Page 149 of Gin and Lava

“And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t randomly show up at the Gin n’ Lava,” I say. “There are a hundred other bars in Hawaii. So …”

“Mason …” Naomi’s voice is raw. She looks away from me at the bed, then grabs a pillow to cover her nakedness. Maybe she regrets us.

I don’t.

I won’t ever regret being with her.

“I’m sorry,” she says finally. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Quit while you’re ahead, Princess,” I say. “Vikings don’t apologize for what they take. It’s just a heart. It’s okay if you don’t want it.”

In the low light, her eyes glisten, wet with emotion. She feels awful for all of this. But I can’t face that pity and regret. I turn and walk out, because it’s all I can do to keep from crumbling.

48

NAOMI

In the morning, I find a box on my workbench full of all of my jewelry. It’s all the finished pieces that Mason borrowed for his secret project.

Returned now.

The pieces look dull and unimportant, all lumped together in that box, lacking the glitter I imagined they once held. A selfish part of me wants to text Mason and ask what he was doing with my pieces. But of course, I can’t.

Wearen’t even friends.

Not after last night.

I pull the ring I made yesterday off my finger, realizing I left it on all night. A fake engagement ring for a fake relationship that destroyed what could’ve been a real friendship.

I took advantage of Mason: his generosity, his kindness, his desire. I’m the one who turned this whole thing into a flaming pile of horse dung.

I toss the ring into the box with the rest. The ring that I foolishly pretended was me, when the truth is, all I am is selfish. Once again, I’ve tried so hard not to be my mother, that I’ve become the mean girl who made me so ashamed of where I came from and who I am. That mean girl is who I’ve been pretending to be all this time, and she’s who I’ve become. Mason called me a Viking Princess, but who I really am is the bitch who takes hearts, stomps on them, and doesn’t apologize.

Ishouldapologize, but again, I can’t. Mason needs space, and for me to piss off. He asked me to not show up at his work (which he did with so much fucking grace and composure, I can only admire him). So I won’t. He deserves at least that.

Apologizing would be for me anyway. To absolve my guilt. And frankly, I don’t deserve it.

My phone pings, and I know it’s Shauri texting me, wondering where I am with my truck. The truck she wants to shuttle all her friends and their luggage to the wedding hotel. I want to tell her to piss off, but honestly, I’d prefer the distraction.

I text Shauri that I’ll be there in an hour, then head for the shower.

49

MASON

Running midday was a shit idea.

Not that I’m a guy with great ideas. I’m the asshole who named his bar the Gin n’ Lava when all we sell is rum. Usually, I can spin whatever BS I do into some kind of verbal pinata of dirty-awesomeness, but today … today, I was just being an ass.

First, running midday means it was hot. Stupid hot. This is how people get heat stroke and induce a heart attack. So, I’m dehydrated, overheated, and a shmuck.

Second, there’s the fact that I decided to run middaywithouta shirt on, andwithoutputting sunscreen on. I’m officially the poster boy for skin cancer now. I’m a hot pink lobster, and leaning against anything feels like a thousand umbrella toothpicks in the spine. Even wearing my lightest shirt feels like sandpaper on my flesh.

There was a time when Connor made working at the Gin n’ Lava shirtless feel like we’d won the lottery, oh glory-be did the rum and pussy run like lush Amazonian rivers. But walking into my bar shirtless now, sunburnt to a crisp like Tom Cruise’s vampire daughter in that 90s Anne Rice film, yeah, that’s torture. At least in the movie they had the mercy of turning that little girl into a puff of ash. I have to walk around feeling like my hot-dog skin is being stretched and pulled over a thousand razor blades.

Still, it feels better than my fucking heart.

“Damn! You ok, man?” Brad asks when I walk past the bar. “That looks like one nasty sun—”

---