Page 25 of Mason

He closed his eyes and breathed through his nose, the force of it teasing her hair. He didn’t just look distraught, he looked pained.

“Mason?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“You and Ray were together for three years, yeah?”

Josephine nodded, not sure where he was going with this line of questioning. He hated talking about Ray. He’d gotten all angry just seconds ago when she’d mentioned her ex.

“Did the two of you ever talk about getting married?”

Now, that was a strange thing for him to ask.

“We did,” she said slowly, sitting up so she was straddling him. His face was downright tense. “He actually proposed several times.”

“You never told me that.”

“You never asked me,” she countered. “It’s not something I thought you wanted to hear.”

“I always want to hear whatever you’re willing to share, JoJo.”

Well, he brought out the nickname. With most people, it was her first name that told her they were serious. Not Mason, though. He called her Josephine all the time. He did it to irritate her in the beginning because she’d hated her name. No one, not even her grandparents, called her Josephine, but she didn’t mind it so much when Mason used it. He was the only one allowed to call her that, though, as Keith found out quickly.

“No one knows he asked me, not even Keith. I told myself it was so they couldn’t snub him worse than they already did, and Keith would have rubbed Ray’s nose in the fact I said no.”

“Fucking Keith,” Mason said, laughing. “He would have had some wise-ass snide comment ready every time he saw Ray.”

“That’s my brother.”

Mason laughed again, his hands settling on her upper thighs. The distraction of them was enough to help her get out what came next. These were truths she didn’t want to face, but it felt right to do it here and now with Mason, the man who taught her she was worth being loved.

“Ray asked me the first time right after we found out I was pregnant. I think it was more out of a sense of duty and what was right than him actually wanting to get married. I could be wrong, but that’s what it felt like. He asked like ten minutes after I told him. I didn’t want to marry someone because I had to, because they felt obligated.”

“That makes sense,” Mason said, his fingers digging into her thighs, massaging the muscles. “You shouldn’t get married because you feel you have to.”

There was something there in his voice, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but she put it aside for the moment so she could get through this.

“Six months after I lost the baby, he asked me again. We were taking a walk through the park. It was lit up in all kinds of Christmas lights. He pulled me off the path, and we walked to our favorite spot. The lights were beautiful, and it was the first time since the baby that I wasn’t drowning in depression. Christmas does that, you know? It heals when nothing else can.”

Mason kept quiet, focused entirely on her as he waited for her to continue. Her hands came down on top of his, and she took a deep breath.

“He went all out, got down on one knee, pulled out the black box, and asked me if I’d marry him. It was so romantic, and all I could think about was how to say no without hurting his feelings. Anyone else would have been jumping up and down screaming, ‘Yes.’ I loved him, and he loved me, but I still said no.”

Jo took several deep breaths, fighting back tears, remembering the hurt on Ray’s face. It had nearly killed her to tell him no, but she’d done it anyway.

“I told him I wasn’t ready, that my emotions were still too raw after the baby. He said he understood, but he didn’t, not really. I hurt him, Mason. I hurt him a lot.”

“If you weren’t ready, you weren’t ready, Josephine.” Mason kept up his gentle assault on her legs, his magic fingers helping to relax her when nothing else did.

“He asked me again right before we moved to New York, and I told him let’s see if we can live together before we decided to get married.”

“Common sense.” Mason nodded. “Had you told your family that, Keith might not have called screaming at three in the morning demanding I be him.”

Jo smiled. She could just imagine her brother frantic and demanding Mason go be her big brother while Keith wasn’t here to do it.

“If I’d done that, you and I might not have met, though.”

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