mind me sharing.”
I popped open the lid and held out a cookie for Mason. He snagged it and took a massive bite, staring at Rye.
Rye had his backpack on one shoulder and arms folded over his chest like he was in sentry mode.
My phone buzzed with a notification. I’d expected a text from Paige, but it wasn’t that. An email from Bellevue U in Washington had come in. My heart raced into a triple beat.
Fingers barely working, I opened the message. The first words hit me with an echoing thud.
I screamed so loud that it hurt my throat and slapped a hand over my mouth.
Not even making it to a chair, I crumpled to the floor.
The two of them stopped their cookie pissing match and rushed to me, nearly crushing me. Everything blurred into a jumble of concerned questions and hands on my knees, shoulder, legs.
“I got in,” I said in a barely audible whisper.
Mason squeezed my thigh. Rye had a hand on my shoulder. Both wore twin looks of concern.
“What happened?” they said in sync.
The phone fell from my fingers. “I got in!”
Their faces morphed from concern to confusion to relief and then excitement.
I wrapped my arms around both their necks as happiness bubbled up from me. I popped up, nearly headbutting Mason, and threw myself at him.
He caught me from his crouch and braced a hand against the bottom cabinets before squeezing me back even tighter. Like it wasn’t even a big deal, he lifted us both to standing and tucked my hair behind my ear. “I knew you could do it.”
I bounced on the balls of my feet and grinned.
Rye shifted in the corner of my eye, and I flung my arm around his neck. His arms came up immediately, but there was a stiffness there. Ugh, guys. They could lay off the sports rivalry for a few minutes.
“I’m proud of you, Lilah.”
Every breath filled me with a heady buzzing. Electric crackles of excitement made my whole body tingle.
“We should celebrate.” Mason spun me around until my back pressed against his chest, both arms hugging my hips to him. His smell enveloped me—sandalwood and manmade ice.
“He’s right, we should.” Rye dropped his bag to the floor.
I brushed my fingers along the hair on Mason’s arm where it stretched across my stomach, sagging against him. My relief was absolute. “Don’t you have to call Molly in a few minutes?”
“Not right now.”
His phone buzzed with impeccable timing. Molly’s name and a picture of them hugging flashed on the screen.
Mason’s breath fanning across my check and neck sent stronger pulses of a different feeling than excitement skittering down my spine.
“Looks like you’ve gotta go,” he said.
Rye snatched his bag up with a disgruntled sound and marched to the front door.
“Tell Molly I said hi,” I called out after him, enjoying the music-less sway Mason had us in.
The door closed and we were alone.
My heart pounded like I’d run a mile.
Mason squeezed me a little harder. “How are you feeling?”
“Like my feet aren’t touching the ground.” I closed my eyes and released a sigh like the weight of a hundred worlds had been lifted off me.
“I can spoil you a little now that he’s gone.” His lips tickled along the back of my neck.
I snagged the container of cookies off the counter. “Cookies and my boyfriend are all I need to celebrate.” I bit one end and wedged the other half between his lips.
His laugh lit up his eyes like Fourth of July fireworks. Or that might’ve just been the ones shooting off in my chest. He nibbled from his end and me from mine until we met in the middle. “You know that’s the first time you’ve called me your boyfriend.”
My cheeks heated. “Is it?”
“Yeah.”
A flash of shyness flushed through me. “How’d you like the sound of it?”
“Given that I love you, it sounds like not enough, but I’ll take it. As good as those cookies are, you deserve a little bit more to celebrate with.” He pecked me with a cookie-crumb kiss. “Give me twenty-four hours.” He backed away toward the door. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I can’t leave here for twenty-four hours?”
Popping his head back in the door, he locked eyes with me as if I might have disappeared in the microsecond I’d been out of sight. “You can, but I need you back here tomorrow, same time.”
Why did he look sweaty all of a sudden?
“Okay, I’ll be here.” I stared, confused at how quickly everything had just changed.
He quietly closed the door, then his shadowed figure bolted away from the house.
I texted Paige to let her know, then opened my trunk and picked out my mom’s dress.
In every spare moment, I’d added line after line to the beading that stretched out from the waistline.
It crept from there down the skirt and up onto the bodice.
The top of the back would be draped with strings of beads to give it a little more drama.
I had absolutely nowhere to wear it but that might’ve been for the best. It was too precious to risk wearing somewhere like prom—not that Mason and I had talked about it.
Plus, it didn’t fit the theme, and letting Mason splurge on Christmas or breakfast sandwiches was one thing, but the Hawthorne Prom was over the top.
He hadn’t brought it up, so I figured it wasn’t his thing either, which was fine by me.
Since I didn’t regularly end up with gala or opera invitations, the dress would be saved for the future.
It was the last project I’d gotten to work on with my mom, so it deserved to always be preserved along with all those memories of our time together.
I relistened to my mom’s voicemail while I worked and talked back to her.
I told her how excited I was to get in and how I couldn’t wait for her to watch me graduate. And she told me she loved me back.
Paige sent back a screeching, nonsense voice note that made me laugh and promised we’d go out to celebrate. The next twenty-four hours crawled by with my intense curiosity at what Mason had planned.
Now that I’d gotten my acceptance, there were forms and contracts to sign. I poured over every document available to me. I triple-checked my GPA. Still sitting in the top 5 percent.
The swift relief kept me humming along with my sewing.
Rye called me to apologize for his butthead behavior the day before. And his mom chimed in with her own congratulations.
Five minutes before the twenty-four hours were up, there was a knock at the door.
I put away my mom’s dress and rushed over, pausing for a second and wondering if I should’ve changed into something other than jeans and a sage-green sweater.
I’d been so in the zone working on the dress that I hadn’t even thought about it.
Not wanting to keep him waiting, I opened the door, but it wasn’t Mason on the other side.
An imposing figure in a top hat and tux with tails blocked the porch light and held out a scroll. It was honest-to-god parchment with a wax seal.
I squinted. “Erik?”
He set the rolled paper in my hand.
Still confused, I ran my finger under the seal and read the paper.
Mr. Mason Shaw requests the pleasure of Ms. Lilah Byrd’s company. An escort has been provided. Please follow the goofy guy in tails.
M
“Milady, right this way.” Erik gestured with one arm while extending the other for me to loop my arm through.
“Why…how do you just have a tux at the ready?”
He grinned. “Who doesn’t? We’re going to be late.”
“Late to what?” The unbearable edge-of-my-seat feeling had me taking his arm and walking across the lawn to the pool.
Erik unlatched the pool house gate and pushed the door open, letting me walk through first.
I rushed through, curiosity killing any hesitation.
Candles floated in the pool, flickering in the early spring air.
“What? How?” I ripped my stunned gaze away from the pool. But my shock hitched up even higher when I turned to the sliding glass doors of the pool house.
They were backlit, framed by candles everywhere inside.
So many candles flickering and lighting the space.
I got closer, almost thunking my forehead against the glass.
Erik saved me with his hand and dragged the door open.
I touched the fake flames and tried to take in more of the room.
Flowers everywhere. Roses of every different color.
Orchid, tulip, hydrangea. The sweet, delicate floral scent enveloped the space.
“You’ll need these.” Erik raised a silver tray. Balanced at the center were a pair of glittering, glinting blue heels.
I picked up the shoes, so pretty I was afraid to break them. The backs of the heels had a delicate floral design that wrapped its way to the pointy sole.
Music started.