Page 7 of Hypnotized By Love

She reached for her purse and said, “Come on, Lulabelle. Let’s go.”

Her dog made a wheezing noise that might have been a bark, and with a quick wave, Bridget was gone, too.

Sierra said, “Do you think she realizes she shares way too much personal information with us?”

“No, I don’t think she does.” My words sounded echoey in my head because my brain was fixated on what Mason had said and what it had meant. I couldn’t focus on anything else.

As if she could read my thoughts, my sister asked, “Why are you seeing Mason tomorrow?”

“Trust me, I’m not.”

“Maybe he knows something you don’t.”

I shrugged. It didn’t matter. “To be honest, I don’t care what secrets Mason has. I’m not planning on ever seeing him again and will, in fact, be going out of my way to avoid him.”

“Hmm.” My sister made a noise like she didn’t believe me. “Well, if nothing else, at least he made it so you stopped thinking about Timothy.”

Yes, I’d stopped thinking about the man who was trying to ruin my career to focus on the man who’d tried to ruin my life.

That felt like a real out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire kind of situation.

I needed to stop thinking about both of them. Especially Mason, because he was going to make my blood pressure rise to a dangerous level.

He’d see me tomorrow. Ha. As if.

Mason Beckett wasnotgoing to see me tomorrow, and I’d do my best to make sure of it.

CHAPTER THREE

When I got home that night, I managed to successfully evade my mom (who had left me eleven voice mails) and snuck into my bedroom. I hated having to live at home again, but it was a necessity so that I could finish up my master’s degree in mental health counseling.

Sierra was waiting for me in my room, which was a good thing because I needed to complain about Mason Beckett and what he was doing back in Playa Placida, what he’d meant by everything he’d said, whether or not Bridget would be successful in getting him to go out with her. I ranted for an unusually long period of time, with Sierra’s eyes getting bigger and bigger.

She made several sympathetic sounds, nodding as I spoke. She did eventually try to change the subject a couple of times, but I was stuck. I only wanted to talk about Mason.

Which was why I was avoiding my mother. She would only want to talk about Mason, too.

And why we should end up together.

A conversation I was not in the mood for.

At some point, my twin had snuck out of my room, and I was so busy ranting I hadn’t even noticed.

I decided I should just go to bed to forget about all of this and deal with it fresh in the morning. That did not happen, though. I tossed and turned all night, running over in my mind what he’d said and what I’d said and how Bridget was determined to date him.

Why did that bother me so much?

When the sun rose, I still didn’t have an answer, and now I was exhausted. I got up early, hoping to avoid my mother completely. If it had been a typical day, she already would have been awake to get to her job. Both she and Heather were elementary school teachers and worked in side-by-side classrooms.

I knew what they would have been gossiping about today if school were in session.

But since it was summer break, my mom was sleeping in, and it gave me the chance to make a clean getaway.

I was going to have to face the music at some point, but the longer I could delay it, the better. Mostly because I needed to get my own emotions under control and figure out what was going on with me before being confronted about it by my mother.

My phone buzzed, and I checked it at a stoplight. My mom had sent an indecipherable text. It was the fifth one she’d sent me since the Starbucks Incident. Along with two emails and all those voice mails.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t have to. I knew what she would say. She’d tell me it was time to get over whatever had happened in high school with Mason and move on. Water under the bridge, that kind of thing.

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