Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88218 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88218 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
My heart’s in on it too.
Traitorous body.
I give him a manly up-nod. It’s all I can do to stop my tongue from falling out my mouth.
“I haven’t seen you all week.” His morning rasp sounds like the old Mason. The one who’d wake me on tour with room service at my hotel door whether I was alone or not. He’d even order extra food in case whichever fangirl was with me was hungry. He was always taking care of others.
“The schedule for the show is tight,” I say. “We were supposed to film over ten weeks, but production got put on hold, so they’ve reduced it to six with the plan to still cram everything in.”
Mason frowns. I wait for the protectiveness he once would have shown me, for him to ask if I’m handling it all, but it doesn’t come. “Makes sense” is all I get.
How do we get things back to normal?
“Do you have any plans while you’re here, or is it to lie low and pretend Harley and the rest of the world aren’t looking for you?” I ask.
“You didn’t tell Harley I was here, did you?” His eyes are colder than they’ve ever been.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Like you wouldn’t tell him where my house is?”
“That’s different.”
Mason cocks an eyebrow. “How?”
“I was drunk then.”
“How new for you.” He grunts and moves to the fridge. After perusing what’s in there—not much at all seeing as I’m eating on set every day and haven’t ordered food in a while—he closes the doors. “It’s official. I’ve eaten everything remotely edible in your house. I keep telling myself to get to the store, but I keep chickening out. I’m not ready to show my face anywhere.”
“I can do a food order today and have it delivered. Just tell me what you need.”
“Anything that’s already premade.” Mason smiles weakly. “You’d think all that alone time living near my family, one of them would’ve taught me how to cook.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Did you want coffee?”
“Want? No. Need, yes please.”
I make our coffees with my back turned to him, and I stare intently as it takes an eternity for the coffee to drain into the pot.
“What are your plans for your weekend?” he asks. I don’t know if it’s to try to fill the silence, if he’s genuinely interested, or if he’s as awkward as I am and trying to grasp at anything normal between us.
Usually, I’d be calling the people who always come to my parties and throwing myself into the mindless PR-grabbing stunts, but I don’t have the energy for that. Plus, the last thing Mason wants is to deal with people. He doesn’t want anyone knowing he’s here.
“Catching up on sleep,” I answer. “Maybe trying to write for my new album that may never get made. Sleep.”
“Why won’t your album get made?”
I don’t answer him. I can’t tell him this reality show was my last-ditch effort to save my dying career when his is already dead.
The coffee machine finally does its thing and finishes, so I pour us two cups.
I hand Mason’s to him, black, just like he likes it.
He looks at it and then me. “Yeah, I’m not as hard-core as I once was. I need creamer now.”
“Really?”
“For a while I cut out coffee completely. Turns out there’s no need to stay awake when you have nothing to fill your time, so coffee wasn’t really a necessity.”
And yep. That’s exactly why I’m not getting into my career problems with him.
“What did you do up there?” I ask as I get him the creamer.
“Not a lot. When the lumber business was going downhill ten years ago, and before I left for LA to go to college, I planted some fir and pine trees, hoping to grow a Christmas tree business. My family had been looking after them while I was on tour and kept it going. The first seedlings were fully grown when I moved home. Like they knew the whole time when I’d be back. I’d already paid off the land and didn’t really need the money, so I donated them to local businesses over the holidays to give out for free. Caring for them and harvesting them gave me something to do with my hands.”
“Wow. That’s …” I blink at him. “Really cool.”
Mason shrugs. “Everyone deserves to have Christmas. Those who want it, anyway. It’s a time that should be joyful.”
Seeing this big, bearded man spout shit about Christmas joy is surreal, but it’s so the Mason I know.
“I spent my last two Christmases alone.”
His gaze flicks to mine, and his eyes soften, but then, as if catching himself caring, he shakes it off. “What about your entourage? I’m assuming you have one now.”
“I have people. But not …” No one like you used to be.
“Not what?”