Chapter Twenty-Three

 

~ FREYA ~

 

“Did you close up the shop yet?” The simple words of Mason’s text from five minutes ago still echo through my brain.

“Yeah. Grabbing a coffee at The Buzz,” I’d answered back easily enough. But it had hurt to write it, knowing that he wasn’t in town, able to stop in and join me like old times.

So when I push the doors to The Buzz open, the place looks so empty to me right now. Empty—even though there’s barely a seat available.

But there’s no Mason here.

My eyes flit to the leather seat where Mason had sat only days ago. Foolishly, I feel the urge to walk over there and touch it, as though it might transport me back to a time when he was always around the corner from me, with a ready smile.

Deciding I’d look like an idiot touching that chair right now while some other guy is sitting in it, I take my place in line, eager for a familiar taste to comfort me.

It shouldn’t surprise me to see the back of Harris’s head in line in front of me at The Buzz. Everyone ends up here, especially if a guy’s in uniform. Something about the ambitious culture at the Naval Academy promotes caffeine addiction, and with The Buzz’s prime location at the base of Main Street, there’s always an assortment of officers in line.

I reach out to tap him on the shoulder, but then drop my hand to my side before touching him. I just don’t feel like talking to any man but Mason right now. But when he gets his coffee and turns, there’s really no avoiding him.

“Hi, Harris. I was wondering if that was you.”

“Hey, Freya. How’s that heart of yours?”

His reference to what I wrote in my text yesterday somehow makes my throat pinch. I want to make some joking comment back to him, but instead, my eyes well up.

Crap. This is embarrassing.

“Oh, hey, what’s wrong?” he asks, touching my arm.

“Nothing,” I say quickly.

“Not nothing. Come on, let’s grab a seat.”

“I haven’t ordered yet.”

“You go grab a seat and I’ll order one for you.”

I want to say no, but I feel like if I resist I might fall to pieces.

“You like cappuccino, if I remember correctly,” he tells me, looking for confirmation.

I’m almost shocked by his memory. I’ve only had coffee once or twice around him, always when we were out with a group. So I nod at his offer, and retreat to a seat in the corner facing a wall so that no one can see when a rogue tear falls onto my cheek.

In a few minutes, he comes up behind me and hands me a cup.

“Thanks. This is really nice of you,” I tell him.

“No problem. When you said your heart was chewed up, I guess you weren’t exaggerating.”

“No. I wasn’t. I really wasn’t,” I mumble.

“You know, I’m sure Mason has already told you this, but that Patrick guy was a—”

“—putz,” I finish for him. “Yeah, I know. It’s not him.”

“Then who is it so I can punch his lights out?” He grins as he says it, but something in his tone tells me he might do just that.

“No. No punches are necessary. I just fell for the wrong guy.”

His face softens suddenly, realization lighting his eyes. “Mason.”

I look up from my cappuccino. “How’d you guess?”

“Well, I could say I’m very perceptive, but in reality, it’s simply the process of elimination. He’s the only other guy I’ve seen you with regularly other than Putzrick.”

I smile at the mutilation of Patrick’s name. I’m surprised Mason didn’t come up with that one.

“So you’re in love with him?” he asks.

Surprised, my eyes widen. That was quite a leap for him to make. Not that he’s wrong, but usually guys in uniform aren’t quite so insightful about emotions.

He grins. “I have two sisters. I’ve seen them go through it.”

“Don’t tell him, okay?”

“I won’t. But why wouldn’t you tell him?”

“Because we’ve had the perfect friendship for two years and I don’t want anything to mess it up.”

“Maybe it would make things better.”

I frown, thinking of how things had managed to get even better with Mason these past two days.

He glances upward, looking over my shoulder, probably at some hot blonde since I’ve pretty much pulled myself off the market just now. And that’s fine with me. I am off the market. I can’t possibly pursue someone else when my heart belongs to my best friend.

“It wouldn’t. He’s in Little Creek now,” I mutter.

One eyebrow rises. “He is?”

“Yeah. The movers picked up his stuff this morning. He left around nine or ten.”

“Ah. So you don’t think you’re up for something long distance?”

“I could handle anything, if it meant having him in my life,” I confess, feeling strange to share this with some guy I don’t know very well. Yet somehow it’s easy telling him, maybe because he knows Mason, too—knows what a great guy he is, and how I’m not a total idiot for falling for him. “But he’s not in love with me. I mean, he loves me, I’m sure. Just as friends, though. Nothing more.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“I am.”

“I’d beg to differ,” he argues with an amused grin.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he just walked through the door thirty seconds ago, and looks like he wants to kill me for even talking to you right now.”

My mouth gapes and I turn, only to see Mason standing in front of The Buzz’s door. His eyes move from Harris to me, and he looks hurt and confused—just a little.

But determined. Very determined.

I hear Harris stand up from the squishy leather seat and he approaches Mason, says a few words and thumps him on the shoulder before he walks out of The Buzz, leaving Mason statue-still in the entryway.

Suddenly, I worry Mason got the wrong idea. Even if he had encouraged Harris to meet me for coffee, I don’t feel right having Mason see it.

I rise from my seat instinctively, only because there’s this little part of me that’s worried he’s going to turn around and walk right back out that door. And I can’t let him do that.

“What are you doing here?” I ask him, now standing in front of him, hoping that the stray tear that had fallen from my eye earlier didn’t leave a telltale streak of mascara. I don’t want him thinking I was crying over him. “You were in Little Creek.”

“I was. But I remembered there was something I left behind here.”

 

“And it’s you,” Zander said, whisking Genevieve into his arms.

 

I press my lips together, once again, my imagination far exceeding my reality.

“So you drove all the way back here?” I ask. “You should have called me. I could have picked it up for you and sent it down to you.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” he says. “Freya, I’m in the Navy. And a SEAL. And that means I’m gone a lot. It won’t always be that way, but for now, that’s the way it is. And because of that, I’ve always been pretty limited when it comes to relationships, never looking for something permanent because I hate the idea of leaving someone alone when I’m gone.”

I bite my lip awkwardly, wondering where this is going. “I can understand that.”

“Yeah. But there comes a time when I hate just as much the idea of not having someone—the right someone—waiting home for me. You’ve always called me a player, and maybe I do seem like one to you.” His shoulders sag slightly, as though the thought of it deflates him. Then he straightens. “But my friendship with you—the depth of it, the way it makes me feel inside, the way I’d drop everything and do anything for you—tells me that I’m capable of a hell of a lot more than what you think.”

I shake my head, perceiving something close to hurt in his eyes. “Mason, I’ve never thought you weren’t capable of—” Love. I want to say it, but I feel like if the word slipped from my lips I’d break down crying, knowing how deeply I feel it for him. “—more than just superficial relationships. You’ve always been there for me. Some girl is going to be so damn lucky to find you.” When tears well in my eyes, I become conscious that we’re attracting attention standing in the entry of The Buzz in the middle of their post-dinner rush hour.

“Some girl? Dammit, Freya.” His voice raises slightly. “I don’t want to find some girl to fill the void you’ve left in my life, or watch you pair up with someone else in a few weeks or a few months. And then I break things off with her, but you’re already spoken for.” He shakes his head. “And then when you break up with him, I’ve already found someone else just as temporary. And then by the time I end things with her, you’ve got someone new, and then when you’re single again, I’ve got someone new.”

His face pinches with frustration. “Dammit, we’ve been doing that for two years now, and I don’t want to keep doing that dance with you until we’re old and gray and wind up in the same nursing home wondering why the hell we waited so long to end up together.”

 I stand there, powerless to move or say anything, watching this man I have loved for too long say words that I itch to tap into my iPhone and save forever just because they perfectly reflect the feelings in my heart.

“I want it now,” he says. “While we’re young enough to do something about it, young enough to look ahead to twenty thousand sunsets together,” he continues, reaching for my hands. “I want to start it now when I’ve finally realized that I love you today just like I did yesterday and last week and last month and last year, but was too stupid to recognize it for what it was.”

A tear rolls onto my cheek but I can’t wipe it away because he’s taken my hands in his.

“Freya, I’ll fold your nightshirts inside out, and alphabetize your cold cereals, and drive you across every bridge you want for the rest of your life, if you let me.”

“Oh my God, Mason,” I finally breathe, not even caring that everyone in The Buzz is now watching me as tears roll off my face and onto the floor.

Just when I don’t think my heart can handle more, he drops to one knee in front of me and I gasp audibly.

He pulls out a box from his pocket and opens it. Tiny diamonds surrounding one large one at the center sparkle underneath The Buzz’s fluorescent lighting, and a sweeping “Awwww…” murmurs through the audience we seem to have gathered.

“Marry me, Freya. Give me the chance to inspire a shelf full of manuscripts. Give me the chance to be your Zander. And I swear to you that you will always be loved completely.”

I should pause for dramatic effect. That’s how I’d write it in a scene. But there’s no delaying the “Yes!” that escapes me. The word comes out in a sigh born from my soul, and the crowd erupts in applause making me blush. “Because I love you too, Mason. I love you, too.”

 

Zander pulled Genevieve into a kiss, the pressure of his lips on her completing her in a way she never could have thought possible. A perfect reality crashed over her like a wave, fusing with everything she’d ever dreamed as her heart lifted to the heavens.

 

 And when his lips part mine, he sweeps me up off the ground and spins me. My head falls backward as I laugh, feeling myself launching into a whirlwind so thrilling that I could never depict it with a few simple taps on my laptop.

For once, words have failed me. The world will simply have to see the joy in my eyes to know how deeply I’ve fallen for Mason, my hero.

My forever.