Page 28 of Writing Mr. Wrong

The driver glanced in the mirror at her. “That was the Mace, yes? From hockey?”

“Yes.”

“He is a fine player. An excellent player. It seems like he is not having a very good night.”

“He’s not,” she said softly. “He’s really not.”

CHAPTER TEN

MASON

Mason was doing something he really wasn’t very good at. Getting drunk. Drag his sorry ass into some dingy bar, find a table in the corner, and drink until all his mistakes washed away, taking those unsettling emotions with them. Until the rough seas calmed. Until the world was steady again.

He’d managed the first part. Maize wasn’t in the best part of Vancouver, so the appropriate dingy bar was right across the road. He got the second part, too. With the rain, the place was empty enough for him to park his ass at a back table, where he was immediately served by a middle-aged woman who didn’t know him from Adam, which was the first break he’d caught all night.

The part he was having trouble with was the drinking. That first glass had gone down fine. No fancy scotch for him tonight. Just regular rye whiskey, neat, burning down his throat and letting him relax. He’d had the server bring him two doubles, which was a mistake. He’d downed the first fast and had only finished half of the second before the room started spinning.

A cheap date. That’s what his dad always said when Mason got tipsy after two beers. It’s also what his dad said—in his loud, aggressively teasing way—to women who stopped after one drink.It’d been years, too many years really, before Mason understood what his father meant.

Mason shuddered to think how many times he’d used that phrase on women before Jesse told him “a cheap date” meant a woman who’d drop her panties after just one drink, meaning you didn’t need to shell out more to get laid. It also implied that youneededher tipsy to get laid.

When Mason’s father calledhima cheap date, it meant Mason drank like a girl, and a timid girl at that. Real men could throw back both these doubles and still drive home.

Yep, apparently real men sucked back a bottle of whiskey, screwed some chick they met at the bar, and then came home and yelled at their wives for daring to ask why they hadn’t come home for dinner.

Mason had messed up so bad tonight, and as he stared into that second glass, he wanted to…

His dad would say he should want to throw it at the wall. Instead, Mason wanted to huddle over it and hide his face and…

He didn’t know what he wanted.

Yeah, you do.

He did, and that was the real reason he was in this shitty bar, drinking shitty whiskey, alternating between feeling sorry for himself and cursing himself out for being a shitty person who’d taken Gemma on a shitty date.

What did he want?

The same thing he’d wanted as a teenager, when he would casually suggest Gemma drop by the rink to see him play. He wanted to impress her.

He wasn’t good at writing newspaper articles. All her coachingonly made him adequate. He knew what hewasgood at, and he wanted her to see him do it.

He also knew he was good at planning dates. While he honestly had wanted to help Gemma’s book sales, mostly tonight had been about him. About ending the date in her apartment doorway and her gazing up at him, that look on her face saying she was hoping for a kiss.

Hewouldn’thave kissed her. Sometimes, on the ice, if you really want the goal, you can’t take the first shot. You need to be patient and set it up properly. That was what he planned. The perfect date. A gentlemanly goodbye at her door, maybe a hug. Leave her wanting more. Leave her ready to say yes to a second date.

Yes to a real date, not this fake bullshit.

Now he’d tossed Gemma in a cab and thrown money on her lap like she was a paid escort he’d decided he didn’t want after all.

He swore he could hear his father saying that’s what Mason got for reaching too high, for not sticking to what he was good at. Know his limits and stay within them. Women like Gemma were for suave guys in suits with a string of letters behind their names. Guys who never made dumbass mistakes and then didn’t know how to fix them.

Mason groaned and thumped his head onto the table. Or he tried to, but the tabletop was too low, and there wasn’t enough room to slump, so he kind of hung there, bent forward.

A hand appeared from nowhere and moved the empty whiskey glass in front of him.

“You look like you’re going to puke. Aim there.”

He lifted his head and decided he was even drunker than he thought, hallucinating Gemma shucking off a wet jacket to showan equally wet dress underneath, the dress that had already clung so nicely now plastered to her body.

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