I grabbed my phone out of my back pocket as I started cleaning up my station. I had just spent the last three hours working on a back piece and my hands were tired as hell.

“Hey, Dad.” I plopped down in my chair.

“Hi, doll. How’s it going?” His familiar gruff voice hit my ears, and I instantly smiled.

“Good. Just busy with work. You?”

“Everything is good.” He cleared his throat, and I knew something was coming. “Ben came by here yesterday.”

My lungs seized up at hearing his name coming from my father’s lips.

Why the fuck would he go to my father’s house?

Why couldn’t he leave me alone?

“What did he want?” My voice sounded weaker than it did only a moment ago and that fact alone made me hate Ben even more.

“He said that he wanted to stop by and see you, but he knew good and well that you weren’t here. He just thought he could pull a fast one over your old man. When I told him you weren’t here, he asked for your number.”

“Did you give it to him?”

“Hell no. I didn’t give it to him.” My father sounded good and angry. “I’m not sure what all went down between the two of you, but I’m smart enough to know that if that boy caused you to move several states away from me, then he did something to majorly fuck it up.”

That was a complete understatement.

But my father was right. He didn’t know what had happened between me and Ben. He didn’t know the pain that he had caused me. I never told him. I still couldn’t. Because as bad as Ben hurt me, I didn’t want my father to hurt at the same time.

And he would.

That was the kind of man my father was. Anything that happened to me he put the blame on himself. Always.

When I didn’t make the high school softball team, he said it was because he didn’t help me practice enough.

When I broke my arm doing a trick on my bike, he said it was because he wasn’t watching me.

When I had my heart broken by Ben, the first thing my father said to me was that it was his fault I didn’t have a mother figure in my life.

And the look on his face destroyed me.

My mother left us when I was at the ripe old age of four years old, and she never looked back. I didn’t know much about her besides the fact that I could be her twin. A fact I only knew from her from the pictures my father kept locked up in a box. Oh, and she was a worthless mother.

But my dad took the blame for that too.

He always had.

“Good. I don’t want to talk to him.”

It had been over three years since I had spoken to him. Three years since I had looked at his face. Just knowing that he was at my father’s house, my childhood home, made my skin crawl.

“He wasn’t too happy that I wouldn’t give him your number, but you and I both know that boy doesn’t have the balls to stand up to me. He just kept asking different questions, the same ones he asks every time I see him.”

I knew the questions he asked.

He wanted to know how to get ahold of me. He wanted to know where I was.

But I had been out of his grasp for this long. There was no chance in hell I would allow him to find me now.

“Just avoid him.” I picked at the tear in my jeans.

“I always do, but you’re going to have to deal with him eventually. You can’t do this forever.”

“I know, Dad.”

He huffed, a long, worried sound, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

“When are you going to come visit me anyways? It’s been about six months since I’ve seen you.”

“Hopefully soon,” I lied. I didn’t want to be anywhere near there if Ben was sniffing around. I needed to give him time to settle down and set his sights on something else. “I’ll see when I can get off work.”

“Okay, doll.” I could hear the creak of his old chair that should have been replaced fifteen years ago. “I’m going to jump off here and get some work done around the house.”

“It sounds like you’re about to take a nap in your recliner,” I teased.

His hearty laugh filled my ears and my chest ached with how badly I missed him.

“I never could get anything past you.”

“Don’t think you’re going to start now.”

I could practically hear his eyes rolling. “All right, girl. I love you.”

“I love you too.” I saw movement at the door to my station and looked up just as Mason walked in. “I’ll call you later, okay.”

“Okay.”

“Bye, Dad.”

Mason sat down on my stool across from me.

“Bye.”

I clicked off my phone and set it down in my lap. Mason looked tired. He still looked hot as hell, but he definitely looked exhausted.

“Hey, Mason.”

I twisted my neck from side to side trying to rid myself of thoughts of Ben. If I didn’t get him out of my mind, it would fester, just like him, and I couldn’t afford a sleepless night while worrying about him.

I was already missing too much sleep thinking about Mason and how I had left things the other night.

“Hey. You okay?”

His eyes were assessing me, and I knew that he was seeing too much. Mason always seemed to see past my bullshit.

“Yeah. Just tired.” I climbed out of my chair and started finishing the cleanup I was working on earlier.

“You up for dinner?” He crossed his arms over his chest, and I watched how it made his muscles stand out more than they normally did.

“I don’t know.” I threw away the used ink. “I was thinking about going home and vegging out in front of the TV.”

He nodded his head. “We can do that.” His eyes lingered on my tattoo chair.

I shook my head at him. “I meant alone. You know, me, a big old t-shirt, a tub of ice cream, and a good chick flick.”

He grinned at me, a devastatingly handsome grin, before shrugging his shoulders. “If we can throw in tacos before the ice cream, I’m down.”

“You want to watch a chick flick with me?” I put my hands on my hips.

There was no way Mason wanted to come to my house to watch chick flicks. There was no way that I should let him.

“I would prefer to watch something with a little more action, but if it’s what you need tonight, then that’s what we’ll watch.”

I stared at him trying to see more of him than he was letting me. I didn’t know what he was doing, what he was doing to me, but I did know that everything about him was fucking with my head.

I had made my decision the other night that I was going to push him away, a firm decision, but apparently it was deciding to be weak as hell in that moment.

“We’re not cuddling.” Because we were just friends.

“Of course not.” He acted as if I had just offended him. “I don’t cuddle during chick flicks. I need room to get all the feels.”

A grin tugged on my lips. “Okay, Mr. Sensitive.” I grabbed my purse. “Lead the way.”

I had cried all the way through The Notebook, and Mason looked at me like I might be losing it. Hell, I might have been.

The tacos had been long since devoured, and I was moving on to the ice cream.

“Maybe we should watch something that is a little happier, next?” Mason was squatted down looking through my movies, and I smiled as he went through romance after romance.

“I’m a little surprised by your movie collection.” He turned and looked at me over his shoulder.

“Didn’t expect so many romances?” I pulled my spoon through the ice cream and plopped it into my mouth.

“Not really.” He shook his head. “I’m just surprised is all.”

My body tensed thinking about all the things he didn’t know about me, about the things I didn’t know about him, but I refused to think about that.

“Well, what did you pick.”

He stood up from the DVD player and made his way over to the couch. The opening credits began, and he sat down right next to me. Far closer than he had been earlier.

“I thought I said no cuddling.” I pointed my spoon to the seat he had sat in earlier.

“This isn’t cuddling.” He picked up the movie case that he had just set down on the table and held it up to me.

He had to be kidding me.

There was no way in hell.

Amityville Horror.

“This movie is scary.” He fake shuddered. “If I sit way over there and you sit way over here, there is a bigger chance that one of us will be taken.”

I rolled my eyes, but realistically there was no way in hell I would be able to watch that movie if he was all the way across the couch. I wouldn’t let him know it, but the only reason I even owned the movie was because of Ryan Reynolds’ abs. I didn’t like scary movies. At all.

“You don’t get taken because you’re watching a scary movie.”

He looked behind his back then looked back at me. “No, but it feels like you might,” he whispered.

I laughed before I pushed at his shoulder.

“Fine.” I waved my spoon at him. “You can stay where you are just so I can protect you.”

“Thank God.” He grinned right before he hit play.