Chapter Sixty Two
Sophia.
Sophia.
Sophia.
Sophia.
Sophia.
Sophia.
I want to carry on saying it all night. Her face is so close to mine. So close that I can feel the warmth of her breath caressing my lips. It would be too easy to lean in and kiss her right now. God, I want to kiss her so bad. I swallow hard. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is a bad thing,” she replies.
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
I laugh. “I like you too, Sophia.”
“No. I don’t like you. Well I do like you but I don’t just like you. I like you like you.”
I pretend to be deep in thought. “So hang on a minute, do you like me or not? That was a little confusing.”
“Yes. I like you too much.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“You’re wrong. It is possible.”
“But why would that be a bad thing?”
She throws her arms up. “Because I don’t want to trap you, Mason. You don’t get it.”
“Trap me? What are you talking about?”
“Soph,” Lori says, straight faced. “I think it’s time for us to go home.”
“I don’t want to do anything that could potentially help her in any way,” she tells me, ignoring Lori.
“What? Help who?”
“Sophia,” Lori says with more force this time. “Stop it. You’re drunk and not making any sense. Let’s go home.”
“I’m having fun like you told me to.”
“I know but it’s getting late and we’ve all had a lot to drink.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
Lori turns to me. “Please help.”
“I think it’s time for bed,” I tell Sophia.
She wiggles her eyebrows up and down. “Of course you do.”
I try to keep a straight face. “Let me rephrase that. I think it’s time to leave. I’m going to call Charlie and ask him to come get us and take us home, is that okay?”
She nods right before throwing up all over my shoes.
"On a scale of one to ten, how much do you want to kiss me right now?" Buzz asks Lori.
"Hmmm…about a minus ten," she replies.
"At least you had to think about it."
"Yeah, I had to think about how much you repulse me."
"I don't think you understood the question."
"I understood just fine, thank you."
I turn back to Sophia who has her eyes closed and a paper bag on top of her lap. “Hey,” I say softly. “We’re just pulling up outside your house now.”
She opens her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mason. For everything. I didn’t mean to get myself into this mess.”
“You don’t need to apologize. You’re not the first person to get drunk and throw up on me.” I give Buzz a pointed look.
“Will you forgive me?”
I chuckle. “Of course I forgive you.”
“Let’s get you to bed then, party animal,” Lori says, looking a little on edge. “Thanks for the ride, Mason.”
“Any time.” I jump out of the car and hold a hand out to Sophia. I gasp when she threads her fingers through mine in such a small yet intimate gesture. It feels completely natural, like we’ve done it hundreds of times before. I’m not sure how I’m going to cope when it’s time to let go. I don’t have long to think about it because her legs give way as soon as she takes a step out of the car. She seems to have gotten considerably worse in the last half hour and puking hasn’t sobered her up in the slightest. She squeals when I bend down and scoop her up into my arms. “I think this is the safest bet,” I tell her.
She closes her eyes and sighs. “Oh, Mason. Why do you have to be so goddamn perfect?”
I laugh. “I’m not perfect.”
“You’re pretty damn close.”
“So are you.”
“No, I’m definitely not.”
“Well you’re perfect to me, Sophia.”
She groans. “There you go again saying my name like that. Do you know how turned on I am right now?”
I’m hard in less than five seconds. It doesn’t help that my hands are gripping her bare thighs. I take a deep, steadying breath. “Probably not as turned on as I am.” Her glazed doe eyes turn dark, mirroring my own.
“Where was my offer to be carried?” Lori asks Buzz as we reach the front door. “Why couldn’t you be a gentleman like Mason and help me out of the car?”
“Because I’m not Mason and I’m not a gentleman.” He holds both of his hands up and spins around. “This is me. What you see is what you get. I’m impulsive and intense. I’m spontaneous and sarcastic. I’m loud and loyal to a fault. And I like to live my life the same way as I like to fuck - hard and fast. I know I’m not your usual type but you’re single for a reason, sweetheart. You can’t ignore your feelings forever. Jump aboard the Buzz train and I promise to give you the ride of your life.”
She rolls her eyes. “You missed modest off of the list. Here, hold this so I can look for my keys.” She shoves her purse towards him. “I can’t hold it and look at the same time. It doesn’t help that it’s so freaking dark.”
“It also doesn’t help that you’re Mary fucking Poppins. I can’t believe how much stuff you carry around with you. Have you packed the kitchen sink in there too?”
“No, but I have mace somewhere.”
“Yeah well you’d have to find it first.”
She scowls. “Hold still and I will.”
“What the hell is this?” He pulls out something shaped like a large bullet.
“Lipstick.”
“Why is it so big? And is that a switch?”
“It’s my BOB, idiot.”
“What’s a BOB?”
“Battery operated boyfriend. Hold still.”
“A fucking vibrator? Why the hell do you have one of those when you’ve got me?”
“Because I can turn a vibrator off.”
“But it’s much more fun turning me on.”
“I can turn that thing on too, whenever and wherever I want. And it doesn’t talk.”
“Hey, I can be as quiet as a mouse. I must admit, I do usually enjoy a bit of dirty talk but if you want me to be quiet then that’s fine by me.”
Just when I think Sophia’s fallen asleep, she opens her eyes. “Am I dreaming or are they actually talking about vibrators?”
I chuckle. “You’re not dreaming.”
“Can I ask you something? It’s important,” she says in an almost whisper.
“Of course.”
“How did Buzz get his nickname?”
I laugh. “That’s important? He would kill me if I told you.”
“I won’t tell anyone, not even Lori. Pinky swear.”
“Hmmmm, what do I get in return?”
“Elevator and shower porn on tap.”
“Well in that case…” I hold my pinky finger out and check that he’s not listening. He’s too busy making fun of Lori for having a bottle of mouthwash in her purse. “I once heard about this guy who lost his virginity,” I tell her quietly. “He had been watching Toy Story earlier that day and apparently when he came, he shouted ‘To infinity and beyond!’”
“No way!”
I shrug. “Rumor has it that there’s video proof.”
“Oh my god! That’s so much better than I could have ever imagined.” She laughs until she’s gasping for breath and I have to grip her even harder to stop us from falling over.
“Hey! Let us in on the joke,” Buzz says.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure you already know it,” she tells him, trying to keep a straight face but failing miserably. I turn my back to him and place a finger to my lips. “Okay, I have another question. How did you get so beautiful?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” I reply.
“Oh, here we go,” Buzz says. “Please don’t inflate his ego any more than it already is.”
She ignores him. “Surely you own a mirror. Seriously, who do I need to thank?”
“Well, a lot of people say that I look like my mother.”
“Does she have Twitter? I’ll tweet her.”
I laugh. “No, Sophia, my mother does not have a Twitter account. She probably doesn’t even know what it is.”
“Why can’t you be kind like Sophia?” Buzz asks Lori, eyebrow raised. She jangles her keys in his face. “Found them. You can go home now.”
“Point proven. Aren’t you going to invite me in for a coffee?”
“It’s almost one, why the hell would you drink coffee at this time of night?” He wiggles his eyebrows up and down. “Goodbye, Buzz.”
“Wait, can I use your bathroom? I really need to go.”
She sighs as she unlocks the door and pushes it open. “I guess so. It’s at the bottom of the hallway. Make sure you put the toilet seat down afterwards.”
I carry Sophia inside. “Hey, is your dog home? I didn’t see him last time.”
She laughs. “We don’t have a dog.”
“Oh, I thought you said you had a black lab.”
“We had a dog,” Lori says. “But we had to give it away because of my allergies.”
“Yeah, she’s allergic to animals,” Sophia adds. “All of them.”
“Oh. Well that sucks. Which one is your bedroom?” I ask Sophia.
“Second on the left.”
My heart beats faster and faster with every step that I take and I’m convinced that she must be able to feel it trying to hammer its way out of my chest. We reach the second door on the left and I use my foot to gently push it open. And just like that, I’m standing in Sophia’s bedroom. My eyes dart straight to her bed. Her double bed. Lord give me strength. “If I’m being honest, this isn’t how I imagined it would be seeing your bedroom for the first time.”
“How did you imagine it?”
I laugh. “Well you were sober, for one. And my shoes didn’t have puke on them.” She groans again. “And we were both wearing less clothing.”
“Why were we wearing less clothing?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was a hot day.”
“So why wasn’t the AC on?”
I shrug. “It was broken.”
“Why didn’t we just go to your place instead?”
“Because I was here to fix it.”
“What did we do afterwards?”
“We took a shower because we were all hot and sweaty.”
“I’ve already told you that my shower is only big enough for one person.”
I walk her over to the bed and lay her down as gently as I can. “Well I proved you wrong.” I hover over her and it takes all of my strength not to lean down and kiss her.
“Did you now?”
“I did.”
“And how was it?”
I think back to when she rated me out of ten the first time we ever met. A slow smile spreads across my face. “A solid six point five.”
She laughs. “You don’t have much of an imagination if it was only a six point five. Tell your imaginary self to try harder next time.”
“Maybe it was you who didn’t put the effort in. Just saying.”
She gasps. “I always put the effort in.”
“Good to know.”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” My dick twitches and her eyes shoot straight to it. Our bodies are so close now. Too close. “I don’t think I can hold out for much longer.”
“You’re drunk,” I say, in challenge.
She slowly brings her eyes back up to mine. “I’m only saying what I think when I’m sober.”
Walk away. Walk away. Walk the fuck away. “In that case, we’ll carry on this conversation another time.”
She throws her head back and a small frustrated moan escapes her lips. It becomes my undoing and without thinking, I lower myself onto her, letting her feel the full weight of my body. I’m not sure if the pounding against my chest is coming from my heart or hers but I instantly know that this is how it’s supposed to feel. This is what I’ve been missing out on all of these years. Two bodies becoming one. Two hearts beating as one. Our lips are inches apart and I groan when she bucks her hips. I close my eyes and try to regain any trace of willpower left inside me. I try to memorize the feel of her body against mine before I push up on my forearms and climb off the bed. “Until next time, Sophia.” She turns over and buries her face in her pillows. I take a deep breath and adjust my pants as I glance around the room, trying to gather any extra snippets of information about her. My eyes are drawn to a little card on her bedside table. A little card which happens to have handwriting on it. My handwriting. I smile like an idiot at the fact that she’s kept it and that it’s right next to where she sleeps. I look at her one last time before I force myself to walk out of the room.
She calls my name just as I’m about to close the door behind me. I turn back around. “I never want to hurt you.”
“Shhhh, get some sleep,” I tell her.
“You’re my game changer. She changed the rules but you changed the whole game.”
“Sweet dreams, Sophia.” I close the door gently then press my forehead up against it. “You’re my game changer too.”