32. Mason
Mason
I haven’t spoken to Simone in almost a week, and it’s driving me insane. She hasn’t replied to any of my texts or calls since the night of the party. Which is fine. And not a big deal. And also feels like someone took a huge piece of me away that I’m now too aware of not being there.
I press my helmet down as I jog back to the huddle, sweat dripping down my neck.
Every sensation feels like too much today, and my head is anywhere but on the field. All I want to do is change out, head back to the house for a drink, and end this night early.
I wish the drinks I had before practice were still in my system. I probably wouldn’t care as much right now if they were.
Coach blows the whistle, and I jolt into motion. I know this route. I’ve run it a thousand times. But my head isn’t here. All I can hear is Simone’s laugh and the way her voice shook when she walked out on me.
The ball snaps out of the quarterback’s hand, and I break late just a fraction of a second…that’s all it takes.
I catch it.
And then I get absolutely rocked—shoulder pad to my ribs. Helmet to my chest. The kind of hit that rattles your teeth and makes everything go quiet from the impact.
I go down hard, landing face up, staring at the stadium lights.
“Sinclair!” Coach yells. “What the hell are you doing? Get your head out of your ass!”
My body throbs where I was hit, and I know I’m gonna be sore tomorrow from that one.
“You wanna get yourself killed out here?” he continues.
I push up onto my elbows, trying to focus.
“Wide receivers don’t get the luxury of spacing out,” he snaps. “You’re either locked in, or you’re a liability. Whatever’s got your head scrambled—fix it!”
Back in the locker room, I walk over to the bench after my shower—towel wrapped around my waist, ice pack pressed to my ribs. When I go to grab my clothes, I see my phone light up with a missed notification.
I grab it, and when I see Simone’s name pop up, my heart does a stupid, embarrassing flip. I can’t help but smile, feeling like her just talking to me again will make this whole shit-show of a day better.
But when I open it up and read the text, my heart drops right back down…anger replacing any happiness I just had.
Simone: I need you…
Simone: Fuck, Sinclair. Answer your phone
Simone: He told me he slept with someone else
I check the timestamps on her texts and see they were from an hour ago.
I slam my fist on the locker, pissed that I’m just now seeing them.
All the guys turn to look at me, and I just shake my head, not wanting to talk to any of them.
I throw my shirt over my head as I dial her number and then hold the phone between my shoulder and ear as I pull my pants on.
She answers on the third ring, but it stays quiet on her side.
“Simone?”
I hear a sniffle.
Fuck.
I want to get on a plane, fly to California, and beat the shit out of that kid right now.
“Hey…talk to me,” I tell her quietly as I throw my stuff in my bag, toss it over my shoulder, and head out of the locker room, not even saying bye to any of the guys.
I hear her laugh bitterly on the other end through the tears. “He didn’t even wanna break up…he’s still begging me to stay with him, Mase.”
I stop mid-stride. “And you told him to fuck off, right?”
It’s quiet for another second.
“You told him he’s out of his fucking mind, right, Simone?”
Nothing.
“Right?” I repeat, sharper.
“Fuck. Yes, Mason. I told him no. And as angry as I am…I’m fucking sad, too.”
I try to push away the anger and soften up for her. “Where are you?”
I hear her trying to stop crying. “At the dorm with Lani.”
I unlock my car and throw my bag in the backseat.
“I’m headed your way now.”
“Mason—”
“Don’t try to argue with me, Simone. You can go back to not talking to me after today and be mad again…but I’m gonna be with you tonight.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you no,” she says, laughing a little. “I was gonna say…thank you.”
When I get to her dorm, the door is cracked open, and I push it a little to see Simone curled up in the bed with Lani behind her, stroking her hair.
Lani looks up and sees me first.
“Can I have a moment with her?” I ask softly.
She nods and climbs out of the bed, telling Simone that she’s gonna head out for a little while, to text her if she needs anything, and she just nods.
Once we’re alone, I kneel in front of her and take her face in my hands, making her look at me.
When she looks up…that look…that damn look on her face breaks my heart. I never want to see her wearing it. And if it were up to me…she never would.
I brush away her tears with my thumbs and then move my hands down to her arms, guiding her to sit up.
“Come on, Pretty girl. You know the drill.”
She groans. “I just wanna rot away in this bed, Mason.”
I shake my head. “Nope. This calls for a gallon of ice cream, my much more comfortable bed and blankets back at the Sig house…and a night-long movie marathon…with some decent company.”
She lets out a little laugh. “I guess that doesn’t sound too awful…I can just rot away in your bed.”
“That sounds better to me, too.”
I text Chase to clear out of the room for the night, and then take her to the closest store, making her pick out three different ice creams while I grab a couple of things I need before we head back to the house.
I let her get comfortable in my room before I leave her to head downstairs into the kitchen.
I’m looking at all the ingredients laid out on the counter, lost as hell, when Tank walks in, laughing.
“The hell are you laughing at?” I ask, glaring at him.
He places a hand over his mouth, trying to hide the laugh. “Bro…”
“What?” I ask, more annoyed now.
“You are such a simp,” he laughs out.
I cross my arms and lean back against the counter. “Am not.”
“You totally are,” Chase says, walking in and standing next to Tank.
“Aye, Tanner!” Tank yells over his shoulder. “You gotta come see this.”
Tanner walks in and looks behind me before letting out a laugh that makes him almost double over. Then he looks back into the living room. “Yo! Ryan! Hurry up! Get in here!”
Ryan walks in, confused at first, before he sees what I’m doing.
They all start laughing harder together, and I just roll my eyes.
“This isn’t a fucking show for you idiots.”
They all try really hard to stop laughing and look serious.
“No…no. Of course not. It’s really…um…” Tanner looks up, searching for the right word. “It’s really…sweet.”
They all start laughing again, and I take a handful of flour, throwing it at where they’re all standing.
“We’re just proud of our boy growing up and being so in love,” Chase coos like a dumbass.
“I’m not in love.” I walk over, shoving all of them out of the kitchen. “Now, get out of here so I can figure out how to make these fucking cookies.”
Tank puts his hands up and backs into one of our living rooms. “Come on, guys, let the man bake some cookies for his lady.”
“She’s not my lady,” I tell him.
Ryan shakes his head, smiling. “You are so fucking whipped, Sinclair.”
I give him an annoyed look. “Yeah, cause you’re the one to talk. Didn’t I just see you painting Ava’s toes last week while she made you watch The Notebook with her?”
“Hey,” he says, hands up. “I never said I wasn’t. I’m just glad to see a fellow fallen soldier by my side now.”
I shake my head as they walk out and turn back to this fucking science project I have to figure out on my own.
I pull my phone out and look at the recipe I saved earlier, trying to figure out where to start.
I’m mixing everything together in a bowl when I hear a soft, beautiful voice behind me.
“Mase…” she says, and I can hear the smile in it. “Are…are you baking?”
I turn around, a little embarrassed now, and nod. “Yeah…I thought…I don’t know. You always talk about how much you love your dad’s fresh chocolate chip cookies. I just thought…”
She walks closer to me, and I really wish she would stop where she is so I can continue to breathe normally.
“You thought they could cheer me up?”
I nod.
She puts her hands on the sides of my face, and all I can do is stare into her eyes.
“You know, I always wished for a sister growing up…but maybe I just needed a brother like you around. Maybe then I would have had the standards set for how men were supposed to treat me.”
Yeah…that hurt more than it should have.
I put my hands over hers and squeeze them. “Yeah,” I say softly with a smile, hating the way my heart feels. “You have it now, though.”
She smiles at me, and then gets a serious look on her face. “I’m sorry about the night of that party. I—I didn’t mean to try to use you like that, or make you uncomfortable, or—”
“Stop,” I tell her. “I told you that you didn’t need to apologize.”
“I don’t want to lose you as my friend, Mase.”
“You won’t.”
I pull her into a hug, and she rests her head against my chest.
“Let’s just pretend that night never happened,” she whispers.
“Okay,” I whisper back, even though I’ve thought about that night every day since it happened.
We end up making a bigger mess than I even knew was possible, and burn half of the cookies before we make it back up to my room, lying on the bed, watching How to Be Single.
“Fuck,” Simone laughs out.
I look over at her, confused. “What’s wrong?”
She shakes her head, still laughing. “This is my future.”
I start laughing with her. “Being single isn’t that bad…but Lani does totally give Rebel Wilson energy.”
She doubles over laughing. “Fuck…and I’m so about to be Dakota Johnson.”
Her laughing gets hysterical before turning into tears.
I’m stuck…confused on what to do here, then I slowly reach my hand out and rest it on her shoulder, trying to comfort her.
She shakes her head, the crying getting more intense. “I didn’t want this,” she says through the tears. “This isn’t how my life was supposed to go.”
I scoot closer and pull her in to me, wrapping my arms around her. “I know…I know.”
She puts her hands over her face, trying to cover up her embarrassment. “I’m so stupid…”
“You’re not stupid, Simone.”
“I am,” she argues. “I really thought the boy I met in fucking middle school was going to be the one…that I was gonna have this rare love story that made it, and have this picture-perfect life I delusionally planned out in my head.”
“You can still find someone who loves you the way you deserve, I promise. You’ll still get that perfect story…it’ll just be with someone else now.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to date ever again.”
I laugh a little. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do…what’s the point?”
“To find someone who makes you happy,” I tell her.
She looks up at me. “You don’t date…I’ve never seen you do more than sleep with a girl.”
I don’t even do that…
I decide to get a little vulnerable with her in this moment, though. “I’ve only ever dated two girls before…well, really only one, and it was in high school.”
“Really?” she asks. “What happened with them?”
I scratch the back of my neck. “Um…they both…played me or cheated on me.”
She throws her head back. “Geez. See…what’s the point? Does everyone cheat?”
“No…I never did…and I never would. There are good guys out there, and you’ll find one of them, I promise.”
She huffs. “Yeah, right…I doubt it.”
“Do you know how much of a catch you are?”
She gets quiet.
I hate how she doesn’t see her own worth. She puts on this front with everyone else, but inside, she’s still that little girl, needing her dad’s love and attention, growing up looking for it in a guy who didn’t deserve to have her in the first place.
“Look at me,” I tell her.
She looks up and wipes the rest of her tears away.
“Why do you think you have to give every piece of yourself to everyone around you…but you don’t expect the same in return?”
She looks down, thinking about it, and then back up at me. “I don’t know. I’ve just always felt like I have to be perfect for everyone…for them to want to be around me…and…and if I hold them to the same standard…then they’ll just leave, because that’s asking for too much.”
“Being treated the way you treat other people will never be asking for too much. It’s actually the bare minimum, Simone.”
She looks away. “Yeah, that sounds nice and all, but it’s not reality.”
I take her chin, making her look back at me. “It is…you set the standard for who you allow in your life, and how they get to treat you.”
A knock on the door pulls us both from the conversation.
Chase pops his head in. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt. I just needed to grab something.”
He gives me a look, smirking, and I shake my head, silently telling him to shut the hell up.
Once he’s gone again, Simone yawns. “I’m exhausted.”
“Want me to take you back?”
She shakes her head. “Can…can I just stay here?”
Stop doing that, heart.
“Yeah, no, that’s fine.”
I hop off the bed, going to grab some sheets out of the closet.
When I come back to put them on the floor, she shakes her head and lifts the covers up. “You should be able to sleep in your own bed, Mason.”
“It’s okay, really,” I tell her.
“There’s no way the floor is comfortable…and I would hate for you to somehow fuck your back up from sleeping down there, and now I’m the reason you can’t play for the rest of the season.”
I let out a laugh. “Okay, that’s dramatic. It’s not that bad. I’ve definitely passed out on more than one odd surface before. My body is used to the neglect.”
She laughs now, too. “Okay, but what if…I wanted you to?”
I give her a questioning look.
“Nothing funny,” she says. “It would just…be nice to have some comfort.”
“If you just wanna cuddle with me, you don’t have to make up any lies,” I tease. “You could just ask.”
She rolls her eyes. “Would cuddling be so bad?”
You’re just friends…
I give her a playful smirk. “I refuse to be the small spoon, though.”
“But I’m always the big spoon,” she says, acting confused.
I laugh and walk over to the bed. “Turn over, pretty girl. I refuse to let anyone walk in this room and see you spooning me from behind.”
She gives me the cutest smile and turns over, giving me room to slide in behind her.
I’m glad she can’t see me right now, because I’m sure my face is giving away just how hard this is for me, being this close to her, being this vulnerable.
It’s so quiet, with just the background noise of a movie running in the room still.
I try not to touch her at first, be respectful, but she reaches back and finds my arm, pulling it over her body and tucking it under her arms.
I move closer, and I feel like I could melt right here on the spot. My body fits perfectly against every curve of her body, and I hate how good it feels to be touching her, how intoxicating she smells, how perfect she is in every possible way.
I hate the thought of anyone not handling her with care…not being what she needs. I hate that I wish I could be that for her.
I also hate that I know I never could.
I would never be good enough for someone like Simone.
She deserves the world, and I’m way too fucked up to give her that.
I just hope she finds someone one day who can.