Page 66 of Most Valuable Player
Cam
I dial 911.
Then I peek through my blackout curtains, butter knife from my midnight toast in hand, and see Mason Gray.
Thin ice, but I do exit out of 911.
Hearing a methodical, very human tapping noise on my windowpanes at one o’clock in the morning is the most likely scenario within which I would shit my pants, bedsheets, and mattress simultaneously. Which is why my first instinct is to scoop my phone up and prepare for imminent death. Yet masculine curiosity grabbed hold—I had to see the source.
Lo and behold, it’s my water boy.
I unlock the window, pulling it up. “The hell are you doing?” I hiss, peering around the blackened forestry surrounding my house. In summer, the sounds of life are unbearable, particularly with insects hiding among the tall grass. Now, though, as the autumn weather takes hold, the sounds are more muted, giving way to the scraping of naked branches and whistling wind.
Mason is dressed inpajamas, his eyes streaked with reddish vines, shivering like he just emerged from an ice bath. “Sorry,” he whispers. “Am I bothering you?”
I shake my head, utterly bamboozled. “Come in!” I snap, nestlingmy arm against the top of the window frame so he won’t hit his head. Hesitantly he hoists himself through the window, his tousled locks skimming my arm as he pulls himself inside. The moment the house’s warmth floods over him, Mason releases a sigh of relief.
“What the hell, Mason?” I demand, drawing the blinds to conceal us from forest lurkers or nosy mosquitoes that should be dead. I flick on my bedside lamp to properly see him. “Why are you wandering around in your pajamas? Youwalkedhere?”
“Took a private jet,” Mason says dryly. His eyes flit along my front, and I realize with mortification that I’m dressed in hot-pink boxers. I scramble for my robe and fling it over my shoulders, though I guess he’s seen me in worse situations, like after the inflatable pool incident.
“What happened?” I ask sharply. If he’s going to occupy my bedroom on a Sunday night, I should knowwhy. Even if tomorrow is a professional development day and we have school off. This is precious sleeping time for a special boy.
Not that I mind seeing him.
“Just needed air,” Mason says, light and blasé as he looks around, his eyes gravitating to the gigantic poster of Beau Rainey fastened to my wall. His lip crinkles down.
“Did something happen?” I ask. “Or was the thought of my face too charming to resist?”
Mason scoffs, and I’m glad because it means he’s feeling an emotion. “Cameron Morelli, could you not be an arrogant dick so late on a Sunday? Think of the children.”
“What children?”
“Me.”
I sigh, flopping onto my mattress. Why won’t he ever give me a straight answer?
Maybe he notices the trace of frustration in my face, because his fake half smile dissolves. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I know I shouldn’t be here, it’s just…I wanted to make sure of something.”
“That being?”
Mason inches closer, until his knees bump mine. His flannel shirt is sagging off his shoulders, exposing his smooth collarbone. “The things you said,” he mumbles. “Did you mean them, or were you just trying to make me feel better?”
I stare at him vacantly. “What things?”
“Uh…like what you said about my personality.” He scrutinizes me intently, then flatly says, “You forgot.”
The memory unfurls in little chunks through my mind. “I didn’t,” I choke out.
Mason gives a small shake of his head. “Makes sense that you wouldn’t remember,” he mumbles. “It was a completely normal, uneventful moment for you. You have no idea what it meant to me.”
I didn’t think that momentwasa big deal, but the gap in my memory is more because I was so focused on the sensation ofhim. His legs against my hips, his torso leaning back but not in a defensive position. More like he was allowing himself to be vulnerable, rather than curling in. The way his turtleneck hugged him and his eyelashes glinted in the gallery lighting. The way his lips felt cool and silken against mine.
“I mean what I say,” I tell him, shrugging. “Maybe I wanted to make you feel better, but that just means I used that moment to tell you what I think. Hoping it would help.”
Mason smiles with just enough genuineness that his eyes crinkle. The sight is like a rush of dopamine that causes my chest to tingle and the walls of my throat to narrow. I’m sitting, he’s standing, but my bed frame is high enough that I’m only an inch below him, his straight, slender nose at my eye level.
“What?” I ask when the silence of my room becomes too thick with tension. I’ve never wanted so badly to sling my arms around someone’s waist and kiss them. Maybe it’s lust? He obviously thinks I’m a giant-dicked, tiny-brained idiot. He enjoys insulting me, rolling his eyes, flicking my forehead, and scolding me while we study. I don’t know where it came from, this feeling. But somewhere in our time together…
