35. Mason
Mason
The boat rocks gently beneath us as we drift at the dock, engine off, just the sound of water slapping softly against the sides.
The sun is still out, but it’s cloudy today, so the breeze is keeping it pretty chilly.
Simone sits cross-legged across from me, hoodie pulled over her head, watching me with curious and cautious eyes.
“You’re gonna hate the taste,” I warn.
“I drink cheap tequila on the weekends, and whatever is in that ‘boy punch’ y’all make,” she says. “I think I’ll survive.”
I hand it to her, and she takes a generous hit.
She immediately coughs—like really coughs. Then throws her hand out to give it back to me.
She stares at it in my hand after I take it like it offended her.
“Oh my gosh,” she wheezes, eyes watering. “Why does it taste like that? Why does it burn? Is it supposed to burn? Damn, I think my lungs might actually be on fire.”
I take a slow hit and hold it in. “Yeah, the burn means it’s working…just like when that tequila goes down.”
She shakes her head, still coughing violently. “What the fuck—”
I laugh, reaching out to steady her when she leans forward. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing,” she protests between coughs. “This is just…aggressive.”
When she finally sits back up and stops coughing, I hand it back, and she takes another hit—slower this time.
A few minutes pass as she stares out at the water. Then back at me.
“Okay,” she says slowly. “I think it’s happening.”
I raise a brow. “What’s happening?”
She squints at her own hands. “They feel…loud.”
I lose it. “Loud?”
She nods seriously. “Yeah. Like they’re yelling.”
She bursts out laughing—full, unfiltered, head thrown back laughter. And something in my chest loosens watching her.
She tells me that’s all she can handle, so I finish off the blunt myself as we start talking. It’s slow, and easy…and about nothing at first, and then everything.
All the walls feel like they’re down—the high making not hiding less scary.
“What were you like as a kid?” she asks, eyes getting heavy.
The question takes me aback, and I don’t really know how to answer it, seeing as I try not to think about my childhood much, so I answer with the first thing that comes to mind. “Not a kid…”
She looks confused.
“Like, I never felt like a kid,” I tell her. “I was always treated like I needed to grow up so fast, needed to learn how to do everything for myself so young. Didn’t really get to be a kid.”
“Even when…your mom was alive?”
I don’t know why I hate that word so much, like part of my brain still pretends she’s not actually dead, that she’s still somewhere, even if it’s not with me. She has to be.
I take another hit, trying to give myself more time to shake off the shitty feeling of reality.
“Um, she did her best to give me the childhood I probably needed to experience to stay sane…but he also did just as much to take that away.”
“I hated being an only child,” she says quietly, trying to sort through her own thoughts with the same question. “Everyone always expects you to be perfect because there’s no backup.” She laughs a little. “You can’t be the fuck up kid when you’re the only kid.”
I lean back, nodding. “Yeah, my dad made that very clear from as early as I can remember.”
“I can’t imagine how that felt for you,” she tells me, looking into my eyes so I can see the sincerity behind her words.
“I put so much pressure on myself. I don’t know how it would feel to constantly have someone else in my ear telling me out loud all the things I already tell myself.
” She pauses for a second, and I can see the emotions in her expression, how angry thinking about the things I’ve told her makes her.
“I hate that you don’t have a better father. You deserve that.”
“You do too,” I tell her.
“It’s not the same.”
“It doesn’t have to be the same to still affect us.”
She thinks about it, nodding. “Yeah, but I’d still take my reserved, quiet, emotionally unavailable dad over a mean and overly critical—basically verbally abusive dad.”
“How about all dads just get their shit together?” I say, jokingly.
She shakes her head. “It’s so annoying how much our childhoods affect us. The time in our lives we get no say over is the time that shapes us the most. Like, what if I’m such a perfectionist because I subconsciously think it’ll make him notice me more? Make him interested in me…?”
“Maybe he is, and he just doesn’t know how to show it,” I say, trying to reassure her. “Maybe he was never shown that.”
“Do you want to be that for your kids one day? Present? Overly loving?”
“Of course,” I say. There’s no doubt in my mind that I want to give my future kids everything one day. And I don’t mean material-wise. I mean, I want to give them love. I want to be there for them. I want them to never question if I love them, first and foremost, over everything else.
“Exactly,” she says, eyes starting to get low. It’s cute how she starts using her hands more as she’s talking when she’s high. “You weren’t shown that, yet I have no doubt you’ll do everything you can to give your kids that. So why couldn’t our parents figure it out?”
“I mean, I want to do all of that…but what if I still don’t have the tools when the time comes?”
She shakes her head. “No, you will. You’ll be a great dad. I see how you are with your brothers, how much you love them, and want to give them what they’re not getting. You’re gonna be the same way for your kids.”
That makes me smile. That’s all I want. For Ash and Easton, for my future kids…for my future wife. I just want the family I never got. I want to be what my mom would have been for me if she were still here.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks, noticing my silence.
“Um…my mom,” I tell her, honestly.
“I would have loved to meet her.”
I pause at that, smiling into it. “She would have loved to meet you. She probably would have tried to make you fall in love with me so you could be her daughter-in-law.”
She looks out at the water, and I almost miss her words. “It wouldn’t be hard.”
“What was that?
She looks back at me, her expression softening. “Just…you wouldn’t be hard to love. Any girl could easily fall for you. You just have to stop being such a playboy. Once you do, some girl’s gonna be really lucky to get you to settle down.”
I let that sit, trying not to read too much into it.
“I’m not a playboy,” I tell her.
“Mhm.” She smiles at me like I’m full of shit. I really wish she knew I wasn’t.
“Would it make you look at me differently if you knew—”
I hear my phone buzzing somewhere and look around for it. I see the soft glow of the screen right behind where Simone is leaning back at.
I lean forward, reaching for it.
Simone turns her head slightly, and our faces are inches apart. I can’t help but keep my eyes locked on hers as I feel for my phone and grab it.
I don’t move back, not yet. I can’t.
I just stay there—stuck.
Moments like these make it obviously clear to me why it was such a stupid idea to think I could be friends with a girl, let alone one like Simone.
I just want to kiss her, know what her lips taste like, know if she feels the same stupid ass electricity I always feel around her. I want to take her face in my hands and never let another pair of undeserving ones touch her again.
I want a lot of things I shouldn’t, though. Because I’m undeserving too.
“If I knew what?” she asks, voice almost a whisper.
I look down at her lips and then back up to her eyes.
Fuck, she’s so perfect.
“If you knew I wasn’t like that—wasn’t some player, far from it actually.”
She thinks about it for a moment, eyes still heavy on mine. There’s something behind them that I really don’t want to get my hopes up over.
She starts laughing and pushes against my chest playfully. “I’d just say you were a liar.”
I lean back. “I’m serious.”
“Yeah, and I’ve seriously seen you make out with more girls in one night than students in my Intro to Government class.”
“That could just be for show.”
She leans her head against the side of the boat, looking up. “Doubt it. Who’s turning down countless beautiful, willing college girls?”
Me.
“Yeah, who would do such a thing?” I ask sarcastically.
“Not the Sinclair I know,” she teases.
I shake my head. “Come on, we gotta get back.”
* * *
The front door barely shuts behind us before my brothers come barreling down the stairs like they’ve been shot out of cannons.
“MASON!”
I don’t even have time to brace before Asher slams into me, arms wrapping around my waist, followed immediately by Easton, who jumps and nearly takes me out at the knees.
“Hey—hey—easy,” I laugh, steadying myself. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Asher pulls back just enough to see Simone behind me.
His eyes go wide. “Is that your girlfriend?”
I laugh. “My friend who’s a girl…yes, Ash.”
Simone crouches down immediately, meeting him at eye level like it’s instinct. “Hi. I’m Simone. I’ve seen your cute face a lot over the phone.”
Asher doesn’t hesitate. He throws his arms around her neck like she’s not a stranger to him.
My heart warms as I watch her laugh, surprised but still taking him in with a smile, hands automatically rubbing his back.
“She smells like the ocean and…outside,” Asher announces loudly.
She looks up at me—worried—and I laugh a little.
Simone laughs to cover up her embarrassment. “That’s because your brother dragged me out on the boat today.”
Easton looks up at me accusingly. “You didn’t take me out on the boat.”
“We’re only here for a day,” I say. “Blame your teachers for keeping you away at school. I’ll try to take you tomorrow before I leave if you’re good, though.”
“Me too!” Asher screams.
Simone stands back up, and Easton acts a little more shy, just waving at her. She smiles and waves back, telling him hi before turning to me and asking where the bathroom is.
“We need to go freshen up,” she whispers.
I let out a little laugh. “Yeah, come on. It’s over here.”
We try to wash the lingering smell off, and I grab one of my old shirts for her to put on after she insists that she can still smell it on her clothes.