Page 31 of Their Promise

He had often been quiet when we were kids, too, so it wasn’t completely abnormal. Mason was definitely someone who proved his feelings by actions instead of flowery words or speeches.

Glancing at him, I took in the worn jeans, tight black t-shirt, and noticed a bit of black on his collarbone peeking out from theshirt. Did he have a tattoo? He hadn’t had any last time I saw him.

Ezio parked in the garage at the mall and said, “I’ll stay as far back as I can while also being close enough should danger show up.”

“She’ll be safe with me,” Mason said with certainty and held open the door for me to climb out.

We walked through the automatic doors and I tried to let Mason lead, but he stayed at my side.

“So, what are we here to buy?” I asked and looked over at him.

He had his hands in his pockets and glanced away with pink on his cheeks. “Your birthday present.”

My eyes widened. “My birthday present?”

He nodded and said, “I’m not the best present buyer in general and I have no idea what things you have or don’t have already. Plus, it’s been a while since we talked, so I don’t know if your tastes have changed.” He turned to me. “Is this okay?”

It was incredibly sweet of him to have thought of this and to be willing to go with me knowing I could shop for hours. His gift wasn’t going to be just what he bought me, but the time he spent with me. He really had grown a lot the last few years.

I nodded and smiled at him. “Yeah. This is okay.”

The first store we came to was a dress store. I walked inside and headed towards the clearance rack.

“I have money,” he said. “You don’t need to buy from the clearance side.”

“I like looking at the dresses here first,” I explained. “Sometimes you can find really cute things and save money at the same time.” Pulling two dresses off the rack, I headed over to another display to look at a pretty off-white dress I’d seen.

“This one would look really good on you,” he said and held up a black mermaid cut, velvet dress.

I checked the size and took it from him. “That’s a really pretty one.”

His lip twitched in a smile and he moved to another rack to look for more dresses to offer me. By the time I made it to the dressing room, I had ten dresses to try on.

The two women who had been at the dressing room hurried away when Mason got close, his alpha presence and scowl enough to scare them away.

“How have you been, Mas?” I asked as I closed the curtain between us and stripped out of my clothes, slipping the first clearance dress I’d found on.

“Fine,” he replied gruffly.

“Come on, give me more than that,” I said with a soft laugh. “It’s been years. Tell me something.”

“I’ve been fine. The demon hunting keeps us busy enough that I don’t have too much free time. What free time I do have, I usually spend training and occasionally doing fun things the others force me to do. I did a few jobs for King Deryn and King Nico.”

“Do you enjoy demon hunting?” I asked as I struggled with the zipper. Finally getting it zipped up, I pushed the curtain aside so I could step out.

“I do,” Mason answered. “It’s simple and an outlet for my anger.” He had been looking at the ceiling, his arms spread across the back of the couch, but he lowered his head when I stepped out. “The color doesn’t look as complimentary as I thought, but the style suits you,” he commented.

I nodded. “That was my thought as well.” Mason was one person who would give me a one hundred percent honest reaction.

Going back inside the dressing room, I tried on one of the other dresses, but didn’t like how it looked, so I switched to another one.

When I stepped out Mason said, “That’s nice, but not as nice as the first one.”

“I’ll put it in the maybe pile,” I said as I stepped back and closed the curtain to try on another dress.

Two more both with meh reactions.

Looking at the next options, I decided to try on the mermaid style dress he had chosen and threw open the curtain again.

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