Page 30 of A Little More Hope

“It’s only a job, Ash,” he told me, intuitively working out where my brain headed.

“How come you don’t have a partner?” I asked, ignoring his statement, as yeah, right, there’s no way his work is only a job.

His jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed at the question. Okay. Touchy subject.

“I did have a girlfriend.” he stated after a couple of moments, his voice flat and unemotional. “A fiancée actually.”

“Did?”

“She left me.” The hollow laugh that followed held no humor. I hated it. “For her personal trainer, no less.” He snorted. “What a fucking cliché.” He stabbed at his food and shoved the noodles into his mouth. I assumed that’s as much as he wanted to tell me until he huffed and verbalized whatever was going on in his head. “It’s dumb, I know,” he said softly, “but I thought we had our life all figured out. Our future together.” He shook his head, the defeated look on his face twisting my insides. “Lindsay was the perfect fiancée. Blonde, tall, gorgeous, fun to be around, but more importantly, extremely intelligent and successful.”

I hated her already.

“She knew everyone, fit in anywhere, but, man, never cross her.”

“Oh?” Hopefully she had a foul temper or wasn't as sickly sweet as I’d already imagined her to be.

“She’s a criminal lawyer. Get on the wrong side of her, and you’ll regret it.” Despite his apparent bitterness, he mentioned the last part with an air of pride impossible to miss.

A few observations went through my head at this point.

One, any inklings I’d harbored of Mason and I being together went flying out the window and into the sunset. He was 100 percent straight after all.

Two, he hadn’t gotten over their breakup and still mourned the life and woman he’d lost.

And three, his fiancée couldn’t have been that intelligent if she left him for her fucking personal trainer. I liked that one.

But the final thought whirring around inside my brain, and for me, the most important one, was where the hell did this leave me? Firmly stuck in the friend zone, was my guess. I suppose being a friend made life easier in the long term, and where I’d originally decided I should be anyway, right? I could sit here and rationalize the situation all night, give a whole bunch of reasons why this should be the right decision, but I’d only be lying. Somewhere along the way, I’d given myself hope. A small, dim light at the end of an extraordinarily long tunnel, offering me the slightest chance to have gotten somewhere with this smart, sexy, fragile man.

It was all moot now of course, but to say I was crushingly disappointed at the outcome would be a massive understatement.

“I’d always figured I’d live the American dream,” he continued wistfully. “Big house, white picket fence, a couple of kids, a dog maybe.” He shook his head. “Dumb.”

His words left me sinking lower and lower as they confirmed exactly what I’d figured out yesterday. He wanted the life I could never offer. I wasn't long-term relationship material. Hell, I was barely one-time hookup material, going on my past record. So, there was no point moping, no matter how much I wanted what he wanted. There’d always be the fear that if I gave myself to him he’d only take a second to realize I wasn't worth the effort and leave. I was too much work and too screwed up to ever make him happy.

I’d fuck the relationship up the same as always.

Placing my hand over his, I gave a small squeeze. “Why is that dumb? I’d love all that,” I answered without thinking, causing Mason to stare at me for the longest time. “For you,” I spluttered at him trying to cover my tracks. “I’d love all that for you.”

Deliberately removing his hand from under mine, a chill crawled across my skin at the movement, instinctively knowing I’d said the wrong thing.

“Yeah, like that’s ever gonna happen,” he replied sourly, and I got the message loud and clear. Pushing his plate farther along the counter, he stood, the stool scraping across the hardwood floor. “I’m beat. I’m gonna head off to bed. We’ve an early start tomorrow morning.”

I glanced at the time on the large clock on the wall: 8:33 p.m. “Oh, sure. Right. Good plan.” Standing, too, I walked around the counter into the kitchen. “You go, and I’ll tidy up.”

Without saying another word, he walked off down the hallway.

“Goodnight,” I said as he disappeared.

I got no response.

Chapter Eleven

Mason

Shutting myself away in my room, I sagged against the door, annoyed. I shouldn’t have left the situation the way I did, but the urge to escape was so great I had to leave, needing to get some distance between us before I did something I’d regret.

I rubbed at the top of my left hand directly over the spot where Ash had placed his. When he’d said he’d love my rose-tinted view of perfection, I’d panicked when an impression of him and me had replaced the one of me and Lindsay. Us sitting on a couple of rocking chairs, fingers linked, watching the sun go down on his deck, the sound of the waves gently lapping at the sand on the shoreline in the distance. The scenario, so homey and tranquil, set off a yearning deep down inside me I struggled hard to ignore it.

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