Page 29 of I Heart Mason Cartwright
Willow
AshLynn and Cassandraprattle on about wedding things for another half an hour. My dad sits silently sipping his coffee, which has to be cold by now, Mason is doing something on his phone, and I am falling asleep in my chair.
“Can we pick this riveting conversation back up in the morning?” I ask the table at large. “I’ve had a long day and I’m really tired.”
“Well, sure, because you are the only one who has a bed,” AshLynn says. “What are the rest of us supposed to do?”
“There are a few hotels in the area. And more over in Seattle.”
“I’d like us to meet in the morning. There’s a club just down the way, I’m sure they have a nice sit-down brunch. And probably, sister hotels. I’ll make a couple calls,” my dad says standing and going into the house.
I sneak my phone out of my pocket to text Zach.
ME: I’ve been ambushed.
ZACH: My god, what has happened?
ME: My family is here.
ZACH: Define “family” . . .
ME: Dad, Cassandra, AshLynn, AND her fiancé.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
Zach.
“Hang on,” I say. I step out to the beach and down a bit from the house so I won’t be overheard. P-Tink follows close behind me.
“Hey,” I answer.
“Oh, it’s worse than I thought,” he says.
“No. It’s fine. I’m just surprised is all.”
“Liar.”
“How do you do that?”
“I know you, Willicent, better than you know yourself.”
I sigh. Mostly because he’s right.
“I’m a little shook up about AshLynn getting married.”
“Oh, lord have mercy, the poor man.”
“That’s about what I said.”
“So, who is he? A Palmer? A Lynch? One of the Abbott boys?” he asks, naming a few of the more affluent families from our area of Texas. “Oh no, please tell me it isn’t that slimy, but hot, Campbell boy that she used to date?”
“I still can’t believe you thought he was good looking.”
“Sweetheart,everyonebut you found him attractive.”
“Hmm. Well, not him either. This is a new guy. Someone she just met.”
“Ah, to be young and impulsive again. Tell me, is this new man pleasing to the eye?”
