Page 56 of Writing Mr. Wrong

Because Mason was a liar and a manipulator, but he was also…

More. He was also more, and that’s what made it so damn hard to cut him loose. Even her mother knew it, hesitating when Gemma said she should never see Mason again, gently suggesting maybe Mason was a question Gemma finally needed to answer.

A question about herself. About what she needed. And thatanswer might not be Mason Moretti, but if it wasn’t, then “definitely not Mason Moretti” was an answer, too, one she didn’t have right now.

She remembered how he’d talked about his mother earlier that day, and it spurred another memory. Seventeen-year-old Gemma sitting at her editor’s desk, working on the latest issue. The door opened, and Mason slipped in. He’d only just started his mentorship and they were still dancing around each other, uncertain, feeling the tug of childhood but also acutely aware of all the years between then and now.

“Your article isn’t due until tomorrow,” she said. “Do you need more time?”

He shook his head and gestured at the sofa. “Mind if I crash there?”

She frowned.

“Early practice,” he said, and then, as if realizing that wasn’t an excuse for a guy who had early practice almost every morning, he added, “Long night. My folks were fighting. You know how it is.”

No, she didn’t. But she wasn’t saying that.

She pushed her chair back. “Does that happen a lot?”

Mason collapsed onto the ratty sofa with a satisfied groan, as if dropping onto the finest pillow-top mattress. “Often enough. Dad comes home drunk. Mom thinks he wasn’t drinking alone, which he probably wasn’t.” Then he muttered, almost too low to hear, “Asshole.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged as he plumped a throw pillow under his head. “I’m used to it. Mom’s used to it, too, which is the problem.” He paused. “He doesn’t hit her. I’d step in if he did. When I tell her she shouldleave, she just cries and says everything’s okay and she loves him, and there’s not much I can do about that, right? Can’t fix her shitty taste in men.”

He shut his eyes. Then they popped open. “Fuck. That was TMI, wasn’t it?”

“It’s fine.” She wanted to say she was here if he ever needed to talk, but that sounded trite and presumptuous. “That’s why the couch is here. Like being in a shrink’s office. Only cheaper. Of course, since I’m not qualified to be a shrink and can offer no useful advice…” She shrugged. “You get what you paid for.”

He smiled. It was his real smile, one that warmed his brown eyes, and made him look, well,real. Not Mason Moretti. Just a guy.

He started to close his eyes only to pop them open again. “Uh, what I said, I’d, uh, appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone.”

“I might not be a shrink, but the rules of confidentiality still apply.” She sobered and met his gaze. “I don’t talk about anything you tell me, Mason. Anything.”

He frowned, as if genuinely puzzled. “Why not?”

Now she was the one frowning. “Do you want me to?”

“No, just… people usually do, you know? Last week, I bought throat drops in the caf, and by the end of the day, ten kids had asked how my throat was feeling.”

“It’s nice that people care.”

He gave her a sidelong look. “It was a game night, Stanton. That’s why they cared.”

He was partly right, of course. But they also cared because he was the school’s brightest star. Information on Mason Moretti was social currency.

Knowing that his dad screwed around and came home drunk?That was winning the gossip lottery. As much as kids loved polishing the golden boy’s crown, they loved tarnishing it even more. Gemma could bump her reputation up two levels with this story.

Instead, she wondered what it would be like, knowing people were watching your every move, hanging on your every word, not because they cared, but in hopes it could be mined for social currency.

That question seeped through time, settling in her mind now. If being high school golden-boy Mason Moretti had been rough, what was it like being the adult version? The bona fide hockey god?

The thought brought a dull ache, something that felt too much like sympathy.

Sympathy for the devil.

Mason could be an asshole. The problem was, even when Mason was being an asshole, he did it in a way that wasn’t cruel. It was…

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