I did not agree with her there. Personally, I didn’t think I had to try anything, but I knew, now that Michelle knew about my recently complicated life, she wouldn’t let me hear the end of it. For both our sakes, it would be easier if I did as she suggested.
Damn it.
“I guess,” I said, glancing down at my phone again. Having Mason come over would mean I’d have to ask Mom and Dad about it, which would then mean I’d have to spend the day cleaning the house, because heaven forbid we had someone new over and a hair was out of place.
Really, it would be so much easier to not have Mason over, to just continue as we had been.
That’s…that’s not what happened, though.
Chapter Ten – Mason
I knew I probably shouldn’t have texted Bree last night. Talk about sounding desperate. And jealous. Very, very jealous. So jealous I hardly got any sleep because I was so wrapped up in my own head, wondering if she was having a good time with him.
Not that she could only have a good time with me, but…
I texted her way too much last night. Probably came off sounding like a huge idiot, an idiot who did not know when to shut the hell up and take a seat. Oh, well. If there was one thing I was good at, it sure wasn’t shutting up. Anyone who knew me would say that I liked to hear myself talk.
I went to work early on Saturday, doing a six-hour shift and getting off at twelve. I came home and showered, changed out of my work uniform. There were a few things I had to do for my classes, some online quizzes I had to take and another paper to start drafting, but all of my plans went out the window the moment I got a text message from Bree.
Another one. I’d seen the one she’d sent earlier—I’d been working, so I didn’t respond. And then I went home, trying to keep it cool, keep it together. Basically trying not to sound like an idiot yet again.
But it seemed now that Bree did want to talk to me. She wanted to talk to me so much she was inviting me over to her house to work on our project.
I mean, how the hell was I supposed to say no to that? Maybe her family would be home, or her roommates, but we’d be more alone than we were at the library, that’s for sure. Could I handle being alone with her? I mean, of course I could. I wasn’t going to go apeshit and make a move she didn’t want me to make, but that’s not what I meant.
Being alone with Bree would test me, that’s for sure. It was easy to talk and laugh when we were surrounded by other SCC students, when we were walking together on campus. But to be alone with her, in her room…I might say some things that would get me into trouble. Talk about things I shouldn’t.
For instance, I might be tempted to say how much I wanted to ask her out, how badly I wanted to take her out on a date and make her happy. Bree didn’t know how to respond to me half the time, so I could only imagine how freaked out she’d be if I went ahead and said something like that.
I didn’t want to upset her, or freak her out. I only wanted to make her happy.
Before I persuaded myself out of it—although, who the hell was I kidding? There was no way I could ever turn down an invitation to spend more time with Bree, no matter where we would be—I texted her back with an affirmative. She told me a time and her address, and I was practically exploding with giddiness. In fact, I didn’t think I knew when the last time I’d been so excited was.
I went through my closet, trying to find an outfit that said I cared, but not an outfit that said I was trying too hard. Trying too hard was kind of my specialty, and I liked to think it made me endearing, but you never knew. Bree was unlike any other girl I’d ever met, and I didn’t want to scare her away.
The only thing I wanted to do was the opposite, actually. Reel her in, hook her and not let her go.
Okay, that analogy took a weird turn, but whatever.
By the time I was finally happy with my outfit choice, it was time to leave. Her house was twenty-five minutes away, apparently on the other side of the map from SCC as me. Hopefully, by the time I got there, my nerves would calm down.
That was probably too much to hope, with how much I liked this girl.
I couldn’t even say why I liked her so much; I just did. I thought about her a lot. Her bright green eyes that usually held a seriousness that killed me inside. Her almost obscenely pink hair that hurt to look at in the sunlight. The way her shoulders slouched anytime she was sitting down, how she seemed to curl into herself, as if she didn’t want to exist. Her smile, her laugh. I’d only seen and heard them a few times, but I wanted so much more.
Before I knew it, I was pulling up to her house, parking on the side of the street. She lived in a small development, so cars on the street were allowed—a good thing, because it seemed like their driveway was pretty full already.
This did not look like a rented house. This looked like a house Bree
