Page 68 of Right Number

“Why is he here?” Mason asked.

I removed my hand from his shoulder and put it with the other in my lap. “Liam and I are still friends. We were friends before and we’ll remain friends.”

Mason was silent for several minutes before he suddenly stood up from the sofa and turned to me. “I think I should go. I have a lot to think about and you need to figure out whatever it is you’re doing with Liam.”

I jumped up and stood in front of him. Damn, he was tall. I mean, I was fairly tall. Liam and I were the same height when I wore heels, but I barely came up to Mason’s shoulder in my bare feet. I reached out and grabbed his upper arm. His gaze moved from my eyes down to my hand on his arm. “Mason, don’t be like this. Please don’t go. We need to talk.”

Mason looked back at my face and I could see the hurt in his eyes. “Be like what, Anna? Upset you apparently have, not one, but two, ex-boyfriends still hanging around, who you’re still somehow involved with? Liam and whatever the other guy you were with last night…Oliver? Is that it?” I nodded my head and took my hand off Mason’s arm. Mason let out a loud sigh and ran his hand through his hair. “I came here to try to fix this, but I’m not sure now what there is to fix. You already seem to have your backup plan here to take you out today.”

I was mad. Not only were Mason’s words untrue, but they hurt. They hurt a lot and it made me feel terrible to know that’s what he thought of me. I thought we knew each other better than that, but then again, I’d made some untrue assumptions about him the previous day as well. Still, I was pissed off at his implication. “That’s a shit thing to say, Mason, and not true at all. If you think I’d do that, then you don’t know me very well.”

“I don’t know what to think about any of this!” Mason snapped back.

“This wasn’t how this was supposed to go!” I shouted. OK, the shouting probably wasn’t necessary, but it felt like my emotions were bouncing around inside me and I had no control over them.

“You’re telling me,” Mason retorted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I fired back. I could feel my anger growing. Mason stood completely motionless, looking at something over my shoulder. If I had to guess, he was doing it just to avoid looking at me, which hurt. We were only standing about two feet apart and he couldn’t even look me in the eye.

“I’m going to go,” he finally said. Just like that, all of the feelings from the day before came flooding back…him not leaving for the flight on time, him missing my big night, the damn phone call…and now he was leaving. Why had he even bothered coming?

Finally, Mason looked at me as he pushed both hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I’ll be at my hotel, at least, until tomorrow when I can get another flight out.” He looked at me for a fleeting moment before stepping around me and starting towards the door.

I stood there in disbelief for a second before I spun around. “So just like that you’re leaving?” I shouted. Mason stopped in his tracks. His hand was on the knob but he hadn’t opened the door. “What did you expect, Mason? That just because you’re here now I would jump into your arms and we’d ride off into the sunset? Why are you here, Mason, if you just plan on turning around and leaving?” I was yelling and my voice was shaking as I tried to keep myself from crying. I could feel those damn tears building up again.

Mason didn’t even turn around as he spoke. “I was going to do my best to try to fix this, but…I didn’t expect to come here and find another guy in the picture.”

“We’re friends, Mason! Liam and I are friends!” I shouted back.

Mason spun around. “But you were with him last night!” His eyes flickered with anger, but much like mine, there was an underlying layer of hurt. How could we expect anything to work between us when all we seemed to be able to do since trying to meet in person was hurt each other?

I took a deep breath as I tried to steady myself and pull my rational side over to my wildly out of control emotional side. I needed to diffuse the situation. “Mason,” I said as calmly as I could. “Nothing happened between Liam and me last night. I was drunk and he carried me home. That’s where the night ended.”

“Was he your date last night? Is that why he was there with you?” Mason asked as his eyes bored into me.

Something in me snapped. Screw trying to diffuse the situation. He’d been asking for me to give him a second chance, but it felt like he wasn’t going to extend the same courtesy. “You missed your fucking flight, Mason!” I full-on crazy-lady yelled as the tears burst out of my eyes. I gave absolutely zero shits. All I could think about was what a disaster everything had been and how not a single thing had gone right since Mason and I’d tried to meet. “You changed your original flight, which canceled our dinner plans, without even telling me until it had already been done! Who does that? And for work, Mason! You picked work over us! We will never get last night back. It got all fucked up and now it’s gone! It can’t be fixed. I went to the fucking Spring Art Show alone! So, no, Liam wasn’t my date. His artwork was on display; that’s why he was there. My date couldn’t be bothered to show up!”

I was breathing heavily as I finished my tirade and wiped my eyes on my sweatshirt sleeve. Maybe the fact everything was so messed up was a sign. A big old flashing neon sign that anything other than talking on the phone wasn’t going to work between Mason and me. Although given how everything had gone recently, I was pretty sure any contact between the two of us was a thing of the past.

“Anna, I’m sorry,” Mason choked out. I could tell he was upset and that what I’d said had hurt him. “I…” Mason trailed off as he shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans again and looked down at the floor. “I think I should go.”

After all that he was still going to leave. “Then go,” I said curtly.

“I’m at the Sherman Hotel on the corner of Eighth and Front Street.” Mason looked up as he spoke and it was my turn to look away. Just looking at him reaffirmed what a total mess everything was, and made it hurt even worse to know it wasn’t going to work out. There was no denying, even though both of us were hurt and angry, I was still insanely attracted to him and felt an indescribable connection. In a way, I think the attraction and connection just made everything hurt deeper.

“Fine,” I muttered, my head turned completely away from him.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Mason turn and put his hand back on the door handle. He paused and I turned my head to look at his back. His shoulders were hunched and his head was down. “This isn’t what I wanted to have happen, Anna.”

“Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we, Mason? I wanted you to be here last night.” I took a deep breath, trying to remove some of the harshness from my tone. “I wanted it to be important and special for you too.”

“It was important,” Mason said softly with his back still to me.

“Not important enough.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back. I instantly felt terrible I’d said them, but I felt even worse when I saw Mason physically deflate in front of me. That was it. I’d delivered the final knockout punch.

Mason turned the knob on the door and quietly opened it. He took a step out and paused. “Goodbye, Anna,” he said as he started to pull the door shut.

“Goodbye, Mason,” I said through my tears before the door clicked shut.

---