Page 111 of Please Save Me

Mason hesitated, her throat bobbing as she swallowed.

“I love you,Calvin.” Her words were soft as a feather, but they hit me with the impact of a freight train.

Those three words mixed with the name I’d been born with was like an atom bombdirectlyto the chest. My breath caught as emotions ripped through me. Sadness for the life I’d lost, gratitude that I’d found someone like Mason to share my life with in the most intimate of ways, and finally, uncontrollable love for the woman in front of me.

It was the type of lovewarswere fought over, and stories werewrittenfor. My heart was full to bursting, and somehow, I was expected to just act normal. All she’d done was tell me she loved me, but it felt like she’d formallyfreedme from a curse that I thought would eventually kill me.

I bent down, pulling her lips to mine. I meant to be gentle, honest to God. I did. But what started soft and sweet ended with me tangling my hands in her hair while she pulled my lip through her teeth.

This was escalating and escalating quickly, and while I wanted nothing more than to pin her against the wall and toss her around like a doll, she had somewhere to be.

When I finally did the responsible thing and pulled away, her hair stuck up in every direction, and her chest heaved. Mischief lit her beautifully mismatched eyes as they pinned on me.

“We’ll have some fun after your date,” I promised.

Mason tipped her head back and groaned, causing me to laugh.

“It’ll only be a couple of hours, right?” I said reminding her just as much as I did myself. “When he’s supposed to be here anyway?”

She held up a finger as she grabbed her phone. “Forty-five minutes.”

I sighed as I ran a hand through my damp hair. Forty-five minutes on top of however long their date would last felt like forever. But I was fine waiting just as long as I got to see her happy. Luckily for me, Lucian loved her, and while this morning was areallybad example of that, deep down, I knew he’d never intentionally hurt her. At least, I didn’t think he would.

Chapter 35

Cameron

My eyes drifted to the clock on the wall as I tried to focus on making dinner. It’d been three hours since Lucianshouldhave been here to pick up Mason, yet she still sat in the reading nook, all dressed up, with no place to go.

My knife rocked through the celery on the cutting board as I cut it into small chunks. With the vegetarians out of the house, I’d planned to make chicken pot pie for dinner, but it was looking more and more like I’d have at least one of them home.

Mason was currently curled up in the chair, Richard having made a home for himself on her lap. Mason worked her free hand into the orange tabby’s fur while the other scrolled through her phone, probably waiting on messages that weren’t coming.

I sighed as I put my knife down and headed to the freezer. The puff pastry was stuck in the back, hidden under a bag of peas and a pint of blueberry cheesecake ice cream. I hesitated for a moment as I held the cardboard container. The pastry needed to thaw, and I could wait a few minutes to work on dinner. Right now, I needed to preemptively mend a heart.

Slowly, I walked over, two spoons and the ice cream in hand. Mason had looked away from her phone and now focused out the window while Richard’s purrs echoed through the space.

“Hey,” I said softly, not wanting to spook her. “Baby girl looks hungry.” I pointed to Mason’s bump with my free hand.

Mason’s head turned to me, and I noticed the streaks of makeup running down her cheeks. She took a deep breath as she looked at her belly and then back to me. I thought she was going to ask for a spoon, but Mason’s mind wasn’t in the room with us; instead, it was on him.

“Do you think Lucian’s okay?”

With how sad she was, he’dbetter be dead, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

“He probably just got caught up at work,” I explained, forcing a smile. “He’s a tattoo artist. If he’s working, it’s hard for him to get to his phone.”

She nodded slowly, but her gaze remained downturned.

“Here.” I forced a spoon into her hand before kneeling to sit cross-legged beside her. “You’re going to get sick if you don’t eat.”

Mason accepted the spoon, her fingers curling around it almost mechanically as she dipped it into the half-empty pint. She lifted the spoon, but instead of eating the ice cream, she watched as it slowly melted.

“Do you think he stood me up?” she asked as purple swirls dripped back into the container.

“What? No.” I acted offended she’d even think that. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I had a feeling she was right. “That boy has no sense of time. He’s probably on his way right now.”

Mason forced a small, humorless laugh as she put the spoon back in the container.

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